Review: Type O Negative “The Origin of the Feces”

Posted on by James Knapp

Each week The Hard Times reflects on a classic album from rock history. This week we decided to review Type O Negative’s “The Origin of Feces” because our dad wouldn’t let us listen to it when we were growing up.

Yeah, we know it’s fucking lame. But hey, our old man sure was a huge lamewad. He never let us listen to anything cool, especially if the record had a picture of a butthole on the front of it, so that meant “Origin of Feces” was not an option. We had the same argument with the old buzzkill about “Frankenchrist” as well – so look forward to that review later on as well.

So dad really was a jerk. He wouldn’t even listen to the album. He’d just look at the sleeve at tracks like “I Know You’re Fucking Someone Else” or “Kill You Tonight” and just dismiss the whole fucking thing outta hand. Open your mind, pops! You don’t understand the young people.

I mean, if we’re being honest, this record isn’t even that heavy. A handful of songs with moderate distortion about shitty ex-girlfriends and wanting to kill yourself – subject wise they’re basically eight-minute-long versions of Descendents songs. And dad had no problem with those records because of the “funny nerd drawing” on the cover.

And yeah it’s been kind of a bummer about the record but don’t tell our dad that. He can never know that he was sorta right about this. We mean, he wasn’t, he never is. But still maybe just don’t mention this to him at all.

Anyway, next week we’re gonna review beer. Like, just beer as an intoxicant because that one time he caught us drinking in the laundry room and he made us pour out our whole six-pack of Bartles and Jaymes. Fuck you dad! We do what we want now!

SCORE: 5 out of 5 mid-nineties wines coolers

/**/

Deluxe Reissue of The Cure’s “Disintegration” Comes Pre-covered in Cat Hair

Posted on by Dave McNamara

CRAWLEY, West Sussex — Goth rock giants the Cure reissued their seminal 1989 album “Disintegration” in a deluxe box set complete with bonus outtakes, live tracks, and an 80-page booklet, all completely covered in a thick layer of cat hair.

“At first I was confused. I thought my tabby Edgar had gotten to the records before I did,” said Cure superfan Todd ‘Sepulcher’ Sadowski. “But then I read the packaging notes and realized the cat hair was intentional. It almost made me cry tears of joy, if that were at all possible anymore. The only thing that brings me any semblance of joy in this world is the sound of Robert Smith’s guitar and the fluffy snuggle of a feline friend, and now I have both. You do have to lint brush the vinyl before you play it, but lord knows I have plenty of those lying around.”

Cure frontman Robert Smith was extremely proud to be a part of the world’s first feline-based reissue.

“If I could make records exclusively for cats instead of people, I would,” said Smith. “I’ve really lost my love for humans long ago. They let you down and they break your heart. Cats are the only ones you can truly depend on in the end. Then they’ll eat your face to survive, but after I’ve shed this fuselage my cats can do with it what they please. And I know my true fans feel the same, that’s why I decided to shroud this reissue in the dearest substance possible.”

Cosmo Doyle runs the Black Wax record pressing plant in West London charged with the production of this unusual request.

“Turns out you can’t shave cats for commercial purposes in the UK,” said Doyle. “So all the hair used in this packaging had to be shed naturally. This was a bit of a curve ball, so I had a couple of employees hit the thrift shops looking for old clothes and jackets covered in the stuff. We really hit the jackpot when I had them go to the coatroom at the Substitute English Teacher’s Union headquarters in Sussex. Those people really love their cats.”

At press time, the band announced plans to release a deluxe edition of “Seventeen Seconds” which would be soaked in the tears of an actual grieving widow.

Satan Still Blushes Every Time Metal Bands Write a Song About Him

Posted on by Chris Bowen

HELL — Ruler of the underworld and Dark Lord Satan admitted that even after all these years, he is still flattered whenever he hears a heavy metal band has written a song about him, several horned, pointy-tailed sources report.

