Monday, February 21, 2011

What the Fuck?--Volume 1--Maruosa

I don't get to spend very much time outside of my apartment anymore.  Long gone are the days when I had bros that I could call up on a moment's notice to go out and hang with.  Though there are certainly worse fates than escaping the meth-addled Central Valley of California, the land of a million asthmatics, I sorely miss the days when I didn't have to come home and watch my lovely wife pretend that she's happy to see me.  It used to be that I would go out after work, and when I came home she actually was interested in seeing me, but not anymore. 

I guess we're becoming more and more like the old couple from that show Everybody Loves Raymond.  My wife's all like: "You're stupid and fat.  Stop that."  *Laugh track*  Me: "I long for the sweet, cold embrace of death to take me from this place." *Laugh track* Cue Ed O'Neil, let the audience applaud, and cut scene to the next zany thing that the main characters are up to, probably at a hardware store.
"I wish my wife would just shoot me in my sleep already!  Or at least bake a cake!"

However, I managed to break out of my normal routine of hiding from everybody to step out of the apartment last night and convene with the Artist Formerly Known as the WZA'd at his hip condo.  I like going to the Artist Formerly Known as the WZA'd's condo for many reasons, particularly these three: 1) I get to swear and make horrible jokes with complete impunity, 2) there are lots and lots of college girls running around to make me feel like a sleazy old man, and 3) because the Artist Formerly Known as the WZA'd always has some bizarre new music thing to show me.  And last night didn't disappoint, either; within minutes of my arrival, we had participated in the above three activities, as well as having a surprisingly drawn-out argument about whether or not Metroid, as a game franchise, is better than The Legend of Zelda (it's not!  FUCK YOU, WZA'D, IT'S NOT!).

The high point of the night came when he showed me the latest piece of swag he had managed to collect from his usual rummagings in the music world.  This came in the form of Maruosa, which is the subject of my new segment, What the Fuck?

Let me break this down for you: Maruosa is a break-beat grind band from Japan.  In the normal Japanese style, they took something that isn't even normal to begin with and made it stupendously weird.  Enter break-beat grind, a fantastical world where programmed drums lay the foundation for all manner of sped up guitar riffs, screaming vokills and what generally sounds like the bleeps and bloops that computers made on spaceships in science fiction movies from the 70's.  The music is very strange and, even by my ridiculously high standards, pretty unsettling.

However, you haven't experienced Maruosa until you've seen the videos they make to accompany this robotic clusterfuck music.  Holy shit.

This is where things get really weird with Maruosa; though the music sounds like something only the Japanese could possibly have come up with, the music videos look like scenes taken from the mind of a schizophrenic epileptic that the other schizophrenic epileptics in the ward refer to as "that one fucking weirdo."

Again.

Holy shit.

It's a lot of fun to watch.  I, for one, kind of pride myself on being a little bit of a conoisseur of bizarre entertainment (though I'm pretty out of the loop not having cable and having spent the greater portion of my time obsessing over this stupid blog of mine), so on that level this appeals to me.  However, I don't think it would qualify as entertainment for most people, like what the police officer told me about my performance art piece I put together for my apartment complex.  Now I know that you're not allowed to paint in the nude on your balcony while perched on top of a pile of rotting meat you stole from the dumpster at the grocery store, even if it is to show support for Libya.  Viva Libya!

In my normal fashion, I've done too much talking, especially when one of Maruosa's videos is available for easy consumption.  Be forewarned: you probably aren't ready to see this, and if you are epileptic, don't watch this video.  And if you aren't epileptic, this might make you epileptic.


Oh my God, right?  Like, what the fuck?

Check out Maruosa on the newfangled grind label Grindcore Karaoke, which WZA'd won't shut up about lately, and buy the record if you want to see the videos that I saw that make this one look perfectly  reasonable.  Or go here to stream and buy the new record, Exstream!!! Or something.

2 comments:

  1. Ed O'Neill = Al Bundy
    Peter Boyle = Ray Romano's dad

    *The More You Know*

    ReplyDelete
  2. In the above scenario, I was envisioning a crossover/cameo by Ed O'Neill, since I was playing the Peter Boyle character

    ReplyDelete