The PA Happy Birthday Thread

Today, we visit the wonderful country known as Turkeyland, or as some Orthodox personages no doubt still refer to it as Byzantine. 

In November 2006, our very good friend MakPRO joined us for all of one minute, posted the once, and disappeared with a flea in his ear never to be heard of again. Mehmet, for it is he, celebrates his 48th birthday in the shadow of Attaturk. 

And why did he leave with a wee bit of a shadow? What can we learn today from our one-hit wonder? Stay with me, my friends, and all shall become abundantly clear.

Firstly, take a look at his one and only post here in the bosom of prog love. http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=30917 Mehmet, extremely kindly in my opinion, entered the den to urge us all to take a listen to the wonderful grooves of Demir Demirkan, and the response from another dearly departed brother, Andu, was none too complimentary, comparing said Demir to the sound of guano apes. Now, I was under the impression that these simian creatures were indigenous to the wonderful wilds of Turkey, but no. Guano Apes are, in fact, a real band, an alt-rock band, which is wonderfully exciting. Have a listen to Like Somebody where our friends invite us to their jungle https://youtu.be/uosWBvTmCEs Here is their website GUANO APES So far, so German.

So. Did Mehmet enter progland to sell us a pup or a bird for some local alt-rock here, or is there a trace of prog in the collected works of Demir Demirkan? Thankfully, you do not need to contact our extremely good, and knowledgeable, friend Shadowyzard to find out as a local who might have heard of our Demir, because the PABT can do it for you!

I was fascinated by the career contrasts apparent on his Wikiweepee page Demir Demirkan - Wikipedia Not only a former thrash metal guitarist, but also a Eurovision Song Contest winning composer. Let us examine both.

Demir played guitar with Mezarkabul. They are also known as Pentagram in their homeland, and fuse Anatolian elements into their music, as you do. And, by a matter of sheer coincidence, here is a track called Anatolia https://youtu.be/BQHf0wJmWLY What a mean looking hairy lot and racket! By the end all of them join the chap bleeding with the excitement of it all. I have absolutely no idea what it is all about, but it certainly looks rather serious.

Here is our Demir, freshly shaven and altogether more handsome, doing his solo bit with Belkir https://youtu.be/3sF4Aqbi0Lw Quite how either of these could possibly be compared to German alt-rock is a wee bit beyond me, but it takes all ears, I suppose.

And what of Eurovision? What that, I hear my North American friends cry? Well, this is the annual music festival enjoyed across Europe on television, and participants include those very well known Euro holiday destinations, erm Israel and Australia (not a joke, btw). Famous for introducing ABBA to the world with Waterloo, and back in the day included musical luminaries such as Cliff Richard and Sandie Shaw. In fact, let us have a look at; Waterloo https://youtu.be/Sj_9CiNkkn4 Ah, glam! Those boots! Agnetha! Howsabout Sandie? https://youtu.be/Vmyh9mUga-w They don’t make ‘em like that anymore! Lately, the standard, it is fair to say, has slipped somewhat, but we did have some Finnish hairy devils winning. Yep, please enjoy the utterly absurd Lordi with Hard Rock Hallelujah https://youtu.be/gAh9NRGNhUU Utterly f**king brilliant!

So! How did Demir win? Well, he wrote the 2003 winner, performing with the altogether lovely Sertab Erener with Everyway That I Can  https://youtu.be/vq9OAEBZmAg Nice dress, madam!

Fantastic stuff! Happy birthday, Mehmet! You have brought me, and I hope, many others quite a lot of completely unintentional pleasure this evening!  

Easy Money wrote: ^ A little extra trivia for you'll. The sarcastic troll in the opening of this opus later changed his site name and his personality and eventually climbed the PA corporate ladder to became a ban hammer wielding admin known as harmonium.ro ... now you know the rest of the story.

