The News Review:

- Guitar-makers’ niche designs sell well with headbangers
- Tel Aviv takes ‘Draconian’ measures
- Rock ‘n’ roll times ahead
- ‘Balls of Fury’
- Goths For Jesus: Pastor Dave’s Christian Goths

Guitar-makers’ niche designs sell well with headbangers
Columbus Dispatch – Aug 29, 2007
– There aren’t too many mean-looking things in Cupertino this sleepy SiliconValley haunt of Apple employees. But there’s something gruesome growing in one corner of town: Halo Custom Guitars Inc. Fueled by a resurgence in heavy-metal music and its numerous dark subgenres Halo makes andsells evil-looking instruments with bodies carved to resemble rotting flesh distended eyeballs andbone. The demonically themed guitars primarily find their way into the hands of death-metalmusicians. Regular heavy-metal music can cover the usual topics of scorn and despair while the death-metalsubgenre leans heavily on growled vocals and themes such as Satanism and dark mythology. Both are an important niche for electric-guitar manufacturers such as 5-year-old Halo. It sold200 guitars its first year in business and now sells 200 to 300 a month in direct sales and 200more per month to dealers co-founder Waylon Ford said… Fueled by a resurgence in heavy-metal music and its numerous dark subgenres Halo makes andsells evil-looking instruments with bodies carved to resemble rotting flesh distended eyeballs andbone. The demonically themed guitars primarily find their way into the hands of death-metalmusicians. Regular heavy-metal music can cover the usual topics of scorn and despair while the death-metalsubgenre leans heavily on growled vocals and themes such as Satanism and dark mythology. Both are an important niche for electric-guitar manufacturers such as 5-year-old Halo. It sold200 guitars its first year in business and now sells 200 to 300 a month in direct sales and 200more per month to dealers co-founder Waylon Ford said. “Ever since we started making more outrageous designs we started selling more guitars” hesaid. “We really owe a lot to the metal genre.

Tel Aviv takes ‘Draconian’ measures
Jerusalem Post – Aug 29, 2007
“We’ve wanted to come to Israel for some time but it hasn’t happened until now. Draconian has been on the metal scene since 1994. The seven-person ensemble is considered to be a cross between Gothic metal (vocal combinations that promote aggressive male vocals and with ethereal female soprano notes) and Doom metal (emphasis on gloom melancholy and atmospheric music). “We don’t limit ourselves to anything” says Jacobsson. “We are dark Gothic Metal with influences from doom and death metal. We’re a progressive Gothic Doom band. For those wondering how Draconian will fill the Tel Aviv Exhibition Grounds it may come as a surprise to know that a Goth subculture thrives here in Israel… The seven-person ensemble is considered to be a cross between Gothic metal (vocal combinations that promote aggressive male vocals and with ethereal female soprano notes) and Doom metal (emphasis on gloom melancholy and atmospheric music). “We don’t limit ourselves to anything” says Jacobsson. “We are dark Gothic Metal with influences from doom and death metal. We’re a progressive Gothic Doom band. For those wondering how Draconian will fill the Tel Aviv Exhibition Grounds it may come as a surprise to know that a Goth subculture thrives here in Israel. According to Draconian’s local promoter Yishai Schwartz there are over 10000 Goths currently living in Israel and the scene here continues to grow. The local gothic subculture began to gain popularity in the late 1990s (though its roots sprang from the punk-rock movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s) and now at least half a dozen Israeli metal bands can be found.

Rock ‘n’ roll times ahead
Times of India – Aug 29, 2007
As big events are planned DT explores whether the city has given up its love for Punjabi pop FromPunjabi bhangra numbers to death metal rock music – theparadigm shift in the music circuit of Delhi has been tremendous. Though manyaver that the performers are being paid peanuts and the Delhi audience is notzestful enough to enjoy international music there are a few who are making thecapital a rocking place literally. While the fests have already started in thecity come ctober and the city will turn into a rock haven with concerts linedup till January. DT brings you the details. PUBGIGS T GALA EVENTS Thepeople behind these events feel that the status of Delhi as the poor cousin ofMumbai and Bangalore when it comes to rock music and hosting internationalperformers needs to be changed.

‘Balls of Fury’
Catholic nline – Aug 29, 2007
Frequently crude and always preposterous “Balls of Fury” directed and co-written by Ben Garant has some flashes of comic originality. Walken’s Feng for instance is a bizarre amalgam of early Dracula late Elvis and a 6-year-old. And how can one fail to feel at least some affection for a film in which the archvillain’s first line of dialogue is: “key-dokey artichokey”?The script by Garant and Thomas Lennon who also get in some good satiric swipes at everything from kung fu movies to 1980s heavy metal music along the way never takes itself seriously reveling in its own silliness though too often straying from the path of good taste. As for the slapstick it’s strictly anything for a laugh including such questionable conceits as the sight gag of Siamese twins with a paddle in each hand playing a solitary opponent. “Balls of Fury” is thus a little too furious and a little too frantic for its own good. By the time it’s over viewers are apt to feel more exhausted than amused. The film though acceptable for older adolescents contains much crude language one instance of profanity suggestive gestures gross and scatological jokes and mild gay-themed humor.

Goths For Jesus: Pastor Dave’s Christian Goths
San Diego Reader – Aug 29, 2007
? This inspired him to launch a rock and roll driven youth ministry. ?I had a meeting with a young Christian metal-head named Steve Gray who was DJing a metal show on Palomar College radio. Soon we had a regular group meeting in my apartment on Monday nights which we called The Rock and Roll Refuge. We did this for about two years with about 30-35 kids crammed into my tiny living room. ? When Hart heard about a similarly named group operating in Redondo Beach near L… He saw in them a fondness for the iconography and rituals endemic to church tradition (crosses candles incantations etc. ) as well as great intellectual capacity emotional depth and spiritual yearning. ?[Goths] are into art poetry and music. They are passive introspective and can be dramatically emotional. They can also be too self-absorbed brood to a fault and they internalize everything even things that have nothing to do with them! As a group and as a rule goths take their stress and pain out on themselves not on others – cutters piercers slicers suicide addicts – they will beat themselves up in their guilt and their sorrow to prove how real their pain is.