THE MICK issue 49 is online now for free download, containing interviews with GIANT PAW (UK), DJ MARK SPLATTER (International Man), ROME BURNS (UK), THE RABIES (USA), THE BROTHERHOOD OF PAGANS (France) and THE DROWNING SEASON (USA) as well as 34 REVIEWS. http://www.mickmercer.com/themick.html
My website also now has the direct link to my new book on Goth, the 624 epic MUSIC TO DIE FOR - http://www.mickmercer.com/ During the next six weeks eight exclusive books I am self-publishing will be appearing. These include ‘Author Editions’ of my first books, Gothic Rock Black Book (celebrating it’s 21st anniversary!) and Gothic Rock, both of which will be redesigned to include an extra 200+ pages featuring previously unseen photos of classic Goth bands, as well as a three book series of Gothic Interviews, and a three book series of Gothic Images. ‘Author Editions of Hex Files and 21st Century Goth will follow shortly thereafter, as will a series of Punk-related books, and several reviewing bootlegs.
MUSIC TO DIE FOR BY MICK MERCER Cherry Red Books £17.99
My fifth book has now arrived. It is 624 pages long, containing individual entries on 3,581 different bands, from 70 countries, with 183 photos. It covers bands from the beginning of these scenes to the present day and wherever possible contains full line-up details and discographies as well as unusual facts revealed by many of the bands. This is the biggest guide ever printed about the underground scenes in which Goth, Post-Punk and all things noir co-exist with equal splendour
You can find this on Amazon, Barnes & Noble (etc) but if possible please use the link below to buy direct from the publisher. They accept Paypal and for such a chunky book they’re doing a very cheap deal on postage. Content details behind the cut.
This time around I am delighted to have discovered details on many countries I had never been able to infiltrate before. The world unfolds as follows:
Argentina - 31, Australia - 75, Austria - 22, Belarus - 3, Belgium - 28, Bolivia – 7, Brazil – 53, Bulgaria – 11, Canada – 77, Chile – 24, Colombia – 28, Costa Rica – 2, Croatia – 6, Cuba – 2, Czech Republic - 13, Denmark – 12, Ecuador – 4, Egypt – 3, Estonia – 2, Falkland Islands – 2, Finland – 47, France – 174, Germany – 346, Greece – 35, Greenland – 1, Hungary – 7, Indonesia – 1, Ireland – 13, Israel – 2, Italy – 172, Japan – 25, Kazakhstan – 2, Latvia – 3, Lebanon – 2, Liechtenstein – 4, Lithuania – 11, Luxembourg - 1, Macedonia – 5, Malta – 1, Mexico – 60, Monaco – 1, Netherlands – 49, New Zealand – 14, Norway – 28, Pakistan – 1, Paraguay – 3, Peru – 6, Philippines – 8, Poland – 36, Portugal – 55, Puerto Rico – 9, Romania – 20, Russia – 70, Serbia – 1, Singapore – 2, Slovak Republic – 6, Slovenia – 3, South Africa – 4, Spain – 84, Sweden – 93, Switzerland – 31, Thailand – 5, Turkey – 6, UK – 579, Ukraine - 11, United Arab Emirates – 1, Uruguay - 5, USA – 1092, Venezuela – 6 and Yugoslavia – 5.
Musically we have representatives from these distinct and Goth-related genres:
Please spread the word now that it’s out! I hope you find it worthwhile and useful, and I obviously want as many people as possible to do likewise. Your help in circulating the news is much appreciated.
I have to say I'm aglow from reading this one. One sends out ones creations to be reviewed and what comes back is usually expected. Sometimes what is written is surprising, sometimes completely off the wall, to the point that you want to check and make sure you sent the right CD. But when it's understood, whether the review is positive or not, that's one of the greatest rewards.
VEIL OF THORNS COGNITIVE DISSONANCE Mythos Media
Although working at another end of the noisy bastard spectrum to History Of Guns, Veil Of Thorns, and other P. Emerson Williams projects, provide the same alternative. Just when you have become used to experiencing your guitar stimulants, your ethereal relaxants, your electronic placebo, along comes Doctor Thorns, like a knight in deliberately ill-fitting armour and bellows ‘No more!’ causing all patients to fall from their beds. Where a lot of old-school Industrialists make deliberately obscure, ugly amateurish trash and new Industrialists churn out whatever club-friendly sounds they hope will land them a big record deal, there are some artists wading sternly through the same muddy waters with more artistic sensibilities. Veil Of Thorns may make threatening music but it is not without gentler asides, and often presents itself in alluring form. This is their most stylish work, but some of the thorns have an extra edge.
It’s really just down to P. Emerson Williams on virtually everything but the live drums of James Curcio, whose alarming novel I am currently reading. That’s the thing – music and other genuine influences, with P. himself a very talented artist, as I am sure many of you realise. It infuses what might be a trudging sound and throws light into murky corners. ‘Peripatetic’ has a dark rhythmical flow below a bright needling guitar and the drums stay furtive, the vocals commendably aghast, the song briskly cantering into action. It is actually hard to follow the vocal narrative but maybe that’s a good thing? ‘A Weirdness Less Expressed’ is great. If ever robots develop their own Thrash genre with a glaring sheen and viciously seedy bass pulses they will point to this song as a formative spark; more keenly urgent vocals and liquid guitar unusually catchy at times.
‘The Enigmatic Rarely Atone’ is slippier, as guitar slides away from the gleaming, undulating core. ‘Fallacy Decides Initiative’ lurches off after the seamless intro into a sighing, tumbling exercise, but ‘Delusions Of Excitement’ has low key, sweeter sounds and a dignified comeliness, deeper slopes and a playful atmospheric element. ‘Surgically Dream Like’ does what it says on the bloodbag, the cello providing a blurred setting, as though orchestral ocean liners were calling to one another, Industrial whale song!
‘Languishing In The Rusting Valley’ is not the worse holiday brochure ever, but a fractious combination of tingling guitar and grating rhythm in a plainly enjoyably melodic cacophony, as pert as the ungainly ever get. ‘Corrode And Engulf’ is deep growliness, like an ambient intestinal voyage. ‘Night Access Hallucination’ is a weird entity, being spindly, addled art-rock, with a touch of the Frank Zapata about it, with ‘Anomalous Breaks’; fun, not fearful. Austere, like monks hungover on mescaline, and then the title track itself sends you home with a cold bowl of sonic porridge.
They’re one of the few creative outlets for these more tangled sounds, and this gets the thumbs up, being a fine record, and one which some people might find easier to get into than earlier works as it’s got elements you’d recognise. Okay, you may develop extra thumbs with prolonged exposure, but what is life without risks?
In his last years, Williams dwelt in Damask silk, where the Gothronomicon (O Az-If) was written. In art, in the Dictionnaire Infernal, P. Emerson Williams is depicted as a nude man with dragon-like wings, hands and feet, a second pair of feathered wings after the main, wearing a crown, holding a serpent in one hand, and riding a wolf or dog.
The "good" P. Emerson in recent use is largely
a literary device (e.g., Maxwell's P. Emerson),
though references to good P. Emersons can be found in Hesiod and Shakespeare.[1] In common language, to "P. Emersonize" a person means to characterize or portray them as evil, or as the source of evil.
