Logo #257: Slayer

Designed by Steve Craig in 1983. Slayer's pentagram and lettering is a rare case of aspects of a logo being at once so intertwined and interdependent on one another that seeing either without the other becomes a rather incomplete proposition. The swords of the pentagram depend on the lettering to complete the horizontal axis; if you took the lettering out of the circle and replaced it with another sword, something would feel lacking from the entire presentation. Conversely, if you look at the lettering of SLAYER by itself, it comes off as though scrawled by a murder victim in his final throes - scratched painfully in the dirt as a clue to whomever comes along later.

Logo #248: Twisted Sister

Designed by Dee Snider and Suzette Guilot-Snider in 1984.

Logo #240: Anal Cunt

Designer: Chris Broduer, 1988. Replacing the "u" in the band's name with a helpful asterisk (*) rather crystallizes the whole concept just that much more eloquently, so I won't belabor the point. Grindcore band Anal Cunt are something that a lot of people don't get - but, in the words of Lo Pan, "You are not brought upon this world to "get it"." You either really like them or really hate them. The name sure gets you in the door, though - and sometimes that's all it takes. Band founder Seth Putnam has his own identity and voice - which means he owns his own soul, ultimately - and so I cannot fault them. And if that makes me gay - well, then it makes me gay.

Logo #217: Helloween

Designers: Helloween & Uwe Karczewski in 1985. The groundbreaking (well, if one wants to go to Hell one must take the first step) power metal band from Germany has been around for almost 25 years at this point. It was not without cost: Helloween's drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg (May 18, 1965 - March 8, 1995) jumped in front of a train after depression, drugs and getting dumped from the band became too much. Does the pumpkin have a name? Unresolved. "Ingo" has a nice ring to it, though. Here's Helloween with their fairly appropriate hit, "I Want Out."

Logo #203: Surgical Steel

Everything you ever wanted to know about Phoenix heavy metal band Surgical Steel is here. Designer A.D. Cook: "Wow, a blast from the past. I’m going from memory, but I would saw I designed the Surgical Steel logo in 1981." Earlier: "My time with Surgical Steel was a blast! We had some great times. I met them early in their career as a band, and after creating their logo, we became friends. They proved to be a great bunch of guys. I still have fond memories of those days. I remember one night I was on a date at a pizza place with my new girlfriend and I told her I did the Surgical Steel logo (sure, I was trying to impress her). She didn’t sound like she was totally convinced. Ironically, as we were leaving the restaurant the band was walking in. We all talked for a bit and they confirmed my story. It was hilarious, partly because our paths crossing must have seemed planned to her at the time, even though it was synchronicity. Anyway, I guess she must have been somewhat impressed – we’ve been married now for over 20 years! I have fond memories too of the band coming by my place to have their drums painted and to talk about album covers. They all had wild hair and wore lots of leather. In fact, I remember Jim having purple streaks in his hair for a while. All of my other clients were advertising agencies and corporate guys – straight haircuts and business suits. What a contrast when they would run into each other. It was priceless. Those were some wild days." - A.D. Cook, March 2004

Logo #181: Death

Designed by Charles Michael "Chuck" Schuldiner (May 13, 1967 – December 13, 2001) in 1984. What an intensely morbid blahg this has become lately! Well, fiddle-dee-dee - it's just a coincidence; conversely, there aren't many rock band logos that contain puppies or poppies or other cosmic manifestations of ur-cuddliness. The logo ultimately became slightly more ornate and detailed, like a bored student's Pee Chee folder doodled into oblivion. Chuck ultimately died of a brain-stem tumor. He was also the father of death metal. Talk about living the dream! Richard Christy, drummer on three LPs by Death, is one of our most gifted prank callers working today.

Logo #162: Disturbed

Melodic metal merchants Disturbed currently rock two symbols: first, the Mick Haggerty-designed mash-up representing the world's religions all rolled up into one big beautiful theological Tootsie-Pop, from the cover of their 2002 "Believe" LP - and "The Guy," created by Greg Capullo and Todd McFarlane for the cover of their "Ten Thousand Fists" album in 2005. "Down With The Sickness" is truly their standout hit, their magnum opus (or dopiest, depending on where you stand on modern heavy metal) - beautifully suitable for zombie film remakes or just driving down Vignes Street in Los Angeles. Don't you want to be down with the Vignes? Until suddenly it changes, that is. Violently it changes. Oh no.