“I still just find it so sweet that all these talented musicians could choose any deity in the world to write about, yet they still choose to pick little ol’ me,” Satan said while giggling and kicking up some stones from under his hoof. “I mean, I’m just the supreme monarch of Hades and all, nothing special. But from Black Sabbath in the ‘70s, to Mercyful Fate in the ‘80s, and now with Ghost blowing up, I’m still flattered when my likeness is used just as much as the first time my name was mentioned in ‘War Pigs.’ See, my big red face is even redder just thinking about it!”

George Manning, singer of heavy metal band “Rites of Old” talks about what a pleasure it is to pay tribute to his unholy lord and master.

“Our band, and heavy metal in general, owes all our success to the big guy downstairs,” Manning explained while touching up his upside-down cross stick-and-poke. “Knowing that he appreciates and loves kind words from fans like us makes me all the more proud to have named our debut record ‘Satanic Satans From Hell.’ I know he’s a bit bashful, but it’s that sense of humbleness mixed with, you know, being the essence of evil, that is what makes bands like Slayer and Venom want to base their entire careers off him.”

Herman Burger, High Priest of the Satanic Temple in Salem, Massachusetts, expressed his jealousy and displeasure that Lucifer is clearly playing favorites with his worshippers.

“It’s fucking bullshit, man. I’ve spent years and years attempting to get the attention of the Dark One with Satanic masses, seances, ritual kidnappings, sacrifices, and just about everything else I could think of,” Burger said as he stumbled over his loose fitting cloak. “But no, Satan doesn’t give two shits unless it’s praise coming from some greasy haired, beer breathed caveman in an Iron Maiden shirt. I didn’t want to go too evil and convert to Catholicism, but I may have no choice.”

At press time, Satan was seen walking with a bit more pep in his step after seeing the tracklist for an upcoming Nunslaughter album.

Rising Cost of Touring Threatens To Destroy the “Guy Who Slashes Tires Outside the Venue” Industry

Posted on by James Knapp

BALTIMORE — A new study found that rising inflation, paired with the inherent financial strain put on touring bands, could potentially wipe out the once bustling industry of pointlessly slashing the tires of the very people who traveled quite a long way just to play a shitty basement venue, sources with unresolved rage issues confirmed.

“It used to be that I could go out three or four times a week to slash some band’s van tires while they argued with the booker over the door take,” explained genuine bastard Glen Henson. “But lately, I’m lucky if I can sink this rusty half of a pair of scissors into rubber even once a month. The last band band to tour here did it on fucking bicycles! I don’t think I can take much more of this, a man has to work. I’m starting to feel useless.”

Calvin Marsters, owner of local venue The Shit Shelter, gave his perspective on the recent trend.

“People have been slashing tires outside of this place since before it even opened. Seriously, like I hadn’t even signed the deed yet when some jackass stuck a piece of loose scrap metal into my Plymouth’s whitewalls,” recalled Marsters. “But really, that’s just a part of this place’s history. And now all of that history is in jeopardy just because of this shitty economy. Also, I don’t like to pay the bands.”

Numerous touring bands, however, reacted with far less negativity to recent changes in the “slashin’ industry.”

“I’m really bummed that we aren’t able to tour as often, and it’s doubly unfortunate now that we could actually park outside the venue without some piece of shit shiving our converted paddy wagon with a sharpened umbrella handle,” said Mel Allmer, drummer for art-thrash band Freakarooney. “On the other hand, we’ve really built up our presence locally, what with no touring bands to share the stage with. And since there’s no tires to slash, people are actually inside watching the fucking show. That’s kind of a nice silver lining.”

At press time, an emotionally broken Henson was being physically removed from an area Firestone franchise.

Cost of Living Crisis: I’m Paying $950 per Month Just To Be One of the People Under the Stairs

Posted on by Dan Rice

When I moved to Los Angeles to make it as a musician or actor or influencer, I had no illusions about how hard it would be. I knew I would need to struggle to make ends meet, and fully accepted that I would probably only be able to live in a “bad” neighborhood.

