Kyle's Review of BLACK SABBATH FAQ BY MARTIN POPOFF

Review of BLACK SABBATH FAQ BY MARTIN POPOFF

by Kyle Nonneman

[Note: this was composed in prison where proof-reading facilities are notoriously bad. Please don't hold that against the author. You can contact Kyle through the address listed at the end of this entry.]

Book review of

BLACK SABBATH FAQ BY MARTIN POPOFF

(Www.MartinPopoff.com)

Martin  Popoff is in many ways to metal journalism what S.T. Joshi is to the horror field. Joshi is a scholar and brilliant analyst of traditional, classical and quiet horror and a vehement detractor of modern hardcore horror.

With Popoff, later Sabbath is ignored and criminally underrated like post Human Death. Most coverage of Sabbath from Hal Leonard tab books , tribute albums and greatest hits packages usually don't cover anything past the Ozzy era and even then emphasis is given to the first four or five records .

This excellent book on the other hand is a completist study and analysis of all aspects of Sabbath's  legacy. Popoff, for example, shines a light on how the mastering job on Born Again influenced extreme metal. Popoff doesn't mention Cannibal Corpse covering Zero The Hero on the Hammer Smashed Face single.

And Cannibal Corpse don't mention this Sabbath album in their official biography, Bible Of Butchery.

But Popoff answers the question as to why this was likely chosen as a cover.

Being an obscure deep cut. One of the more interesting extreme metal takes on Sabbath.

Not as interesting or hilarious as what Blowfly did  to Sabbath and Ac/DC on Black In The Sack, Better then Xasthur doing National Acrobat or Brutal Truth's Lord Of This World, Avulsed doing Neon Knights or Belphegor's take on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.

My favorite Sabbath cover is Flower Travelin Band doing Black Sabbath on their Anywhere Lp from 1970. All the post drone metal shoegaze sludge dripping from the neck beards of hipster noise rock bands that's  become trendy lately was invented and pioneered decades earlier by Flower Travelin Band's Anywhere Lp.

Popoff incorrectly says no obvious Sabbath worship existed In the 1970s and erroneously states that Sucks cover of War Pigs from 1971 was the first recorded  Sabbath cover. That honor goes to Flower Travelin Band not Suck.

Another minor error is Popoff gives Vol 4 a rating of 8. Despite previously giving Vol 4 a rating of 10 in Riff Kills Man. The only review from Riff Kills Man that needed revision was In Uetro.

(The 20th Anniversary reissue has the original Albini mixes.The original Albini  mastering was neutered in post by a major label hack in the version reviewed by Popoff)

Popoff also declines to comment on the urban legend that the Live At Asbury Park New Jersey Ozzy era show was a board mix pressed and distributed by the New Jersey mob.

Popoff also claims there's a trace of Sabbath tribute to be found in Judas Priest's name. Kk Downing says on Page 42 of Heavy Duty Priest is named after a Bob Dylan song.

Also in Popoff's chapter on bands named after Sabbath no mention is made of Electric Wizard. The band that redefined heaviness! Their very band name is an amalgamation of two Sabbath tracks. They also used the same font Sabbath did on there S/T debut.

Earlier in Popoff's chapter on the doom genre, Sleep Vol  1 is cited but not Dopesmoker.

NOTE: [I lost the rest of this review. When I find it, I'll add it here. Stay tuned! MB]

You can (and should) write to Kyle

Kyle Nonneman
#16534211
Snake River Correctional Institution
777 Stanton Blvd
Ontario OR 97914-8335

My (Mykel's) Blog is at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com

A Short One on Bob Marley, Emil Beaulieu, and the CIA

 EMIL BEAULIEAU'S USE OF CIA TACTICS

by Kyle Nonneman

[Note: this was composed in prison where proof-reading facilities are notoriously bad. Please don't hold that against the author. You can contact Kyle through the address listed at the end of this entry.]

EMIL BEAULIEAU'S USE OF CIA TACTICS

Out of boredom I watched a documentary on Bob Marley after reading the recent Feral House book Extreme Music. Interestingly, the song Africa United was censored on the vinyl by scratching it out with a razor and blacking it out on the sleeve with a marker.

Ron used this same tactic on The Colorado Anti Record. Ron neglects to mention this connection to Bob Marley or the use of a CIA tactic. The author of Extreme Music doesn't mention this either.

Maybe Ron is connected to the CIA....

You can (and should) write to Kyle

Kyle Nonneman
#16534211
Snake River Correctional Institution
777 Stanton Blvd
Ontario OR 97914-8335

My (Mykel's) Blog is at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com

Dia-Purrs... Kyle on Real life Diapers for Cats

 Dai Purrs

by Kyle Nonneman

[Note: this was composed in prison where proof-reading facilities are notoriously bad. Please don't hold that against the author. You can contact Kyle through the address listed at the end of this entry.]

I saw this ad in this cat magazine I thought was a joke...

But it sadly wasn't....

Dia-Purrs!

Dia-Purrs are diapers for your cat!

They're washable and they change colors when they're full....

For elderly cats that can't make it to the litter box in time or naughty spraying cats.. 

That's almost as bad as declawing.... If your cat's spraying the walls he's got anxiety or stress over his environment that you need to deal with. Not be lazy and just add to his stress by putting a diaper on him.

And if your cats old and dying you should let him die with dignity instead of hobbling around with a Dia-Purr....

This is yet another example of the speciest ignorance of humans . Believing themselves pompously the crown of creation and destructive lords of all "lesser" life forms and thereby entitled to degrade, imprison, mutilate and exterminate any other forms  of life that merely inconveniences them.

