When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, Snacks & Pterodactyl, s/t
by marck
Now that the last of the neighing naysayers who deny that
Armageddon is already in progress have been resoundingly silenced by the return of hometown hero Jesus H. to Earth in the form of an immaculately conceived hammerhead shark, we can put the debate to rest and get on with the business of preparing for the next–and undoubtedly uglier–phase of these End Times. For my part, I’ve been gluing spikes onto my football pads (don’t ask me why I have those), building a crossbow from some plans I downloaded and evaluating which punk rock haircut is the most intimidating (Isn’t “the skinhead” scarier at this point than “the mowhawk”? Or do we just THINK it is because skinheads are scarier than punks? Will there be skinheads in the future???). Oh yes, and I’ve been stocking up on Volvic (best tasting bottled water ever!), and looking on Craigslist for a car that I can turn into a death machine of death and fear (also needs good gas mileage!).Ok I know what you’re probably thinking: “Yeah Volvic is the best tasting bottled water, but HAVEN’T YOU FORGOTTEN SOMETHING??? What tunes are you going to rock out to in the post-apocalypse?” And no, dhuh, I have NOT forgotten that crucial point. It’s not like I can slap in Slanted & Enchanted into the Ipod doc of my death machine before I blast into Frog Town on a raid to dust some mutants and steal some womenfolk. Totally inappropriate. But see, that’s the beauty of Christian Mythology! Revelation tells us that everything The End Times needs to be totally wicked 
apocalypse-like will be taken care of for us. Now I don’t remember the exact passage, but I’m sure you’re at least passingly familiar with that part of Revelation where it goes something like:
And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints. And the beasts drank down their vials and plucked upon the harps the songs of the Leviathan while the elders stood by and raised their hands in the sign of horned Nemesis. [Revelations 5:8, obviously -Ed.]
You don’t have to be Bible scholar to know that a “Leviathan” is just fancytalk for a dinosaur, and–since the Second Vatican Council–most people take the “elders” rightfully to mean those few honored men and women that created and defined the world’s most timeless, Classic Rock Music in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. And when God wrote this he obviously meant the “beasts” to be taken as art rock bands, and the Lambs to be people like you and me (mild, soft, doughy). I have no idea what the “golden vials” are supposed to be, but maybe God just put that in to jazz up the prose a bit, to hold the reader’s interest [yeah, that book is f-ing LONG -Ed.]. So, in today’s English, you could basically translate this passage as saying “So yeah, at the end of the world some bands will come along and create the soundtrack of the apocalypse by taking elements from the great Rock Elders and the traditional songs of dinosaurs and totally knocking our sox off while we wait in line to be judged or something.”
And You don’t have to look very far to see this revelation happening today already. Take Austin/Chicago based When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth or Brooklyn’s Pterodactyl. Both bands take elements of prehistoric boulder smashing and Tyrannosaurus wrestling and whip them in with some very right now sounding chaos and dissolution–to world-destroying effect!
alternately driving on the same beat street and diverging into intricate back-and-forth snare storms. The guitars follow a similar scripture; real tinny, spastic, repetitions that break into neck snapping rivers of sludge riffs. Revelation indicates that these dinosaurs are channeling the elders Black Sabbath via Scratch Acid. The vocalists lay down a blanket of gibbering and shrieking insanity. Those moments on Snacks where all this madness coalesces into one pummeling riff it’s like the end of the world except you are really crazy happy about it. Do they have a word for that? [Can’t think of one -Ed.]Pterodactyl rise to a similar state, but more through no wave aggression that transubstantiates into the body of the son of Prog as it melts in your mouth. Pterodactyl’s self-titled LP starts with the piercing cries of their distant progeny, the blue jay, like it’s just another Sunday morning in the suburbs. Then the first track erupts in the sonic equivalent of buildings falling, mountains cracking and fire raining onto your face from the heavens. Picture drumming at a serious velocity with swooping guitar and bass trading dissonant melodies. The singing likewise starts of as frantic ranting that frequently cracks into falsetto. Then, out of nowhere, their own rock elders YES exert their influence and a chorus of angelic voices swell as the din subsides into mathematically precise lock grooves. Sometimes this transformation is so unexpected and so complete that it’s like the feeling you get when a divinely conceived hammerhead shark brushes up against your ear and whispers “You’re ok kid. Shit’s about to get real crazy down here… Why don’t you go on up.”Clearly two fine choices for for your final hours of your listen pleasure. I’m not trying to be alarmist, but it may be better for us lambs to head down to the recorder store for these CDs sooner rather than later…. I’m not 100% clear on what point in this whole second coming they turn off the power.
When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth
myspace | Empire Jones (label)
Pterodactyl
website | myspace | Brah Records (label)
Go here to read Jonathan’s assessment of Pterodactyl
Go here for details on the show these bands are playing together Saturday, June16th!
edited Friday, June 16th, 2007 by marck
OK UPDATE! Turns out shark baby J was killed shortly after birth by two clearly atheist sting rays [Way to fact check, buddy! -Ed.]! Um… SO YEAH, FALSE ALARM? Sorry. Soooo, are we cool? How about we split a case of Volvic and call it even? [Maybe -Ed.]