I’m busting my ass off just to be imprisoned in a basement with a bunch of semi-cannibalistic ghouls as part of a deranged murder couple’s sex game.

My landlords, who only go by Mommy and Daddy, are exploitative class traitors at best.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the abysmal living conditions. The basement is dirty and full of rats, which is the primary food source for me and the other roommates since we aren’t allowed to leave.

As a tenant/captive with no car, in an area with limited public transportation and a basement with no chance of escape, my employment prospects are extremely limited. Me and a couple of my roommates, Fool and Roach, get by selling Cutco knives over the phone, and what little money we scrap gets eaten on the 1st when Daddy comes down with his gimp suit and his shotgun to collect rent. It’s like the system is designed to keep us poor!

I’m also not allowed to have pets, which is bullshit because the landlords have a Rottweiler, who has been trained to maul us should we find ourselves upstairs by the way.

If a lightbulb burns or breaks guess what, that part of the basement is just dark forever now because these fuckers never fix shit. Unless the incinerator stops working, Daddy is always right on top of that death trap, which I’m pretty sure is WAY out of code.

I’m really hoping it doesn’t come to this, but if things get much worse, I might have to call my parents for help!

Opinion: Just Because My Instagram Bio Says I’m a “Witch Bitch” Doesn’t Mean I Know Anything About the Occult

Posted on by Colleen Nerney

Hi there, friendly reminder to my little coven of followers — just because I’m completely committed to using witchy aesthetics as part of a personal brand doesn’t mean that I actually know fuck-all about this stuff.

I know that may be surprising. I certainly look the part of an Instagram witch and trust me, I’ve spent hours making sure that every post, selfie, and story are meticulously crafted with this image in mind. I need my followers to implicitly be influenced to purchase $42 fluorite towers from my pop-up shop in order to pay the rent, and the best way to do that is go all-out on the whole witch-bitch-girl-boss thing. What I don’t need is incessant comments asking for advice or basic facts about my so-called lifestyle.

People keep DMing me with questions about contemporary witchcraft practices, and I’m like, why would you guys assume I’m some kind of expert? Is it because I’ve carefully curated an online persona in line with currently popular new-age trends, because if so, that’s so lame of you to put me in this position.

I’m just a humble twenty-something queer activist who will do whatever it takes to get my engagement up, not some ancestral practitioner of any kind of occult rituals.

It must be the crystal ball, female mage, and bat emojis in my bio that are driving people to make the outrageous claims that I’m anything resembling a reliable source for Pagans, Wiccans, and whatever the third one of those sects is. Is it not clear enough that my half-assed TikToks of me lighting herb bundles on fire with a heavy vintage filter are nothing more than attention grabs for clout and profit?

I’m not sure what I should be doing to make you understand that I’m in this for the money. I’ve literally made Reels showing you how to do a money spell that I directly stole from someone else’s Reel, and you can buy the kit with all the necessary supplies right in my Etsy shop.

Please, I’m asking nicely. I’m being reasonable. Leave me alone, and by alone I mean don’t ask anything that I can’t instantly answer with either “google it bestie” or “I’m not here to educate you.”

By all means though, keep up the likes and shares, my sisters of darkness! It’s just us humble girls, gays, and theys out here fighting the patriarchy, one monetized video at a time!

Opinion: I Am Vampyr, I Am Forever, and Your Carbon Footprint Affects Me

Posted on by Dan Rice

Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man concerned with global warming.

My name is Orlov von Maximoff, a former Romanian count, but you may know me by one of my various pseudonyms. I am Vampyr, I am Nosferatu, I am forever, the undead and the child of the night. Most importantly I am a person (sort of) with a vested interest in what havoc our current carbon emissions could have on this planet in the next two centuries.

I wish I could say my passion for the environment was shared by the vast majority of you, the bipedal cattle whose blood has sustained me for centuries.

