Joan Rivers' Best Interview

Among all her memorable celebrity interactions, one could lose track of how hip Joan Rivers was to cool bands. From giving Hüsker Dü their closest shot at stardom to getting good interviews out of David Lee Roth (not an easy task, as anyone who ever suffered through his radio show can tell you) to teasing young Beastie Boys to hosting the Osbournes ten years before The Osbournes, the comedy legend endeared herself to headbangers around the world. Best of all, she hosted the most metal moment in television history.



It makes sense that two of the world's most influential comedy acts should meet up, until you realize that this was in 1990, when Oderus Urungus and Beefcake the Mighty were Metal Blade signees on their second album, years away from appearances in Empire Records or on "Beavis and Butt-head." I won't give any of the jokes away, but I'll note that both Gwar and Joan are in top form. How many 50somethings could love this band? I can only think of one.

Andrew W.K. on GWAR

"I first found out about GWAR when I was around 13-years old. I was just completely blown away by everything about them. I'd never seen -- not only a band like them -- but I'd never really seen anything like them. I'd never seen creatures that looked like them, let alone ones that played music. From that moment on, I really looked at GWAR as an arbiter of excitement and a living example of the idea that anything was possible in this amazing thing called 'the living arts.' If this group of people could become rock and roll monsters and travel the earth, then maybe I could do whatever I dreamed of in life."

Read the rest in The Village Voice here.

Gibby Haynes on The Daily Show

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With author Amy Yates Wuelfing, and including a tribute to Oderus Urungus from the man who played Fritz Wang in GWAR's Phallus in Wonderland film.

Dave Brockie and Oderus Urungus

If Oderus Urungus were to write an obituary for Dave Brockie, no doubt he would fill it with tasteless jokes about how much his music sucked, how idiotic his fans were and what sexual position he was crushed in while he died screaming. But like nearly everyone else in the world, I don't have the wit or the fearlessness to make you laugh about something as awful as the news that Brockie and Urungus died this week at the age of 50 and 43 billion, respectively.



I will stand on my desk and say that GWAR is one of the greatest metal bands ever. Call it hyperbolic or overemotional, and maybe it is a fanatical thing to say about a band whose music was fine at best. But metal is best enjoyed from the stage and not from your home speakers, and no band ruled the stage like GWAR. Sure, Mastodon and Neurosis write better songs. But who would you rather see in the flesh?

Flesh was one of the only things you were guaranteed at a GWAR show. Sometimes it was Justin Bieber's, the Pope's, the President's, a Dictator's or Jesus Christ of Nazareth's, but it never took long to get ripped apart and land on the front row. The banter was hilarious ("God has a son? Let's crucify that motherfucker!"), the costumes were fantastic and the show was always unpredictable--no telling who would get killed next, or what monster would emerge from backstage. Up until the end, Oderus was making fun of Nelson Mandela and his self-congratulating mourners, laughing at Flight 370 conspiracies and picking fights with Kerry King. Even his fans got offended, from metalheads upset about his jokes at As I Lay Dying's expense or Kevin Smith getting provoked into a Twitter fight when Oderus pointed out (correctly) that Smith's reality show was a waste of time.

Actually, Urungus was right about most things, including social issues ("So Utah is going to repeal gay marriage, but you can still have ten sister mama wives. Reminds me of a planet I crushed. Planet of the Morons."), American ignorance ("Dude from Syria gasses 3000 of his own people and what do Americans care about? Miley Cyrus acting like a retard!") and how to make listeners laugh and retch in the same sentence ("O.K. you worthless piles of rancid phlegm...give me not one but two reasons why I shouldn't have sex with this dead bear I found."). Like the best comedians, he brought up the worst things about society and made us feel better about them. But he was the only one who did it all while living as a metal god alien in charge of the greatest band of monsters, robots, humanoids and aliens to ever treat the universe with their presence.

The first time I saw GWAR was the first time I ever crowd-surfed by accident. I went home drenched in the blood of President George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, Pope Benedict XVI and Arnold Schwarzenegger, giggling like Beavis and too electrified to care that I was soaking wet in the cold December air. I couldn't believe I got to live in a world with these barbarians. It felt like being Max in an R-rated version of Where the Wild Things Are. Of course I saw them every chance I could over the next few years, and as of 2012 they were better than ever. Their antitheist jokes were funnier than anything in God is Not Great or Religulous. They slaughtered both of the 2012 presidential candidates and forever changed the way I say the name "Rob Zombie." I was ready to go back and see it all again. It's going to be harder to deal with the next Rand Pauls and Vladimir Putins knowing that we're never going to see what their large intestines look like dripping from Oderus Urungus' mouth.

Up until the end, Brockie was finding new ways to be hilarious and repugnant. It's almost inevitable that every shock rock artist loses their bite (yesterday's Ozzy is today's Osbournes Reloaded), and that comedy acts have even shorter shelf lives than boy bands (Green Jellö, anyone? Dread Zeppelin?). But Oderus Urungus and GWAR were never neutered by the mainstream, whether stealing Empire Records with the best-ever metal cameo or telling off Greg Gutfeld on Oderus' Fox News appearances, before the channel reportedly banned Oderus for dismembering Sarah Palin and playing with her entrails. As of last month, they were still disembowling prime ministers and infuriating bureaucracies (in Australia, of all places), horrifying and thrilling audiences 30 years into their incomparable career.

