Just like watching a movie without drinking beer, I can’t cook without listening to music. Strange but true. Anyway. At work we have a yearly thing where all the teachers bring in a meal for the rest of the staff to devour (or criticize), and I decided to do a fairly simple tofu stir-fry. It’s fairly simple but throw in some lime juice, pine nuts and cayenne pepper and the result is pretty tasty. I think it went down well with everyone else and people seemed genuinely interested in veganism when they asked what that ‘weird looking stuff is’ (the tofu).
Anyway, whilst rustling this number up I decided to stick to a purely Japanese playlist. With regards to heavy music, I’ve stuck closely to bands from the West; only in the past couple of years have I scratched the surface of the Japanese scene and I have been blown away by the diversity, originality and well, you know, the ferocity of the bands. First couple of records I gave a spin to whilst cutting up the vegetables were Crow’s ‘Bloody Tear’ and Gauze’s ‘Fuckheads’ LP. I particularly love the Crow album – raging but catchy hardcore. When the album has a poster that features one of the members of the band looking like a crusty punk but holding a bunch of flowers and wearing a Darkthrone shirt, you know you’re in for a good time. I did stick a tape on that I got recently, Funeral Moth’s first release (a side project of the Japanese DM band Coffins), but I wasn’t much in the mood for doom.
One name that often comes up with regards to Japan and metal is Sigh. They are (excuse the typically English phrase) completely bonkers, having varied wildly throughout their career with regards to genres. I love their black metal stuff the best; can’t quite get into the acclaimed ‘Hail Horror Hail’ album, but I do really like the ‘Scorn Defeat’ LP so I gave that a spin. I’m not surprised that Euronymous signed them up for his record label; there is a rehearsal room tape of Venom covers, and their version of ‘The 7 gates of Hell’ basically contains everything that I love in metal - it’s sloppily played but full of expression.
Finally (phew!), I had to have a listen to the enigmatic 80′s band Zouo. The only thing I’ll say about this band is that they are probably one of the best punk/hardcore bands that I have ever heard, had some kind of evil crust sound going on and listed their prime influences as Discharge and Black Sabbath. Discharge and Black Sabbath. Wow. I was joined by Maggie when they came on the stereo, (her being East London’s toughest dog-punk) and we had a little pogo. Strange but true. PeteF.
We hit our regular spot Benders beforehand, where we had a few pints and some vegan fish and chips (pictured above!) served up by our good buddy, Lukas the Witch King. If you like your drinks alcoholic and have an enduring love for all that is fried, Benders is the rock n’ roll temple for you. I didn’t have a camera on Friday, so the pic above is shamelessly stolen from our buddy Mike!
Anyway, Repulsion came on soon enough, and they absolutely tore it up. If you’ve never heard their album Horrified , I don’t know what planet you’re on, but you need to get off the internet and go buy it now- it’s one of the most excruciatingly classic grindcore/death metal albums of all time. The Lurking Fear is also probably the only song ever to combine the themes of nuclear holocaust and zombies, with some awesomely gory lyrics to boot. Repulsion have a couple of guys from the Bay Area in their line up these days, including Matt Harvey from Dekapitator/Scarecrow/Exhumed, so it was great to see some local boys destroying the Filmore!
I was listening to a mix I made yesterday, and realized that among the tracks were Boris/Sunn 0)))’s Blood Swamp, Gorgoroth’s Blood Stains the Circle, Turbonegro’s Drenched in Blood, Mortiis’ Blood and Thunder, and Discharge’s The Final Bloodbath.
As you might imagine, several silly attempts at puns linking vegan food and metal were made in coming up with the title for this blog… some of them still make me chuckle, so I thought the tr00 kvlt metalheads among you might get a laugh or two from seeing the ones that didn’t make it up on the banner… 
We just had a three-day weekend over here in the US, and myself and a group of others from the vegan metal crew celebrated by going to the 11th annual Tidal Wave festival. They couldn’t have picked a better weekend or a better venue for this free thrash show… yesterday was a gorgeous, clear, bright, and cool Saturday in the park filled with metalheads lying on the grass, drinking lots of beer, hanging out with a million awesome dogs, and cooking up a storm on the many barbecue grills that peppered the green. This in itself would have been an amazing day out, though I haven’t even mentioned the performances from the likes of Hirax and Exodus.
The prize of the weekend goes to the guy who had made a denim metal jacket, complete with Angel Witch and Bathory patches, for his chihuahua. That’s some love right there. While it’s unfortunate that no one had brought a camera to document any of this, it’s probably for the best, as at least one phone (yes, mine) was lost during a bout of drunken wrestling… thanks to Mike for the photo above!
Havok and Hirax were the highlights of the afternoon for me. Really solid, old-school speed metal/thrash from both the newbies and the veterans (Havok’s very 80s logo couldn’t mask the fact that every member of the band looked about 15). It was an amazing experience to finally see Hirax thrash it up live, and to actually see Katon De Pena belting out those soaring vocals on stage. Kick ass! Of course, everyone was waiting for Exodus, but although they sounded good, the singer was a bit too “Phil Anselmo”, if you know what I mean. And his repeated appeals to girls in the crowd to “show him their titties” were pretty fucking lame. Disappointing.
