Review: Killing Joke “Hosannas From the Basements of Hell”

Posted on by Joe Rumrill

Each week The Hard Times looks back on a notable album from punk history. This week we took a look at Killing Joke’s 2006 aural sledgehammer “Hosannas From the Basements of Hell”…(sigh) but unfortunately, that’s not all we’re reviewing today.

I suppose I should come clean at the beginning of this review that, in an effort to supplement my (already supplemental) income from the Hard Times, I’ve taken on another review assignment from lawncare blog The Yard Times to give my thoughts on the “Duke #16 Offset Bear Trap” on the same deadline. It really shouldn’t matter, as the two reviews shouldn’t get in the way of one another, but I just thought I’d mention it in the spirit of full disclosure. Anyway- Let’s rock!

“Lift up your spirits!” Jaz Coleman triumphantly bellows to kick off KJ’s twelfth studio alb-aaaaaand I’ve stepped in the beartrap. Ow ow OWWWWWWW…Ok ok, uh… Drat, uh, oh gosh that really REALLY smarts. Dear LORD the gip on the pain is, god, it’s tremendous. Um, not unlike the tremendous 27-year history the band had experienced up to Hosanna’s release. Speaking of: Hooooooooooo-SANNA, my leg really hurts.

Oh, and um, the next song rips too. Title track, I believe…gah, my vision is getting blurry…Uh, yeah so, it rips, like I said. Almost exactly like an ankle bone might rip from beneath one’s skin…aaaaHHHHHHHH I looked at it. I shouldn’t have looked at it. Ok, moving on.

Alright, difficult for me to tell how the next few songs are because, in a brutal twist of irony, a bear lumbered into my yard and swiped my earbuds. The bear seemed to be bobbing its head in a vaguely head-banging fashion, though so I suppose that indicates it’s still kicking ass. I was honestly more preoccupied with debating whether I should start gnawing my foot off, to free myself. I attempted a couple times, but winced and chickened out. It seemed to amuse the bear though. Anyone else getting woozy?

Anyhow, after that everything went pretty hazy and I woke up a couple days later lying in a heap in my backyard, with my neighbor yelling “Holy Moses, is that a bear trap?” from over the fence.

“Buddy,” I mustered feebly “this here’s the Duke #16…it’s THE bear trap.”

Score: Unconfirmed, as we couldn’t reach the bear for comment. He listened to most of it. (But I’m not sharing the $30)

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5 Other Mary Shelley Stories About Reanimated Corpses That Make It Pretty Clear the Shelley’s Marriage Was Failing

Posted on by Nathan Kamal

Mary Shelley is one of the most well-known authors in history due to a little book called “Frankenstein,” the classic tale of a scientist who accidentally creates a monster whose primary goal is to acquire a mate at any cost, even murder. But few modern scholars know that Frankenstein was just the first of a number of stories about corpses animated through heretical science that strongly indicates Mary Shelley’s marriage was on the rocks.

A few others of the many stories Mary Shelley wrote that could be used as legal grounds for divorce include:

Bodasius; or, The Modern Unemployed Slob
This 1819 novella covers many of the same themes of Frankenstein, though here the creator is named “Professor Bodasius” and his monster spends a lot of time sitting on a couch eating a 19th-century snack similar to Cheetos and talking about how he was going to write some poems any day now.

The Lonely Soul Only Wants to Talk About His Dead Friend, Bord Lyron
In this dark tale, an unsuccessful and very short poet is brought back from the land of the dead by his beautiful, talented bride, only to spend the entire time talking about his cool buddy, Bord Lyron, and how they should all go on another vacation together. Or maybe just the poet and his friend, if that’s cool.

The Last Man; or I Married a Fucking Loser
An early example of the post-apocalyptic genre, “The Last Man” is an epistolary novel composed of the diary entries of the wife of the last surviving male in the world who claims that, after an unexplained global catastrophe, he can’t get a job because of “all the reanimated corpses taking the poet positions.”

An Electrical Monstrosity of Pleasure in the Bedroom
For two centuries, critics have been unsure how to classify this work, which appears to be a stream-of-consciousness poem in which a brilliant woman devises a way to revitalize a very specific male body part and then runs away with it, leaving her husband behind forever.

