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From the Vault: Gateway to Blasphemous Light: SKULLFLOWER!!
Posted on December 1, 2012 by josephpb97
This article originally appeared on my blog, and is my fanboy-esque take on most of the great noise/rock band Skullflower's studio and live albums, from theit Black Flag debut to 2011's Strange Keys to Untune God's Firmament. I hope I do them justice.
Approaching the daunting monolith that is Skullflower's discography would take the patience of a saint and pockets deeper than Donald Trump's (if you want to meet such a hardy soul, check out this superlative list by my online buddy, "Nightwrath": http://rateyourmusic.com/list/nightwrath/the_power_of_skullflower/). So, typical of my general laziness, I'm not going to try to give a proper overview/blow-by-blow analysis/history lesson, just give my take on those albums I have (generally the most easily purchasable ones) and how I have come to regard Skullflower as nothing less than one of the best bands ever to grace the world.
The history of Skullflower is intrinsically linked to the UK underground of the early eighties, which exploded to life in the wake of punk, lurching into more unusual, dark and experimental directions as it did so. The advent of cheaper recording formats, notably cassette tapes, simple electronic instruments and easy-to-use recording methods meant that music was no longer the exclusive domain of classical composers or pop/rock/jazz bands with studio access and lots of ability. Indeed, punk, for all its numerous flaws, had shown that anyone with a good idea and lots of attitude could make a record and even, wonder of wonders, get it released.
Less physical barriers were also coming down. Even as the country as a whole was embracing rabid conservatism, in the form of Margaret Thatcher's government, the musical underground was getting more radical. Throbbing Gristle, who remain to this day the granddaddies of radical British music, and the scene's eternal leading lights, had led the way, exploring transgressive and provocative themes, and giving birth to a new genre of music they baptised "Industrial". Out of their explorations of extreme sound and lyrical matter, the UK underground would bloom.
I will admit to not being an expert, but, it seems to me that, until these halcyon years from 1977 to 1985, Britain had never had a truly "out-there" act that could serve as a calling card to the rest of the underground. The US, of course, had had The Velvet Underground, whilst Japan had seen Les Rallizes Denudes headline massive festivals, and Germany had given us the freak-out post-everything of Ash Ra Tempel and Tangerine Dream's first album. Which is not to say the UK had not had great underground acts (Pink Fairies, anyone?), but the extremism and provocation of those foreign bands had yet to really be mirrored in such conceptual glory in this country. Throbbing Gristle changed all that, and Whitehouse, Ramleh and, of course, Skullflower, took things to another level altogether. In typical British fashion, of course, none of them -past the initial shock value of TG and Whitehouse- caused quite the stir that The VU or The Stooges did among mainstream audiences, even those inclined towards "fringe" sounds. In this country, we venerate at the altars of alien gods, but if the same souls emerge on our shores, we just can't believe it to be real… Or so it seems from the vantage point of youth (such as it is). Otherwise, I fail to understand how The Velvet Underground or The Stooges managed to burrow their way into cultdom among British rock fans, but Skullflower remain mostly unknown. I'm lucky in many ways to have come along decades after much of the music I love hit its heights, but am aware that often my perceptions can be skewed or unrealistic. I'm doing my best to represent things as they were, I promise!
Of course, any talk of Skullflower means nothing if you don't mention the man behind such an illustrious musical entity. His name is Matt Bower, and his shadow soars over the UK underground like some mystical but outlandish eagle, even if his influence has rarely been mirrored in record sales. More than William Bennett or even his buddy Gary Mundy, and perhaps only equaled by Steve Stapleton and David Tibet, Matt Bower is the voice, guitar and effects box of the UK underground. And Skullflower remains, even after such magnificent side projects as Total, Sunroof!, Hototogisu and Voltigeurs, the supreme expression of Bower's vision.
The birth of Skullflower was slow and progressive, growing out of several Uni/high school bands involving Bower, Alex Binnie, Stewart Dennison, Stefan Jaworzyn and others. At one time, Bower was a key member of Gary Mundy's superb power electronics/drone metal outfit Ramleh, and the first Bower albums, first as Total then as Skullflower, would appear on Mundy's seminal Broken Flag label.
Which is as good a place as any to start, given that, having already made a power electronics splash solo as Total, on Broken Flag, Bower would unleash Skullflower on the world via that very label. I remain convinced that the UK underground, and metal/noise music in general, would never be the same again from the moment BFV9 hit the shelves.
Birthdeath (Broken Flag, 1988)
As Skullflower's first proper release, Birthdeath is essential listening to any fan of the band, or any of Bower's subsequent adventures. It's most interesting to listen to in the context of what Broken Flag was releasing at the time. Broken Flag had become renowned as a post-Industrial, power electronics label, with albums by Maurizio Bianchi and Grey Wolves among its numerous tape releases. Extreme stuff indeed. And whilst Birthdeath, with its creepy title and oppressive atmosphere, certainly fit the mold, it was also very different, for a start because it featured "real" instruments, with guitars, bass and drums taking precedence over fucked-up synths or electronics.
And yet, of all Skullflower releases, Birthdeath perhaps feels most consistent with the age in which it was made. The loping bass lines are 100% post-punk, evoking such post-punk luminaries as Joy Division or PiL. Not a bad thing of course, and Bower's vocals are notably brilliant, a Rotten-esque snarl that is nonetheless wrenched back into the mix, subsumed by rampant guitar noise and insistent percussion, therefore taking the music beyond post-punk and into a neo-metal environment that would later give us My Bloody Valentine and Ride. With a darkness and menace that was 100% TG/Whitehouse/This Heat. Birthdeath may be short (it's an EP after all) and very "rock", it remains one of the first indications of where industrial music, as a "rock" derivative, and metal could go. Skullflower would between 1988 and 1995 show just how magnificent such a combination would be.
Form Destroyer (Broken Flag, 1989)
If Birthdeath gave a hint, and tentatively brought metal (I'm talking Black Sabbath/Blue Oyster Cult metal of the darkest kind, here) back into the orbit of the underground, away from the nonsense zone the likes of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest had taken it to, Form Destroyer, and the slew of albums that followed it, would elevate the Skullflower sound into the realms of genius. Dark, metal-meets-industrial-post-punk genius.
Form Destroyer dispenses with a lot of the familiarity that Birthdeath had built up. Fuck the Peter Hook-ish bass and punkish sneer vocals. This is Bower bowing down at the altar of guitar noise, taking the power electronics template of Ramleh and Whitehouse and filtering it through riff-upon-riff of messed up power chords, as if Tony Iommi had shed his hippy leanings and then been given full reign of the Sabbath's musical direction. Opening track "Elephant's Graveyard" is everything that makes Skullflower so special, a non-stop guitar solo backed by ridiculously heavy post-Bill Ward drums and one-note bass whilst Bower limply utters unintelligible lyrics as if he's drowning in guitar mulch. The tremolo and fuzz are obscene, and the track hoists itself out of any noise/industrial context into dark, cavernous realms of new metal. The kind of metal that would have Julian Cope salivating. Where power electronics and industrial seemed to reflect the clunking, metallic, buzzing present/future, here was music that felt older than time itself, as if long-lost gods and angels were rising from centuries of slumber to reclaim the world. This ur-plod echoed that of Sabbath, but stripped away any modern context, becoming the sound of dusty pyramids, creepy barrows and pagan monoliths. And of course, this became the template for the next 25 years (and counting) of metal music, the dots between Form Destroyer and bands like SUNN O))) or Nadja being all too easy to connect.
Xaman (Shock Records, 1990)
Shock Records were owned by Skullflower guitarist Stefan Jaworzyn who was, until he left the band in the early nineties following one too many fall-outs with Bower, the other main creative figure of the band. Having said that, mega fans such as myself will always treasure the contributions of drummer Stewart Dennison at least as much as those of Jaworzyn. There's just something so perfect about Dennison's monolithic plod, and it would drive and animate the Skullflower sound in inimitable ways at least until the band's first dissolution in 1996.
Xaman is, in my opinion, the first perfect Skullflower statement. It's more abstract than Form Destroyer, despite also being more "metal". Its predecessor maintained a tiny, tiny, bit of the post-punk soul of Birthdeath, which somehow made it less abstract than this, or future albums. By releasing themselves into metal and noise, equal parts Sabbathian plod and Rallizes-esque guitar saturation, Skullflower grew into a monstrous beast, whose tracks were built around ridiculous sub-Crazy Horse rhythmic plods whilst Jaworzyn and Bower leaped into the stratosphere via their guitars, endlessly soloing as each piece, from opening pounder "Slaves" to the side-long, 26-minute-long beast "Wave" soared and rumbled like a mythological mountain detaching itself from the earth and taking off towards the heavens (I have no idea what that metaphor means, but it seems to fit).
As someone who listens to a lot of metal music, I have tried to find a comparable album to Xaman, another such premonitory opus that indicates where the genre was going to go, and indeed spend the next 20 years. I can't. Sure, Swans took the Sabbath's slowed-down sound and married it to industrial clanging, but Xaman is something else altogether – its background in industrial is only hinted at through walls of noise, but mostly this is pure doom, primeval and heavier than that lead zeppelin Keith Moon mentioned all those decades ago. Xaman features guitar played as Jimmy Page should have played it back in '68, a non-stop riff-o-mania mixed with basic solos, so insistent that its meaning becomes unfathomable. Guitar as noise. Guitar as drone. Guitar as trance. Xaman is truly overwhelming, and for me feels like the culmination of what brutish heavy metal, as dreamed up by Blue Cheer and Black Sabbath, was always meant to be. I wish someone would hurry up and re-release this motherfucker!
IIIrd Gatekeeper (HeadDirt, 1992)
Until Bower resuscitated Skullflower in the mid-2000s, IIIrd Gatekeeper was perhaps the most famous of the band's albums, and incidentally one of the absolute best.
Essentially, IIIrd Gatekeeper is modern metal in excelsis. Do you like Nadja? The Angelic Process? Hey Colossus? Boris? Here's the blueprint. With the -possible- exceptions of The Melvins and Earth, I don't think any band really set down a marker on the genre in quite the way Skullflower did on IIIrd Gatekeeper. Of course, I've been talking about metal since Birthdeath, so what changed? Sitting here in my living room, my head filled with sound, the first thing that occurs to me is the bass. It's no longer subsumed into the mix – it's front and centre, big, fat, distorted and powerful. Almost a second lead guitar. Imagine Jefferson Airplane's legendary bassist Jack Casady doing metal, and you might just get the sound I'm evoking. If you're an Airplane fan. If not, then fuck me, just go out and buy IIIrd Gatekeeper!
Mirroring this added heaviness, the drums are equally in-your-face, slovenly punches to the skins that inch the melodies along. The whole production is clearer and more typically heavy-metal-ish, with Bower's guitar (he was now sole axeman following the departure of Jaworzyn) creating scything walls of relentless distortion, feedback and fuzz. Again, there are no riffs in the traditional Sabbath/Zeppelin style, just endless, near-formless soloing, taking the format laid down by those bands, and hurtling into something closer to free improv or drone. But Skullflower never relinquishes the violence and heaviness that makes metal such a haven for headbangers. Tracks like "Larks Tongues" (neat King Crimson reference!) and "Saturnalia" are like Sabbath on LSD, twisted, beyond-heavy crunchers that pummel the senses under waves of guitar noise and thunderous drumming. The vocals, meanwhile, are almost a prototype of the kind of harsh, muted growling that would soon become a staple of Black Metal.
Perhaps the overall sound and vibe of IIIrd Gatekeeper is a reflection of the man who released it. HeadDirt was the imprint of Justin K Broadrick, long a devotee of Skullflower, now of Jesu and Greymachine, who at the time was riding high as an industrial metal pioneer via his Godflesh outfit. Like Skullflower, Godflesh was a seminal band, melding harsh urban noises with a vintage metal pummel and bleak lyrical output. It was not any more ferocious than what Bower and co were doing in their Broken Flag days, but perhaps slightly more tailored towards the mainstream. Ever so slightly. In comparison, Skullflower would always be an outsider band, but at least Broadrick was keen to give some time int he limelight. To this day, IIIrd Gatekeeper remains the most common first point of entry for people discovering Skullflower.
Last Shot at Heaven (Noiseville, 1993)
Skullflower goes psychedelic!!! Of course, records like Xaman and IIIrd Gatekeeper were already darkly psychedelic, in a typically Cope-esque manner. But Last Shot at Heaven moves things up a notch in the trippy bliss levels, whilst maintaining an edge of violence and menace, as demonstrated by the cover art depicting a young woman craning her head back, eyes seemingly shut in ecstasy, but which is actuallty a picture of one of the first Muslim victims of the Bosnian ethnic cleansing taken just as she was being shot.
Indeed, one of the great pleasures of being a Skullflower fan is picking up on the subtle -or sometimes radical- sonic shifts they make as they advance from one album to another, and picking up on the understated metaphors in both their music and artwork.
The basic template inherited from IIIrd Gatekeeper, of harsh guitar soloing, pumping bass and earthquake-inducing drums, is retained on LSAH, but where its predecessor focused on the drums and the bass and the mood, this motherfucker is a massive guitar celebration, as Bower rips outlandish warped noise from his beleaguered axe, creating the kind of sonic tornado that, along with the blistering poly-rhythmic pounding of the drums as displayed here on "Rotten Sun li", would later become a key component of bands like Acid Mother's Temple, Mainliner or even Oneida. The guitar no longer incarnates a phallic extension of the macho Jimmy Page-esque frontman, nor is it a means to subvert conventions in the manner of Stoogian riffage. Instead, it's a supremely cosmic weapon of pure transcendence, a beautifully awe-inspiring sound to transport the listener to new-found inner worlds. In that respect, Last Shot at Heaven feels most noticeably "retro" among early Skullflower albums, channeling as it does the spirit of Ash Ra Tempel, Les Rallizes Denudes and Amon Duul II.
Beyond that, however, Last Shot at Heaven is another bold step forwards for Skullflower. As steeped as it is in the post-psychedelia of the early 70s, it doesn't fully deviate from the deep, doomy metal thunder of its predecessor. But, more significantly, it also gives many a sideways glance at the grunge and shoegaze styles that were prevalent in the early nineties. More Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine than Slowdive and Nirvana, of course, but you can tell Bower has heard the merits of adding a sprinkle of catchiness and riffs into the torrent of noise and sludge. Opener "Caligula" may just be the most infectious, and blissful, Skullflower track ever. Ultimately, Last Shot at Heaven gets negatively compared to IIIrd Gatekeeper, a more complete musical statement, but it serves as a great indication of how fantastically consistent in their brilliance Skullflower were by this point.
Obsidian Shaking Codex (Self-released, 1993, CD-R reissue on RRRecords)
Nothing, even Xaman and IIIrd Gatekeeper, prepared me for Obsidian Shaking Codex. Those albums were great, magnificent even. OSC is on another plane altogether.
Almost literally. Obsidian Shaking Codex sounds like very little out there, and certainly not like anything released around the same time, again testament to how prescient and forward-thinking Skullflower were. I think it was discovering this album that made me realise that not only are Skullflower a fucking awesome band, but that actually they go beyond such platitudes and transcend all stereotypical notions of musical taste and quality. Obsidian Shaking Codex sets up the stall for just about every psych/drone/noise-metal band to have appeared since, taking the brittle exoskeleton of The Dead C and Les Rallizes Denudes, and anchoring it to a wall of post-modern, post-industrial noise before launching into newer, wilder, nastier and deeper sonic lands. Tracks like "Sir Bendalot", the pummeling heavy metal opener, may seem familiarly heavy, in a Sabbath/Blue Cheer vein, but, stripped of coherent vocals and suffused with mysterious flute sounds, soon turn into weird, esoteric and unhinged musical explorations.
By "Circular Temple", the second track, everything you may have been familiar with has collapsed. Not just Skullflower's own sound, but British post-industrial music as a genre. Coil, Whitehouse and even Throbbing Gristle seem so very far away now. The track is essentially, beautifully, formless, an endless dirge of shuddering guitar noise, in which riffs, improvs and meandering solos slalom around each other and drum fills only interrupt the murky flow on occasion, like interjections from a slumbering giant whose rest has been interrupted by the screes and squalls of Bower's guitar. No, I don't know what I'm on about either! Obsidian Shaking Codex does that to you – its awkward grace and deep, dark drones will have you dreaming of windy barrows and Tolkien-esque vistas, but ones that are totally dominated by sinister shadows, gnarled tree trunks and whispering ghosts. By the album's end, the frenetic post-rock, post-fusion -fuck it, post-everything!- 25-minute leviathan that is "Smoke Jaguar", you find yourself drifting in a fog of sound. It isn't quite noise, not quite ambient, not quite drone, not quite metal. It's beyond all of those genres, a true artistic triumph, which Skullflower would often struggle to replicate later in their career, but which would also flash through all their releases here on, and was already hovering like a shadow over previous albums, notably Xaman, IIIrd Gatekeeper and Last Shot at Heaven. Obsidian Shaking Codex is the album they really nailed it on, and the one that would make even great metal-that-aren't-metal acts like SUNN O))) seem slightly derivative.
A masterpiece in other words.
Carved Into Roses (VHF, 1994)
Skullflower signed to psychedelic drone label VHF for this release, who would also release This Is Skullflower, a mini-trend that perhaps highlights the band's slow shift (already hinted at on Last Shot at Heaven) away from doom-laden noise-metal towards more esoteric, trippy and psyched-up musical shores.
At this point, I am seriously running out of superlative terms to describe the sounds Matt Bower and his acolytes (by now even superb bassist Anthony DiFranco had left, so it was just Bower and drummer Stuart Dennison, plus guest appearances from Whitehouse's Phillip Best, Russell Smith and Simon Wickham-Smith) were coming up with. It seems in fact that each release was purposely conjured up to surpass its predecessor and, whilst Carved into Roses probably had too hard an act to follow in Obsidian Shaking Codex, it at least represents a massive leap forwards from all their other previous albums that it remains one of Skullflower's most important statements.
Some critics have -erroneously, I think- said that Carved into Roses represents a "mellowing" of the Skullflower sound. Whilst the crunching post-riffage of IIIrd Gatekeeper or Obsidian Shaking Codex's molten noise are indeed (mostly) set aside, the idea that Carved into Roses is more ambient or "quieter" than its predecessors is, frankly, ludicrous.
But it is more sophisticated, more thoughtful and, ultimately, even more adventurous. Five years before Japanese genius Merzbow showed the smart side of harsh noise on Door Open at 8am, Skullflower were doing the same for metal with Carved into Roses, by incorporating the usually intimidating structures of free-form jazz into their monolithic metal crunch. They once again throw a wee curve ball on opener "Pipe Dream", which could be straight out of Last Shot At Heaven with its doom/drone guitar mulch, bursts of feedback and stark vibe, although hints of the mayhem to come can be heard in Stuart Dennison's scattered drumming and some spookily industrial vocal snippets. But by "The Rose Wallpaper", Dennison is conjuring up marching band patterns and, out of nowhere, as Bower excoriates his guitar in masochistic metallic bursts of fury, a lonesome, strangled saxophone blearily attempts a garbled solo. It dips in and out of the mix, in time to the accelerations and decelerations of Dennison's increasingly free-form pounding of the toms, and its intrusion into the world of Skullflower is as startling as it is welcome. The more unstructured nature of "The Rose Wallpaper", "Shiny Birds of Doom" or "Metallurgical King" (all three contenders for the imaginary title of 'Best Skullflower track ever') not only make Carved Into Roses stand out as a truly masterful melding of jazz/improv and metal, but also showcase the increased subtlety and sophistication of Dennison and Bower as composers and musicians. "Metallurgical King", which seems to pick up where "The Rose Wallpaper" left off, is a particularly mighty slab of free-form noise, with bonkers tremolo and the kind of sax mayhem Peter Brotzmann would be proud of.
As for the claims that it isn't heavy… I can admit it is no longer a cruncher, in the Butthole Surfers/Sabbath mold. But the atmosphere on these tracks is easily as choking and menacing as on any of the Obsidian Shaking Codex ones, Best's voice often descending into a tortured primal scream, whilst Bower and Dennison alternate expertly between hard-hitting free-form pummelers and dragging, inching doom plods. Such shifts in pace, power and tempo are mastered expertly and, if anything, Carved Into Roses is one of Skullflower's heaviest albums ever. The follow-up, Infinityland is also a cracker, and both have recently been reissued as a triple CD set, along with a disc of singles.
This Is Skullflower (VHF,1996)
This would be the last album Skullflower would release before a 7-year hiatus (following swiftly on the heels of a slightly rag-bag collection of shorter tracks, outtakes and covers called Transformer, also released in '96). Between this and Carved Into Roses, the duo did release two other full releases, Argon (Freek, 1995) and Infinityland (HeadDirt, 1995), neither of which I've been able to get hold of, sadly.
I would be keen to check out both those records because This Is Skullflower represents such a dramatic shift from the sound of Carved Into Roses, that it would be nice to get an idea of what came before to see if there is any continuity.
Essentially, TIS sees them taking the idea of free jazz grasped at on Carved Into Roses, and fucking running the distance with it. It is indeed much mellower and atmospheric than their previous output, even in the track titles – "Lounge", "Creaky Rigging", "Glider"… But don't be fooled into thinking that it therefore is less interesting or arresting. Skullflower continue to step boldly into new territories, bringing in piano and strings, whilst pursuing their exploration of the limitations and possibilities of their established drums and guitars. On "Lounge", Dennison pushes the free-jazz boat out even further, coming on like a latter-day Han Bennink, whilst Bower's searing guitar improv is offset by jarring piano motifs. It's a textured and unusual piece, and things get even better on "Creaky Rigging", which duly lives up to its name thanks to Tony Conrad-esque violin drones set over what sounds like a woozy dobro or sitar and far-off, hazy guitar lines. It's easily the best track on the album, redolent of such great tantric drone/psych bands as Vibracathedral Orchestra and the pioneering work of European bands such as Parson Sound and Yatha Sidhra. Heady stuff indeed, Skullflower going hippy, if you like.
Which may in many ways be the album's only real flaw. The quality, as usual, is phenomenal, in terms of musicality and composition, but some of the dark, paranoid atmospheres of previous albums have succumbed to the experimentation, it seems. Maybe, just this once, Skullflower gave too much to the cerebral where before there was always just enough instinct and spleen to get the absolutely perfect balance. Either way, it's still a fucking good album, but perhaps Bower was right to call it quits for a while…
Though it would have been magic to see where exploring the sound of the album's other stand-out track, the drone epic "The Pirate Ship of Reality is Moving Out…" could have led the band…
Exquisite Fucking Boredom (tUMULt, 2003)
After a 7-year gap, during which Matthew Bower parted company with Stuart Dennison and dedicated his inspirations to a revived Total and his new outfits Sunroof! and Hototogisu, Skullflower returned, like a phoenix resurrected in flames. I can imagine there was some trepidation, and a shed-load of expectation, among fans at the time and so it is perhaps fitting that Exquisite Fucking Boredom is probably the most accessible of the new-look Skullflower albums. Ease'em in gently, eh Matt?
Exquisite Fucking Boredom essentially feels like a dual continuation of what Bower was doing on Last Shot at Heaven, but filtered through the trippier textures and hazy drones of This Is Skullflower. The result is an album that is both heavy, showcasing Bower's relentless guitar assault, and blissfully psychedelic, in a fucked-up, Brainticket way. Most of it is taken up by the 4-part magnum opus "Celestial Highway", which takes a funkily ambling sixties' garage-psych rhythm base (think a more monolithic Doors or Thirteenth Floor Elevators) and runs with it over nearly an hour, albeit one divided into segments. Head music in the extreme, as the drums (credits are hard to come by for much of Skullflower's output, but apparently, this is one of the occasional latter-period albums to feature Stuart Dennison, as well as additional guitarist Mark Burns -for the unusually-prominent riffs?- and bassist Steve Martin) send things cantering metronomically and minimalistically along with bloody-minded determination, much as drummer Werner Diermaier did for Faust on their magnificent collaboration with Tony Conrad, Outside the Dream Syndicate, which leaves Bower and Burns free to belch out dirty, fat riffs that jingle and jangle whilst maintaining their metal edge, before throwing up a miasma of wah-wahing free-form noise over the top. Somewhere in the mix there's also an ever-droning organ, just to ram home the sense of sheer elegiac spaciness, should you need it.
If this is boredom, then I want to be bored more often! It's easily Skullflower's grooviest, sexiest and most liberated album, without any of the intellectual inhibitions of This Is Skullflower, but still maintaining a hazy, psychedelic vibe that means it's not just a throw-back to the early nineties. Its only flaw perhaps is that it would have worked better with just the "Celestial Highway" suite, as the other two tracks, "Saturn" and "Return to Forever" don't really add anything to the album. But that's a small quibble. With Exquisite Fucking Boredom, Matthew Bower announced that Skullflower was back in a big way, and he has not looked back since. Lucky us!
Orange Canyon Mind (Crucial Blast, 2005)
On the second album since his "comeback" as Skullflower, Matthew Bower followed in the footsteps of Exquisite Fucking Boredom, in that Orange Canyon Mind feels at times like it's a refreshing, or post-digital update, of his previous sound. Exquisite Fucking Boredom seemed to tap into the nascent heavy psych trend of Oneida, Colour Haze and Comets on Fire, whilst still maintaining a darker undercurrent and taste for much more intense, violent and improvised guitar noise, as had been Skullflower's modus operandi since Birthdeath. Orange Canyon Mind sees Bower, accompanied by a couple of guests on guitar and occasional drums, incorporate harsh electronic sounds, but not as some throwback to the power electronics scene Skullflower evolved out of, but rather as an echo of the glitch and harsh electronica espoused by the Editions Mego label and artists like Ryoji Ikeda and -more harshly- Kevin Drumm. Of course, whilst still indulging in fuzzed and distorted guitars and deep heavy metal textures.
Orange Canyon Mind is therefore one of Skullflower's most varied and eclectic albums, certainly among their post-2003 output, which is enjoyable, but also possibly undermines its consistency a bit. The exquisite title track feels like Neu! on downers, a pulsating "motorik" back-beat being offset against a dense wall of guitar pyrotechnics. "Annihilating Angel", in which shuddering glitchtronica textures battle with a never-ending wah solo, is another one of the band's great moments, a dense, punishing, unforgiving masterpiece of atmosphere and volume, that shows that Bower has lost none of his ability to oppress and terrify.
