Paul Stottler designed this gas-masked mutant (this just in: its name is "OD") for Arizona thrash metal band Sacred Reich in 1987. "For every release except "Heal," says Stottler. Ever been to Arizona? It's hot in Arizona. Seems like one of the heaviest spots on Earth to start a thrash metal band.
This take on Uncle Sam was designed for New York thrash unit M.O.D. [Method of Destruction] by Anthony Ferrara for their 1987 LP "U.S.A. for M.O.D.". Not to be confused with the Uncle Sam that Uncle Slam uses - although M.O.D.'s latest logo - that of a guitar laid across red intertwined M-O-D letters - is an almost total ripoff of the logo for the Michael Schenker Group. Does New York thrash really need to look to mid-'70s German prog-metal bands for their artistic cues? I mean, really?
Another dystopian masterpiece by Brian "Pushead Lamort" Schroeder for the North Carolina hardcore band's "Eye for an Eye" LP in 1983. How many of these bands' names, in the euphoric slur of an altered moment, become all one word, concert after concert, embrace after embrace? Coachformdy! That's what the people in the streets call COC (have they ever opened up for BÖC?) after almost a quarter-century. And yet, mired in the stultifying, tobacco-choked wilds of Raleigh, four guys in 1982 (cf. the evolution of Bad Brains a few states away that might as well have been galaxies apart) truly and sincerely wanted a corrosion of conformity. They wanted substantive change - to paraphrase Kafka: to use their music as "an ax to smash the frozen sea of the heart." What's the alternative? A mutated radioactive skull, that's what - and really, without the prehensile tongue to go with it, who wants to be that on a Saturday night? Incalculable are the number of jackets upon which this design have been emblazoned. More than there are stars in Heaven, probably.
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!
