In the last post, I mentioned that I broke a little piece of Coroner history.
So…here’s a print of the original manipulated photo used for the cover of the Death Cult demo, and that is the actual sheet metal/copper cross that Marky placed upside-down on the skull’s forehead. And right after I took this picture, as picked it up to place back into its box, I dropped it, and the sheet metal and copper parts separated.
And I wanted to throw myself off the balcony.
Thankfully, it’s the kind of thing that can be fixed easily. From glue it was secure, and back with glue it would go.
Ambrose Bierce once said that erudition is dust shaken out of a book and into an empty skull. That has nothing to do with this post, except for the skull part. But…now you have a Bierce quote to throw around so…you’re welcome. This is primarily a photo post.
This 1985 picture…
…was taken in the bedroom Marky had grown up in, in his family’s Zurich apartment. In fact, it isn’t one picture at all. I’m not sure if the camera had no timer, or what have you, but no one was there to take this, so the pictures of each individual were taken, and Marky used his graphic design skills (for which he was in school at the time) to make a composite. Turned out great!
And this picture…
…was taken by me during the September 2024 research trip (almost 40 years later!), in the very same apartment that Marky grew up in, and in which he currently lives with his beautiful family. And that is the same skull. Also, Marky is a lot of fun.
Here it is in color…
I got to hold a little metal history right there. I got to hold a number of historic Coroner items, actually. I even broke one of them; yes, I was mortified. More pics and posts to come…
Today’s post is only just barely Coroner related, sorry.
The other day, I finally got back into my Coroner book IG account, and I posted a few pics from my newly settled writing nook (in the guest room). See above — there are three Coroner/Coroner-related items. Two signed OG photos from the very early days — I’ll say 1986 and 1987. And then the March 6, 2025 flyer for the show at Metro Baltimore, where we (Hubs and I) drove to from Pittsburgh to see them for a second time (first was in Philly). That’s the Coroner part. The other part I really wanted to blah-blah about are my Chippendales. No, not these Chippendales…
I’m not, like, an “art buyer.” But recently — since we’ve moved into the new place and finally sucked it up to frame and hang stuff we’ve gotten over the years — I realized that I kinda am…? Anyway, so, also in the above pic includes a painting by harsh noise artist, Richard Ramirez (Black Leather Jesus, Werewolf Jerusalem, etc); a Richard Wells woodcut print (“Witchfinder Bedeviled”); an insider-information pencil drawing of David Gale in Re-Animator by my husband; and an original scratch board piece by Thomas Ott (who sings in Tar Pond, Marky Edelmann’s band). Smack in the center, “Blood Moon” print (17/50, 2nd ed.) by Brian Chippendale of Lightning Bolt.
Also in the guest room, I’ve hung Chippendale‘s “Body Parts 22 Cabin,” one from what looks like a 2021 run from a 2011 original print run. I’ll be adding more to this wall. I have a sweet Dave Trengaacrylic on board piece (a gift from him for my 50th birthday last year! I also have a painted coffee table and a pen and ink piece by Dave).
Finally, in the living area, Chippendale‘s “Easy Cowboy” (2nd ed. 2025). I hear ya, Cowboy. I hear ya. (The Bride of Re-Animator poster in the back was a 51st birthday gift from my husband, recreating my high school bedroom, except my poster was in much worse shape the last time I saw it, decades ago.)
Fun Fact (that makes this post still a bit Coroner, or Tar Pond, related): Marky introduced me to Lightning Bolt, and since then I’ve seen them three times. And I’m grateful for that, because it was a triple threat: I got great new-to-me recorded music, a brand new favorite live band, and, as it turns out, an artist whose work I really love. (Enough that I became a “Patreon,” which I’ve never done before and he remains my only subscription — I am looking forward to my random annual Chippendale art tied to my tier — will need to make wall space).
Now, I’ve linked to Brian’s store here as many times as is reasonable (probably unreasonable, actually) because…he’s very affordable and this is quality shit, and if you follow him on the various social media sites he occupies, you’ll see that he pretty frequently offers a percentage off. If you dig it, grab one, or three, or five. Someday, I want a “Megaflora Collosus” and a “Twilight Temple 2069.” Please don’t buy the last one of either of those.
Since Dissonance Theory came out, I’ve been seeing the ol’ “Rush of Thrash” being bandied about once again. By “again,” I mean in addition to my having gone through all of that Coroner-related press a few years ago. I think, since then, I’ve seen someone refer to them that way maybe once or twice. Surprisingly infrequently for the resoluteness by which it is used, as if it really is a common saying regarding the band. When I do see it, it is frequently preceded by “the band they call,” or “often referred to as,” or even “I like to call them” — something like that. Reviews, features, comments — it’s made it’s way into the recent conversation surrounding Coroner in a few ways.
I can no longer find the comment, but a commenter somewhere said they had tried to find the origin of “Rush of Thrash,” but to no avail. I can help. Maybe. Well, I’ll tell you now…I probably don’t know. But here’s a guess.
I have a lot of press. Like, a lot. In English, from the US & UK, to France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Greece, Japan, etc. Switzerland, of course. At the moment, I have about 800 transcribed pages worth. So, I had a look. I found exactly two references to “Rush of Thrash”: One is from 2016 — an interview with Ron Broder by Luca de Pasquale-Manuela Avino on the Italian website Bass, My Fever. He writes:
Many people defined Coroner as “The Rush of thrash”, which shall be interpreted for the best, by reminding us the complexity showed by both of them, by the way it remains a limited definition which isn’t able effectively to describe the potential of Ron and company.