Later tracks seem to jerk between such monstrously claustrophobic drone/noise workout, and more "traditional" (in the loosest sense of the word!) post-metal plodders, with prominent wah guitar and meandering subdued percussion, as on "Vampire's Breath" and "Ghost Ice Aliens", both full-blooded sludgy rockers that again evoke the heavier end of modern psychedelia, such as Serpentina Satelite. "Goat of a Thousand Young", meanwhile, is a creepy industrial-electronic piece, perhaps suggesting in texture, if not actual style, the direction Bower would take on Tribulation.
The eclecticism of Orange Canyon Mind certainly underlines the musical vitality and strength of this singular band, but at times plays against it in terms of consistency. That said, I'd still call it required listening, if nothing else then for "Annihilating Angel", "Starry Wisdom", "Orange Canyon Mind" and the overall atmosphere of doom and darkness (and above all because it's a fucking Skullflower album!).
Tribulation (Crucial Blast, 2006)
When you hit the "play" button on your stereo, Tribulation doesn't start so much as keep going. The opening track "Lost In the Blackened Gardens of Some Vast Star" seems to surge out of the speakers mid-riff, if such momentous noise can be called a riff, and you feel like you have stumbled, unheeded, onto a rehearsal or, perhaps more aptly, some weird, menacing ritual. This is Skullflower (here just Matthew Bower on guitar, occasional electronics and sporadic percussion) reaching heights of extreme sonic mayhem, and the only album Bower has released under this moniker that could more or less comfortably be classified in the "noise" genre.
Indeed, at times, this could almost be the sort of wall noise espoused so eloquently and dramatically by the likes of The Rita, Vomir and Werewolf Jerusalem. Although, unlike those acts, Bower's emphasis remains on guitar and minimal electronics, plus a healthy dose of SUNN O)))-esque doom atmosphere, albeit buried in some of the harshest sounds yet to come from Skullflower. "Lost In the Blackened Gardens of Some Vast Star" is a case in point, a monolithic cathedral of guitar feedback, raging distortion and high-pitched screes. All forward momentum, in the traditional musical sense, is lost, the piece just sits, static and angry, and unloads. It's impenetrable. And the whole album follows this deranged model, from the more brittle rasping of "Saragossa", in which a choked guitar solo is subsumed by a wall of high-pitched distortion, to the feedback overload and doom-laden chords of "Dwarf Thunderbolt", via the chattering electronic screes of "Dying Venice". Tribulation is an ear-shattering onslaught that stretches over an hour before ending as abruptly as it started, and one of the most uncompromising albums in the Skullflower catalogue, and indeed of any band, ever.
But even as the different tracks melt into one another without pause, the shifts I mentioned above, as the guitars recede ever-so-slightly to let in clatters of digital noise, for example, mean that to call Tribulation a noise album would pretty much be as redundant as calling it a metal one. Tribulation can actually be seen as a release from such categorisation, as Bower uses his guitar noise to channel dark, mysterious and occult themes in a purely abstract manner. Releasing the shackles in this way takes Bower's sound and vision beyond the conventions of metal, doom and drone that he had already radicalised from the first notes of Form Destroyer, de-contextualising these genres by unhinging them into pure harsh noise. In Matthew Bower's pursuit of the fine balance between bliss and assault, of the terrifying sublime, something hindsight shows he's probably been working on since the eighties but has been crystallising since Orange Canyon Mind, he quite probably never came as close as he does on Tribulation.
Pure Imperial Reform (Turgid Animal, 2008) & The Paris Working (23/4/2009) (self-released, 2009)
In the wake of Tribulation, Bower would kick into overdrive, with a slew of limited edition and/or live releases, such as Abyssic Lowland Hiss and Thou Shalt Not Suffer A Witch To Die, often self-released. Most of these are hard to track down, and, whisper it, probably not essential to the appreciation of the Skullflower story.
However, I have managed to get my hands two of these off-the-cuff releases, both live ones, and, for a purist such as myself, they have a "holy grail"-esque feeling, mostly because I have not yet had the chance to see Skullflower live and worship at the altar of Matt Bower and his guitar (I was fortunate to see him as part of his duo Voltigeurs, which was pretty sublime in itself, and certainly an extension of the Skullflower sound of recent years).
Of the two, I ever-so-slightly prefer the more recent Paris Working (23/4/2009) CD-R, which features a full band line-up, including Dennison, plus fellow guitarist Lee Stokoe (of Culver) and Voltigeurs' Samantha Davis, who appears to play strings and guitar. It was released in the wake of the superb Malediction album (more on it below), which also featured the aforementioned line-up, and of which this is very much a companion piece. As a live experience, I find it captivating. The opening seconds feature the muffled sounds of the band gearing up, but within moments they have gone from this near-silence to a perfect wall of sound, in which muted violin drones line up alongside buzzing, shapeless guitar noise, all underpinned by Dennison's shifting, shaking, scattered back-beat. I am always in awe of the latter's ability to display the deftness of touch of a seasoned jazz man whilst keeping things heavy and manic at the same time. As such, The Paris Working feels very much like a pure improv session, as if Skullflower are channeling the spirits of Derek Bailey and Throbbing Gristle into their darkly metallic drone edifice. It's another hardy reminder of the band's ability to meld volume with elegance and mystery. Oh, to have been in the audience that night!
Pure Imperial Reform in contrast, feels slightly less coherent, though it is certainly no less virulent and soaring. In the grand tradition of Harmonia's Live 1974 album or the likes of Les Rallizes Denudes and Keiji Haino, the audience supposedly present for this show is inaudible, either drowned out by the pure wall of sound, or too enraptured to speak. In the tradition of most recent Skullflower albums, there is no starting point on the album, even in the live setting, the disc just fading into a deluge of guitar feedback, from the twin assault of Bower and Lee Stokoe, his most frequent post-2003 collaborator. Three tracks here, rather unhelpfully merged into one on the CD, which makes differentiation and appreciation of each track's intricacies a bit tricky. Essentially, Pure Imperial Reform follows on from Tribulation, with noisy guitar squalls completely unhinged from any rhythmic or traditionally melodic frame that could allow listeners to contextualise and absorb what they're hearing. Instead, like the best harsh noise, this is music that you are forced to endure, and then lose yourself in, as Bower and Stokoe fumble their way through unending solos and feedback. The Wire writers have made a lot of Bower's apparently bloody-minded desire to conjure up some sort of darkly ritualistic, tantric and cosmic transcendence in his music, the aforementioned "terrifying sublime", which goes beyond the noise and black metal Skullflower originated out of, as if tying My Bloody Valentine to SUNN O))). I still feel he achieved this best on Tribulation, but Pure Imperial Reform and The Paris Working are great examples of it happening before the eyes of an adulating audience (turned followers?). Lucky bastards.
Taste The Blood of the Deceiver (Not Not Fun, 2008)
Taste the Blood of the Deceiver (what a title!) followed hot on the heels of the Tribulation-esque Desire for a Holy War (Utech Records, 2008), which didn't do much for me, seeming to be just a set of outtakes from its predecessor, but which I probably need to track down a CD copy of at some point (the artwork is stunning!). This time, Bower and Stokoe rock up on weird American label Not Not Fun, home of Pocahaunted and, more aptly, perhaps, Robedoor. Recently, the label has become the home of America's foremost hypnagogic pop and neo-New Age artists, but Taste the Blood of the Deceiver sees Skullflower continue to probe at the sublimation of brutal noise that has so preoccupied Matthew Bower of late. The Wire's David Keenan has noted that recent Skullflower works, worshipping at the altar of that most heathen of instrumental gods, the electric guitar, are increasingly tainted by black metal of the sort popularised in Norway in the early nineties, those stark, aggressive, saturated paeans to diseased minds and arcane rituals. As such, even if a lot of Skullflower's music is anchored in a noise tradition, it tends towards a sweeping, dramatic post-goth theatricality.
Such ambition was evident on Tribulation, but the Wagnerian majesty was dissolved into a brittle noise texture that only really found an echo in black metal via the portentous song titles. Taste the Blood of the Deceiver really feels like metal music untethered, like a fire-damaged boat drifting aimlessly through deep, hostile waters. Bower and Stokoe remove the human sense of self that, for all its dark musings and satanic worship, is at the heart of black metal. Taste the Blood of the Deceiver is portentous and dramatic, yes, but Skullflower's take on the guitar sound, equally lo-fi and enveloping, with the simultaneous never-ending emphasis on certain notes and edification of impenetrable sound walls, and the disconnected, abstract and sparing use of vocals elevate the sound on this album to something Keenan has even compared to "magick". Whilst I do not know enough about such occultist things to properly analyze such a take, I remain in awe at the transcendent power of this music. Along with Tribulation, Taste the Blood of the Deceiver is my favourite post-reformation Skullflower album.
Shortly after this, Bower released a monstrous 3-CD set called Circulus Vitiosus Deus on Turgid Animal. A limited edition, it has since sold out and is near-impossible to find, an especial downer for me as I would relish the chance to check out the supposedly beautiful artwork and packaging. Sad face…
Malediction (Second Layer Records, 2009)
Malediction is something of a curve ball, really, featuring, as I mentioned, a full band line-up, which really is not something seen on a Skullflower album since the mid-nineties (previous noughties albums tended to be composed of Matthew Bower + one or more collaborators, and Tribulation was a solo affair). However, anyone expecting Malediction to be a step backwards would be mistaken – for starters, like just about every other Skullflower album since Orange Canyon Mind, this one also starts in the midst of the maelstrom. Bower's tendency to refuse to allow build-up or gradual immersion into his world (even on live albums, as Pure Imperial Reform showed) is remarkable, and a key part of his current musical exploration of late. In many ways, it reflects the misanthropy of noise music, a genre he has neither properly extirpated himself from, yet equally never sat comfortably in. Thus, where Whitehouse or Prurient might articulate said misanthropy coherently and aggressively, Bower's reduction of the human interaction in his music (he often -though not here- refuses to credit himself or others on Skullflower recordings) seems more distant, metaphysical. In a pursuit of something more elegiac, Bower has diffused the humane behind a wall of saturation and feedback, but rather than a rejection of the humane in music, it seems to be an attempt at transporting the psyche of his listeners to somewhere more esoteric, and celestial. Whether he achieves this is ultimately down to you.
It is no different on Malediction, though the heavily-prominent presence of Stuart Dennison's ramshackle drums, Samantha Davies' distorted strings and Lee Stokoe's added layers of guitar; plus a grimly apocalyptic quote from John Webster in the packaging, give this album a warmth Bower had until now seemed determined to annihilate. I do not share The Wire reviewer Nick Richardson's belief that the dramatic track titles and doom-laden ambiance of this album are, and I quote, "silly". I do not know enough about the occult, magick or satanism to properly comment on Bower's approach to them, but my feeling is that this is serious "head" music, the kind of attempt to conjure dark and primordial forces that has long dominated the metal and drone scenes, particularly in the US, but which stems from traditions going back centuries. Skullflower, being British, seem more detached, as they disconnect their sound from clear references, preferring to let themselves -and us- be absorbed by the music. Not silly, try transcendent. A great album, a bit of a UFO, between the free metal of Obsidian Shaking Codex and more recent explorations in black metal doom.
Strange Keys to Untune Gods' Firmament (Neurot, 2010)
The Skullflower formula of recent years has now, you'll have gathered, been well established, as dis-articulated guitar noise is built up into walls of unstoppable, indifferent sound, which are then launched, untethered and unreferenced, on the band's audiences. Increasingly, this has seen Bower blur the lines between Skullflower and his other acts, be they Hototogisu or, more recently, Voltigeurs, his guitar noise duo with Samantha Davies. In fact, Voltigeurs (whom I had the pleasure, nay, delight of seeing live) are very similar in sound to the Skullflower of Strange Keys to Untune Gods' Firmament, but with perhaps a more "wall noise" structure. But I digress…
The concern I have is that Strange Keys to Untune Gods' Firmament feels somewhat like a closing statement, first of all through its incredible length (nearly two hours spread over two CDs), and also because it seems to be an attempt to crystallize the dark ritual nature of recent Skullflower albums to an almost absolutist degree, as tracks meld into one another and any distinction between instruments is rendered impossible. It still retains the grandeur of the black metal that supposedly inspires Bower these days, but he pushes the formlessness, the impenetrability, to the nth degree, making Strange Keys to Untune Gods' Firmament his most difficult album yet. The somber, literary track titles ("Enochian Tapestries", "City of Dis", "Blackened Angel Wings Scythe The Billowing Void") hint at occult arcana, but I am happy to just let the noise absorb and wash over me. I hope that this will not be the last Skullflower album (and have no reason to believe it will be), and, until Matthew Bower next decides to unload a dark, tantrically satanic sonic ritual on my adoring ears, I'll be waiting, clutching my Skullflower CDs, assaulting my senses with the doom-laden metal of Xaman, the hysterical free-jazz-cum-hard-heavy of Carved Into Roses and the sheets of transcendent noise of Tribulation, a senseless grin on my face. ALL HAIL THE GUITAR, THE AMP, AND MATTHEW BOWER!!!
I'm aware that this long, rambling, repetitive and probably incoherent piece maybe does not do justice to the majesty, elegance and fiery fury of Skullflower. I'm aware that there may be historical inaccuracies and gaping holes that all my web scouring could not enable to rectify. I can only hope that, one day, I might be able to meet the people involved in this magnificent journey, and interview them to get the insider's view on the Skullflower story. Until then -and many might argue that the mystery is part of this singular band's appeal- I can only give my honest appraisal of what I know. Which is that Skullflower, for all their familiar references in industrial, power electronics, doom, shoegaze, noise and black metal, are a unique proposition, the sincere, disturbed and metaphysical expression of one man's gloriously primeval vision. And if words like "tantric" or "transcendent" mean fuck-all to you, then whip out a copy of IIIrd Gatekeeper or Malediction, turn the dial up to maximum, and allow the sonic genius of Skullflower to sweep you away on a river of noise. I promise you won't regret it.
josephpb97
This entry was posted in 2011, Music Features, Unpublished and tagged drone, experimental, music, music journalism, noise, rock, Skullflower. Bookmark the permalink.
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text:
Mad Science Is Decadent and Depraved: July 5-10, 2004
December 11, 2010 ~ 51 Comments
New storyline! I wanted to do a Zeta storyline called "Mad Science Is Decadent and Depraved," after the classic Hunter S. Thompson article "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved," from early on, but I didn't have any idea what would happen in such a story. Here's what I ended up doing. It's basically a story that ties up or advances several dangling plot threads, including [SPOILERS!] the Madblood robots and their machine union, Dana the insane genius gerbil and her race of intelligent hamsters, Dave's personal history, and how punk journalist Zeta Vincent ties into all of this. In retrospect, it turned out pretty well considering how much of it I made up as I went along.
From this point on, all the storylines in Narbonic tie closely into the larger story arc. I guess the Moon storyline was the last one that had almost nothing to do with the main arc, but, starting with "Decadent and Depraved," everything's pretty heavy on plot.
As far as this particular strip goes, the best part is obviously the robots' protest signs. Also, you'll note that I'd gotten tired of drawing Dave in the tweed suit.
That anchorwoman has been around since the beginning of the strip. I guess she's a local news fixture wherever the Narbonic characters live.
The whole machine union is basically Artie's doing, since he's the one who introduced them to collective action on Madblood's moonbase, so he'd better darn well show an interest in this thing.
When you're telling a story that involves fantastic things happening in the real world, or at least something that resembles the real world, sooner or later you have to address the question of how the fantastic elements are perceived. I usually lead toward some flavor of this approach: the people who care, care, and everyone else ignores the weird stuff and gets on with their lives. In my experience, this is pretty much the way it works in reality anyway.
In Narbonic, this takes the specific form of what The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy calls the Somebody Else's Problem Field and TV Tropes calls the Weirdness Censor: a persistent tendency on the part of a large portion of the population to ignore things that would disrupt their assumptions about the world. This allowed me to skirt the issue of why mad scientists and their creations haven't wreaked more havoc on society. The people who care, care.
This develops into an important plot point in this and other storylines in the final years of Narbonic, so this strip ends up being pretty major, plot-wise.
Narbonic had been running for four years at this point, so, yeah, time for Mell to graduate. Among the tiny background witnesses to the event are me, my husband Andrew, and my friends Derek Kirk Kim and Jesse Hamm. Also probably some other people I can't make out.
I still find Dave's dialogue in the first two panels pretty funny. I also enjoy the increasingly insulting subtitles under his name in these strips. "Traitor to Humanity" in yesterday's strip was the first one I came up with, and I built the rest around it.
Mell's mild-mannered hippie dad appears in Li'l Mell but is tragically just off-camera here. I initially had Mell join the Army, but then I decided it would be better if it were the Air Force and went back and changed it. I had a cousin in the Air Force.
Oh, look, it's Zeta with a new haircut! I was tired of drawing the old one. I kind of like that Dave's life now includes giving public interviews about how weird and messed-up his life is, because that's what my life is like now, too.
Mad Science Is Decadent and Depraved: Next
51 thoughts on "Mad Science Is Decadent and Depraved: July 5-10, 2004"
Andrew Cole (andy4hire)
@shaenongarrity: I like how you say you've "gotten tired of drawing Dave in the tweed suit" right at the beginning of another story involving "15,000 identical small, goateed men in white coats." (And, yes, I do realize that I just qualified for today's "Thbpft Bleah" Award with that comment.)
Ah, but white coats. No tweed details to draw.
David W (dww)
You know they're evil because they use GOTO statements…
Mental Mouse
In BASIC that's inevitable. Which is, unjustly, one of the reasons many programmers despise BASIC. There are things BASIC is fairly good for, mostly because it's lightweight and easy to tweak, or to translate into something else. The real problem with the language is no standard, so zero portability.
Never underestimate the power of making up teh stpory as you go along. "The wisdom of our ancestors is in the "[practice]" and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it."
Johnn Reynolds (sleepyjohn)
Proletariat blender refuses to make your fascist margaritas.
Mad Andy (andrew_c)
Apropos of nothing, do universities in the Narboniverse have problems with tenured professors refusing to give up their positions just because they are dead?
Only evil universities, and they don't see it as a problem.
Carl Fishman (carlfishman)
This has always been one of my favorite strips. For me, it's not so much the robots' protest signs, as it is the question which the unbiased journalist asks our hero in the final panel.
That panel of a Madblood robot earnestly yelling at a blender is one of my favourites in the comic. He looks so passionate about communicating with that appliance.
Sam Daniel (samhdaniel)
I always thought he was pounding on the blender, not talking to it….
Rob (rrreed)
But… but… will it blend?
@tiff_hudson: Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly unionized about a blender-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard an android-nail as the unionizedest piece of ironmongery in the trade….
I always felt that the title of this Arc would work well dropped into some sort of Techno-ish bit of music as a "sample". You know, the beat's going on for a while, then there's a bit of a breakdown, and then this deep voice just drops in saying "Mad Science Is Decadent and Depraved."
Dave got a new suit, so he could be interviewed on behalf of the Machine Union.
So … he's on TV wearing his union suit?
John Greer (sheik)
@Ed Not that anyone should notice.
At least he didn't get it for his birthday.
My favourite part is the anchor recognising the subjective unreality of her own program. (And my second-favourite part is TRAITOR TO HUMANITY.)
In the defense of the public, all of the robots resemble white men in coats and ties, so they can't really be blamed for dismissing them as the instruments of the ever more incomprehensible governments and corporations that surround us all.
Also I think a 13-line speech bubble constitutes some kind of record.
(TUNE: "True Colors", Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly)
Oh, I'll find out later
Just where my show went;
Now I'm watching a traitor
And a sapient rodent!
But my poor frontal cortex
Doesn't know what's going on!
I perceive Cindy Vortex
Razzing Jimmy Neu-tron!
And I see a false image
In my brain …
I see a false image,
Gives me a migraine!
I just can't explain
What I see, and so
A false image, false image
Is comforting … like a game show!
Diane Castle (deecee)
I prefer to call it "Sunnydale Syndrome."
"The living usually won't see the dead."
"'Can't' or 'won't'?"
"It just says 'won't.'"
Dave probably shouldn't start overriding his spokesperson role to talk about the future. That would only harm his credibility.
Égad.
The last time I used this tune, it was also about Mell … what can I say, her name scans perfectly with the chorus. Also, the last line is both a minor spoiler and a major understatement.
(TUNE: "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys", Willie Nelson)
This you can bet, now,
The world's greatest threat now
Is looming, and I'll tell you where:
Majored in Pre-Law,
Fights like a buzz saw,
The girl with the curl in her hair …
Perfect test score, oh!
Her GPA, four-oh!
And she's at the top of her class!
It's all so exciting,
In court she'll be fighting
And kicking some serious ass!
Oh, Melody W. Kelly,
Such respect you command!
Today's such a proud day!
You're summa cum laude,
And you'll soon have the world in your hand!
Is that maybe Rob next to Andrew in the front row?
@Ed, the scan in your filk made me think of a different song. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
Picture yourself in the stands at a college,
With graduatees and punch over there,
Somebody steps up, you look at her slowly,
The girl with the curl in her hair.
Without a weapon horrendous and large,
Towering over her head,
Look for the girl with the world in her hand,
Or you're dead.
Kelly with her new diploma,
Ah… Ah….
Listen to the gerbil and the traitor to humanity Benedict Arnold robot union representative! They know of what they speak!
@Diane: That works too … very nice!
James Wolf (wolfmanjames)
Nitpick time, a law degree is, these days a JD. Even when a Bachelor's of law was awarded (not that it has since Nixon was president) it was called an LLB.
@deecee: I imagine this is kind of anticlimactic after that compliment from the Master Filker himself, but for what it's worth, that was excellent. Well done.
Well, of course she joined the Air Force. They've got the most destructive toys.
Dunno, Daniel. I think a missile sub can outdestroy a nuclear bomber.
Hey, Li'l Mell is updating again! Exxxxcellent.
(TUNE: "Fool On The Hill", The Beatles)
It's gonna rule!
Cool G.I. Bill!
It totally pays for law school,
Once I learn how to kill!
And once I'm a trained assassin,
Feared from Sydney to Istanbul,
Then I can get ev'ry class in
From that cool G.I. Bill!
And I chuckle with mirth
As I gather the tools
To help conquer the Earth!
Steve: Well, the Air Force probably has the most destructive single-operator toys. Boomers have entire crews, and even tanks generally have several people in them. But a fighter jet doesn't have any pesky co-workers inside it who might try to wrestle your hand off the trigger.
Master Sergeant Mel Kelly, Black Ops. Kinda raises the hair on your neck, doesn't it.
And spammer, you may have North Face hoodies, but Broken Plot Device has nuclear hoodies. Go hang your head in shame.
Rob (acoustic_rob)
As a military lawyer, though, Mel's gonna get assigned to a LMD[1] regardless of which service she enrolls in. That's where you can do some *real* damage, after all….
[1] Large Mahogany Desk
@see and @dvandom: The other thing about destroying targets from the air is that there's a better chance you'll get to actually watch them blow up. You know, like a reward for your efforts. You launch a missile from a sub, you're probably still under water when it hits.
Andy Wetmore (efogoto)
@andy4hire: That's what camera drones are for.
^_^ Personally, I think it's interesting how Zeta changes drastically from a side-view giving her a plain-looking secretary aspect, and then in the last panel, BAM, we see the gonzo journalist. Perspective, she haz it.
Now I see Mel as a natural for the Air Force. Right after Jack O'Neill introduces her to Sam Carter and Rodney Mackay.
Sam: Well, I blew up a sun.
Rodney: I blew up most of a solar system.
Mel: You had me at 'blew up'.
It's been too long since we've seen Ms. Vincent. Finally, after toiling amidst the outcasts and dregs of the Narbonic cast, she's been promoted to a central story arc. Now her greater purpose will begin to manifest.
Etazeta!
(TUNE: "Walking After Midnight", Patsy Cline)
And so I'm talking
To a gerbil,
Who I'm sure will
Ex-plain a thing or two!
I've got some questions
'Bout Mad Science,
And defiance
Of the laws of Man and God!
Isn't that odd?
Now by my editor I've been sent;
My name's Zeta Vincent,
Cute gonzo jour-nal-ist!
I'll even buy a teeny-weeny
Gerbil-sized martini,
Golly, how can you resist?
So now I'm talking
Pardon, sir, will
You grant an interview?
Yeah, now I'm talking,
Mister Gerbil,
Talking to you!
Derek Burrow (derekthebard)
@Diana: I'm not one for fanfic, but a Narbonic-SG 1-Atlantis crossover would be made of hilarity.
Mel just joined the Air Force, though, to find a way to infiltrate NORAD.
If I recall correctly, this comic or the next is where I discovered "Narbonic" and — like a hit of crack — it turned me into an addict for the works of Shaenon Garrity. Thanks Shaenon!
Pygar
The comments say Air Force; the comic says Army…
@Pygar: Something weird happened last July. I wasn't involved or even reading the comic at the time, so I don't have firsthand knowledge of it, but I think the site was sort of taken down and rebuilt? At any rate, that's why all the comments older than July 8, 2015 say they were made on July 8 2015, because they were reposted then. But when that happened, not all the strips were posted 100% correctly. Several that had been rewritten were posted in their original form, rather than the final versions, and a few are missing (mostly Sunday strips, luckily). So what probably happened here was Version 1 of the strip says Army, and Version 2 says Air Force. Shaenon posted Version 1, then replaced it with Version 2 shortly thereafter. When she wrote the commentary, 6 years later, Version 2 was up, so that's what the commentary refers to. When the site was rebuilt, Version 1 went back up, and the commentary no longer looks accurate. You can see the same thing happening in a few other strips if you look for it.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