Oh sure, you say you’re pro-environment. You drive hybrid cars, you have sad little herb gardens on your windowsill, and some of you have even banned plastic bags in your state like that will do fuck all. But take it from someone who will be alive, or at least walking around and such 200 years from now when the shit starts hitting the climate fan, I can tell your heart just isn’t in it.

These small temperature increases add up over time. Maybe you won’t feel the crunch, but your children probably will, and their children for sure. How will I feast on the sweet nectar of their lifeblood throughout the ages to come if they can’t produce food?

When I forced Al Gore to gaze into the power of my evil eye and forced him to make An Inconvenient Truth, I thought the tide had turned. And sure, it made a splash, but no matter how jarring the message gets human complacency always seems to win out. If you ask me, that’s the real monster. And that’s coming from someone who fucks and eats you, people, by the thousands.

Try to put yourself in my shoes. Imagine a bunch of giant, sentient, stupid Capri-sun pouches were destroying the planet with reckless abandon because their life spans were laughably short. That’s more or less my exact POV.

Don’t I have enough to worry about already? The sun. Garlic. Blade, the day walker. If you meatbags could get your shit together before the earth becomes a lifeless husk, it sure would help ole Orlov mental-health-wise, please and thank you.

Just make one big change and stick to it! Like, stop eating meat! Eat bugs instead, they’re more sustainable. I used to have an employee who ate bugs, and he loved it so much that he literally went insane.

Report: Self-Diagnosed Insomnia Completely Unrelated to Nightly Bottle of Red Wine

Posted on by Dave McNamara

WASHINGTON — A new report from the National Institute of Health finds that rates of insomnia claimed by many late-thirties and forty-year-olds are totally valid and not at all connected to nightly excessive alcohol consumption.

“Every night at around 3 a.m. I wake up with a headache and a dry throat. I drink a glass of water then lie in bed for the next two hours and can’t get back to sleep,” said Carrie Johanssen, local single mom. “I used to think it was scrolling on my phone in bed that was keeping me up, so I turned on night mode. Then I thought that maybe I just needed to be more mindful, so I started trying meditation apps, but that wasn’t it either. I’m really at my wit’s end. All I want is to be able to go to work, come home, drink five or six glasses of wine, then get a good night’s rest. I don’t know what the problem is.”

Dr. Deshaun Harris, the author of the report, spent nearly a year combing through data to find his results.

“Self-Diagnosed Insomnia, or SDI, is an epidemic among geriatric millennials and Gen-Xers,” said Harris. “The single most contributing factor is actually anxiety. This group of people are in a unique position to have to worry about early professional issues such as finding gainful employment with health insurance, while also having to worry about retirement and social security. This leads to an enormous amount of stress, which can impact sleep. Through our research, we reached the conclusion that these individuals should do anything in their power to help get better sleep, be it buying a noise machine or continuing to drink four-dollar pinot noirs from Trader Joe’s each night.”

Chair of the Sleep Research Department at the University of Oregon Cassandra Vaney had some advice for people struggling with SDI.

“The absolute first thing someone with SDI needs to do is confirm their suspicion. Get on Web MD or do a very brief Google search to confirm that you suffer from this condition and not from any life poor choices you might make on a regular basis. It’s important to establish a baseline first,” said Vaney. “The next step is simply blame the condition for being groggy at meetings or snapping at loved ones and friends. Remember, this is a largely incurable condition, so it’s important for the people in your life to understand that there’s absolutely no way you can prevent a flare up.”

At press time, SDI cases surpassed both Seasonal Affective Disorder and ADHD in confirmation bias through self-diagnosis.

Goth Hanging Out at Cemetery Annoyed by Grieving Family

Posted on by Neel Bhakta

PORTLAND, Ore. – Goth and frequent cemetery visitor Madison Gardiner had her day ruined by a “comically loud” grieving family saying a last farewell to their grandmother, teary-eyed bystanders reported.

