MOG

I went though a metal phase once upon a time it was called college. Ok, college the first time, the part where I got the degree and not the part where I dropped out, any way this is a roundabout way of talking about Thee Hor’z o’ Power the heavy metal show that used to be on Monday Nights on The Impact at Michigan State University when I was there in the early 1990’s. I arrived at MSU still caught between the hair metal that I had grown up on (in part) and in the throws of Grunge, which spoke directly to my fucked up post teen Gen x soul. Anyway the Hor’z O’ Power was a great way to pass the four hour evening work shifts I put in cleaning Labs and auditoriums, just pop on my walkman (one of the Sony yellow sport ones, they were the only ones that seemed to hold for any length of time) and listen. The show was a great massive slab of heavy rock, and not cockrock or hair metal, we were talking Slayer, Morbid Angel, White Zombie and Phantasm…

Wait you guys don’t know about Phantasm do you… as near as I can tell their story was something like this, A Horror Metal (death metal with Horror themed music) from some where in Wisconsin, they put out one album and released a 7” and vanished. Now I don’t normally, and didn’t normally swing towards death metal sounding stuff, sure I dug Fear Factory with their cyberpunk Death metal, and My Dying Bride with their proggy death metal, but for the most part Death metal seemed to miss the mark (mostly they couldn’t figure out how to add the pop hooks to their music) and was and likely still is the music of the thud monkeys who feel like they need to rage or what ever at the world.

Phantasm, they were simple, they gave you want they said they would and they vanished. Grinding out just a disc worth of tunes as if they knew that was all you were ever going to need….

Ok, I'm out the door for work and will be back in a couple of days...