----
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'My mum told me when I was a baby I slept so intensive so I turned white! So she had to check me all the time if I were still alive! This is serious! That is true! Maybe the whole thing started there? And maybe it started before that? My great great grandmother was a sorceror but only white magic. I have never been into fuckin white magic! I have always hated the Christianity and all faiths who had anything to do with God, but especially the Christianity. I want to get into a cult because it is difficult to understand something from a book with alot of scripts in Sumerian, Hebrew, etc. And it is very dangerous to do something wrong ... So I need a cult. Thats another thing. But I must tell you, no one of us is normal.'-- Dead, 1990
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(l. to r.) Euronymous, Dead, Necrobutcher
Per Yngve Ohlin (January 16, 1969 – April 8, 1991), better known by his stage name Dead, joined the pioneering Norwegian Death Metal band Mayhem when his down band Morbid folded in 1988. Serious illness as a child and a near death experience convinced him that he had died and was now a being from another world. His beliefs are preserved in the vampiric lyrics he wrote for the album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. Dead reputedly carried around the carcass of a crow in a jar and would inhale fumes from it before taking the stage so he could perform with the stench of death in his nostrils. He also took to donning a white greasepaint visage, designed to mimic the pallor of 13th-century plague victims.
Necrobutcher (ex-Mayhem): 'It wasn't anything to do with the way Kiss and Alice Cooper used makeup. Dead actually wanted to look like a corpse. He didn't do it to look cool. He wouldn't eat for weeks in order to get starving wounds. He would draw snot dripping out of his nose. He was the first black metal musician to use corpse paint.'
Bård "Faust" Eithun (Emperor): 'He (Dead) wasn't a guy you could know very well. I think even the other guys in Mayhem didn't know him very well. He was hard to get close to. I met him two weeks before he died. I'd met him maybe six to eight times, in all. He had lots of weird ideas. I remember Aarseth was talking about him and said he did not have any humour. He did, but it was very obscure. Honestly, I don't think he was enjoying living in this world.'
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Dead and Hellhammer
In order to complete his corpse-like image, Ohlin would bury his clothes before a concert and dig them up again to wear on the night of the event. According to bandmate Hellhammer, 'Before the shows, Dead used to bury his clothes into the ground so that they could start to rot and get that "grave" scent. He was a "corpse" on a stage. Once he even asked us to bury him in the ground - he wanted his skin to become pale.' Whilst singing on stage, Ohlin would often cut himself with hunting knives and broken glass. He claimed to be fascinated by people's reactions to this. During one concert in Sarpsborg during February 1990, Ohlin cut himself so badly that he had to be taken to hospital due to blood loss.
When Dead first arrived in Norway, Necro Butcher took it upon himself to make sure their new singer had somewhere to live and was looked after. On the other hand, Mayhem founding member and chief songwriter Euronymous -- later to become infamous himself when he was murdered by ex-Mayhem member and future cult hero Varg Vikernes (Burzum) -- apparently did his best to make Dead feel uncomfortable. 'He tried to psych him out,' says Necro Butcher. 'He would tell Dead, "We don't like you. You should just kill yourself." Stuff like that.'
And then, one day in the spring of 1991, Dead did just that. The members of Mayhem had moved to an old house in the forest in an area called Krakstad near Oslo to write and record their next album. Hellhammer claimed that Ohlin 'just sat in his room and became more and more depressed. It would take twenty minutes to get from the house to the nearest shop, and we had to go by train to the nearest town. Teachers from the nearby schools told children: “Do not come up to this house. The house is haunted!” Everybody hated us, but we enjoyed it. One day I decided to go to Oslo with my friends. Before the departure I met Dead. He was grim: “Look, I bought a big knife. It’s very sharp.” Those were the last words I heard from him.”'