Fuck My Husband, Who Is Made of Corpses
Perhaps Mary Shelley’s most controversial work, in part because the author seems to have forgotten halfway through the book to use pseudonyms and just wrote, “Fuck that guy Percy” for a few hundred pages.

Kohler Introduces New Punk House Sink Capable of Holding Three Months of Dirty Dishes

Posted on by Rob Ryder

KOHLER, Wis. – Kohler Co, the leader in modern kitchen design, introduced a new design specifically aimed at punk houses which is capable of holding stacks of dirty dishes that would overwhelm even the most hardened of roommates.

“The Punkhouse model really addresses some of the inherent flaws of the average sink. No one wants to put that last dish on top of a full sink and suddenly end up responsible for loading the dishwasher,” said Peter Scovich of the Kohler Design team. “With the Punkhouse sink, you can go three, maybe even four months before anyone has to lift a finger. With a classic streamlined design, solid steel basin, and 168 cubic feet of storage space, this will allow the craftiest procrastinators to stack to their heart’s content.”

Residents of the Black Hole in Portland were among the first to test out the new sink.

“This sink is fucking unreal, it’s like having a pool in your kitchen,” said Freddie Gerson an occasional resident of the house. “Our old sink was for shit, it was so small and it had a huge fucking crack so you couldn’t soak anything without causing a flood. When our landlord told us he was going to replace it we assumed he was just hiding more weed in the cabinets. But later that day, there it was…right where our kitchen table used to be. I threw my cereal bowl in and it took like three seconds to hit the bottom. Everyone said it was indestructible, and trust me we tried, but you can’t fuck this thing up, it’s a goddamn vault.”

While the Punkhouse’s radical new design has been lauded by its users, some in the industry are questioning its extreme dimensions.

“I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do with this thing,” said architect Stan Duncan. “It’s seven feet long, six feet wide, and weighs 1,700 pounds empty. We tested it on a 3” concrete slab and it cracked right through at around 50% full. Fortunately, the sink wasn’t damaged when it fell, but now we need a crane to lift it out of the rubble. Next, we plan to place the sink on steel beams pounded into bedrock, then build the house around it.”

At press time, there were scattered reports of punks falling into the sink and being stuck there for days, however, Kohler advised hanging some toilet paper over the edge so they can scurry out.

Antitrust Lawsuit Orders Taylor Swift To Be Broken Up Into 10 Smaller Artists

Posted on by Sam Eardley

WASHINGTON — The Federal Trade Commission filed an antitrust lawsuit against pop star Taylor Swift, alleging that she now holds a monopoly over American music and should be broken up into ten smaller artists, righteous sources confirmed.

“When Ms. Swift achieved the unprecedented feat of holding all of the top 10 songs in the Billboard Hot 100, we knew we had to act,” explained FTC spokesman Gavin Pettifer. “In our view, Ms. Swift now essentially amounts to a cartel. Her musicianship and business acumen have been criminally colluding with her everywoman accessibility, wilfully suppressing competition and flooding the market. Breaking her up into ten depressingly mediocre artists will clear the ground for previously marginalized acts to thrive: your garage rock ‘n rollers, your teenage rap singers, your Gavin Pettifer Banjo Extravaganzas, to name just a few.”

Francisca Quevedo, a member of Swift’s management team, admitted that the musician has not been cooperative in complying with the ruling.

“We have been trying desperately to come up with new alter egos for Taylor that will be less dominant in the marketplace,” said Quevedo nervously. “But no matter what terrible concept we give her, whether it be sea shanties in the Danzig voice, or beatbox Beefheart, she just petulantly spins them into highly replayable radio bait. This morning we workshopped a character called Haggerty Flatulenza, who exclusively burps Neutral Milk Hotel songs into a kazoo. We uploaded a Haggerty song to an anonymous SoundCloud account an hour ago, and fuck, ten million streams already. Back to the drawing board.”

Pop music historian Daniel Adeyemi warned that in taking on Taylor Swift, the FTC may have a battle on their hands.

“Historically, Taylor has not taken attacks like this lying down,” explained Adeyemi. “It goes without saying that the FTC will get a crypticly scathing song written about them on her next album. Then she’ll probably do some kind of gloriously petty power move like re-record ‘Fearless’ and ‘Red’ even though she’s done that once already. Frankly, I can see her eventually going full Scarface and just mowing down these guys with sharpened Grammy awards as they come to take her away.”

