R.I.P. - ODERUS URUNGUS

I was sad to hear Gwar's lead singer Oderus Urungus passed away.  The 1990 album Scumdogs Of The Universe will always hold a special place in my heart.  I have some great memories of my friends and I playing that all the time (I think we somehow even convinced some DJ to play "Sick Of You" at a high school dance...HA!).  I had the cassette and I remember it had this really tiny writing in it and as you were holding the liner notes straining your eyes to make it out, it said that the paper was soaked with some kind of poison or chemical that made you a slave to them or something like that...which I thought was pretty cool.  I think I even kept this one from my mom because the artwork was pretty disgusting...which I thought was pretty cool.  To this day, I still catch myself singing random lyrics from the likes of my favorite tracks "The Salaminizer", "Horror Of Yig", "Maggots", "Vlad The Impaler" and even "Black & Huge".

My friends and I went to see them at the Central Park Ballroom in Milwaukee on the Scumdogs Tour in 1990.   I think we all heard stories of seeing them live, so we all wore white t-shirts to capture the coming glory.  We were probably 15-16 years old and that show was a mindfuck.   I remember quite a bit.  Oderus telling us his original cock was cut off for fucking a priest in the ass, but he "grew another", the Slaughterama Game Show hosted by their manager Sleazy P. Martini with guests getting mutilated for answering incorrectly, a motorized maggot moving across the floor of the stage and Oderus grabbing it and eating it - puss and innards flying into the crowd, Slymenstra Hymen lifting her leg up and having her period shoot out 20 ft, Oderus blowing a load (which if I recall hit my friend Neal)  which glowed in the dark and had the consistency of cottage cheese, the human meat-grinder (where a lucky winner from the AM "Crusher" Radio Channel won the chance to be thrown in and turned into hot dogs that the band roasted on a campfire and devoured on stage)and blood, and blood, and blood!  Gallons and gallons of it.   We went home agreeing that we would all go to school the next day wearing exactly what we left the show in.  I came home, my shirt splattered with fake blood and crusty, red dye all over my face and in my hair.  When my mom saw me she looked like she was going to have a heart attack.

Here's my most recent memory of Oderus.  I saw they stopped by Onion/AV Club studios to do a rendition of Billy Ocean's "Get Out Of My Dreams (And Into My Car)" - Brilliant!!!

R.I.P.

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2014

Aye!  Me Lucky Charms!!!

(Who IS that Handsome Devil?!?)

Faith No More - Hangin' With MTV 7/20/92

Just finished The Faith No More & Mr. Bungle Companion by Greg Prato.  What a trip down memory lane of one of my all-time favorite bands!  One performance brought up was this obscure one for a short lived show called Hangin' With MTV in 1992 - hot off their sophomore effort Angel Dust.  The funniest things I remember about this guest spot was how much they came off as assholes to these VJs as witnessed in the interviews and especially right before their phenomenal performance of Caffeine (one of my favorites from the album) near the 13:25 mark.   Every time this poor VJ would try to speak, Patton would direct the band to bang at their instruments as loud as possible (drummer Puffy laughing most of the time) as he squealed like a stuck pig.  Also great, is hearing Patton screaming "I'M FUCKING YOU!" over and over at the 18:23 mark.  I've still got this somewhere on VHS.