The writer is a political and development economist with INSPIRE Pakistan, an initiative that aims to promote progressive ideas.
DEMOCRACY cannot work properly without political parties. Strong democracies all have parties since they help train politicians together for national governance. If cricketers trained separately without meeting before games, they will fail. So do politicians without parties. Strong party democracy helps politicians deliver strong state democracy. If the first is weak, so is the second, as Pildat's recent surveys on party and national democracy show, where both were scored around 45pc by separate expert panels.
Leadership determines party democracy quality. Many Pakistani parties are family-run, eg, PPP and PML-N, even if some posts are nominally assigned to others. Even where leadership is non-familial, eg, in PTI, MQM and JI, top leaders mostly belong to one ethnicity. Hardly any party, regional or national, has genuine all-Pakistan leadership or appeal.
In 2013, most got 90pc-plus of their National Assembly seats from one ethnicity. Only PTI got 60pc of its seats from KP and 30pc from Punjab. But its leadership displays severe ethnic monotony too. Till recently, its top leaders were mostly from Punjab: Imran (chair), Makhdooms Hashmi and Qureshi (president and vice chair), Asad Umar (vice president) and Tareen (secretary).
Asad was the lone source of minor diversity in this star-studded line-up, being a Karachi Punjabi. Thus, even a party strongly desiring national appeal and new politics lacks broad leadership. It even neglects KP here, its main stronghold.
Leadership determines a party's quality of democracy.
The nature of Pakistani ethnic politics helps explain PTI's uneven success. Pakistani northern (Punjabi, Pakhtun and Hazarwal) elites dominate its permanent power structures (military and bureaucracy). Thus, their fortunes are untied to ethnic parties and they often vote for parties led by outsiders, eg, PPP in Punjab and PML-N and PTI in KP. Their non-parochialism is not due to moral superiority but overall political dominance.
As dominant groups, they prioritise efficient service delivery, not redressal of national inequities. Southern groups (Sindhi, Mohajir and Baloch) nurse serious grievances about their pecking orders in the federation and mostly support locally led equity-focused parties despite their weaknesses. Their fortunes are largely tied to such parties given their weak toe-hold in permanent power structures.
The highly charismatic Bhutto and Altaf successfully imposed order on their long squabbling fellow ethnic elites and emerged as sole spokesmen (to use Ayesha Jalal's term for Jinnah) for Sindhis and Mohajirs. Unlike Altaf, Bhutto smartly simultaneously captured both Sindhi aggrieved consciousness and national support, allowing PPP to win four times federally and deliver much patronage in Sindh. Altaf unsuccessfully tried this two-pronged approach belatedly. Baloch politics is still fragmented, waiting for a strong pan-Baloch leader.
All this influences PTI's prowess. Despite being Punjab-led, it lags behind well-entrenched PML-N there. Perhaps it retains such leadership to help win all-crucial Punjab. It must realise that if Punjabis, being a non-aggrieved ethnicity, can vote for Sindh-led PPP, they can vote for an all-Pakistan party leadership too.
Despite its lopsided leadership, it succeeded among KP ethnicities since they too are non-aggrieved and the weak role of tribalism and "feudalism" there allows PTI newbies to defeat older politicians. But perpetuating such leadership may soon rightly invoke the fabled Pakhtun ire given that they as its biggest voters deserve more.
But when the PTI bandwagon reaches south, the land of aggrieved ethnicities, its Punjab leadership fails to inspire people. Given severe ethnic gripes, even an all-Pakistan party may fail there. Even breakaway ethnic parties there fail to dislodge reigning ethnic champions. Thus, Mustafa Kamal's fate, despite his strong mayoral services, remains unclear.
To displace Altaf as the Mohajir sole spokesman, he may have to do more than promising good city services and outperform Altaf in articulating Mohajir grievances (some real, some not) for years. Altaf's slogan of 'Jeay Mohajir' fused him within the Mohajir psyche as a 'messiah' and allayed their unconscious fears about Mohajir identity, unity and security which they developed over the decades while slowly losing national dominance. Altaf's psychic hold nixes the allure of Kamal's flyovers and endless drip feeds about the party's undoubted ills.
Pakistanis have odd love-hate relationships with these parties. They curse them for their poor work no end, but faithfully re-elect them. Many believe that these parties have descended from Mars to capture Pakistani politics and three years of ruthless accountability and electoral reform under technocratic rule will produce sparklingly clean and honest parties. But parties emerge from and reflect local society. Pakistani parties merely encapsulate perverse local politico-economic patterns which exist in society even in party absence. Thus, parties will only change gradually with society.
world over politicians are the most hated breed even in first world countries . any guesses why?
Great Article! No party in Pakistan can be said a true representative of "federation". All the parties are focusing on the regional politics and the top leadership belongs to a certain class. A federal party should have representation from all over the Pakistan and should represent all walks of life e.g, Farmers,Traders, Engineers and Doctors. Unfortunately, No party in Pakistan even think this way. There focus is always on how to win the next election and how to keep winning by maneuvering around.
Please don't ignore genetic make-up, family traditions and at-home training before lambasting nepotism and ethnicity in politics, just as in show business, sports and many other fields. How can a party leader trust anybody outside family when examples like Chaudhrys of Gujrat and Sheikh Rashid of Rawalpindi are common in political history. Not only outsiders, but the Mahabharata and movie Rajneeti are spread all over political playground.
Informative and thought provoking. I always learn something new when I read Dr. Niaz.
Personality cult and tendency to lean upon hereditary viz feudalistic malpractices are seen to be depriving this great Islamic nation from the fruits of democracy. On top comes corruption, lack of education and a very big gap of income inequality. Almost all the Muslim countries, especially w/r to those in the Middle East, are today caught up in similar cobweb due to these weaknesses. On top are the religious 'zealots' who work so tirelessly to divide the country. Unless a leader like Turkey's Mustafa Kamal Pashah emerges and boldly destroys those evil forces, it would be in vain to talk about good governance, or common good of the masses. In this connection the educated young generation, the intellectuals and the media at large can play a significant role, provided the TV talk shows give up the present day chorus glorifying the few thugs who are bent upon tarnishing the image of this 'valley so green'.Pl. visit a dozen of such TV shows and you will find me right.


