Videos: Born In The Basement. no comments

Born In The Basement | 66 Minutes | Kundrat Productions | 2007

1. Being a fan of his work in Get Thrashed, I made it a mission to find out, and possibly get my filthy hands on any of Rat Skates other film works. Wish granted, I got Born In The Basement. What I loved about Get Thrashed was its total honesty and sincerity. You will get that sensation that the video was made out of his love for the music and none other. It all rolls down to this video that I am about to review, Born In The Basement. 

2. Born In The Basement is basically some type of a memoir of Skates time struggling keeping his band, the mighty Overkill, afloat, back in the 80s. I do not consider this a full fledged documentary about the band, even though the focal point of BITB revolved around Overkill. Like I said, it is more of a memoir with Rat Skates recalling war stories from his days in Overkill.

3. Overkill is a legendary Thrash Metal band hailing from New Jersey and for you who are not in the know, Skates was the bands original founder and drummer. Despite Skates resignation from the band due to exhaustion, the New Jersey wrecking crew soldiered on releasing albums after albums through out the year without ever compromising their sound one bit (unlike certain famous big four bands), and remained one of the best Thrash Metal band, unchallenged till this day.

4. My experience with Overkill is rather new. Despite very familiar with the status of the band being one of the earlier Thrash bands from the States, I never had the desire to check their music out. Not until I feasted my ears to their come back highly praised critically acclaimed album, Iron Bound, which was released back in 2009, I became an Overkill convert. Who is the best thrash metal vocalist of all time? No, not Mustaine nor Araya. Belladonna came close. Hetfield is lightyears away compared to the deafening howls of Bobby Blitz. That guy is a freaking monster.

5. Back on the video, BITB recalls the band in its earlier formative years, back when the band was still wearing ghoulish make up and scary vampire capes. Rat Skates would do anything and everything to make his band successful. Extravagant live shows, extravagant stage props, crazy DIY merchandising, the blood, the sweat and the fucking tears made you want to stand up and give five salutes to the man. It was all Skates.

6. The dedication that this man gave to the band, the amount of hard work that this man put into the band, were nothing less then phenomenal. It was really sad that he decided to give up the band after all the years he sacrificed for Overkill. 

7. If you love Overkill or Thrash Metal in general, then you should go out and find this documentary. If you are not a fan but would like to discover the secret to success as a musician in a band despised by the society, then you should also try and get this. 

Metal News Malaysia 2013 Vol 4: no comments

1. AKAGRISH, the Death Metal maniacs hailing for Kota Kinabalu, Sabahell, have already released their EP titled "Akagrish" through Evil Dead Production. The CD shall contain 7 corpse decapitating death metal tracks for you to bleed you ears with. A Bullet Belt review for this one is underway. For more information on how to get a copy of this CD, follow the following link.

AKAGRISH | Facebook

EVIL DEAD PROD | Facebook

2. MANTAK, another one of them Sabahells Black Metal elite, will be releasing their new CD under Hells Vomit in the near future. The proposed cover for the new CD, currently titled "Kult Rogolized" have already been published by the band. For more information on the new CD, visit.

MANTAK | Facebook

HELLS VOMIT PROD | Facebook

3. BESTIAL HORDE, The black thrash band from East Malaysia, have just rereleased their CD Nuclear Metal Lust via Norwegian underground label called Apocalyptic Empire records. The rerelease will be in 7" Vinyl format and print will be limited to 666 copies only. get yours now.

BESTIAL HORDE | Facebook

APOCALYPTIC EMPIRE | Website

4. BHIMIDHUKA PRODUCTION is an upcoming record independent record label from east coat Malaysia. The small label started off back in November last year and is eager to support local and asian bands. Local death and black metal bands, send in your demos. Do check out and support their releases as well. I love the name of the label. Just brilliant.

BHUMIDHUKA | Facebook

BHUMIDHUKA | Webstore

5. EVIL ROTTING ZINE, the premier metal zine from Singapore, now relocated to Malaysia, have just released and published their fourth issue after 13 years of silence. The first issue of the fanzine was released back in 1988 (I was still in my kindergarten uniform in 1988) and the year 1990, saw the released of their third and final issue. Now, the beast has arisen. The bands featured, among others, were Kathgor, Humiliation, Lavatory, Mantak and many more. Get a copy of Evil Rotting now to know more about South East Asian Metal. Contents are in english and itll cost you USD5 or EU5 or RM10 a pop. Contact them.