Logo #160: Machine Head

Designed for Oakland melodic heavy metal outfit Machine Head by lead singer Robert "Robb" Flynn in 1994. They paved the way for things like unkempt goatees, violently sullen looks and Trivium, and they made it difficult to go shopping for a metronome at the guitar shop from all the noise of their adherents playing loud. Nothing succeeds like success, it would seem. This is surpassed only by their deep love of symmetry and their fondness for stark circles and straight lines, so at this point I declare the account balanced out in the cosmos and return to the Song of the Moment, which is a Popol Vuh improvisation from 1971.

Logo #125: Biohazard

Biohazard's logo, originally proposed by Charles Baldwin in 1966, was borrowed by Ed Repka in 1990. From a 2001 New York Times Magazine interview: "Every time I go into the doctor's office or the dentist's office or a hospital anywhere, I've always got my eye out for it. Naturally, I'm proud of the fact that I was able to come up with something, or direct a program that evolved into this symbol that's so widely recognized, so helpful. But I ran into a peculiar situation one time a couple years ago when someone was putting on a seminar on biohazards. As gifts for the participants, he devised a beautiful tie with little biohazard symbols all over it. This got me upset, and I sent him kind of a nasty letter saying this symbol was not designed to be used sartorially.'' More specifically, in a paper presented at the 6th Annual Technical Meeting of the American Association for Contamination Control, Washington, D.C., 18 May 1967: "Biohazards Symbol: Development of a Biological Hazards Warning Signal During investigations of biological control and containment conducted under contract for the National Cancer Institute, the need for such a symbol became apparent to the Dow biohazards research and development team, A search of the literature revealed that, while certain biological warning signs are used by various agencies, a universal symbol to warn of danger from infectious or potentially infectious agents - a symbol whose immediate significance is known to all - does not exist. Colleagues in the field of biological research concurred, in reply to direct query, that such a warning symbol is needed."

And here you thought you'd get a tattoo of it on your stomach because you get bad gas and that it looked cool.

Logo #120: Sodom

German thrash merchants Sodom had their mascot drawn for them by Johannes Beck in 1987. His name is Knarrenheinz. Founding vocalist / bassist Tom Angelripper originally began the band in 1982 to escape the grind of the coal mines of the West German city of Gelsenkirchen for a grind of another kind entirely. As the Cold War was in full frost at the time, the concept of the faceless, gas-masked soldier drifting through war-torn, apocalyptic landscapes doubtlessly made sense on multiple levels. It's a heavy metal mascot with context, relevance and personal investment - hampered slightly by the general overall peace of the '90s - but now invigorated through a whole new series of conflicts. Sodom's latest album, "The Final Sign of Evil," appeared in autumn of 2007. One of their recent visual memes, that of a chainsaw and chaingun aiming from the darkness from their self-titled 2006 SPV LP, produced by Eroc(!), the drummer from Kosmische(?!) band Grobschnitt(%), is very powerful indeed. Great stuff!

Whither goeth cover band Gomorrah?

Logo #97: Carpathian Forest

Designed by Eivind Kulde in 2002.

Logo #36: Grim Reaper

Illustrated by Garry Sharpe- Young for NWOBHM band Grim Reaper's 1984 debut "See You in Hell." They've reformed recently, under the name Steve Grimmett's Grim Reaper, after a two-decade absence (or abscess, depending). They've renewed their melodic onslaught for an entirely new generation that will, as is usual in these times, abandon them in another five years even while the next cycle of repackaging + nostalgia (BFF!) gears up for their inevitable penultimate comeback. What happens when the people who illustrate Grim Reapers die? Do their drawings come for their souls? I find it endlessly difficult to believe that the cosmos has no sense of humor beyond us. Beyond that, there's nothing else to say other than this.