SOUNDTRACK: VOIVOD-War and Pain (1984).
It was easy to know that Voivod were going to be an unusual band. Their name is crazy. All the members had nicknames like Piggy, Blacky, Snake, and, confusingly, Away. And they were French Canadian, which meant that their singer’s first language wasn’t English–I love the way he stresses things in his vocals especially on later albums, and he had the guttural French that sounds like a cookie monster vocalist even when he is just speaking.
Later on, their prog and psychedelic leanings would come out more, but on their debut, they were just a noisy, screamy pounding metal band. And this debut has typically bad mid 80s metal production to top it off.
In 2004 the album was remastered with bonus tracks, a full live concert and a CD ROM with all kinds of goodies. I originally thought the remaster didn’t sound that good, but there is definitely some clarity that the remaster brings. It allows you to hear a lot of the subtleties (and there are some) that were lost in the original.
There are hints at the kind of weird sounding noises the band would make on future albums, but this is mostly just fast, pounding music. I’d have liked them to re-record this stuff before Piggy died, just to see what a proper recording studio could do with these earlier songs.
Of course, now that I have listenedto it again with better equipment, I’m changing my assessment somewhat. Despite the very heavy nature of the songs there are some very cool sequences in here. They are nothing compared to the complexities that the band would undertake in just a few short years, but there are some really interesting things underway and the remaster definitely highlights them a little better. It still sounds pretty bad 9especially compared to their later records), but hey, they only spent $2,000 and recorded it in a studio where the engineer had never heard a metal band before.
[READ: August 23, 2013] Lara’s Book
I have known of this book since it came out in 1998. I was a huge fan of Douglas Coupland and yet I had zero interest in Lara Croft or Tomb Raider. So I simply ignored this book. But because I’m being all completist with this blog, it was time to bite the bullet and see what this piece of nonsense was all about.
And it is just as weird and creepy as I feared.
There are several sections to the book, most of which are written by Coupland. I will admit right up front that I did not read the strategies and secrets from Kip Ward–sorry Kip, it seemed like fun but between the crazy fonts and layout and the fact that I will never play the game it just seemed like too much.
So the first section is DC writing from the POV of Lara. It’s a little weird, but at the same time it’s interesting because he talks in his futurist way about technology and how with millions of people “being” Lara, is it really that Lara is controlling people? Hypothetical bullshit of course, but kind of fun in a Coupland way.
Next comes a section that is written by DC and it is from DC’s POV. This is a smattering of really interesting discussion of technology (both good and bad). It’s basically the stories that DC tells but from his mind rather than from a character.
And then it gets weird. Really weird. First we get stats on Lara Croft (actual measurements and what not). And I have to jump in here and say that even though I was maybe a wee bit old for the target demographic (Coupland is older than me though), I always thought that Lara was creepy and gross. I mean, aside from the whole feminist angle that she is too chesty and preposterous which I completely agree with, I always found her just…creepy looking, as unsexy as anything. Really everything about her was wrong. So, when the middle of the book fetishizes her, I’m… yucky. But beyond the drooling over her that fans did, Coupland treats her as a person and wonders what she is thinking and marvels that she is one step ahead of him and…it’s just weird.
Undermining the feminist complaints about Lara, Coupland maintains that Lara is actually a strong heroine–who kicks ass and all that. And while I accept that, her physical makeup is just too hard to get past.
There’s tons of pictures, both screen shots and comic book style (those of which are actually pretty–in a comic book heroine sort of way). And the strategies are interspersed within this section.
Then comes another strange thing. Fan fiction from Douglas Coupland with drawings by Kris Renkewitz. He writes a story with Lara as the main character:
“Air Tibet: A Lara Croft Action/Adventure Comic”
The premise is that Lara is on site for a film. The film stars Joni Cartwright, an actress who is playing Glenda Amazon Princess. Lara is dismissive of Ms Cartwright’s skills, and is very disappointed to see that she has a stunt double during the hard parts.
When they have a moment to each other, Lara admires Joni’s necklace. Lara recognizes it (she is an archaeologist don’t forget) as being very old and asks how Joni got it. Joni says that Ping, the son of Ming-Wo, a notoriously evil dude, gave it to her as part of a seduction (already we know this is a dopey story).
Suffice it to say that the necklace has magical powers and a fight ensues. And then Joni reveals that she is not who she seems. Both Joni and Ming-wo know they need the other part of the necklace to wield supreme power. But they are both likely to use it for evil. Since Lara is on hand, there is much ass kicking.
The story is actually pretty fun and quite exciting (although it is full of clichés and bad dialogue). I imagine that DC had a lot of fun writing it as it is so far afield from his usual stuff. If you’re a completist of DC’s fiction, this is worth hunting down just for the fun aspects of it (although I don’t really recommend reading the earlier parts of the book). If your library doesn’t have it you can get it on Amazon for $1.
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