“I was having a pretty good day feeding the crows until the waterworks family came along, ruining my view of all the graves. Apparently, their grandmother was 94 and they’re crying like it was a surprise she was gonna die,” said Gardiner while glaring at the family. “They were bawling so loud I could hear them from inside the mausoleum and it was disturbing all the spiders living in there. I started playing some Sisters of Mercy on my Bluetooth to drown them out and everyone’s acting like I’m the bad guy here. I’m not the one dampening everyone’s spirits by crying in public. Save that shit for the bathroom, like real grown-ups.”

Members of the grief-stricken family were shocked and appalled when the wake was rudely interrupted.

“Look, it’s been a dreary week for the Jackson family. First, our grandmother passed away, then I’m expected to fork up $7,500 for the funeral. And to top it all off, little miss no sunshine had to ruin the vibes for everyone,” said Devon Jackson, the patriarch of the Jackson family. “It’s one thing to casually hang out in the shadows and observe the funeral from a distance, but to recite your own shitty nihilistic poetry as a last-minute eulogy for a complete stranger is where I draw the line! At least she was properly dressed in all black.”

The groundskeeper of the cemetery, Randall Webber, also has had several altercations with the goth, leading to heightened tensions.

“Listen, I’m no stranger to goth culture. I even used to own a black cat, so I guess you could say I’m basically Bela Lugosi reincarnated. But why is she even here at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday? That’s like, the least goth time imaginable,” said an upset Webber. “This isn’t even the first time she’s done something like this. One time, I found her attempting to dig up a grave because she wanted to get fashion inspiration from the corpses. Why can’t she just be a normal person and dress like a Tim Burton character.”

At press time, Gardiner was found leaving the cemetery after another wave of October posers came to ruin her peace and quiet.

Cursed Amulet Doesn’t Go With Anything

Posted on by Doug Kolic

MINNEAPOLIS — Frustrated local teen Amber Bronte complained to anyone who’ll listen, that the cursed amulet she unknowingly purchased at a haunted thrift store doesn’t go with anything in her wardrobe, confirmed multiple annoyed sources who mysteriously started aging rapidly.

“Ugh, total bummer. I thought I found the perfect piece to accentuate my neckline, only to learn it’s not only cursed, but tragically, it doesn’t match my vibe,” stated a disappointed Bronte shooing away the murder of crows which have been following her since she came into the item’s possession. “I was so stoked after I got that strange Eastern European man with eleven fingers to come down on the price of the amulet, but when I got home the stupid thing changed into an ugly crimson color which totally clashed with my natural color palette. Fuck my life.”

Bronte’s long-time friend Joanne Calderon expressed alarm that her friend wasn’t more concerned her soul was now doomed for eternity.

“Classic Amber,” explained Calderon, rolling her eyes. “She’s always missing the big picture of things so this isn’t really a surprise. You think she’d complain less about the necklace not going with her new H&M cardigan than the fact that she’s been visited nightly by a ghostly apparition imploring her to surrender to the power of Satan, but here we are. To be honest, being her friend is sometimes super exhausting. It reminds me of the time she had that monkey paw and tried making that a fashion accessory.”

Renowned folklore scholar Dr. Timothy Nilsson, described how our fashion-forward society has set a high bar with all types of accessories, even haunted ones.

“The rising cost of living has people wanting their paychecks to go as far as they can, even when it comes to maleficent jewelry,” said Dr. Nilsson. “Kids these days spend a lot of time and money on their personal brands, so a damned amulet better bring value to them, like its ability to turn heads at prom or its photo blowing up Instagram. Otherwise, it’s just another useless piece of junk, albeit one that has the power to offer them immortality in exchange for an everlasting blood oath to the Dark Lord himself. You know, pretty typical teenage stuff.”

At press time, Bronte was heard griping that the evil force festering inside her has caused the WIFI to go out before she could upload her daily fashion ‘hot take’ to her followers.

Stay Updated on The Latest Punk News

Get the latest punk news delivered straight to your inbox

We'll store and process this information to provide you our products and services. You may opt out of this at any time.