Cut the apples round thin slices. Remove the seeds and middle part.
Mix besan with salt, turmeric and ajwain, add sufficient water to make medium thick batter.
Heat oil, dip the apple slices in batter and drop in hot oil.


since (as I admitted), I've never encountered your use case.
>> I'm sorry that the ElementTraversal Spec doesn't meet your needs.
>> the case, or are do your own utility functions do the job correctly?
> not being interoperable or accomplishing what the authors set out to do.
I honestly fail to see how.
> with anything and interpret it one way or the other.
that skips over non-element nodes would contribute to this.
to illustrate my point; did that not represent what you're addressing?
If not, I'd appreciate a concrete example.
it will be good to get on the same page.
> admitted might be out of scope, and I was and am happy to stop discussing).
I do believe this to be out of scope.
> traversal of element content use the API.
Again, I think an example would clear this up for me.
you point to what gives any other impression?
> at least warn people of this problem.
the essential purpose of this spec.
of such an API might do.
* it must provide a small memory footprint.
first 2 of these goals (and possibly the 3rd).
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Cutting down all loose talk about making a quick sequel to Uri, director Aditya Dhar says he is done with URI and the genre for the time being. "A story needed to be told. It 's the story of the exemplary courage that was shown by our soldiers on the border in 2016. I've told what I had to. The last thing I need from myself is to repeat the same story just because it's successful," says Aditya.
Interestingly Uri has also performed exceptionally well outside India. In the posh AMC multiplex chain in the US, URI has outperformed all the other big blockbusters of Hollywood during the past one year.
Bollywood Reacts To #PulwamaAttacks: Team Uri, Vicky Kaushal and Aditya Dhar claim Pulwama 'personal loss'.