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Euronymous
One day Euronymous came back to their house to discover Ohlin's body slumped against a wall. He had slashed his wrists with a butcher's knife and blown his brains out with a shotgun. His suicide note had a morbid humour . It read, 'Excuse all the blood. Let the party begin' and included an apology for firing the weapon indoors. Instead of calling the police, Euronymous hitchhiked to the nearest town and bought a disposable camera to photograph the corpse, after re-arranging some items. Later he called his bandmate Hellhammer: '“Dead went back home,” he told me. “Back to Sweden?” I wondered. “No, he’s blown his head.”'
'He called me up the next day,' recalled Necro Butcher, 'and says, "Dead has done something really cool! He killed himself." I thought, have you lost it? What do you mean cool? He says, "Relax, I have photos of everything." I was in shock and grief. He was just thinking how to exploit it. So I told him, "OK. Don't even fucking call me before you destroy those pictures."' Several years later a lurid photo of Dead, lying in a shabby room in which the only splash of colour was provided by his blood, somehow found its way onto the cover of a Mayhem bootleg produced in South America.
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'Dawn of the Black Hearts'
Eventually, rumours surfaced that Euronymous made a stew with pieces of Ohlin's brain, and made necklaces with fragments of Ohlin's skull. The band later stated that the former rumour was false, but that the latter was true. Additionally, Euronymous claimed to have given these necklaces to musicians he deemed worthy, and it's well known that several prominent musicians in the Black Metal field are in possession of skull fragments. 'Police took Dead’s body but we lived in the house for a few more weeks,' Hellhammer explained. 'Dead’s blood and pieces of skull were all over the room. Once I looked under his bed and found two big pieces of skull. I took one piece and Euronymous took the other. We made amulets out of them. Later on we lost them somehow. Somehow others have them now. It’s strange ...'
Necrobutcher: 'The Black Metal scene was just growing and we were doing what we were doing up until 1991 when our vocalist (Dead) killed himself. After that, it all started to happen. Some people became more aware of the scene after Dead had shot himself. After that, churches started to burn and it just went crazy here. I think it was Dead's suicide that really changed the whole scene. I think (his suicide) was a very fortunate situation to happen, and I think the scene would still be around and gone in the same direction as it had, maybe just a bit later on. I don't think it would have become as extreme as fast as it had in black metal. A lot of young musicians got into this scene because it was the most aggressive and violent scene out there at the time.'
Note: This text is collaged from numerous writers and sources: Chris Campion, The True Mayhem, Morbid Death Magazine, Sounds of Death Magazine, various interviews, a.o.
Dead walking outside the house in Krakstad (3:10)
Mayhem rehearsing w/ Dead and Euronymous (6:11)
Mayhem 'Deathcrush', live in 1990 (2:28)
Tribute to Dead (4:57)
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*
p.s. Hey. I thought I would do this. ** David Ehrenstein, Good Monday morning. Oh, my sincere condolences about the loss of your friends. I'm so sorry to hear that, David. ** Cobaltfram, Yeah, I didn't see the whooshed out comment. Excellent attitude and situation with your X-people and the proposal prelims. Cool. You have something new and newly up at Tin House. Awesome, congrats! I'll read it post-p.s., of course. Everyone, writer supreme John Fram aka Cobaltfram has a new piece just up at/on Tin House entitled 'Train, Library, Hotel', and it's yours for a mere click. Thanks, man. ** JoeM, Re: your questions about 'Matt' and Inthemostpeculiarway, no. As for your other questions ... First, I find it hard to believe that 'everybody else' is asking them 'privately but not saying [so] publicly.' But I've been naive before. If that's true, then I'm very disappointed in 'everybody else'. That you would ask such ridiculous, intrusive questions doesn't surprise me one bit. If you had actually paid attention to what I've said and shown my words the respect of belief, and if you weren't infecting what I've said with titillating gossipy bullshit speculation, you would already know the answers to those questions. Clearly, if people here are