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The Big Book Of Hair Metal - Coming In August


Voyageur Press has set an August 15th release date for The Big Book Of Hair Metal: The Illustrated Oral History Of Heavy Metal's Debauched Decade. The book was written by acclaimed heavy metal journalist Martin Popoff. He has penned more than 40 books on hard rock, heavy metal, and record collecting, including Voyageur Press' Rush: The Illustrated History, Sweating Bullets: The Deth And Rebirth Of Megadeth, and Metallica: The Complete Illustrated History. He has also worked in film and television, his most recent projects being Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage and VH1's Metal Evolution. If you are curious about it, check out the book description below.




Book description: "In the 1980s, heavy metal went mainstream. The dark themes and brain-busting riffage of bands like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple suddenly fell out of favor - replaced by a new legion of metalheads whose themes of girls, partying, girls, drugs, and girls were presented amid shredding solos and power ballads and who were, for some reason, more acceptable to the masses. In this ultimate guide to the subgenre, acclaimed heavy-metal journalist Martin Popoff examines hair metal in an all-encompassing oral history jacked up by a kaleidoscope of outrageous and previously unpublished quotes, anecdotes, photos, and memorabilia. The Big Book of Hair Metal features the observations of dozens of musicians, producers, promoters, label execs, and hanger-ons in examining hair metal's rise and fall as well as all the bands that kept Aqua Net in business through the Reagan recession: Twisted Sister, Bon Jovi, Poison, Mötley Crüe, Ratt, Warrant, Great White, Whitesnake, Cinderella, Vixen, Skid Row, L.A. Guns, Guns N' Roses, and dozens more. In crafting a narrative of hair metal, Popoff also examines the factors that contributed to the movement's rise (including MTV, Reagan's "morning in America," and a general move toward prudish morals); the bands that inspired it (the Sweet, New York Dolls, Alice Cooper, and KISS, for a start); and the scenes that nurtured it (the Sunset Strip, anyone?). The ride finally ended circa 1991, when hair metal was replaced by grunge, but what a ride it was. Here it is in all of its primped-up glory."

Source: facebook.com
Band profile: Ratt
Posted: 25.07.2014 by Bad English


Comments

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Comments: 25   Visited by: 82 users
25.07.2014 - 12:56
M C Vice
ex-polydactyl
More eyeliner and hairspray than you can poke a codpiece at.
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"Another day, another Doug."
"I'll fight you on one condition. That you lower your nipples."
" 'Tis a lie! Thy backside is whole and ungobbled, thou ungrateful whelp!"
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25.07.2014 - 16:30
Boxcar Willy
yr a kook
All I can say is; sweet.
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14:22 - Marcel Hubregtse
I do your mum

DESTROY DRUM TRIGGERS
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25.07.2014 - 18:03
Lit.
Account deleted
Intrigued.
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28.07.2014 - 05:43
Ace Frawley
The Spaceman
I've read a couple of rock/metal books recently that were written as an "oral history" and I really enjoy the format. You get the views of a variety of people and usually their own perspective or take on what occurred, rather than a historian or journalist interpreting history. In that sense, I'm hoping this is a good read.
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The sun shines over The Fool...
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28.07.2014 - 12:30
Marcel Hubregtse
Grumpy Old Fuck
Written by deadone on 28.07.2014 at 04:47

Hell yeah. Sounds like a good read. Martin Popoff is one of the best journos/authors in metal.



He's good author but terrible at rating albums properly Just go through the books consisting of reviews. He is way off a lot of times. Espcially concerning the so-called more extreme metal genres.
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Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal

Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight
Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.)
05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996

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29.07.2014 - 12:04
Marcel Hubregtse
Grumpy Old Fuck
Written by deadone on 29.07.2014 at 01:43



I don't think he's that into the extreme genres. He's pretty old school but in this day and age you can't ignore the extreme genres (though I still squint hard and pretend BM never happened and DM completely disappeared post 1995-ish. ).



I mean he was way off with a genre as thrash as well (which was an extreme genre at the time he reviewed it )
----
Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal

Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight
Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.)
05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996

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30.07.2014 - 00:43
Lord_Regnier

I Wonder... Is there really such a thing as "Hair Metal"?

