Okay here it goes:
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How to be an extremist - the ten steps of making an extreme band...
Authot: St. Alexander -snake- Bakalov
Taken from XAOC (Chaos Extreme Music Magazine Bulgaria) November, 2000
Translated from Bulgarian to English by jazie
Don't tell me, that even once, while nodding your head lazily in tact with your favourite music, you haven't had the visions of huge stadiums full of fans, tightly written cheques, limousines in kilometers of lenght and screaming crowds of female fans. And you didn't want to be on the place of one of teh members [I mean individual, let us keep the good tone (Translator's note: member also means "penis" in Bulgarian)] of the corresponding band, even if only for a short moment of Fame. Then what are you waiting for?! This job cannot be done only with lazily nodding your head. Meet the 10 steps, which will lead you directly on the stage under the spotlights.
1.
Unlike the common belief, if you wish to create a band, it won't be bad if you can play on some instrument, different from a bottle or a comb or at least if you can
SING/
SCREAM/
GROWL/
GRUNT [scratch out the odd one according to the chosen style] enough convincing. It won't be bad if you can find some followers, with which you could cover the minimal ammount of instruments needed, which in the common case are
GUITAR,
BASS,
DRUMS and
KEYBOARDS if you wish. It will be good if those people are somewhat good aquaintances of yours, which in any case doesn't mean, taht you don't need to listen to how they play before you hire them. I know that Ivan says that he can play just like Yungwie Malmsteen (T/N: sorry if it is wrong, but I'm too lazy to look up the spelling of the name), but if you remember, the last time when he got drunk he was telling you how he fucked Claudia Schiffer (T/N: sorry if this is wrong, too).
2.
Now comes the unpleasant moment of finding a place where you can rehearse. The fact that your neighbours managed to survive your last metal party and have resisted their undoubted desire to call the police and the Fire Department, doesn't mean that they will endure your four-hour long rehearsal sessions in your living room, especially, when Pesho from the first floor got his new gun. You can politely refuse your grandfather's offer to use his buildings in the country. Living together with livestock by the time of rehearsal sessions is a good idea only if you intend to make primal death metal and you want to use the services of the two pigs as backing vocals. Your aunt's basement is also out of the question as an option, because the poor woman is probably still mad at you for the incident last year, when you were drunk as a dick and mistook her pitbull with your girlfriend and tried to rape it.
LOOK FOR A GARAGE!
3.
Now it is time to think of a name for your band. Here I leave all of it to your imagination. Just have in mind, that most of the good-sounding names, like DEATH ANNIHILATOR and SLAYER have been already taken, and THE BAD GUYS FROM ST. PAUL STREET NUMBER 4, WHICH PLAY SUCH FUCKIN COOL AND BRUTAL HEAVY METAL is too long to be screamed on live shows. If you intend to make black, it won't be bad if you thing of a grim'n'necro pseudonim for yourself. It is undesirable to use your neighbourhood nickname or the short name, which your parents call you, because ?The new sensational black metal band BLOODY SATANIC MASSACRE with frontman MAMA'S LITTLE ANGEL or JOHN THE WASEL? sounds bad, no matter how you look at it. In this context I want to add that if your nickname is The Press, I am not that Alexander, who took those $1000 from you and didn't return them. He emmigrated to Chile.
4.
I don't think that you'll be much convincing, if you jump out on stage, dressed in animal's skins and metal in a quantity, which is enough for you to begin a very succesful trade with metals, and start explaining to your fans about the power of love, ASKING THEM TO CALP WITH THEIR HANDS IN TACT WITH THE SONG, WHILE YOU'RE SWINGING A BLOOD-COVERED AXE. This calls out the of the image, which you want to build upon yourself. It, again, entirely depends on the style you chose, but I want to remind you of that, that no matter what style you play, the word "extreme", itself, obliges you to stop appearing on public places, wearing your favourite pink gusset and that blouse with the yellow ducky on it. You can continue to wear make-up only if you have turned your attention to black metal - then you must emphasize on the white powder and the black pencil. And by the way, just from mere superstition, if you have accidentally started a death metal band, which name is about funerals or things like that, and if you still are going out with the girl, mentioned in step 2, then better do not show her to the boys from your band, because you might have some quarrel.
5.
THE MONEY. There is just no way to pass around this subject. In fact this can be first step, but in the name of this article we'll suppose the unbelievable - namely, that up to this moment you have managed to provide the finnances to your project from your own wallet. But now is the time for you to convince someone rich enough in the huge potential of your band and in the undoubted future successes, which are supposing the returning of the invested money and a huge profit. I want to tell you in advacne that in Bulgarian conditions not only huge potential, even if you have a magic stick of something, it will be great for the poor fellow if you can return his money. But you should continue to lie about the ennormous profits. Just be careful to choose someone who is weaker than you.