subjecting my sincere reportage and ramblings re: my personal life to that kind of distortion and reductiveness, I'm not going to talk about my personal life here anymore, and so I won't, starting today. ** Sypha, I'll have to go read the old comments then. Welling-up is always interesting. I don't know that Delaney book. I'll check it out. ** Matty B., Hey! Next couple of weeks once I get back to Paris on Tuesday should be pretty free-ish, so no prob. Feel free to nudge me if I'm running slow, 'cos that happens, although I hope it won't, and nudging helps. Take care. ** S., Those are some curious tattoos you got there. The peeps are a nice touch. Maybe you should superglue them in place. And, naturally, very nice new stack. Everyone, S. has a doubleheader of new stuff over on his blog. If you click this word, you'll get to see his new tattoos and one of his inimitable Emo stacks. Need I even encourage you? ** Dom Lyne, Hi, Dom! Fantastic: that burst of muse commingling and focus and love of being focused by the muse. Great! I just 'liked' your FB page, and ... Everyone, the great Dom Lyne, spinner of masterful words and sounds and imagery, has instituted an author page over at Facebook that I obviously recommend 'like' post-haste. Here's the short cut. Yes, do give me the 'whens' and 'wheres' on your Paris visit when you know them, and I really look forward to that! ** Misanthrope, I can see that. His 12 year-old-like surface made him more of an interesting text producer for me than a magnet. I hope that clusterfuck headache is history by now. Shit, sucks. Yeah, I hope you got all the rest you needed. ** Steevee, That is a truly nerve-wracking dream you had right there, maybe because something almost identical that happened to me in real once, sans Kiss and with, hm, Uriah Heep instead maybe? . ** Bill, Hi, Bill. A 'touch-sensitive installation'? Wow, that sounds really exciting. I'm kind of drooling with happy feet over here. I hope you get that sorted, and I know you will. Sweet, B! ** Okay. I'm not sure if I'll have time to do the p.s. tomorrow or not. In any case, there'll be one last rerun post tomorrow and then a new post and p.s. on Wednesday. For today, be with Dead, won't you. See you in some form tomorrow.
'My mum told me when I was a baby I slept so intensive so I turned white! So she had to check me all the time if I were still alive! This is serious! That is true! Maybe the whole thing started there? And maybe it started before that? My great great grandmother was a sorceror but only white magic. I have never been into fuckin white magic! I have always hated the Christianity and all faiths who had anything to do with God, but especially the Christianity. I want to get into a cult because it is difficult to understand something from a book with alot of scripts in Sumerian, Hebrew, etc. And it is very dangerous to do something wrong ... So I need a cult. Thats another thing. But I must tell you, no one of us is normal.'-- Dead, 1990
(l. to r.) Euronymous, Dead, NecrobutcherPer Yngve Ohlin (January 16, 1969 – April 8, 1991), better known by his stage name Dead, joined the pioneering Norwegian Death Metal band Mayhem when his down band Morbid folded in 1988. Serious illness as a child and a near death experience convinced him that he had died and was now a being from another world. His beliefs are preserved in the vampiric lyrics he wrote for the album De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. Dead reputedly carried around the carcass of a crow in a jar and would inhale fumes from it before taking the stage so he could perform with the stench of death in his nostrils. He also took to donning a white greasepaint visage, designed to mimic the pallor of 13th-century plague victims.
Necrobutcher (ex-Mayhem): 'It wasn't anything to do with the way Kiss and Alice Cooper used makeup. Dead actually wanted to look like a corpse. He didn't do it to look cool. He wouldn't eat for weeks in order to get starving wounds. He would draw snot dripping out of his nose. He was the first black metal musician to use corpse paint.'
Bård "Faust" Eithun (Emperor): 'He (Dead) wasn't a guy you could know very well. I think even the other guys in Mayhem didn't know him very well. He was hard to get close to. I met him two weeks before he died. I'd met him maybe six to eight times, in all. He had lots of weird ideas. I remember Aarseth was talking about him and said he did not have any humour. He did, but it was very obscure. Honestly, I don't think he was enjoying living in this world.'
