Hesh or Die...

Ever hear of Mayhem? Perhaps one of the most interesting music related stories ever. Not just Mayhem but the entire scene surrounding them. Here's just a small taste... Ya'll niggaz ain't brutal...

"Dead (pictured above) was perhaps best known for his stage antics. He was known to bury his clothes weeks before a concert and to then dig them up again on the night of the event. This way he would have, as he put it, the "essence of death"; wearing dirty, rotten, worm infested clothing. During one tour with Mayhem he found a dead raven, which he collected and stored in a plastic bag. He would often smell the bird before performing, saying he needed to "smell death".

On April 8 (umm... coincidentally my birthday as well as the celebrated founding date of Aleister Crowley's Thelema),1991, fellow Mayhem band member, Øystein 'Euronymous' Aarseth, found Dead dead, with slit wrists, and a shotgun wound to the head. It has been rumored that the suicide note that was found with his corpse simply read "Excuse all the blood." (Hellhammer later elaborated that the note was a bit more detailed, including apologies for having to use the shotgun inside the house, but the knife was just too dull to finish the job.) Euronymous then quickly drove to Oslo and bought a disposable camera so that he could take pictures of the grisly scene (after re-arranging some of the items), which were later used (without permission) for a bootleg album entitled Dawn of the Black Hearts, containing recordings from the previously mentioned Sarpsborg, Norway gig from 1990, as well as four live songs Mayhem performed with their old vocalist Maniac in 1986. Aarseth was also said to have eaten parts of Dead's brain, and to have made necklaces out of fragments of his skull, although Aarseth himself dismissed the former of these claims in an interview. It is also rumored that pieces of his skull were mailed out to bands that Aarseth saw as "worthy", such as the Swiss band Samael. According to Mayhem drummer Hellhammer, Morgan S. Håkansson of Marduk still has some pieces of Dead's skull. Tony Särkkä of Abruptum also claims to have small pieces."

Like I said... ya'll niggaz ain't brutal...