Logo #238: Blood Axis

Designed in 1989 by Michael Moynihan. Blood Axis had its roots in Moynihan's earlier, noisier band Coup de Grâce (expect that big beautiful archival Vinyl-on-Demand box set any year now). He now publishes esoteric literature through his publishing house Dominion Press. I can't recall ever seeing one photograph of him in which he smiles, although doubtless he must take enjoyment in at least one or two things in this life, but I don't think I'd necessarily qualify him as a "bummer." Ever known a guy like that? He's probably really good at drawing or squash or math but you'd never know it and he's probably got a backyard filled with cash that gets donated to Our Lady of the Worthless Miracle when he dies. The cross, in a way the inverse of the circle, doesn't get as much play in terms of logo design as it probably should - people occasionally get cagey about discussing their respective Christianities, and some see overly ostentatious displays of the cross as a little like wearing your bullet pendant to a dinner at the Kennedys - but straight lines are always attractive and when they meet, it's sweet geometric love.

Logo #237: Aesthetic Meat Front

The simple sigil of the Aesthetic Meat Front was duly divined in the halcyon days of 1996 by band founder Louis Fleischauer. Fleischauer: "I designed the symbol when I first started the Aesthetic Meat Foundation. It's a bind rune meant to invoke violent change (evolution)." He currently designs fetishwear under the AMF Korsets couture line and quite honestly they're the only thing even vaguely interesting happening in that part of culture these days - vacuum beds and big rubber mummification balls notwithstanding. As with most couture, fetishwear has more than its share of cheap, pedestrian material and tatty, unimaginative fabrications - but AMF Korsets operate as a stylish and incisive comment on fashion-as-skinned-animals covering slowly rotting sacks of meat. Not that some slowly rotting sacks of meat aren't occasionally deeply attractive!

Logo #236: Death in June

You thought this was going to be logo #14 or logo #88, didn't you? Academic chickens! The totenkopf logo was designed for Death In June by band founder Douglas Pearce in 1981. Pearce (who looks a little like Dave Pearce of Flying Saucer Attack): "I designed it, as I do 99% of the artwork, and it was first used on a sleeve in 1983 - although it had been around since just after the release of "Heaven Street" in 1981 as a patch design, etc. A screw-up on the 7" sleeve of "Holy Water" in 1982 meant that the '6' was left off." When asked whether he considered the totenkopf or the whip hand more emblematic of Death in June, he replied, "Now, now David. I've answered a couple of private questions - it's not going to turn into a book!"

Suitably enough, this Day in Death:
George Joseph Herriman ("Krazy Kat"; August 22, 1880 – April 25, 1944)
George Sanders (July 3, 1906 – April 25, 1972)
Paul de Vree (November 13, 1909 - April 25, 1982)
Dexter Keith Gordon (February 27, 1923 - April 25, 1990)
Phillip "Phil" Suchomel (Naked Aggression; April 19, 1969 - April 25, 1998)
Roger Troutman (Zapp & Roger; November 29, 1951 - April 25, 1999)
Bobby "Boris" Pickett (born Robert George Pickett; February 11, 1938 – April 25, 2007)
Enrico Donati (the last Surrealist; February 19, 1909 - April 25, 2008)

Logo #235: Flotsam and Jetsam

Here's a good example of a heavy metal band mascot that many consider as such but when you actually ask the band? Not to be! Flotzilla (also known as Flossie the Sea Monster) was designed by Kevin Tyler for Flotsam and Jetsam in 1992. Kelly Smith, Flotsam and Jetsam drummer: "Flotzilla was created as part of the story of Metal Shock and Doomsday that Jason Newsted wrote on the album. It first appeared on the cover of "Doomsday for the Deceiver." It wasn't used after that because Flotzilla was about that record, and there was already a Eddie in Iron Maiden and Megadeth had Vic Rattlehead. So we decided not to follow that trend." Not to be confused with The Jetsams, a cartoon about a family of trash that washed up on a beach in a dystopian future far, far away.