At press time, millions of Swifties were exchanging fan theories about possible hidden meanings and easter eggs in the lyrics of Swift’s surprise new drop “FTC: F*** Those C****.”

The Hard Times Guide to Not Commenting “Wow, Talented and Beautiful” on a Female Guitarist’s Video

Posted on by John Danek

It’s difficult to go to YouTube or Instagram and not be bombarded with stunning women absolutely shredding math-rock riffs or neoclassical leads on sick Stratocasters. As a modern-day gentleman, you may feel the compulsion to share your thoughts on the performance with some variation on, “Wow such a talented AND beautiful lady! Wife material, right there!” Here’s how to stop fucking doing that.

Here is The Hard Times’ guide to not commenting like a deranged incel on women guitarists’ social media:

Sit on your hands
When you get the urge to begin typing your first uncomfortable compliment, remember that you are never going to meet this woman. Nothing you say will benefit you in any way whatsoever. So just sit on your hands until the urge passes. Click the Like button if you absolutely must engage.

Direct your energies elsewhere
If you really cannot stave off the urge to comment, open a new tab, type in www.thegearpage.net, and start a thread about how there is no audible difference between EL34 and 6L6 amplifier tubes. You’ll quickly replace your creep urges with nerdy aggression, which is substantially better for everyone involved.

Attempt to see her as a living, feeling human being
If you’re in need of this guide then this will likely be your hardest step, but I implore you to try anyway. These guitarists don’t practice for thousands of hours just so random chuds will compliment their boobs and thighs. They want to share their art and talent with the world. Please recognize that their music is the only thing that is directed at you.

Delete your accounts
If you’ve made it this far and still find yourself commenting things like, “Wow I wish I could be that guitar’s neck,” it’s time to quit cold turkey. Delete your accounts. Destroy your laptop. In fact, go work on an oil rig with no internet. Practice your own guitar. Anything. Just stop commenting.

12-Year-Old Merch Prodigy Discovered From Posting T-Shirt Folding Videos Online

Posted on by Sara Mellas

SYRACUSE, N.Y – Local middle schooler Caleb Sanderman gained national attention this week after posting a now-viral video where he demonstrated a savant-like ability to fold and pack band merchandise.

“I started folding clothes when I was six or seven. My dad would always take the clean laundry out of the dryer, put it in a basket, then forget about it. I taught myself how to fold everything and arrange it into nice piles,” said Sanderman while folding a shirt, ripping off a small piece of masking tape, and marking the garment’s size. “I was inspired by videos of merch guys like Big Johnny and Lefty Luke. Those guys can fold like nobody else, and they can stand so still while a band performs. I asked my mom if I could start my own YouTube channel and things exploded from there.”

Caleb’s mother Christina Sanderman remarks on her son’s early abilities.

“He’s always loved soft goods. When he was a toddler he’d sit and watch the clothes spin around in the machine for hours. When he got older we offered to sign him up for music lessons or a sports team, but all he wanted to do was fold,” said the supportive mother. “At first we thought that was a little weird, but then we realized how much time and money it would save us. We could never have predicted he would go viral and become such a sensation. But the kid has a gift, and the work ethic to back it up. We’re just so proud of him.”

Sanderman’s videos caught the eye of veteran merchandise personnel manager Joel Baclaran, who immediately signed the prodigy.

“The minute I saw Caleb’s videos, I knew he was something special. Sure he’s young, but I wasn’t gonna let talent like that pass me by. I’m going to run him through some drills like ‘sold out of mediums’ and ‘exact change only’ to get him ready for the bigs, but this kid has it all,” said Baclaran. “I’ve managed the careers of over 100 merch guys in my life, and not a single one came close to Caleb’s skill level until they were pushing forty. If this is what the kid is doing at twelve, I’ll be booking him on world tours in no time.”

Venue managers are already in a bidding war to sign another YouTube sensation. A recently uploaded video of an eight-year-old girl yelling at a garage band for sounding terrible has people thinking she has what it takes to make it as a sound technician.