The second, which I thinks gets us somewhere, is in the April 2012 (No. 24) issue of the German metal fanzine Totentanz (est. 1988) . “Hansey” (Thomas Hanzen) says:
“A Lost Dream” contains riffs that were similarly used two years later by a certain Jon Schaffer on the Iced Earth debut. Again, this shows the vanguard position of the “Swiss Rush of Thrash.”
But, 2012, you say? Yes, but, this is not very long after Coroner reformed to play shows in 2011, and coming from a retrospective piece covering all the albums they had covered over the years (and an interview with Marky Edelmann). Totentanz has the special distinction of being named after Coroner’s song, “Totentanz” (lyrics by Andy Siegrist, 1986).
For this nickname to have been making the rounds as much as it has, I would assume it’s been around for a while, so 2012 is probably not early enough, but I am wondering if Totentanz is the originator, perhaps from an earlier issue I don’t have (yet). I think that might be our best guess, because, though I don’t have every issue of Totentanz, I do have a lot of press going back to 1986. Not a peep til 2012, then 2016. Hmm…
It’s unlikely that “people” glommed onto this from something that found it’s way into print in the early days, as I think I’d have seen it more. There is a chance that this phrase didn’t get really picked up until 2012, because, again, no sign of it in the press, so it’s possible that the online public saw this interview/retrospective, picked it up, and then just ran through the interwebs with it and everyone just assumed it had been around forever. Hansey could be quoting himself from the distant print past. It’s hard to know (unless that potentially-exciting Totentanz issue pops up for me). But, I’m still on the look out, because this sort of effectively-worthless trivia interests me, and perhaps it interests you, too. If I ever figure it out, I’ll let you know.
Fraction of what I sorted through during a 2.5-week trip to Zurich in September 2024, graciously hosted by Marky Edelmann and his lovely family. I never ate so well.
As the title says, I’m getting back to the book. If you’re new here, I was unavoidably waylaid en route to finishing this book (this book being the official Coroner band biography) for quite some time, after two years of, geez, just a tremendous amount of work. I had an Instagram account specifically for the book, but I can no longer access it, which is a bummer. If you came from there, I’m glad you found me. This is starting from scratch.
That said, here I am. And I’ll try to give writing updates here, though, I have to tell you, it might be a little boring. I may have something interesting to say about the band, but…I’m writing. Researching. Processing a lot of video interview material. It’s very practical and time consuming.
I was going over everything where I left off when I finally gave up trying to keep the work up. So, writing-wise, I’m roughly 37k words in. I have no idea what the final MS will look like in terms of length. I know when I started writing, I set out some perimeters for myself, but blew right past the limit for each section I got through. There was just too much to include. I expect this book — at least in my own final draft form — to be hefty.
Research. I have, literally, a few thousand pages — Word docs, single space — of transcribed, translated press from all over the world, from 1986 to the present. I have lists out the wazoo — live shows (there might be a few missing, but it’s pretty exhaustive), releases (down to which Punishment for Decadence had the glossy black strip and when it got a matte strip), etc. I am coming up on a thousand pages of transcribed interview notes. More. It’s a lot, and a lot to manage.
The video interviews themselves…I figured it out at some point, but I can’t remember the number — I had, at that time, at least 100 hours. To be fair, my interview style is very chatty — it takes a while, but it seems to be the best way to jog memories and also just talk around the immediate topics at hand, giving a fuller picture of whatever we’re talking about. So, great for information gathering, not great when you have to sit down and do notation. And, again, time consuming, for me and for them (they’ve been very generous, particularly Marky).
I got four hours of sleep last night for no particular reason, but I’m determined to get something done today. I need to figure out/narrow down who else I need to talk to for this thing. I need to just sit down and read what I’ve written, then (or while) I update my 34-page outline (which, with the release of Dissonance Theory, will probably add a page or five). I am largely writing this out of order, so I need to organize a handful of sections to get my actual writing lined up (probably get back into the writing next week). Then, just some practical stuff.
We also have a wildlife person coming to start the process of removing the mice from our new home humanely, and the furnace inspection for the season.
See, the thing is that I am a single person. The fact is, I spent the first, say, eight months simply gathering press from the band, from online sources, from print magazines, etc., transcribing every single one of them, and then translating. I used a few translating apps, which have worked out very well, but they weren’t usable until I had transcribed everything, so that was absolutely necessary. It’s a lot of work, but it’s work that makes the sit-down writing go very smoothly, very quickly. Having it transcribed into a Word doc makes it possible for me to search all the information easily. I actually went through all of it, put it in chronological order, and separated quotes and paragraphs into topical sections, so, for instance, if I want to write about what Marky was saying about the lyrics from No More Color in 1989, there’s a whole section of quotes from myriad contemporary interviews, BOOM, all in one spot. I don’t have to go through every letter and word. I would then go to my master file of notes from the Marky interviews, search for No More Color and find everything he said about the lyrics. Easy-peasy.
Yeah, I’ve got the ’tism.
Anyway, the problem was that I literally did that 8-12 hours a day, 6-7 days a week, for months. Once I was finished with that, I implemented a No Writing on Weekends rule, and 5-7 hours a work day, no more. Frequent breaks. And…my husband is going to be helping me, in order to get things done faster (I must stress how much he’s helped by way of general support through this ordeal). Primarily, he’ll be conducting most of the rest of the interviews so I can concentrate on doing the stuff only I can do (so I know what I have) — processing the interviews and writing, writing, writing. And, of course, as always, he is my first, most perceptive reader.
See how exciting this blogging about writing this book is already? Oh, also, I’m not going to be talking exclusively about the Coroner book. I’ll be posting stupid shit here, too. Enjoy.
Lee Harper Oswald 