Dead and HellhammerIn order to complete his corpse-like image, Ohlin would bury his clothes before a concert and dig them up again to wear on the night of the event. According to bandmate Hellhammer, 'Before the shows, Dead used to bury his clothes into the ground so that they could start to rot and get that "grave" scent. He was a "corpse" on a stage. Once he even asked us to bury him in the ground - he wanted his skin to become pale.' Whilst singing on stage, Ohlin would often cut himself with hunting knives and broken glass. He claimed to be fascinated by people's reactions to this. During one concert in Sarpsborg during February 1990, Ohlin cut himself so badly that he had to be taken to hospital due to blood loss.
When Dead first arrived in Norway, Necro Butcher took it upon himself to make sure their new singer had somewhere to live and was looked after. On the other hand, Mayhem founding member and chief songwriter Euronymous -- later to become infamous himself when he was murdered by ex-Mayhem member and future cult hero Varg Vikernes (Burzum) -- apparently did his best to make Dead feel uncomfortable. 'He tried to psych him out,' says Necro Butcher. 'He would tell Dead, "We don't like you. You should just kill yourself." Stuff like that.'
And then, one day in the spring of 1991, Dead did just that. The members of Mayhem had moved to an old house in the forest in an area called Krakstad near Oslo to write and record their next album. Hellhammer claimed that Ohlin 'just sat in his room and became more and more depressed. It would take twenty minutes to get from the house to the nearest shop, and we had to go by train to the nearest town. Teachers from the nearby schools told children: “Do not come up to this house. The house is haunted!” Everybody hated us, but we enjoyed it. One day I decided to go to Oslo with my friends. Before the departure I met Dead. He was grim: “Look, I bought a big knife. It’s very sharp.” Those were the last words I heard from him.”'
EuronymousOne day Euronymous came back to their house to discover Ohlin's body slumped against a wall. He had slashed his wrists with a butcher's knife and blown his brains out with a shotgun. His suicide note had a morbid humour . It read, 'Excuse all the blood. Let the party begin' and included an apology for firing the weapon indoors. Instead of calling the police, Euronymous hitchhiked to the nearest town and bought a disposable camera to photograph the corpse, after re-arranging some items. Later he called his bandmate Hellhammer: '“Dead went back home,” he told me. “Back to Sweden?” I wondered. “No, he’s blown his head.”'
'He called me up the next day,' recalled Necro Butcher, 'and says, "Dead has done something really cool! He killed himself." I thought, have you lost it? What do you mean cool? He says, "Relax, I have photos of everything." I was in shock and grief. He was just thinking how to exploit it. So I told him, "OK. Don't even fucking call me before you destroy those pictures."' Several years later a lurid photo of Dead, lying in a shabby room in which the only splash of colour was provided by his blood, somehow found its way onto the cover of a Mayhem bootleg produced in South America.
'Dawn of the Black Hearts'Eventually, rumours surfaced that Euronymous made a stew with pieces of Ohlin's brain, and made necklaces with fragments of Ohlin's skull. The band later stated that the former rumour was false, but that the latter was true. Additionally, Euronymous claimed to have given these necklaces to musicians he deemed worthy, and it's well known that several prominent musicians in the Black Metal field are in possession of skull fragments. 'Police took Dead’s body but we lived in the house for a few more weeks,' Hellhammer explained. 'Dead’s blood and pieces of skull were all over the room. Once I looked under his bed and found two big pieces of skull. I took one piece and Euronymous took the other. We made amulets out of them. Later on we lost them somehow. Somehow others have them now. It’s strange ...'
Necrobutcher: 'The Black Metal scene was just growing and we were doing what we were doing up until 1991 when our vocalist (Dead) killed himself. After that, it all started to happen. Some people became more aware of the scene after Dead had shot himself. After that, churches started to burn and it just went crazy here. I think it was Dead's suicide that really changed the whole scene. I think (his suicide) was a very fortunate situation to happen, and I think the scene would still be around and gone in the same direction as it had, maybe just a bit later on. I don't think it would have become as extreme as fast as it had in black metal. A lot of young musicians got into this scene because it was the most aggressive and violent scene out there at the time.'
