Zohran Mamdani tried his hand at music back in the 2010s before finding success as a politician. Stereogum recently posted his 2017 pitch for coverage for one of his tracks this week, apologizing for ignoring it at the time. Two of his Zohran Kwame tracks are still up on SoundCloud. What do you think of them?
Ignacia Fernández is making the rounds on social media for performing one of the songs of her death metal band Decessus as she competed in the Miss World Chile contest—she ended up winning the title. Sounds like she’s a good vocalist.
Hellhammer and Celtic Frost used to rehearse in a Swiss bomb shelter, which is pretty awesome. Now the government is spending millions to revamp the country’s nuclear bunker network. Victoria Craw has the story at The Washington Post.
Inner Ear Studio is an essential piece of Washington, D.C. music, and I recently stumbled upon an interesting interview with owner Don Zientara at the Arlington, VA library website. There’s a long list of related reading about Inner Ear at the bottom of the page.
Could Metal Music Help to Save the Planet? is a question posed by Vanessa Pearce at the BBC. She writes about an event partially concerning “ecometal” at the famed birthplace of so many important metal bands, Birmingham, England. Details about the event are at the University of Birmingham website. I would have loved to have seen that.
Brian Baker of Minor Threat, Bad Religion, and others has a new photo book out called The Road, the concept being that he took all of the photos on his iPhone. The D.C. stop of his book tour had him sit down with his Minor Threat bandmate Ian MacKaye—see photo above. When asked about straight edge during the Q&A, MacKaye interestingly said he doesn’t like movements, because they are placed above the individual.
Rest in Peace
Bill Chamberlain, of several bands and projects including The Pist and Aus Rotten, passed away in July. John Gentile has a few details at Punknews.org. There’s a memorial show for Chamberlain set in Philadelphia this month.
William Carl Black died in November. He played bass in the beloved band Human Remains as well as several other groups. Metalpunk.net posted a remembrance.
Dave Ball was one half of the ’80s band Soft Cell and later The Grid. He died in October at 66. Andy Greene has the story at Rolling Stone. I don’t know much of anything about Soft Cell, but was surprised to read that in the late ’70s, Ball did musical accompaniment for his musical partner Marc Almond’s bizarre performance art.
Thommy Price was an American drummer who played in groups such as Scandal, Billy Idol’s band, and Joan Jett And The Blackhearts. He passed away in October at 68. Idol posted a remembrance.