There's no season more beautiful to enjoy the great outdoors more than Spring! When Mid-March comes, it's like clockwork. Some children start sneezing, coughing and suffering from a runny nose. However, we have some fun activities and tips to help make their allergy symptoms a thing of the past! Instead of worrying about sneezing and coughing, it's time to encourage your child to fully embrace nature. From enjoying a round of miniature golf to celebrating the return of the sun with a picnic in the park, keep reading to discover what a spring free of allergy symptoms looks like.
Did you know? One in ten children suffer from respiratory allergies in the United States, and pollen is not the only culprit. Children can also be allergic to grass, dust mites, mold spores, and many other elements. Thus, it is crucial to have a spring success kit to prevent pesky allergy attacks!
Check for pollen counts in your area or county. This information is easily accessible either by a simple web search or a downloadable web app. Based on this information, plan your spring activities when pollen counts are low. Also, be aware that plants release the most pollen in the morning.
Antihistamines can prevent the release of histamines when taken before symptoms start. Additionally, they target the histamines released by the immune system and can relieve symptoms such as nasal congestion and sneezing.
When your children get home, have them wash up and change their clothes to reduce outdoor pollen exposure. It's inevitable that pollen will come into your home, but the allergy sufferer should change clothes and wash their hands and face when they come in the house. However, we encourage everyone in the household to do the same, because everyone could be a pollen-carrier. It is imperative that you try and keep your house a pollen-free zone. It is particularly important to keep your children's bedroom as pollen-free and clean as possible. Also, we recommend trying to keep your children out of their bedrooms during the day and have them properly bathe before bed. In addition, keep your windows closed! It's tempting to open the windows with North Carolina's pleasant weather, but don't — because that fresh spring air brings pollen in with it. Likewise, it is better to use an HVAC air conditioning unit for children with allergies.
While swimming indoors isn't quite as fun as swimming in an outdoor pool, most local outdoor pools aren't even open yet. So, enjoy the classic childhood activity of swimming in a pool without any risk of outdoor allergies year-round.
Spring pollen is a great excuse to travel to the beach! On average, pollen counts are much higher in places where trees, grasses, weeds, and other plants pollinate. It can be difficult to completely escape all signs of the N.C. foliage; however, you can get to a place where there's less pollen in the air! The beach is not only a ton of fun, but the sea breeze will do wonders for your family's allergies by blowing away that pesky pollen. Even if the ocean isn't quite warm enough to swim in during the springtime months, kids will always enjoy playing in the sand.
Spring is a gorgeous season to experience with your family in North Carolina, but it's important to prepare your children for the symptoms that come with the season. Here at Primary Beginnings, we approach every child as an individual and are proud to be a part of a child's educational foundation. To discover the Primary Beginnings difference, call 919.790.6888 (Spring Forest) or 919.785.0303 (North Hills) to schedule your center tour today.