There's only sadness and outcries for the most part when the acts of depravity are carried out on other humans. Despite humans being the most destructive and invasive species on the planet.

There's all this hypocritical talk of fixing feral cat colonies.... And their destructive effects upon the environment. When human colonies are vastly more destructive and invasive .

Humanity needs to F.O.A.D.

You can (and should) write to Kyle

Kyle Nonneman
#16534211
Snake River Correctional Institution
777 Stanton Blvd
Ontario OR 97914-8335

Kyle's Book Review RIFF KILLS MAN BY MARTIN POPOFF

Book Review: Riff Kills Man

by Kyle Nonneman

[Note: this was composed in prison where proof-reading facilities are notoriously bad. Please don't hold that against the author. You can contact Kyle through the address listed at the end of this entry.]

Riff Kills Man is Martin Popoff's first book. Later on, Popoff would become to traditional hard rock,proto/ heavy metal what Metalion is to extreme metal. Popoff's later books provide the definitive analysis and exegesis of many of the old gods.

Riff Kills Man is an autistic spectrum-esque completionist collection of 1,942 record reviews self published as a book. This is no "Nurse With Wound List". A lot of this is heavily focused on the majors and a lot of coverage is given to staple brand name acts. The focus on the exoteric is obvious.

Popoff is an expert archivist and a dedicated open minded fanatic. But he's admittedly out of his depth and comfort zone when he attempts to review the few examples of extreme metal included in this book.

Appallingly giving Bathory's The Return,Morbid Tales and Pleasure To Kill lower ratings then Stryper.

His lack of knowledge of extreme metal is made glaringly obvious in the very broad and incorrect way he uses the term grindcore as a convenient pejorative catch-all term to broadly describe various extreme metal records that have little to do with grindcore.

Popoff, I think, included token early examples of extreme metal despite personal feelings and lack of context for completionist archival state. The bad reviews serve the purpose of adding to the cult infamy and inaccessibility of the extreme bands covered. 

The book was published in 1992 . So information on those extreme sub-genres was still somewhat underground and inaccessible. So you can overlook Popoff calling Bathory grindcore and Danzig brutal black metal. The lurid and creative prose use to hilariously roast Hawkwind is very accurate constructive criticism backed by Popoff's informed opinion. It's also hilarious and makes you want to seek them out regardless of the rating But the extreme metal reviews are mostly conjecture filtered through the perception bias of a dedicated old school metalhead.

But you'll find a lot of info on obscure Nwobh, traditional heavy metal and hard rock bands buried alongside unfiltered commentary of major label bullshit. He provides some great insight on how much the Black Album sucks for example if you didn't already know that....So you can overlook Popoff dismissing Gorguts Erosion Of Sanity as grindcore. When in fact it was a cult classic that attempted to move old school death metal away from its speed obsessed thrash roots into more atmospheric,technical and progressive directions. And focus instead on tracking down all the traditional obscurities you'll discover within the labyrinthian confines of this tome.

Popoff neglects to mention how Randy Rhodes improvised and slightly reworked Iommi's iconic riffs. And doesn't make any comparisons between Eno's original Baby's on Fire and Roth's cover. Let alone the iconic solo in Eno's version.

You can buy this off Amazon or direct from Power Chord Press.

Popoff's work is mostly self published.

Support the underground.

Kyle

You can write Kyle at: 

Kyle Nonneman
#16534211
Snake River Correctional Institution
777 Stanton Blvd
Ontario OR 97914-8335

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You can read my (Mykel Board) blog at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com

Letter from The Hole: Burnt Wood

APOPTHELEMA 

Letter from the Hole

by Kyle Nonneman

[Note: this was composed in prison where proof-reading facilities are notoriously bad. Please don't hold that against the author. You can contact Kyle through the address listed at the end of this entry.]

From Kyle:

I heard an interesting and disturbing anecdote from some dude yelling war stories to his neighbor in the hole. [solitary confinement in prison]

There’s an infamous black skinhead named BURNT WOOD. “Wood” is skinhead slang for good white dude, as in peckerwood.

This black skinhead has Burnt Wood tattooed across his shoulders. He’s also covered in skinhead tats: swastikas, bolts, all that stuff... except he’s black. 

His mom’s white and she got raped by a black guy. Then she couldn’t get an abortion. The kid grew up and ended up in prison for life for killing some black gangbangers. His hatred of blacks and support of the white race is so vehement and hardcore, that skinheads accept him into their prison gang and treat him as one of their own.

The psychology of someone with that much conflicted self-hatred and hatred of other races is interesting, to say the least. 

You hear transgenders cry and bitch about the horror and discomfort of being trapped in a body you don’t identify with. That’s fucked up. But in Burnt Wood’s case, he’s trapped in the skin of something he absolutely hates. Think about that. 

You hear the Roe vs Wade arguments about what happens if a rape victim can’t get an abortion… they grow up to be infamous black skinheads committing murderous hate crimes to get over the horror of being born into this world… a doomed from the start outcast. 

--Kyle N. Feb 2023

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THIS BLOG WAS POSTED BY MYKEL BOARD BECAUSE KYLE'S IN PRISON AND NO ONE ELSE WILL DO IT. MYKEL'S OWN BLOG IS AVAILABLE AT https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com

You can contact Kyle at:

 Kyle Nonneman

 #16534211

Osci

3405 Deerpark Dr SE

Salem OR 97310

And here's some more art from Kyle:

You can also see a profile and have e-contact at:

http://www.writeaprisoner.com/Template.aspx?i=z-16534211

And a new contact: https://prisoninmates.com/profile/KyleNonneman16534211