Danny Says

I just watched Danny Says on Netflix. I'm a sucker for pretty much any and all music bios. And these days there a lot more doc's about personalities and influencers within the music scenes outside of just the artists themselves.

This flick documents the life and times of one such cat. A mover and a shaker who was involved with the success and the lives of Andy Warhol, Nico, the Velvet Underground, Alice Cooper, the Stooges, the MC5, the Ramones, Patti Smith, the Doors, and on and on.

It's mostly told in Danny's own words through various interviews. But there's a good deal of testimonials and anecdotes shared by the A-list musicians and artists he signed or influenced in one way or another. He worked for Elektra Records for a good deal of time and he was kind of an A&R dude / Manager. I believe his title was "freak," or at least that's what it said on his Elektra business cards...

Anyhow, if you care the above bands then this is a good watch. It's all light stuff. Nothing too heavy. But some great storytelling.

Dig it.

Metal Gods: A Tribute to Judas Priest

I pre-ordered this as soon as I saw the post on social media. I think Mark Rudolph is incredibly talented and I was stoked to dive into his third book in homage to our metal gods (Mercyful Fate, Celtic Frost, and Judas Priest).

Temple of Void was honored to be involved in the second book. We recorded a Celtic Frost cover for the LP that accompanied the book's release. Very cool. And just like the last two, there is a good showing of Detroit talent in "Metal Gods." Members of TOV, Acid Witch, and more, all make fine contributions.

One of my favorite stories was actually the fashion show. I thought it was well written and I give the artist props for taking a chance. Everyone could have just illustrated the lyrics, but this was pretty clever and witty.

Of the three books, this one is has the most pages. And now Mark's moved on from self-financing it and he's gotten involved with Decibel Magazine. They've partnered with him to produce and sell the book. It retains the exact same high production values and format as the first two, but it just happens to be sold by Decibel this time.

Oh, there is one gripe, though. The fucking typo's. There are numerous typographic errors in the book. The most egregious being on the first page. How did he misspell "Exhumed"? I was extra surprised cuz you'd think that Decibel would have put an Editor on it... Guess not.

Anyway, that's a small blemish on an otherwise stellar book. Definitely recommended.