Killer Kittens From Beyond The Grave: August 2009

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Cauldron: Brewing Pure Canadian Metal

Cauldron Live @ BarNone
August 15, 2009
Kingston, Ontario

One of the coolest live metal shows I ever witnessed featured dueling guitarists who traded instruments in the midst of a face-melting riff. The band was Goat Horn, and their t-shirt design (comprised of a one-horned goat inside a pentagram) summed up the spirit of the band better than any rock reviewer ever could.

Fast-forwarding a couple of years: Goat Horn has split up, and bassist/lead vocalist Jason Decay is now touring with Cauldron, along with bandmates Ian Kilpatrick (guitar), and Chris Rites (drums, replacing Al Chambers, who is now playing with Toxic Holocaust).

So, how does Cauldron compare to Goat Horn? T-shirt designs aren't quite as cool, but the solos are better, even without the slick switch-up. The feathered mullets, snakeskin guitar inlay, and black-and-white high-top sneakers will have you convinced you just stepped into a time machine bound for 1985.

Dio rules!

Friday, August 14, 2009

Tapestry (タペストリー)

I sincerely hope you didn't eat too much Meow Mix for breakfast this morning, as I have a special, Friday treat! After spending the last eight minutes and fifty-three seconds in dumbfounded awe of this beautifully visceral piece of YouTube meat, I found myself overwhelmed by the compulsion to share it with cat fanciers here at Killer Kittens From Beyond The Grave.

Tapestry (タペストリー) is an animated horror short, brilliantly crafted by illustrator/animator Kenny Wynne, dealing with: "the issues of war, peace and the effects they have on one person's mind." Admittedly, it was the collection of sinister pussycats which completely sold me on this stunning example of video art.

Watch as your future is torn to shreds!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Brenda Ann Spencer: "The silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload..."

Brenda Ann Spencer fired 36 rounds from a semi-automatic rifle through her bedroom window at a bustling schoolyard on January 29, 1979. Her shooting spree left two adults dead, and another nine people wounded (eight of them children). The rifle had been a Christmas present from her father, Wallace Spencer.

Amid the six and a half hour standoff, which eventually led to her arrest, she was asked what had compelled her to do such an unfathomably horrible thing. Young Brenda, only 16 years old at the time of the shootings, provided an equally horrifying response: "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day."

Like many people my age, my first exposure to the life and crimes of Brenda Ann Spencer came courtesy of the highly popularized song by The Boomtown Rats. Singer/songwriter Bob Geldof had been in the midst of giving a radio interview when news of the tragedy came through on a Telex machine. Although the song has become a Monday morning radio classic across the globe, it is important to remember that it all began with a messed-up young woman, a telescopic rifle, and the haunting phrase which has since become ensconced in popular culture.

Today (August 13, 2009), Brenda Ann Spencer will sit before a roomful of legal officials as she has a number of times before, to request parole from the California Institution for Women, where she has been incarcerated for the last 3 decades.

While Brenda has, in recent years, provided a somewhat clearer explanation for her terrible crimes than her initial 'Mondays' claim, it doesn't look like this broad is getting out of the Big House any time in the near future. Still very clearly detatched from what she did on that frosty morning back in '79, she claims to remember very little about what transpired that day, and nothing at all about the actual shootings. "I don't remember, but I'm sure that I did it."

Update (08/13/09 @ 10:15 PM): Sorry, Brenda -- looks like you'll be eating fruit cocktail for at least another decade. Better luck next time.
Channel 6 (San Diego, California): Parole Denied to Female School Shooter

The silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload
And nobody’s gonna go to school today
She’s gonna make them stay at home
And daddy doesn’t understand it
He always said she was good as gold
And he can see no reasons
Cos there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be shown?