For me, not a single band mentioned at the end of the last paragraph is Metal. They're all Hard Rock, pop Rock, glam Rock (call it what you will) but not Metal in my mind.
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"Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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30.07.2014 - 00:53
Karlabos
Meat and Potatos
Written by Lord_Regnier on 30.07.2014 at 00:43

I Wonder... Is there really such a thing as "Hair Metal"?

For me, not a single band mentioned at the end of the last paragraph is Metal. They're all Hard Rock, pop Rock, glam Rock (call it what you will) but not Metal in my mind.

Hair rock, then?
----
"Aah! The cat turned into a cat!"
- Reimu Hakurei
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30.07.2014 - 01:01
Lord_Regnier

Written by Karlabos on 30.07.2014 at 00:53

Written by Lord_Regnier on 30.07.2014 at 00:43

I Wonder... Is there really such a thing as "Hair Metal"?

For me, not a single band mentioned at the end of the last paragraph is Metal. They're all Hard Rock, pop Rock, glam Rock (call it what you will) but not Metal in my mind.

Hair rock, then?


I would agree with this classification.
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"Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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30.07.2014 - 04:21
Lord_Regnier

Written by deadone on 30.07.2014 at 01:59

Written by Lord_Regnier on 30.07.2014 at 00:43

I Wonder... Is there really such a thing as "Hair Metal"?

For me, not a single band mentioned at the end of the last paragraph is Metal. They're all Hard Rock, pop Rock, glam Rock (call it what you will) but not Metal in my mind.



Have you actually heard Twisted Sister, Skidrow or early Motley Crue?!? Judging by that comment, I'd say probably not as those are very metal bands. According to you, I guess Iron Maiden, Dio, Saxon etc aren't heavy metal either? At least that way we can stop referring to all the shit modern metal ala Flower Metal as metal.

Some of the others are more rock, that I admit. Most of them were a helluva lot more metal in attitude and "dangerousness of sound" than a lot of modern metal today, especially all the European shit ala Symphonic Metal, Prog Metal, Power Metal and 90% of the melodic DM that sound boring, lifeless and gutless and about as dangerous as a wet rag.

Something like Gun N Roses still oozes bile, testorone driven aggression and a sense of "fuck you society" much more than the likes of Insomnium, Within Temptation, Epica, Nightwish, Omnium Gatherum etc etc). And they made a mint out of it (which they blew up their noses) unlike all the sellout Soilworks, In Flames, CoBs etc etc who could never break into the mainstream regardless of how commercial they sounded and many of whom ended up crawling back to metal with their tails between their legs.

This shit was so dangerous that Tipper Gore and co started the Parental Music Resource Centre group which aimed at banning metal and rap, mainly thanks to WASP's Animal (Fuck Like A Beast). It was used the by the US military as a psychological weapon in their invasion of Panama.

Yup Hair Metal was fucking extreme and that's what metal was about back then. Thrash was more musically and lyrically extreme but it never had the impact of Hair Metal in pissing people off. In fact Thrash was the start of insularity of metal whereby it started becoming more and more about metal isolated from the mainstream than about a form of musical rebellion against the mainstream. Indeed who cares about some long hair riffing it up in some garage or small club compared to some dudes dressed as transvestites cranking it up on MTV.


Of course, I heard Twisted Sister, Skid Row and Motley Crue but I don't consider them as Metal. I don't consider them as "dangerous in sound" at all. In fact, their sound is quite easily acessible to the mainstream. And their attitude is not Metal at all. They had the attitude of pop stars and playboys, nothing else.

As for this "fuck you society" attitude, it has nothing to do with Metal. You can find it very often even in pop music. Hell, even Lady Gaga has this kind of attitude now. And Madonna had the same in the 80's already.

Yes, I consider Iron Maiden, Dio and Saxon as Heavy Metal.

As for Symphonic Metal, Prog or Powermetal, I guess it depends on bands. I agree that lots of them are not much Metal or even not Metal at all in some cases.

Soilworks, In Flames or COB are good examples of what I call "Metal for the mainstream". I don't care for this kind of band. Imo, they just suck.

As for this Tipper Gore thing, it is not because the bands you mention were so dangerous that all that happened. It's only because it was the 80's and mentalities were very different at that time. Even Iron Maiden were considered as a very satanic band back then. They attacked those bands because they were more well-known, since their sound was easily accessible. It is funny, because there were already bands ten times more extreme than any "Hair Metal". But they were more underground at the time.