Completely unrelatedly, the Song of the Moment is "Holland, 1945" by Neutral Milk Hotel

Logo #234: Coil

Coil's symbol of chaos was originally designed by Jim Cawthorn in 1962 and appropriated by John Balance (born Geoffrey Laurence Burton, a.k.a. Geff Rushton; February 16, 1962 - November 13, 2004) and Peter Christopherson in 1987. Christopherson: "I would say (we started using it) around '87, not before. By the way, I would claim some small credit for first deriving the vaguely 'animal-skull-shaped' version of the chaosstar which occurs when you filter a normal one through a Photoshop Polar co-oordinates filter! This version was used extensively by Coil during the '80s and '90s." Perhaps no other shape since the circle has captured the imagination of modern logo design than the chaos star. SFA, Naked Aggression, Psychick TV, GWAR, Skullflower and Fire + Ice have all wielded it as an identity over the decades, and why no one's used it in a movie as a shuriken is beyond me. Talk about a system! Coil was one of the very first bands - along with Sleep Chamber, Master/Slave Relationship, Controlled Bleeding and SPK - I ever got into on my long journey into the nights and noises of experimental music, and I tend to like them on compilations and in little bits. As one focused album of songs - mmh, not so much. Highly, highly recommended: the "Gold is the Metal with the Heaviest Shoulders" and "Stolen and Contaminated Songs" albums. Your life is improved immeasurably for having heard those sounds at least once and possibly twice.

Logo #233: Megadeth

Vic Rattlehead, mascot for thrash metal band Megadeth was originally designed by Dave Mustaine in 1985 and fleshed out to his classic configuration by Edward J. Repka for the 1986 "Peace Sells… But Who's Buying?" LP and the 1990 "Rust in Peace" LP. Repka also presented Biohazard's logo the same year. Busy guy, that Ed Repka. Vic's story is that, because his mouth, ears and eyes are clamped and welded shut, he can neither speak, hear nor see any evil - which either makes him an innocent on par with Cassandra and her Complex or just a really great real estate agent. Here he is, selling the United Nations. It was really, really strange seeing Dave Mustaine in therapy with Lars Ulrich in the 2001 Metallica documentary "Some Kind of Monster." Dave's whole mindset was that Megadeth was always second to Metallica. Sentimental hogwash! He should take a cue from the attitude of Tampax: "We're not #1 - but we're up there!" Also, if any of you professional ironists want to start making t-shirts again that say things like "Prayer" instead of Slayer and "Megalife" instead of Megadeth - in the words of Lacy Underall, "Go for it!"

Logo #232: RKL

RKL had their "Beanie Kid" designed by drummer Richard "Bomer" Manzullo and Dan Sites in 1983. Singer Jason Sears, speaking to Thrasher Magazine in 2002: “Some guy said, 'Ha, those kids will never be anything - they're just a bunch of rich kids on LSD, man.' The first party we played we didn't have a name for the band, so we put that one on the flier and it just stuck.” The Beanie Boy logo was born one night while Bomer and Jason were being tattooed. Bomer was attempting to draw a dragon tat pattern. On seeing the drawing, Jason commented, "Yeah, dude, it's Cecil! Where's Beanie?" Dan Sites was sitting alongside, drawing a flyer for a show supporting Suicidal Tendencies in Oxnard, and drew a beanie guy jumping from a building." As a band, RKL (Rich Kids on LSD) are almost as doomed as Battalion of Saints, what with how many people in the band have died. It's all the more surprising because RKL's home base of Montecito is slightly south of Santa Barbara, not the most discouraging and poverty-stricken part of the world. The rich kids are easier to find than a wet spot on prom night. Drummer Derrick Plourde (October 17, 1971 – March 30, 2005), Manzullo (July 19, 1967 - December 12, 2005), and singer Jason Sears (January 23, 1968 - January 31, 2006) have all died but the band theoretically still exists in one form or another, currently in yet another one of their increasingly frequent hiatuses.