text:
January 14, 2017–June 3, 2019, Dia Beacon
Walter De Maria, installation view, Dia:Beacon. © The Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: Bill Jacobson Studio, New York
Walter De Maria, Palladio, 1966. © The Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: Don Stahl
This selection of works by Walter De Maria—drawn primarily from Dia Art Foundation's collection—presents small-scale objects that were mostly produced between 1961 and 1966. These works introduce viewers to the distinctive forms, techniques, and idiosyncratic imagery developed by the artist in the early years his career, when his practice was evolving in parallel with that of his Minimalist and Fluxus peers. Though intimate in scale, these objects anticipate many of the developments on view in De Maria's more monumental installations, such as The New York Earth Room, The Lightning Field, and The Vertical Earth Kilometer, all of which were commissioned by Dia in 1977 and celebrate their fortieth anniversary this year.
Walter De Maria.pdf
Walter De Maria was born in Albany, California, in 1935. He died in Los Angeles in 2013.
4' x 8' Box, 1961
Palladio, 1966
Gothic Shaped Drawing (Red), 1965
Column with Ball on Top, 1965
Artists on Walter De Maria
Artists on Walter De Maria is the second installment in a series culled from Dia Art Foundation's Artists on Artists lectures, focused on the work of artist Walter De Maria. It features contributions from Richard Aldrich, Jeanne Dunning, Guillermo Faivovich and Nicolás Goldberg, and Terry Winters.
Faivovich & Goldberg on Walter De Maria
Brett Littman on Walter De Maria
Lars Nittve and Jessica Morgan on Walter De Maria
Jane McFadden on Walter De Maria
Jeanne Dunning on Walter De Maria and Robert Smithson
Richard Aldrich on Walter De Maria
Terry Winters on Walter De Maria's The Lightning Field
Mary Heilmann: Painting Pictures