For the record, I consider W.A.S.P as Metal. Some of their songs were more Hard Rock but some others were rawer and more aggressive than anything Twisted Sister or Motley Crue ever did.
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"Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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30.07.2014 - 12:10
Marcel Hubregtse
Grumpy Old Fuck
Written by deadone on 30.07.2014 at 01:59


This shit was so dangerous that Tipper Gore and co started the Parental Music Resource Centre group which aimed at banning metal and rap, mainly thanks to WASP's Animal (Fuck Like A Beast). It was used the by the US military as a psychological weapon in their invasion of Panama.



No, it wasn't considered dangerous, also not in the Eighties. It was as mainstream as metal and music in general could get.

Quote:

Yup Hair Metal was fucking extreme and that's what metal was about back then. Thrash was more musically and lyrically extreme but it never had the impact of Hair Metal in pissing people off. In fact Thrash was the start of insularity of metal whereby it started becoming more and more about metal isolated from the mainstream than about a form of musical rebellion against the mainstream. Indeed who cares about some long hair riffing it up in some garage or small club compared to some dudes dressed as transvestites cranking it up on MTV.


nothing extreme about hair metal at all. Maybe extremely feminine. Hell the bands looked better than your average girlfriend. hair metal only pissed the people off that saw it for what it was. A totally empty hedonistic shell that brought pop to the metal table.
Like I just said hair metal was as mainstream as it could get.
----
Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal

Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight
Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.)
05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996

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30.07.2014 - 21:11
Troy Killjoy
perfunctionist
The only reason Tipper Gore considered "hair metal" to be dangerous is because, as Marcel pointed out, hair metal broke into the mainstream and that's when people started caring. Far more offensive music was being made at the time but nobody made a stink about it because it was underground.
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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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31.07.2014 - 02:15
Troy Killjoy
perfunctionist
I feel like this is another case of my culture is different than your culture. That's all I can say without taking this thread wildly off-topic.
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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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31.07.2014 - 05:04
Troy Killjoy
perfunctionist
If that's what you make it out to be, sure. I only have anecdotal evidence from others but from what I've been told, people who listened to this kind of music back when it was popular were shunned by those listening to stuff like The Big Four and all the death metal bands coming out of Florida. Nobody looked at the likes of Motley Crue, Poison, Whitesnake, or Twisted Sister as extreme. Glam was considered to be, at least by those I've talked to, an offshoot of rock music. And that's not even coming from these limited metalheads you speak of.
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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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31.07.2014 - 05:19
Lord_Regnier

Written by deadone on 31.07.2014 at 02:09

Maybe if you blokes stepped outside your metalhead shoes for once, you'd understand better.

Even in 2014 I know plenty of people who think heavy metal of any type is extreme or just noise or long haired drug addicts or a joke. In fact I know a lot of people who've never heard heavy metal. This includes plenty of young people.

Most people don't even have any great interest in music.

A lot more to the world than just metal or even music. In fact given the world's largest metal band Metallica has a mere 37 million Facebook likes out of a total human population of 7 billion (0.54% of the human population, it goes to show you no-one really knows or likes heavy metal. Even looking at Facebook, it's only 5% of the total Facebook users (680 million), despite Facebook and metal both being something embraced heavily by young, middle class people who can afford electricity, computers and internet.

Mind you metalheads as an extremely insular group living in their own little world fail to understand this (remembers a certain hipster stating Ghoul was no longer underground because they had 20,000 Facebook likes). Metalheads view the world from perspective of metal only.

So parents/grown ups and mainstream media were shocked by hair metal in the 1980s. The music critics sledged it early on to, just like they sledged virtually all metal. The records companies got in on it but they understood the market in those days (same reasons they lapped up Metallica in 1986).

No-one got shocked at Possessed or Death or whatever cause virtually no-one on the planet listened to this stuff, just like virtually no-one on the planet listens to Nile or Amon Amarth or Cradle of Filth.

Even in this day and age, virtually no-one gives a flying fuck about extreme metal. The "mainstream metal" still shocks mainstream society e.g. the debate surrounding letting Marilyn Manson into Australia or even the press coming out of the USA about him.


