|
Let’s face it: stuff is
awesome. Cheeseburgers are awesome. Sweet guitar licks are awesome. Hot chicks are awesome. There are lots of awesome things out there. But out of all the awesome things in the
world, surely one has to be the most awesome of them all. Many have long debated what this very
pinnacle of awesomeness is, but there is only one thing in the world that can
conclusively be deemed the most awesome thing in the world. And that thing is…
Cannibal Corpse!
But there are some very important questions that Cannibal
Corpse’s unrivaled awesomeness raises:
Why is Cannibal Corpse so awesome?
Where did they come from? Who are
they? Why am I asking you all these questions? Fear not!
For here and now, for the first time ever, I shall reveal… the true origin
of Cannibal Corpse! Keep reading, and
all your questions will be answered!
Now, in order to understand the roots of these legendary
musical geniuses, we need a little background information on their place of
origin, Buffalo, New York. Buffalo, New
York is located about 11 minutes away from the Canadian border, and so it’s
pretty far up north. Naturally, it’s
very cold in Buffalo, about as cold as most of Canada. But because it’s not Canada, the people of
Buffalo are not as silly and happy-go-lucky as Canadians. When you consider that Buffalo sports teams
have not won a championship in over 200 years, these factors add up to one
thing: life in Buffalo, New York is boring.
There is nothing to do in Buffalo,
save for one small thing. While Buffalo
may just be one of the worst parts of this great country, they are also
responsible for the second most awesome thing ever (behind only Cannibal Corpse
themselves): Buffalo wings.
Buffalo wings were invented circa 1669 through a joint effort between
the native Iroquois Indians who lived there and the English pioneers. The Indians provided the spicy, flavorful
cayenne-and-vinegar based sauce, and the pioneers contributed the chicken
wings. Together, they created something
that put Buffalo on the map, literally.
The entire city was created solely for the production of Buffalo wings,
which is where the city gets its name from.
To this day, the manufacturing and exportation of Buffalo wings make up
over 90% of the city’s economy. Naturally,
this means that the diets of people living in Buffalo also consist of over 90%
Buffalo wings. The problem here is that
spicy food is a leading cause of insanity.
From firsthand experience, I can confirm this. I mean, I put hot sauce on everything, and
I’m just plain nutty!
But what exactly does this have
to do with Cannibal Corpse? Everything,
of course! Being from Buffalo and
therefore being exposed to Buffalo wings almost 24/7 had caused the brave
trailblazers that would go on to form the band to become completely insane by
1978. This dangerously high level of
insanity coupled with massive amounts of boredom would forever change the face
of death metal forever!
And so the original members, being more bored than usual as a
result of the Buffalo Bills failing to make the playoffs due to another 0-16
season therefore resulting in nothing to watch on TV on that cold January
weekend, assembled together in a basement and started to jam on some AC/DC tunes
the only tune AC/DC ever wrote. These
members were lead guitarist Jack “Ripper” Owens (not to be confused with his
cousin Tim “Ripper” Owens), rhythm guitarist Rob Barrett (nephew of former Pink
Floyd singer and guitarist Syd Barrett), bassist Alex Webster (great-grandson
of Merriam Webster, author of Webster’s dictionary), drummer Paul Meserkawitz
(he’s not related to anyone), and vocalist Chris Barnes.
So they started jamming on that one riff (the same one AC/DC
plays for the length of each album). It
was pretty neat, except there was one little probable: only Chris Barnes likes AC/DC. So after a bit of arguing, they decided to
try doing of cover of Judas Priest’s song “Breaking the Law.” It too was pretty neat, except once again
there was one little problem: Chris
Barnes was incapable of hitting any notes over low Z, thus making Judas Priest
covers impractical. This problem was
quickly remedied by tuning the guitars down to Drop-Z tuning to accommodate
Chris Barnes’s vocal range.
With the new lower tuned guitars, our heroes realized that
their riffs were at least 2 5/8 times heavier than previously, therefore making
the riffs sound really cool. The
fearsome combination of Chris Barnes’s vocals and the super heavy guitar riffs
was augmented by the addition of a brand new drumming style courtesy of Paul
Moserkiwits: the “hit the snare and bass
drums as fast as you can a bunch of times in a row” style, called “blast beats”
for short (this name is believed to be derived from Paul Muzurcawex yelling
“Blast!” when he realized that he didn’t actually know how to play drums,
resulting in the creation of this new drum pattern).
Having developed a signature sound, the band decided that they
needed a name. They decided that since
Alex Webster was the heir to the Webster Dictionary legacy, and more
importantly because he was the bassist and therefore didn’t really contribute
anything else to the band, it was fitting that he created a name. Naturally, he did what all great men do when
they need to figure out a name: choose
random words from the dictionary, which were “Bifocal” and “Refurbish.” Unfortunately, these words were terrible, so
through half an hour of running the words through different languages on Google
Translate Alex Webster eventually ended up with “Cannibal Corpse.”
Now with both a name and a sound, Cannibal Corpse was ready to
conquer the world and rock people’s socks off…
|
made my day