Well,
after seeing Faith No More live at Soundwave Melbourne I’m happy to say that
the ticket price was DEFINITELY more than worth it just going to see them
(after 25 years of being a fan, I’d always missed out on seeing them). After a
long hiatus THE BOYS ARE BACK and in their usual fine form, giving nothing less
than 110% to the understandably hyper-enthusiastic audience for the entirety of
their 18-track set. Kicking off with their catchy comeback anthem ‘Motherfucker’
(on their upcoming album to be released April 19), Mike Patton and Co
played note and vocally perfect renditions
of their most loved tracks, including ‘Epic’ (the crowd went NUTS), ‘Easy’,
‘Ashes to Ashes’ and ‘From Out of Nowhere’. It has to be said that Patton, at
age 47, is in obscenely good health, both physically and vocally. The crowd
lapped up his incredible stage presence and vocal gymnastics, switching
effortlessly from intense screams to soulful crooning to a myriad of other
techniques. Demonstrating exactly why the man, with his 6 octave vocal range
was last year declared “the greatest singer of all time” on a widely publicised
music poll last year. Faith No More put on a fantastic show and hopefully will
be back in Melbourne soon, where they’ll no doubt be always be deservedly
welcomed by sell-out crowds.
**An essay/article I
wrote on Mike Patton will be published in the next issue of ART DECADES, a U.S.
based music/movie/art focused journal which will be released in April.
Setlist:
Motherfucker
Caffeine
Ricochet
From Out of Nowhere
Evidence
Epic
Get Out
Midlife Crisis
Everything's Ruined
The Gentle Art of Making Enemies
Easy
Cuckoo for Caca
King for a Day
Ashes to Ashes
Superhero
(encore)
Matador
I Started a Joke
As the Worm Turns
Thought I'd have a bit of fun here and choose some of the best of repulsively ugly, stomach-churning, out-and-out grubby, VHS cover 'art'. The ones that would make you squirm as a kid, yet had a strange hold...as much as they repelled, the sheer grotesque quality of the images had a forbidden allure that would burn a mental note into your brain - "I MUST see that film one day" (well, I can live without seeing The Worm Eaters and Bad Taste Movie No 1). Here's a grab-bag of my personal favourites:
The Last Cannibal World Greek VHS. Well, it tells it how it is...
Bad Taste Movie No.1 Australian (???) VHS. Can somebody please tell what the fuck this is?????? No details anywhere, no stills, not a pip. And no-one whose actually seen the thing (or who'll admit to it).
Pieces Australian VHS. That bloodied hand on the back cover...a perfect grubby image for a perfect grubby film.
Xtro Australian VHS. Hypnotised me as a kid and I actually saw this film as a 7-year-old, leading me straight into the path of the Inferno...
Eaten Alive Australian VHS. Pure class, often found in the 'Adult' section of video shops.
Island of Perversion Australian VHS. Another regular occupant of the 'Adult' shelves.
Island of Death (aka Who Could Kill a Child?) Australian VHS.
Bloody Moon Australian VHS
Demons Australian VHS
This Violent World Australian VHS
The Mad Butcher Australian VHS. Can practically smell rancid carcasses and innards emanating from this. **Thanks to Joel Branagh for the scan**
The Last Cannibal World UK VHS. Though slightly more subtle than the Greek sleeve, this one still is high up in the grubby stakes - the stills featured on the cover appear to have been dunked in a bucket of scum beforehand, and the cover itself is a perfect shade of spew... **Thanks to Ben Buckingham for the scan, check out Ben's Instagram at https://instagram.com/dissolvedpet/**
The Worm Eaters Australian VHS. And here is it.....dum-dum-de-dum....the granddaddy of all gross-out covers...and indeed the ONLY VHS cover that has literally put me off my food. I recall seeing this at the local video store as a kid and just could not get that burger and forkful of worms out of my mind...and having previously read the review...I knew that these were NOT 'pretend worms'. At home later, I absolutely could not stomach the corn chips and salsa dip being passed around as I could not get these bloody visions of close-ups of mouths chewing down on these wriggly, slimy things, then imagining them still alive in the persons' stomachs! Oh, the memories.... **Thanks for John Harrison for the scan**
Best known as the 'killer guitar riffs' during the opening scenes of the U.S. cut of TORSO, Alan Parker’s ‘Hippy’, a piece of music from the KPM library, is a music cue used a number of times in 1970’s horror/exploitation movies. A searing piece consisting of a series of sharp, abrasive (but addictive as hell) Hendrix-esque guitar riffs, ‘Hippy’ turned up in the opening credits of the U.S. releases of TORSO and THE STRANGE LOVE OF THE VAMPIRES, as well as in DEADLY WEAPONS. A small snippet of it also appears in John Hillcoat’s brutal, realistic 1988 prison masterpiece GHOSTS OF THE CIVIL DEAD.
**The KPM music library was a popular source for the music scoring of numerous 1970's and 1980's porn films.