When I'm talking about Metal, I speak from the point of view of a Metalhead. I've been listening to Metal for about 30 years. I don't care for the point of view of mainstream people who don't know shit about Metal. Perhaps "Hair Metal" is frightening for them but then it is only because they don't know the first thing about Metal music. If those people can't make the difference between Twisted Sister and Nile, it's not my problem.

We're on a Metal forum here, so of course we speak from the point of view of Metalheads because that is what we are.

I understand that you don't like Extreme Metal but you seem to be trapped on your own island (to use your own words) when it comes to Metal. When talking about Metal nowadays, you must take extreme genres into consideration in the whole picture. You can't simply shove it aside and ignore it, only because for you it doesn't matter.
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"Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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31.07.2014 - 05:48
Lord_Regnier

Written by deadone on 31.07.2014 at 05:27

I don't like Extreme Metal?!? What the fuck you smoking? Look at my CD collection, look at what I listen to, look at the reviews I've written for this site. Or are the likes of Bolt Thrower, Atheist Carcass, Entombed, Edge of Sanity, Malevolent Creation etc etc not Extreme Metal anymore??!


Sorry, my mistake. I did'n't look at your list of bands. I got the false impression that you didn't like extreme Metal because of some of your comments in this thread.

Of course, all the bands you mention are extreme Metal. No doubt about it.

Some of the bands on your list are also among my favorites.
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"Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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31.07.2014 - 06:02
Troy Killjoy
perfunctionist
Written by deadone on 31.07.2014 at 05:20
You're speaking purely about extreme underground metalheads, not the mainstream metalheads or casual listeners of the genre or society in general. Basically it's an extremely small group of people.

The underground listening metalhead population is actually a small minority of metalheads. The bulk of metalheads listen to mainstream stuff be it Five Finger Death Punch or Lamb of God or Metallica or Pantera or in those days Guns N Roses, Motley Crue etc. Those people viewed themselves as listening to extreme music and compared to the vast majority of music out there in pop land, it was extreme.

The underground has a deep disdain for these "poseurs" and the further you go underground, the disdain gets wider and wider to the point where you get the fanatical zealots to whom only a few selected bands are "true."

The underground is also completely hypocritical - The Gathering or Anathema get lumped as True cause they were once upon a time metal, whereas Devil Driver, Soulfly, Pantera or in the old days Twisted Sister et al get lumped as poseur stuff and not metal.

Of course it's a small group of people - pop is the most mainstream form of music. That's why it's called pop(ular) music. Everything within the context of metal is understood to be more underground by direct comparison, but within that context people who listened to metal back then regarded glam as rock music for the most part. These were the same people who didn't consider Led Zeppelin as metal, either.

The real bulk of metalheads, at least according to online sites like RateYourMusic and last.fm, don't listen to a lot of the bands you list. Metallica tops that chart of course, but you're missing the rest of The Big Four as well as the likes of Opeth, Maiden, Priest, Sabbath, Dream Theater, Amon Amarth, etc. While bands such as Five Finger Death Punch and Lamb of God are popular bands within the metal spectrum, they are still referred to by a majority of metalheads as metal bands. I don't believe this to be the case with "hair metal". This has less to do with elitism and more to do with the average metalhead's need for categorization. Motley Crue et al were categorized as rock by those who listened to metal, and metal by those who listened to pop. I think the opinion of those within the scene holds more weight, even if the scene doesn't boast the same numbers.

It's no different than me saying some random electronic band is "house music". The people who are actually heavily involved in the electronic scene will tell you that no, in fact, that is psytrance or neoclassical darkwave or whatever it may be.

Also if you were more up-to-date on things, Anathema and The Gathering both take their lumps on a regular basis from people who haven't moved on from the fact that both bands no longer write the same music as when they started. I don't see many people saying bands like Devildriver and Pantera aren't metal, although Soulfly falls into the nu metal thing which turns a lot of people off. Twisted Sister shouldn't be regarded as metal, so that I understand.
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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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31.07.2014 - 06:25
Troy Killjoy
perfunctionist
Written by deadone on 31.07.2014 at 06:16
So do you think that people who only listen to "mainstream" metal are not metalheads

Topic for a new thread me thinks!