6.
I suppose, that until now you managed to start to get along with the boys and you can play at least one-two cover songs. You can choose to directly rush in the studio and therefore to step 7, but my personal advice is that you should play in front of a crowd for a while. Whis isn't so hard as it seems on first sight, and besides the undoubted pleasure of levaing the domain of unknownness, it can bring you tomatoes and other products of vegetable and animal origin, that it will reduce your food expences to almost none for a week at least. With a bit of luck the scrummage around, under, over, and on the stage can lead to that, which in step 7 you'll have to provoke by yourself. The best way for you to show in front of audience is to take part in some of the many metal-fests, which are quite common now, and to achieve that goal you need nothing more than a simple walk in the centre of your city, so you could enter the name of your band, using a simple marker, on the posters. Don't think that someone, especially the organizators, would mind this, in case that they notice at all. It will be nice if, on the mentioned fests, you appear on stage around 22-23h when THE AUDIENCE IS SO DRUNK, THAT IT CANNOT MAKE OUT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ?FUCKED WITH A KNIFE? BY CANNIBAL CORPSE AND ?BABY ONE MORE TIME? BY BRITNEY SPEARS. This way at least some people will like you.
7.
Do not be fooled by the fact that most of the local bands' recordings sound like they have been recorded with a tape recorder in a basement with bad acoustics - these people were in a studio, something, which undoubtedly will be neccessary to you and your band to do. There you will have to record your first demo-tape, which you'll send over to most of the big and small record companies (the local department of Nuclear Blast - Fake Turkish Firework Blast, is a wonderful choice for the beginnig). But don't expect someone to be interested in your music until you make step 8.
8.
Now you will have to make a record. You have to get the medias' attention, respectively, the pupblic's attention over your person and the led by it extreme band. This is extremely hard, in case, that only on one single page of an elite daily newspaper you could read for more damage than a hundred drunken metalheads can do for a year. On the other hand, have in mind, that overdoing on this step can be a serious obstacle in the way of continuing your great music career, especially if you end up in a prison. THE CASE WITH THE BURZUMER VARD VICKERNES IS MERELY A PRECEDENT, SO DON'T EXPECT IT TO REPEAT WITH YOU. The best idea here is to leave the extremism and start telling the public that you and your band's members lead an active fight against AIDS, world terrorism and the destroying of momuments. If you do it pretty convincing and for an long enough peroid of time, the president will sooner ot later award you with some medals or something and your problem is solved.
9.
If you have strictly followed the instructions up to now, it is sure that you have a record deal for four albums and a best-off, so now it is the time for you to go back to the studio and record around 10 tracks. I want to reassure you, that composing songs isn't so hard as you think. The only thing you have to do is get some albums of an unknown in your country Korean or Lithuanian extreme band and shamelessly steal their material. But be careful, because they could have shamelessly stolen the material of a more successful band. With writing lyrics you'll have problems only if the chosen by you style is melodic hard-rock. In any other case your vocalist will JUST HAVE TO SCREAM SOMETHING, IN WHICH WITH A ROUGH FEELING FOR RYTHM AND TACT ARE PUT IN WORDS, THAT SUGGEST DEATH AND MUTILLATION. It will be pretty good if you say that like true pagan warriors you'll sing in Norwegian. If this is your choice go and find a Norwegian-English phrase-book. The only thing you have to be careful about is not mentioning phrases like "Can I have a croissant with maramalade, please" in your songs' titles, because as far as I know how lucky you are, one of the few people which know Norwegian in your country (except Norway of course) will come across your album...
10.
Now is the moment to make some noise around your band, in order to promote your production. A national tour with a band more famous than yours is a great solution, in you don't feed those hopes about THE WILD CROWDS OF FEMALE FANS, TEARING THEIR BRAS, T-SHITS AND COATS WHEN YOU APPEAR. The fans are passive - and believe me - it is good. Have you ever seen a ordinary female death-metal fan from... [write a place of your choice]?
Well, this is it. In case that everything worked up fine and you haven't got hit by a tow-liter bottle while executing step 6 then you have to be bathing in the spotlight of FAME. Don't get used to the feeling, because as far as I know you, it won't happen again soon. I am talking about the bathing.
-----------------------------------------------------------
It took me an whole hour to translate this, so I'd love if you appreciate it! I've been studying English for only 5 years, now, so please don't laugh at me if there is something wrong.