Liu Jian Jan. 31, 2019, 11:30 p.m.
> bad for a while.
Looks like Przemyslaw reported and fixed the same problem.
> > break the loop.
> > bad for a while.
> Looks like Przemyslaw reported and fixed the same problem.
> > > break the loop.
> > > bad for a while.
> > Looks like Przemyslaw reported and fixed the same problem.
> BTW, the patch itself looks good to me. Ikegami, can you confirm it does the right thing?
when working on this change and decided to do it different way.
About the performance issue it seems that it is expected by this do_write_buffer() function.
If this patch will be applied I will do rebase my patches with this.
> > > > break the loop.
> > > > bad for a while.
> > > Looks like Przemyslaw reported and fixed the same problem.
> > BTW, the patch itself looks good to me. Ikegami, can you confirm it does the right thing?
> when working on this change and decided to do it different way.
only for GOOD state until we timeout' approach.
Could you please explain the case detail that the value is written incorrectly?
I think that the value is only written correctly except a bug.
> > > > > break the loop.
> > > > > bad for a while.
> > > > Looks like Przemyslaw reported and fixed the same problem.
> > > BTW, the patch itself looks good to me. Ikegami, can you confirm it does the right thing?
> > when working on this change and decided to do it different way.
> only for GOOD state until we timeout' approach.
state to "ready" but when I was reading the value was incorrect.
Hope this explanation is clear. Please let me know.
> Could you please explain the case detail that the value is written incorrectly?
> I think that the value is only written correctly except a bug.
> > > > > > never break the loop.
> > > > > > stay bad for a while.
> > > > > Looks like Przemyslaw reported and fixed the same problem.
> > > > BTW, the patch itself looks good to me. Ikegami, can you confirm it does the right thing?
> > > we will be stuck in the loop even though nothing is going to change.
> > > optimized for performance. I considered same when working on this change and decided to do it different way.
> > only for GOOD state until we timeout' approach.
> state to "ready" but when I was reading the value was incorrect.
find that trying to do advanced things with "toggle" bits is very hard.
Especially when you also need to scale it to interleaved flashes.
I also know the similar issues for the both buffer and word write.
Both issues were able to reproduce the write error behavior.
Note: The word write issue is able to reproduce now also.
Those were resolved by using chip_good() instead to check the state.
> but with large enough population you can see that.
If possible I would like to know the issue detail and its cause also.
> Hope this explanation is clear. Please let me know.
> > I think that the value is only written correctly except a bug.
> > > > > > > never break the loop.
> > > > > > > stay bad for a while.
> > > > > > Looks like Przemyslaw reported and fixed the same problem.
> it does the right thing?
> > > > we will be stuck in the loop even though nothing is going to change.
> change and decided to do it different way.
> > > only for GOOD state until we timeout' approach.
> Thank you so much for your explanation.
> > state to "ready" but when I was reading the value was incorrect.
> I also know the similar issues for the both buffer and word write.
> Both issues were able to reproduce the write error behavior.
>   Note: The word write issue is able to reproduce now also.
> Those were resolved by using chip_good() instead to check the state.
> > with large enough population you can see that.
> If possible I would like to know the issue detail and its cause also.
> > chip itself reports everything was good and switches to "ready" state.
> > itself reports everything was good and switches to "ready" state.
> > Hope this explanation is clear. Please let me know.
> > > I think that the value is only written correctly except a bug.
> > > > > > > > never break the loop.
> > > > > > > > stay bad for a while.
> > > > > > > Looks like Przemyslaw reported and fixed the same problem.
> > it does the right thing?
> > change and decided to do it different way.
> > > > with the 'check only for GOOD state until we timeout' approach.
> > > > this out.