Note: This text is collaged from numerous writers and sources: Chris Campion, The True Mayhem, Morbid Death Magazine, Sounds of Death Magazine, various interviews, a.o.
Dead walking outside the house in Krakstad (3:10)
Mayhem rehearsing w/ Dead and Euronymous (6:11)
Mayhem 'Deathcrush', live in 1990 (2:28)
Tribute to Dead (4:57)
----
*
p.s. Hey. I thought I would do this. ** David Ehrenstein, Good Monday morning. Oh, my sincere condolences about the loss of your friends. I'm so sorry to hear that, David. ** Cobaltfram, Yeah, I didn't see the whooshed out comment. Excellent attitude and situation with your X-people and the proposal prelims. Cool. You have something new and newly up at Tin House. Awesome, congrats! I'll read it post-p.s., of course. Everyone, writer supreme John Fram aka Cobaltfram has a new piece just up at/on Tin House entitled 'Train, Library, Hotel', and it's yours for a mere click. Thanks, man. ** JoeM, Re: your questions about 'Matt' and Inthemostpeculiarway, no. As for your other questions ... First, I find it hard to believe that 'everybody else' is asking them 'privately but not saying [so] publicly.' But I've been naive before. If that's true, then I'm very disappointed in 'everybody else'. That you would ask such ridiculous, intrusive questions doesn't surprise me one bit. If you had actually paid attention to what I've said and shown my words the respect of belief, and if you weren't infecting what I've said with titillating gossipy bullshit speculation, you would already know the answers to those questions. Clearly, if people here are subjecting my sincere reportage and ramblings re: my personal life to that kind of distortion and reductiveness, I'm not going to talk about my personal life here anymore, and so I won't, starting today. ** Sypha, I'll have to go read the old comments then. Welling-up is always interesting. I don't know that Delaney book. I'll check it out. ** Matty B., Hey! Next couple of weeks once I get back to Paris on Tuesday should be pretty free-ish, so no prob. Feel free to nudge me if I'm running slow, 'cos that happens, although I hope it won't, and nudging helps. Take care. ** S., Those are some curious tattoos you got there. The peeps are a nice touch. Maybe you should superglue them in place. And, naturally, very nice new stack. Everyone, S. has a doubleheader of new stuff over on his blog. If you click this word, you'll get to see his new tattoos and one of his inimitable Emo stacks. Need I even encourage you? ** Dom Lyne, Hi, Dom! Fantastic: that burst of muse commingling and focus and love of being focused by the muse. Great! I just 'liked' your FB page, and ... Everyone, the great Dom Lyne, spinner of masterful words and sounds and imagery, has instituted an author page over at Facebook that I obviously recommend 'like' post-haste. Here's the short cut. Yes, do give me the 'whens' and 'wheres' on your Paris visit when you know them, and I really look forward to that! ** Misanthrope, I can see that. His 12 year-old-like surface made him more of an interesting text producer for me than a magnet. I hope that clusterfuck headache is history by now. Shit, sucks. Yeah, I hope you got all the rest you needed. ** Steevee, That is a truly nerve-wracking dream you had right there, maybe because something almost identical that happened to me in real once, sans Kiss and with, hm, Uriah Heep instead maybe? . ** Bill, Hi, Bill. A 'touch-sensitive installation'? Wow, that sounds really exciting. I'm kind of drooling with happy feet over here. I hope you get that sorted, and I know you will. Sweet, B! ** Okay. I'm not sure if I'll have time to do the p.s. tomorrow or not. In any case, there'll be one last rerun post tomorrow and then a new post and p.s. on Wednesday. For today, be with Dead, won't you. See you in some form tomorrow.