---------------------------------------------------------
How to be an extremist - the ten steps of making an extreme band...
Authot: St. Alexander -snake- Bakalov
Taken from XAOC (Chaos Extreme Music Magazine Bulgaria) November, 2000
Translated from Bulgarian to English by jazie
Don't tell me, that even once, while nodding your head lazily in tact with your favourite music, you haven't had the visions of huge stadiums full of fans, tightly written cheques, limousines in kilometers of lenght and screaming crowds of female fans. And you didn't want to be on the place of one of teh members [I mean individual, let us keep the good tone (Translator's note: member also means "penis" in Bulgarian)] of the corresponding band, even if only for a short moment of Fame. Then what are you waiting for?! This job cannot be done only with lazily nodding your head. Meet the 10 steps, which will lead you directly on the stage under the spotlights.
1.
Unlike the common belief, if you wish to create a band, it won't be bad if you can play on some instrument, different from a bottle or a comb or at least if you can
SING/
SCREAM/
GROWL/
GRUNT [scratch out the odd one according to the chosen style] enough convincing. It won't be bad if you can find some followers, with which you could cover the minimal ammount of instruments needed, which in the common case are
GUITAR,
BASS,
DRUMS and
KEYBOARDS if you wish. It will be good if those people are somewhat good aquaintances of yours, which in any case doesn't mean, taht you don't need to listen to how they play before you hire them. I know that Ivan says that he can play just like Yungwie Malmsteen (T/N: sorry if it is wrong, but I'm too lazy to look up the spelling of the name), but if you remember, the last time when he got drunk he was telling you how he fucked Claudia Schiffer (T/N: sorry if this is wrong, too).
2.
Now comes the unpleasant moment of finding a place where you can rehearse. The fact that your neighbours managed to survive your last metal party and have resisted their undoubted desire to call the police and the Fire Department, doesn't mean that they will endure your four-hour long rehearsal sessions in your living room, especially, when Pesho from the first floor got his new gun. You can politely refuse your grandfather's offer to use his buildings in the country. Living together with livestock by the time of rehearsal sessions is a good idea only if you intend to make primal death metal and you want to use the services of the two pigs as backing vocals. Your aunt's basement is also out of the question as an option, because the poor woman is probably still mad at you for the incident last year, when you were drunk as a dick and mistook her pitbull with your girlfriend and tried to rape it.
LOOK FOR A GARAGE!
3.
Now it is time to think of a name for your band. Here I leave all of it to your imagination. Just have in mind, that most of the good-sounding names, like DEATH ANNIHILATOR and SLAYER have been already taken, and THE BAD GUYS FROM ST. PAUL STREET NUMBER 4, WHICH PLAY SUCH FUCKIN COOL AND BRUTAL HEAVY METAL is too long to be screamed on live shows. If you intend to make black, it won't be bad if you thing of a grim'n'necro pseudonim for yourself. It is undesirable to use your neighbourhood nickname or the short name, which your parents call you, because ?The new sensational black metal band BLOODY SATANIC MASSACRE with frontman MAMA'S LITTLE ANGEL or JOHN THE WASEL? sounds bad, no matter how you look at it. In this context I want to add that if your nickname is The Press, I am not that Alexander, who took those $1000 from you and didn't return them. He emmigrated to Chile.
4.
I don't think that you'll be much convincing, if you jump out on stage, dressed in animal's skins and metal in a quantity, which is enough for you to begin a very succesful trade with metals, and start explaining to your fans about the power of love, ASKING THEM TO CALP WITH THEIR HANDS IN TACT WITH THE SONG, WHILE YOU'RE SWINGING A BLOOD-COVERED AXE. This calls out the of the image, which you want to build upon yourself. It, again, entirely depends on the style you chose, but I want to remind you of that, that no matter what style you play, the word "extreme", itself, obliges you to stop appearing on public places, wearing your favourite pink gusset and that blouse with the yellow ducky on it. You can continue to wear make-up only if you have turned your attention to black metal - then you must emphasize on the white powder and the black pencil. And by the way, just from mere superstition, if you have accidentally started a death metal band, which name is about funerals or things like that, and if you still are going out with the girl, mentioned in step 2, then better do not show her to the boys from your band, because you might have some quarrel.
5.
THE MONEY. There is just no way to pass around this subject. In fact this can be first step, but in the name of this article we'll suppose the unbelievable - namely, that up to this moment you have managed to provide the finnances to your project from your own wallet. But now is the time for you to convince someone rich enough in the huge potential of your band and in the undoubted future successes, which are supposing the returning of the invested money and a huge profit. I want to tell you in advacne that in Bulgarian conditions not only huge potential, even if you have a magic stick of something, it will be great for the poor fellow if you can return his money. But you should continue to lie about the ennormous profits. Just be careful to choose someone who is weaker than you.