But no matter how gross they got, GWAR always mattered by being funny. If they had just worn costumes and talked shit, they could have been Lordi. If they had taken themselves more seriously, they could have been Mudvayne. But instead they were GWAR, the most uproarious and convincingly extraterrestrial band in the world. Thank you Dave Brockie and Oderus Urungus, for making the galaxy a funnier place.

Oderus Urungus Reading Goodnight Moon

Oderus Urungus on Internships

Basically Goofus and Gallant for college kids.

Nardwuar the Human Serviette

I'm hoping that a Slate article on Canadian music journalist Nardwuar, the self-proclaimed "Human Serviette," inspires more artists to give him guest passes. He never departs from his wacky interview style--asking "Who are you?" and handing the guests a series of gifts, usually rare vinyl or music magazines. He always ends with "Keep on rockin' in the free world, and 'Doot-doodle-loot-doot,'" motioning to the guest to finish the "Shave and a Haircut" rhythm. The result is sometimes disastrous.

He wears a silly hat and speaks with a high pitch, Dustin Diamond meets Jar Jar Binks voice that probably didn't earn him a lot of friends in high school. Yet his interviews are fearless and fascinating. Like a cheerier Howard Stern, Nardwuar can bring out the best or the worst in his subjects. It's agonizing to watch Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo bully him, or to see Blur let their drummer knock off the Serviette's hat and glasses. The Transplants are even ruder than you'd think. But you can tell that it's worth it to Nardwuar when he gets Duff McKagan to muse on Sir Mixalot, or Rob Halford to pick a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. Slayer and Motörhead, both of whom I'd assume had seen everything, seem unable to believe that this guy exists. Oderus Urungus almost falls out of character. Gene Simmons' boorish answers don't deter him at all. Marilyn Manson looks right at home. I can't stop watching these interviews.

Song of the Day: Behemoth, "Conquer All"

This week, the Polish Supreme Court ruled that Behemoth's Adam "Nergal" Darski can be tried for tearing up a bible onstage. This probably won't make much a splash in the States, where prayer in public school cases still go to court and we still have to vote on flag-burning amendments. But if Nergal ends up going to jail, his case is going to need as much support as Pussy Riot's.

In his day job, Nergal leads one of the most intentionally funny black metal bands of all time. His stage banter reminds me of a Satanic Paul Stanley. The American equivalent of the Polish Supreme Court's decision would probably be to prosecute Oderus Urungus.

"Conquer All," from Demigod, made me a fan of Behemoth. The main riff owes as much to Anthrax's "Be All, End All" as Kanye does to "I Got a Woman," but I still love hearing it with blast beats.

GWAR at Music Hall of Williamsburg

They killed Jesus. They killed babies. They brought Jesus back as Monster Robot Undead Jesus and killed him again. They killed Mitt Romney at the opening and slaughtered Barack Obama for the encore. All in your average Michael McDonald show.



No, of course, this was GWAR. Without having a single song that you remember, GWAR are approaching AC/DC's record for consistently delivering a great metal show. The basics are the same--escaped aliens from Antarctica dismembering celebrities between a no holds barred horror-comedy routine and a soundtrack that includes songs like "A Womb with a View." The dismemberments could have made Peter Jackson sick, and included every imaginable (and some previously unimaginable) orifice and bodily fluid. The fans, some in metal band t-shirts and others in plain whites intended to show off the carnage that landed on us, sopped it all up.

Few bands ever have done a better job of carving out a niche and perfecting it. Reinventing Alice Cooper's Halloween theatrics with death metal extremity seems like a given now that we have Lordi, but GWAR reminded us that they did it best. If KISS is too commercial and Buruzm is too self-serious, girl do I have the band for you.

Sans costumes, weapons and codpieces, frontman Oderus Urungus would still be a worthy comedian. His stabs at the Lord were as savage as Christopher Hitchens', and the swipe he took at rivals "Zob Romney and Manson Marilyn" (feuding on their co-headlining tour this week) sounded just like the one my high school English teacher made in the '90s. Still, the banter, like GWAR's music, mainly served to support the band's next round of killings. I think Adolf Hitler, who was shown about as much respect as Jesus Christ, was next.

For their encore, GWAR dedicated a metalized take on Kansas' "Carry On Wayward Son" to recently departed guitarist Flattus Maximus. Some sources will tell you that Flattus' real name was Cory Smoot and that he did of a heart attack, but Oderus informed us that his comrade had safely returned to outer space and been replaced by his brother Pustulus Maximus. It was somehow an appropriately mournful and joival tribute to Flattus, a testament to GWAR's professionalism that climaxed at the arrival of Techno Destructo to saw a few monsters' limbs off.

Dave “Oderus Urungus” Brockie and Andrew W.K

Best interview of the year.