Every year big companies make rebranding decisions, often these decisions are for the better (but there will always be mixed opinions). In this blog post we're going to talk about the 5 worst rebranding decisions of 2014.
The brand with the first logo change is Hershey's, in theory they've done a good job at an evolutionary rebrand by simplifying the logo. However having a product in a logo is never a good idea, for example if you decide to branch out sell different products, you either need to do another rebrand or you're logo is misrepresenting your company.
Logo's should be simple, easy to remember and reflect what you do, but you should never have products within your logo. Secondly by creating a two tone flat version of their product, they've created something which look like a steaming poo! Ooops!
Bacardi is an interesting one, they've clearly got nostalgia and wanted to recreate they're old logo. Rebranding to an original logo is a good move when you hit a milestone company birthday but it usually just a temporary thing to celebrate, we're not keen on going backwards in design. Stranger still they've updated the typography to a more modern font, why go older with the main logo and newer with the font? It's just not unified!
Also we're not keen on the tilted tilde on the top of the "i"!
Ok lets face it the original logo isn't great, but it does have amazing brand recognition, so you'd think they'd put a lot of thought into branding. You'd think they would either go with something revolutionary, or go for some evolutionary but modern to keep brand recognition. But instead they've gone for a cubeish mess which is probably trying to "get down with the kids" but failing.
Why UI gives a false sense of progress?


text:
Chef Mark Eastman, Owner and Operator of Chefs' Haven
Chef Mark Eastman is the owner and operator of Chefs' Haven, a gourmet store and learning center for novice and experienced chefs in Hockessin, DE. His experience includes 28 years in the food industry. Chef Mark attributes most of his talent to his mother and his quality education at New England Culinary Institute Montpelier, VT. Chef Mark , 56, has worked at various area restaurants such as the four-star Brasserie Perrier in Philadelphia, PA, the Dilworthtown Inn in West Chester, PA, and The Gables Restaurant in Chadds Ford PA. Earlier in Mark's career he served as Executive Chef at the Saratoga Performing Art Center (SPAC) in Saratoga Springs, NY, where he prepared meals for such celebrities as Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Manson, U2, Aerosmith, The Dave Matthews Band and countless others. While there he catered for galas such as Philadelphia Orchestra, New York City Ballet, New York City Opera as well as other socialites. Before moving to the area, he worked as a food stylist for Emeril Lagasse. He specializes in preparing fish, meat, sauces, and soups. Sharing his knowledge is his passion.
At Chefs' Haven, which opened in December 2008, Chef Mark has selected cutlery and cookware that meet his high standards and makes these chef-quality items available to the public. Chefs' Haven offers the highest quality chocolates, Imported and Domestic cheeses , and basic cooking ingredients such as demi glace. Chef Mark's main service at Chefs' Haven's is to teach passionate home cooks the proper way to prepare food, and provide the necessary tools and ingredients to accomplish a most impressive end result!


text:
'''
The minimum Person, Permission for access mixin - inlcude in
you model and mixin in access control

Created on 16 Jul 2014

@author: peterb
'''

from sqlalchemy.types import String, Integer
from sqlalchemy.schema import Table, Column, ForeignKey
from sqlalchemy.orm import relationship
from blueshed.model_helpers.base import Base

person_permissions_permission = Table('person_permissions_permission', Base.metadata,
    Column('permissions_id', Integer, ForeignKey('person.id')),
    Column('permission_id', Integer, ForeignKey('permission.id')),
    mysql_engine='InnoDB')

class Permission(Base):

    id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True)
    name = Column(String(255))

class Person(Base):

    id = Column(Integer, primary_key=True)
    email = Column(String(255))
    _password = Column(String(255))
    permissions = relationship('Permission',
        primaryjoin='Person.id==person_permissions_permission.c.permissions_id',
        secondaryjoin='Permission.id==person_permissions_permission.c.permission_id',
        secondary='person_permissions_permission',
        lazy='joined')

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Honey Irani Biography, Age, Height, Weight, Family, Caste, Wiki & More
Updated On : January 9, 2018
Honey Irani
Film Actress
Mumbai , Maharashtra
in meters- 1.6 m
Screenwriter Film Director
Honey Irani Age, Birthday Facts and Birthday Countdown
63 years, 10 months, 22 days old age Honey Irani will turn 64 on 25 August, 2019. Only 1 months, 7 days, 20 hours, 11 minutes has left for her next birthday.
Honey Irani Born On Thursday
Day of the Next Birthday Sunday
Honey Irani has celebrated the total number of 63 birthdays till date. See the analysis by days count and bar graph.
Honey Irani was born on 25-08-1955 in Mumbai, Maharashtra in India. She is a famous veteran Bollywood Actress and Screenwriter.
Honey Irani Wiki Link
Honey Irani Complete Bio & Career
Enormously talented Honey began her acting career in Bollywood as a child artist in the movies like "Bombay ka chor", "Chiraag Kahaan Roshni Kahaan" to name a few. She has acted in more than 72 Films.
Multitalented Honey made a second career for herself in the same industry as the writer of film scripts. She debuted as a Screenwriter in 1991 with Yash Chopra's movie ""Lamhe" and even won the prestigious Filmfare Award for the Best Story that year.
Irani's most successful works as a Sceenwriter were in movies like "Aaina" in 1993, 2000's super hit blockbuster movie "Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai", "Kya Kehna" in 2001, "Koi… Mil Gaya" in 2003. Honey has thrice won the Filmfare Award for best story and Screenplay in her career.
Zoroastrian Honey was married to Javed Akhtar, who is also one of the most celebrated Writers of India and Bollywood but later divorced him in 1985. They have two children together, daughter Zoya Akhtar and son Farhan Akhtar. Both of them are celebrated film makers in Indian Film Industry.
Honey Irani Family, Relatives and Other Relations
She was married to Indian Poet Javed Akhtar from 1972 to 1985. She has two sisters named actress Daisy Irani and Menaka Irani. Indian film director Zoya Akhtar is her daughter and Indian film actor and director, playback singer Farhan Akhtar is her son. Choreographer, filmmaker Farah Khan is her niece. Filmmaker Sajid Khan is her nephew.
Javed Akhtar Ex-husband (1972-1985)
Farhan Akhta.. Son
Zoya Akhtar Daughter
Daisy Irani Sister
Farah Khan Niece
Sajid Khan Nephew
Shirish Kund.. Niece's Husband
Chest Size 42
Biceps Size 15
Eye Colour Black
Honey Irani's Birthday Facts
Name;Honey
Born with Virgo
Born in Mumbai
Born in Maharashtra
Savitri Kommareddy Biography, Age, Death, Height, Weight, Family, Caste, Wiki & More
Aashika Bhatia Biography, Age, Height, Weight, Boyfriend, Family, Wiki & More
Zeba Bakhtiar Biography, Age, Height, Weight, Family, Wiki & More


If you are searching for action, sports, or anything within the sphere of the outdoors, no need to look any further. Jonas' channel is permeated by sports challenges, athletic combats and miscellaneous game quizzes which showcase his vigorous and charismatic character. Jonas has an indisputable interest in athletics and his ideas and content are thrilling and novel. Jonas commenced his YouTube career late 2017 and has gained an immense amount of popularity so his prospects are indeed auspicious.


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