Hanson
Surely one of the oddest items I've come across in quite a while, isthis cassette-only album released in the midst of the digital DIY ageof the CD-R. The tape consists solely of a 60-minute interview and jamsession with a group of Satanist teenagers from upstate New York in theearly 1980s. I'd actually heard about this recording years ago, one ofthose "cult items" that was heavily traded among the 80s cassetteunderground types. The Ecstatic Peace label had this item on theirrelease schedule for years, but it never saw the light of officialrelease until Hanson Records, home of Wolf Eyes and a handful of otherneo-noise bands, recently issued it as a joint release. The premise issimple: a group of young, self-professed Satan-worshippers talk abouttheir lifestyle with a bemused interviewer who keeps pressing them formore details about their rituals, frequent drug use and their extensivecriminal behavior. Throughout the interview, one or another of theinterview subjects retreats from the recording device to noodle away ona cheap synthesizer or noisily jam on an electric guitar, trying toinvoke all of the majestically dark Black Sabbath and Judas Priestriffs deeply embedded in their imaginations. The kids are startlinglyzealous and clearly idiotic, unable to effectively articulate even thesimplest concept behind their divergent religious beliefs: "We believein Satan and shit...We think he's the dark lord and we like to dofucked-up shit in his name." Their intense North Eastern accents andlower middle-class bearing typifies a certain type of rabble-rousingheavy metal fan that existed the early 80s—the burgeoning of theteenage mall-kid culture that eventually gave birth to atrocities likeMarilyn Manson and the current glut of soulless rap-metal. Everystatement from Satanic ringleader's mouth creates a strange mixture oflaughter and horror: laughter at the puerile silliness of a bunch ofacne-ridden teenagers professing love for the Antichrist; and horror atthe startling vapidity and amorality of this group. These are futuresociopaths in the making. I don't think it's a coincidence that theserecordings were made just before a string of highly publicized ritualmurders that took place in upstate New York, eventually leading to thearrest of a group of young heavy metal fans and admitted Satanists.It's impossible to know if these are the same kids captured so candidlyon this cassette, but I like to assume so. I wasn't able to provide apicture of the grinning, mulleted adolescent on the tape sleeve withthis review, because the Hanson Records website has suddenly andinexplicably disappeared from the web. No other online vendors ordistributors (that I could locate) are selling this little artifact, soSatan Place will most likely slide into a nether-world of irretrievable obscurity. That's probably as it should be.
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