12 Hidden Easter Eggs In Twin Peaks

Posted on by Rob Steinberg

Twin Peaks is a show shrouded in many mysteries. Many moments have secret meanings that often go overlooked. That’s why we compiled a list of the 12 craziest Easter Eggs from the groundbreaking show.

That Gum You Like Is Going To Come Back In Style

The Man From Another Place saying “That gum you like is going to come back in style” is a reference to Cooper’s favorite coffee flavor, Pumpkin Spice being back on the seasonal menu. It is very subtle, but the audience can notice Cooper actually never drinks coffee. Instead, he chews it and spits it like some sort of hot liquid bubblegum.

Mr. C

Evil Dale Cooper’s overall look confirms the decades long rumor that Agent Cooper was originally supposed to be played by Glenn Danzig.

Garmonbozia

Garmonbozia, a sustenance of some spirits and synonymous with “pain and sorrow,” is made to resemble creamed corn as a way of David Lynch telling us that there is no greater hell than an elementary school cafeteria.

Lawrence Jacoby

When Lawrence Jacoby is on screen it’s an indication for the audience to put on their 3-D glasses.

One-One-Nine

119 is a reference to the infamous CalArts classroom where many animators for Twin Peaks lost their virginity.

Phillip Jefferies

Despite many claims about the third season, David Bowie was not recast as a tea kettle. He merely showed up to the set refusing to take off the Tea Kettle costume he was wearing. An exasperated Mark Frost eventually gave up and let him wear it to the shoot.

Agent Cooper’s Tape Recorder

The cassette tape in the recorder Agent Cooper repeatedly talked in was not a blank cassette but rather the cassette to “I’m the Baby Gotta Love Me” by Baby Sinclair of the show “Dinosaurs.” One of the many references “Twin Peaks” made to Jim Henson’s work.

The Black Lodge

The iconic Black Lodge was designed to look just like the green room at Hollywood’s famed Improv comedy club. Rumor has it Lynch slept there one night after getting into a physical altercation with comedian David Brenner.

This Is The Water And This Is The Well

“This is the water and this is the well” is originally a line from the Twin Peaks Nick Jr. spinoff in which a cartoon Agent Cooper teaches children what a well is and how you can drink from one.

One Eyed Jacks

The Brothel/Casino owned by Benjamin Honre is called One Eyed Jacks. Nadine Hurley also has one eye. Does This Mean Anything? Are we reaching too much for this one?

Slimer

The Black Lodge entity Slimer is based on Mark Frost’s and David Lynch’s deceased friend John Belushi.

 

Punk Contractor Builds World’s First All Basement House

Posted on by Joe Rumrill

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Local contractor Sidney Laird did the impossible by constructing the very first all basement house in existence, astonished sources confirmed.

“Basements have always felt like ‘home’ to me, so I wanted to figure out a way to make homes feel like ‘basement.” I always find myself in all manner of rooms thinking ‘why can’t this room be a basement, too?’ So it was just a matter of time before I followed my dream to its logical conclusion,” said Laird while admiring his work. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? The kitchen’s a basement, the half-bath’s a half-basement. Even the attic’s a basement. It brings a tear to my eye even talking about it.”

The construction crew was wary of taking on such an arduous and seemingly impossible task, but eventually came around to Laird’s vision.

“I took one look at that blueprint of his and figured that kook was off his damn nut. I thought it was a pipe dream, that it couldn’t be done” said foreman Harrigan Valentine. “I kept lobbying for a den, a hallway, a breakfast nook, anything else, for the love of god…but at the end of the day, I knew in my heart I couldn’t be the obstacle in the way of the guy’s mad genius. And I’m glad I didn’t, because now I’m a small part of history.”

Frank Langley, the head of the family of five who were set to move into the all-basement home, was not quite as enthusiastic about the design.

“Oh, I’m pretty pissed. We weren’t consulted at all, and now we’ve sunk a fortune into a house that’s like twenty basements and each one smells weirder than the next. It would have been nice to know that our new home was going to be a big architectural Frankenstein experiment,” said Langley while angrily gazing at the popcorn ceiling. “And I mean, there’s literally not even any bathrooms, because the guy says ‘bathrooms aren’t basements.’ My life is a fucking nightmare.”

At press time, Laird said he was willing to pay back Langley by installing an Olympic-sized flooded basement in the backyard to swim in, free of charge.