6.
I suppose, that until now you managed to start to get along with the boys and you can play at least one-two cover songs. You can choose to directly rush in the studio and therefore to step 7, but my personal advice is that you should play in front of a crowd for a while. Whis isn't so hard as it seems on first sight, and besides the undoubted pleasure of levaing the domain of unknownness, it can bring you tomatoes and other products of vegetable and animal origin, that it will reduce your food expences to almost none for a week at least. With a bit of luck the scrummage around, under, over, and on the stage can lead to that, which in step 7 you'll have to provoke by yourself. The best way for you to show in front of audience is to take part in some of the many metal-fests, which are quite common now, and to achieve that goal you need nothing more than a simple walk in the centre of your city, so you could enter the name of your band, using a simple marker, on the posters. Don't think that someone, especially the organizators, would mind this, in case that they notice at all. It will be nice if, on the mentioned fests, you appear on stage around 22-23h when THE AUDIENCE IS SO DRUNK, THAT IT CANNOT MAKE OUT THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ?FUCKED WITH A KNIFE? BY CANNIBAL CORPSE AND ?BABY ONE MORE TIME? BY BRITNEY SPEARS. This way at least some people will like you.
7.
Do not be fooled by the fact that most of the local bands' recordings sound like they have been recorded with a tape recorder in a basement with bad acoustics - these people were in a studio, something, which undoubtedly will be neccessary to you and your band to do. There you will have to record your first demo-tape, which you'll send over to most of the big and small record companies (the local department of Nuclear Blast - Fake Turkish Firework Blast, is a wonderful choice for the beginnig). But don't expect someone to be interested in your music until you make step 8.
8.
Now you will have to make a record. You have to get the medias' attention, respectively, the pupblic's attention over your person and the led by it extreme band. This is extremely hard, in case, that only on one single page of an elite daily newspaper you could read for more damage than a hundred drunken metalheads can do for a year. On the other hand, have in mind, that overdoing on this step can be a serious obstacle in the way of continuing your great music career, especially if you end up in a prison. THE CASE WITH THE BURZUMER VARD VICKERNES IS MERELY A PRECEDENT, SO DON'T EXPECT IT TO REPEAT WITH YOU. The best idea here is to leave the extremism and start telling the public that you and your band's members lead an active fight against AIDS, world terrorism and the destroying of momuments. If you do it pretty convincing and for an long enough peroid of time, the president will sooner ot later award you with some medals or something and your problem is solved.
9.
If you have strictly followed the instructions up to now, it is sure that you have a record deal for four albums and a best-off, so now it is the time for you to go back to the studio and record around 10 tracks. I want to reassure you, that composing songs isn't so hard as you think. The only thing you have to do is get some albums of an unknown in your country Korean or Lithuanian extreme band and shamelessly steal their material. But be careful, because they could have shamelessly stolen the material of a more successful band. With writing lyrics you'll have problems only if the chosen by you style is melodic hard-rock. In any other case your vocalist will JUST HAVE TO SCREAM SOMETHING, IN WHICH WITH A ROUGH FEELING FOR RYTHM AND TACT ARE PUT IN WORDS, THAT SUGGEST DEATH AND MUTILLATION. It will be pretty good if you say that like true pagan warriors you'll sing in Norwegian. If this is your choice go and find a Norwegian-English phrase-book. The only thing you have to be careful about is not mentioning phrases like "Can I have a croissant with maramalade, please" in your songs' titles, because as far as I know how lucky you are, one of the few people which know Norwegian in your country (except Norway of course) will come across your album...
10.
Now is the moment to make some noise around your band, in order to promote your production. A national tour with a band more famous than yours is a great solution, in you don't feed those hopes about THE WILD CROWDS OF FEMALE FANS, TEARING THEIR BRAS, T-SHITS AND COATS WHEN YOU APPEAR. The fans are passive - and believe me - it is good. Have you ever seen a ordinary female death-metal fan from... [write a place of your choice]?
Well, this is it. In case that everything worked up fine and you haven't got hit by a tow-liter bottle while executing step 6 then you have to be bathing in the spotlight of FAME. Don't get used to the feeling, because as far as I know you, it won't happen again soon. I am talking about the bathing.
-----------------------------------------------------------
It took me an whole hour to translate this, so I'd love if you appreciate it! I've been studying English for only 5 years, now, so please don't laugh at me if there is something wrong.
pretty good