^ Steve (Laz), loved this one too, as always. And I'll try to be accurate and honest here; your OBVIOUS sarcasm aside (about our dear Mehmet), I hope I'm that knowledgeable and a good person, in your eye. However, even though I'm likened to a walking library sometimes, I lack lots of data that most people possess. For instance, I have watched Groundhog Day (1993) for the first time, only a couple of hours ago. See? But I also watched lots of movies that are rated by puny numbers of people on IMDB. I learnt to accept that I'm a deviant long ago. Happy with that, I guess. Good person? In D&D classification, my alignment has gotta be "true neutral". 

Our Demir Demirkan and Pentagram (Mezarkabul)... Pentagram's Anatolia album sold about 100.000 copies in Turkey, which is a humungous and unprecedented number for a metal album. Demir Demirkan is/was more popular for his radio friendly songs, a little tinged by chromatic metal and taut rock elements. I don't know him personally, but he seems like a nice guy. Not super talented, but he is a good musician anyway, methinks.

Edited by Shadowyzard - March 23 2021 at 16:07

Thanks man!

Here is my favourite Pentagram song, for those that are interested:




Edited by Shadowyzard - March 24 2021 at 06:41

There is, of course, this version of the Three Little Pigs, which features, if not Rocky, then Rambo, to almost neatly link everything together. 😜

nick_h_nz wrote: There is, of course, this version of the Three Little Pigs, which features, if not Rocky, then Rambo, to almost neatly link everything together. 😜 https://youtu.be/Gtffv9bpB-U

Today on the PABT, I thought we would go for an eccentric. What’s new about that, I hear the masses scream. Well, one of our dearly departed brothers seemed to have it all in his avatar, signature, and interests. The only real problem was is that he never followed that up with nary a single post in the 10 months he was with us between 2018 and 2019.

Diazepam celebrates his 25th birthday in that hub of culture, Indianapolis. Firstly, his avatar is a picture of that wild and wacky chappy, Hunter S Thompson, always a fairly decent guide to the state of someone’s mind. Mr Thompson singlehandedly invented gonzo journalism. For those of you who think that this might be a reference to a hack who appeared on The Muppet Show, well think again, compadres. Gonzo journalism is a free form, unbiased piece written and performed with the reporter as part of the story he or she presents using a first person narrative. Regrettably, Hunter met a rather grisly end when he put a shotgun to his head and discovered that he was sober enough to actually hit the target. Another slightly weird chap of the eccentric variety, Mr Wife Beater Depp, played him in a film named after his most famous work, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. However, for many gentlemen in Blighty who enjoy watching material modestly called that of the adult variety, Thompson inspired one of our most famous rumpy pumpy performers. Yep, our very dear friend, Ben Dover, invented gonzo porn. No, really. Have a look at his Wikidongdong page Ben Dover - Wikipedia

Our friend’s real name is Nicholas Caldwell, and his signature contained a famous quote by that siren of US Presidents, you know, the one whose brain was missing, Ronald Reagan; “It's true that hard work never killed anybody, but I figure why take the chance." -Ronald Reagan, 1987. I tell you what, with wisdom like that, no wonder he won. And to think that at the time, every decent liberal thought that he was the devil incarnate on earth, and no politician of his ilk could ever woo the masses again. Donald is all I have to say to you all. Donald. Donald. Donald.

Very kindly, Nicholas also offered the brethren to undertake photoshop work for us free of charge. All you have to do is PM him. Bless!

Now, our hero’s forum name is, of course, a drug, but one which you get on prescription to cure you of, amongst other things, booze withdrawal. Have a look on “our NHS” Diazepam: medicine to treat anxiety, muscle spasms and fits - NHS Thinking about it, I think I will stick to the beer. Amongst his interests, Nicholas writes that he likes firearms, psychoactive substances, and nature. This strikes me as being perfect for a trippy shooting match whilst indulging in Ben Dover activities in the woods!