EVIL ROTTING ZINE | Facebook

Books: Undisputed - How To Become The World Champion In 1,372 Easy Steps. no comments

Undisputed - How to Become the World Champion In 1372 Easy Steps.

Title: Undisputed - How To Become The World Champion In 1,372 Easy Steps.
Authors: Chris Jericho & Peter Thomas Fornatale.
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing - 2011.
Additional Information: Hardcover, 429 Pages, RM 104.50, Kinokuniya Bookstore, Kuala Lumpur.

1. Chris Jericho? Was he not a WWE superstar wrestler? What the hell is he doing in The Bullet Belt? Is this blog turning into a wrestling blog now? Will we be reading about muscled men in spandex grappling each other with fancy moves now? What the fuck is this shit?

2. Yes, it is Chris Jericho and yes, I am reviewing his book. Yes, he is a WWE superstar wrestler and no this blog is not turning into a a wrestling blog. regarding the spandex thingy, well, aint all rock stars wore spandex back in 80s? Shut the fuck up and sit down.

3. I have decided to review Chris Jericho's Undisputed because, the book itself was basically a half wrestling memoir and half rock band biography. Thats why he is in here. And, Chris Jericho also happens to be one of my favorite wrestler off all time.

4. I am a big time wrestling fan. Not to fond of the current wrestling shows though. When I say wrestling, I meant the golden age of wrestling which was back in the mid 90s, when you still got WWF and WCW as two different entities battling for TV ratings night in night out. Remember the monday night wars? Okay, I suppose only the more hardcore fans would know about the war back in the 90s because to everybody else in Malaysia, it was just wrestling programs which was aired every thursday night at 11.00 pm.

5. The biggest kahuna of wrestling back then was Vince McMahon with his WWF (now WWE). With the entry of another kahuna in the form billionaire media mogul, Ted Turner and his revived WCW, McMahon back then faced a competition. Both companies aired their wrestling program at the same time on the same day. It was a gruesome battle which saw WWF won at the end, but not without an over 80 weeks of being ass whooped by WCW. Hell, I can write all night long about wrestling, but I think I should focus on reviewing the book for the moment.      

6. Undisputed was the follow up to his first critically acclaimed memoir, A Lion's Tale. I loved his first book so much that Ive read and re-read it more than 20 times, man. It's a fun read. When I was informed that Jericho will be releasing a follow up, I was super excited. I got the book a couple of days after the book was officially released. 

7. It was not really of that caliber of his first book, it was still a fun read. It was 429 page thick and was further divided into 47 chapters. These 47 chapters would further be divided into chapters for his wrestling tales and chapters for his musical ventures. For those not in the know, Jericho is the front man of Fozzy, a solid modern metal band that he formed with Rich Ward of that Stuck Mojo fame.

8. Stuck Mojo was one of my favorite band of all time. I was introduced to the band via their debut album, Snappin Necks which was released back in 1995. I believe, apart from Anthrax, Stuck Mojo really was the pioneer of Rap metal. The music was extremely heavy as fuck, the beats were catchy as hell and the raps were all over the place. Rich Ward, the guitarist of SM teaming with Jericho? Mind. Just. Blown.

9. Fozzy started out as a tribute band by the name of Fozzy Osbourne. The band got a record deal with Megaforce and released a couple of mediocre albums filled with covers. It was only when the band ditched the cover songs and their "gimmick" (Fozzy was a band from the States that got stuck in Japan while other bands ripped their songs and became successful for it, thus the covers that Fozzy were doing were actually their original songs previously stolen by other successful bands), that the band became more successful. 

10. I love Chris Jericho because he is one damn funny fella and this character translated well in his writing. The timing for the punch lines were spot on. A punch line time in a book? Crazy isn't it? I recommend this book. It might not be a top to bottom music, but you will have loads of fun reading it.