Agreed. Right now we're venturing into some pretty heavily off-topic territory.
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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."
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31.07.2014 - 13:56
Marcel Hubregtse
Grumpy Old Fuck
Written by deadone on 31.07.2014 at 02:09


So parents/grown ups and mainstream media were shocked by hair metal in the 1980s. The music critics sledged it early on to, just like they sledged virtually all metal. The records companies got in on it but they understood the market in those days (same reasons they lapped up Metallica in 1986).



no they weren't shocked by it, maybe in the US and only the Christian right wing there. But certainly NOT in Europe. Music critics also didn't slag it, music critics were actually quite positive about it. And I am talking mainstream pop critics here, not metal critics.

It is clear you weren't around at the time or else you wouldn't be saying what you are saying.
----
Member of the true crusade against European Flower Metal

Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is out of sight
Dawn Crosby (r.i.p.)
05.04.1963 - 15.12.1996

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01.08.2014 - 03:38
Ganondox

Written by Lord_Regnier on 30.07.2014 at 00:43

I Wonder... Is there really such a thing as "Hair Metal"?

For me, not a single band mentioned at the end of the last paragraph is Metal. They're all Hard Rock, pop Rock, glam Rock (call it what you will) but not Metal in my mind.


It really annoys me when people call glam metal glam rock because glam rock is actually a different genre which sounds completely different. See this thread on another forum. Yes, they are pop rock and hard rock, but they do have more metal elements then just plain old hard rock (eg. high pitched clean "screams", shredding and metal styled riffing), though it's less heavy. I'm going to leave it at that, as it really is ambiguous to whether it can be considered metal or not and I'm not in the mood to argue either way.

Anyway, Twisted Sister is NOT glam metal, they just get mistakenly labled as such because they dress like women (though in a different manner than other hair metal bands), and their two most well known songs are more hard rock. Most their songs are as heavy as any other metal band at the time.


As for Skid Row, their first album is glam metal, but their next to albums are straight metal.


Don't know about Motley Crue because I hate them and thus haven't bothered to listen to their early material, but I assume what deadone said about them is true. Anyway, while I disagree with deadone on many aspects, including about whether glam is edgy (the song that provoked Tipper was actually a Prince song about female masturbation (and another pop song about female masturbation was also on the list) and Madonna made the list as well, though that W.A.S.P. song is awesome), I do agree with him in that many extreme metal heads live in their own little world and as a result aren't as good of judge of what isn't metal as they think they are, I'll detail my opinion in the other thread.
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01.08.2014 - 21:19
Lord_Regnier

Written by Lord_Regnier on 30.07.2014 at 00:43

I Wonder... Is there really such a thing as "Hair Metal"?

For me, not a single band mentioned at the end of the last paragraph is Metal. They're all Hard Rock, pop Rock, glam Rock (call it what you will) but not Metal in my mind.


I want to bring a precision here. When I asked this question, I was really asking the question. It wasn't sarcasm or elitism of any kind.
I mentioned my point of view on the matter but I never pretended that I was right and others wrong. I was curious to hear other opinions.
In fact, I wondered if I was right to think like that.

I think those who know me very well probably understood that it was merely a question and some curiosity. But I'm not sure if those who barely know me interpreted my words correctly.

I rarely use sarcasm on forums because it is too easy to be misunderstood.
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"Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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01.08.2014 - 21:24
Lord_Regnier

@Ganondox: When talking about Skid Row in relation to Hard Rock, I only refer to their first album (the one with the song "18 and Life"). I'm not familiar with their later stuff but I know it is different.
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"Why would we fear death, when life is so much more frightening?"
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02.08.2014 - 16:24
Auntie Sahar
Drone Empress
Attention: will soon be writing very own "The Big Book Of Avantgarde" to combat this poser fluffery
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I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go.

~ II. VII
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02.08.2014 - 16:26
Karlabos
Meat and Potatos
Written by Auntie Sahar on 02.08.2014 at 16:24

Attention: will soon be writing very own "The Big Book Of Avantgarde" to combat this poser fluffery

Would totally read that
----
"Aah! The cat turned into a cat!"
- Reimu Hakurei
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02.08.2014 - 16:28
Auntie Sahar
Drone Empress
Written by Karlabos on 02.08.2014 at 16:26

Written by Auntie Sahar on 02.08.2014 at 16:24

Attention: will soon be writing very own "The Big Book Of Avantgarde" to combat this poser fluffery

Would totally read that

So hipster the pages smell of fedoras
----
I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go.

~ II. VII
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