Inspiring! This Man’s Tesla Was Stolen, so We All Chipped in To Make Fun of Him

Posted on by Nick Ortolani

The road of life is full of ups and downs, peaks and valleys, and other geographical metaphors. When times are tough, it’s imperative that we band together to help one another out. That’s why when this man’s Tesla was stolen, we all chipped in to make fun of him and boost the overall morale of our community.

In Chinese, the word for crisis is the same as the word for opportunity. To the man who owned the Tesla, the theft was a crisis, for it contained his identity. But to the community, it was an opportunity to point out that no adult should willingly purchase a vehicle whose primary selling points are onboard Karaoke and catching on fire.

Nevertheless, that didn’t stop us from seizing the opportunity to band together as a community and viciously ridicule Thodd for having what is essentially a suicidal iPad on wheels stolen from the sealed garage of his upscale New York apartment building. Sure, Thodd was upset beyond words, but he owns (or owned) a Tesla, so his feelings don’t matter.

In the weeks leading up to the car’s glorious theft (and hopefully eventual murder), Thodd was brimming with adulation for both the car and, in his words, its inventor Elon Musk. He was convinced that Musk was the world’s foremost thinker, capable of solving all of Earth’s problems, both material and ethereal.

Imagine our glee when we lambasted Thodd’s faith in a man who couldn’t even invent a theft-proof car. Take that, you gullible idiot!

Thodd had spent every last cent (or whatever it’s called) of his Bitcoin on the car. Imagine waking up one day to find the one thing you spent all your fake money on just…gone.

Hillarious.

Thodd had only had the car for four full days before its sweet, savory theft. And in that period, he had revamped his wardrobe with exclusively Tesla-branded clothing, clothes which now surely remind him of the stupidest and worst thing in his entire life. The look on his face when we say “Woah, cool jacket man!” every time he walks by is god damned pricelss.

When times are toughest, we realize just how deep our network of support goes. We were all here for eachother when what we needed most was to make fun of a trust-funder going through their life’s only obstacle.

Nu Metal Fan Proudly Showing Friends Every Time He Can Be Seen In Woodstock ‘99 Documentary

Posted on by Dan Kozuh

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Local Nu Metal enthusiast Clark Cannon is forcing anyone in his life with a Netflix account to pull up the documentary “Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99” so he can point out every instance he can be spotted amid the chaos and violence, unamused friends report.

“You can see me clear as day in the front row for Korn and again when they show a clip of security escorting me away after I jumped the barricade during Limp Bizkit,” Cannon said after turning a friend’s birthday celebration into an impromptu watch party. “It gets really good around the thirty-five minute mark you can see me setting fire to a merch booth while Flea is flopping his penis around on stage and then again around one hour I can be seen pushing over an AV scaffold, there were a lot of us there but you can clearly tell I am doing most of the heavy lifting.”

Cannon’s acquaintances, however, are not nearly as impressed as he hoped they would.

“Pointing out that you were caught on camera in a fistfight with a Buckcherry fan isn’t the flex Clark thinks it is,” said coworker Bryan Moran while deleting Cannon from his phone. “I didn’t know him back then and if I had, I’m sure I would probably still hate him now. Maybe I’d forgive him if he regretted it now, but he’s almost forty and thinks using an anti-gun violence candle to burn an ATM while Godsmack performing in the background is a brush with fame. I don’t think he quite caught the tone of the documentary.”

The film’s director Jamie Crawford actually remembers Cannon from the editing process.

“We actually had, like, hours of b-roll of that guy and we had to cut a lot of it to avoid an NC-17 rating. It was like he actively tried to get caught on camera doing something illegal,” Crawford said after seeing a still of Cannon attempting to loot Collective Soul’s tour bus. “It’s funny how easy it is to spot him since he and like six-thousand other white guys are all wearing JNCOs and an Insane Clown Posse t-shirt. But every time received more footage of the weekend, there he was, many times with his dick out, other times just screaming ‘fuck the Backstreet Boys.’ His junk is burned into a memory.”

As of press time, Cannon was said to already be pouring over the other Woodstock 99 documentary “Peace, Love, and Rage” frame-by-frame and found his lack of screen time “egregious.”