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Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

Punishment for Productivity

Posted in Coroner, Coroner Band Bio, Reading, Thrash, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 17, 2026| 1 Comment »

That title is untrue. I finished the Punishment for Decadence section, where I cover the lyrics, the music, the production, the promo, and the shows/tours. I can say this — it does not lack for detail. I can also say this: Working on this is mentally exhausting, but I’m not complaining — my overall word count is at over 79,000. That’s more than double than it was just a month or so ago. (Yes, word counts are important to writers, mostly to feel like we’re getting somewhere.)

I also transcribed the Phil Rind (Sacred Reich) interview I did — checks video — May 17, 2022. Geez…anyway… These interviews are kinda funny — you have your list of questions, because you know what you need. I don’t know how other people do it, but I like to let the conversation kind of go where it goes. It’s not my life and experience, so knowing exactly what I need is impossible. Letting the dialog travel around the matter at hand does tend to prompt more memories than they would have otherwise — these events are from more than thirty years ago. I can’t remember thirty years ago — or, at best, it can be spotty. This did not work with Phil, bless him, but we did talk about lost sunglasses, the nightmare of travel these days, the trials and tribulations of almost single-handedly managing the band, and politics. Now, I must say, to be able to sit and talk politics with Phil Rind of Sacred Reich, feels like a special reward given for my faltering perseverance.

Phil Rind, if not taken backstage at the Motörhead Christmas Shows, taken at another min-your with Motörhead and Coroner within a month.

What we talked about mostly was the 1988 Christmas shows in Germany, where Coroner, Sacred Reich, Candlemas, and Destruction opened for Motörhead. It was their first European show, and the first night they played, the British contingent was an hour and a half late, causing the show to be equally late, so to avoid Motörhead having to go on in the wee hours, the played before Sacred Reich played last — following Motörhead, which no band wants to do. It was, in a word, harrowing. That said, they were given the penultimate slot before Motörhead the next night to make up for the previous night.

Notice these flyers have Death Angel and Venom attached and not Sacred Reich. That’s because both bands canceled — Vemon at the last minute — and Sacred Reich, one a dime, picked up that slack. (pics courtesy of Metallipromo)

To find out how Coroner fared — you’ll have to read this dang book.

Non-Coroner related, I am reading both David E Gehlke’s biography: The Life and Music of Chuck Schuldiner: Born Human, and Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn. I used to read almost exclusively fiction — many years ago. But for a long time now, I’ve read mostly nonfiction (hence why I thought I’d try my hand at it). Back when I was reading a lot of fiction, I read Motherless Brooklyn, so I know I liked it, but it was so long ago, I hardly remember it. My New Year’s “resolution,” which is really just saying “I should do that,” is to read more fiction, so I’m going with something familiar. Obviously unable to not also be reading nonfiction, Gehlke’s book is…Gehlke needs to stop making me look bad while he cranks out, like, two, three books while I slough through my one. I’m just kidding; he’s a lovely person who’s been very encouraging and he writes excellent, well-told stories of the bands and figures we admire.

I know I don’t get a lot of engagement here…none, really. But, in case you feel like it, tell me what you’re reading…? *echoes into the void*

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Notes: Damn the Machine & Masked Jackal

Posted in Adventure Day, Book Reseach, Coroner, Coroner Band Bio, Dissonance Theory, Random, Travel, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , on January 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Today is a research/notes day. Yesterday and tomorrow, writing. I’ve just finished recording my notes from David E. Gehlke‘s Damn the Machine, which I highly recommend if you want to learn, in detail, the history of Noise Records. It includes a section on Coroner, but goes into depth the sagas of Celtic Frost, Kreator, and Helloween, plus information on copious other Noise bands like Running Wild, Rage, Tankard, etc. Excellent book, excellent resource. Also, excellent guy, that David E. Gehlke.

Furthermore, I went back into my very old notes and pulled up all my information about the Masked Jackal video, as tomorrow’s writing session will get into that. Yesterday, I went into Marky’s lyrics for Punishment for Decadence, and got into the recording, a bit of technical information, plus stories.

As for video interview notes, I have just made it over the midway hump in interviews with Marky, who is my main source (and he’s just full of info) — #22 of #42 (so far). Our interviews have stalled as we got into Grin, which is where it has been sitting for a while, since I had to take that too-long break. I’m looking to have the interviews I have notated by at least the end of April, if I don’t take too many days off, and then we can resume those interviews. It’s a lot. I’m alternating notation and writing days, so everything is still in motion without getting burnt out on either.

Speaking of days off: That west coast trip next month to see three Coroner shows just got more exciting, for me, at least. Added to the excitement is a topic very close to my heart: practical film effects. Fun fact: Back in the early ’90s, I went to school for this. I’m a huge horror fan, and an even bigger fan of the guys who made the gory, monster magic happen. If you’re into this sort of thing, you may know that Bob Burns passed away in December. Read about him here. Huge loss. That said, his basement wonders live on, or will, in the capable hands of Greg Nicotero. I am old enough to have been following his career since almost the start of it, and being from the Pittsburgh area, of course he’s a hero of mine. (of course!) I mean, just look at his filmography.

My husband, Anthony Everitt, is currently writing the Son of Dr. Cyclops video review column for Fangoria magazine, which is appropriate, because the original Video Eye of Dr. Cyclops, back in the early-to-mid ’80s, was his father, David Everitt, who also co-edited the magazine with Bob Martin (if you dig on older horror films, you should definitely check it out). It’s a family thing. Anyway, when he saw that Burns had passed, he knew there had to be an appropriate memorial in the magazine, and an 800-word piece turned into a 2000-word 2-part feature, which is exactly what the man deserves.

So, obviously, he needs to talk to some of the people who were closest to Burns, which began with Greg Nicotero on Friday and, today, Steve Wang (…it’s too cool). It’s in progress, so the interviews will be rolling in — it’s going to be great to get into the real old timers — the originators. Hubs is about to be privy to my own Zoom interview notation struggles! In any case, when we make the west coast show trip, thanks to his apparently tremendously generous character, we get to have hangs with Greg Nicotero while we’re there, which is just fabulous. In addition to this, but unrelated to the Burns quest, we’ll be having lunch or dinner with another practical effects royal, the mighty Mark Shostrom because he is a very good egg and a fine fellow.

The other fun thing I’m looking forward to (and will drive home exactly the level of nerd I am) is (if we have the time and I hope we do): we get to go visit Antonio Bay! The filming location for The Fog (1980, not the remake) is in the Inverness/Point Reyes area, just north of San Francisco.

That’s all the informative and cool, personal news I have. Now…back to the work…

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The Rush of Thrash

Posted in Coroner, Writing, tagged , , , , , on November 8, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I love bad “photoshop.” Get used to it.

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.

And, it’ll be in the book.

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Back to the Book…

Posted in Announcements, Coroner, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 5, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Fraction of what I sorted through on a 2.5-week trip to Zurich in Sept ember 2024.
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.

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