And what of our hero now? Well, the reality of his life is ever so slightly more urbane than his hero. Here is his LinkedOut page  Nicholas Caldwell - Machining Technician - Keihin North America | LinkedIn A machining technician for Keihin, who produce carburettors Keihin Corporation - Wikipedia, although Nicholas does redeem himself somewhat by mentioning the fact that he was a key worker supplying the masses with critical health products, namely booze and smokes. My kind of chap indeed! But he does also have that creative bent still, as a peak at his creations site will confirm  Writing — Nick Caldwell Creations 

So! Happy Birthday, Nicholas. Keep drinking! Stay off the funny pills!

Elsewhere, no major collab news to report today. 

Today on the PABT search for immortality candidates, it is only right and fitting, especially on a Sunday, that we pay tribute to a God. No, not Mr Gabriel, or any of your other false idols. This one is a proper deity.

Amenra registered with the site in July 2018, and stayed long enough, as shall be seen, to make one solitary post before returning to his divine duties. Well, if we are honest, this brief visit is entirely understandable, as Gods are, you know, pretty busy what with running the universe, and especially doing battle with that plethora of false deities, not to mention the fact that he has three consorts to cavort with, lucky fellow.

Now, our good friend should not, under any circumstances, be confused with that extremely talented bunch of hairy headbangers by the name of Amenra, whose Tumbledown site can be viewed here; https://amenra-official.tumblr.com/  According to their entry in our glorious hairy sister site Amenra - Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives this altogether cheerful looking bunch are a part of the Church of Ra collective, proof positive that old religions never die, they merely grow more hair as they get older. Actually, listening to Afterlife this afternoon on their Elasticband site, this is extremely good stuff, and they are deservedly in our Special Temple as well. Here is their page AMENRA discography and reviews and here is said album. Listen and enjoy ▶︎ AFTERLIFE | AMENRA 

So far, so prog. However, our birthday chum did not announce himself to the dandruff inducing masses to promote Belgian headbangers, but his own very good self. Here is his one and only post; http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=114937 This, as you can see, attracted an almost divine level of apathy from the unbelievers of PA, given that it inspired absolutely no responses to our Los Angeles based brother. And a look at his homepage initially provides us with a wee clue as to why not. Just how prog is God?

Here is his website AMEN Ra Now the initial blurb you see when you enter the holy site is actually pretty prog. I mean, there is a concept album in this. “We are the Gods among the stars. We open up the heavens. We are the Gods who save the last. The opium of heaven”. Blimey. The priestesses of Gaia are, I can feel it from here, salivating beyond themselves with ecstasy! The blurb a little bit further down does also suggest a Gabrielesque influence, or at the very least a chap who grooves to the blessed Marillion. “Because of his very Theatrical Ability of Transformation into extremely different Acting Characters, which People can’t even recognize as one Actor, he is locally called – “A Man of Thousand Faces”.

This, my friends, must surely mean that we had not only a Deity in our midst, but a pucker prog god, fully deserving of worship in the original temple of prog which is PA. 

So! Let us worship at the feet of our beloved brother God, and indulge ourselves shamelessly in the prog epic which is Godz. https://youtu.be/Xk3AqosIB2Y

Erm........The aforementioned track, and all else Ra has produced, would seem to indicate that, at least to Da Yoof of Da Hood, God is a pap-producing interloper who really cannot differentiate between intelligent music and cretinous fare. You might also reasonably be tempted to ask just what he thought he was doing when he came here to publicise his music on a prog rock site.

Anyhoo, this does not prevent us from wishing HBD, as dem yoof would undoubtedly state, to Mr Ra! Say hi to Amunet, Wosret, and Mut for us! Remember! Gods are absolutely allowed foursomes, even during lockdown!

Elsewhere in Proggerland, we would wish an extremely happy birthday to Willie The Pimp, who celebrates his 34th birthday in the pleasure houses of Bryan in Texas today. Will has been a member since 2005, and still visits us, which goes to show that a little bit of rumpy pumpy on a daily basis really does keep the doctor away, although I really must warn him that any participants in such pleasure beyond his social bubble are absolutely not allowed in a pandemic, even in Texas.  

SteveG wrote: Ah, two more enjoyable BD posts with an amazing lesson and commentary on some our mythological entities. Bravo!