RIP Pete Steele....Origin of the Feces

A send off for one of metal's most charismatic personalities...

Type O Negative's second album, The Origin of the Feces, was rife with the dry wit that would become just as recognizable as the funeral dirge inspired hymns throughout their career. Here is a band unafraid to laugh at themselves even as they convey the greatest depths of emotional and psychological pains. Pete Steele was the heart of Type O, he is already missed.

My first Type O Negative show was Halloween 1995 at Roseland Ballroom in NYC. Electric Hellfire Club opened and members of the Misfits joined Type O on stage during their set. At the conclusion of their performance, Steele lit a cherry bomb on stage and instructed all in attendance to "get lost...show's ova!" The house lights came on and the capacity crowd just stood there waiting for something to happen. It did. Steele began launching the numerous pumpkins that were set up about the stage into the crowd. As I watched a guy only a few feet in front of me drop like a bag of shit to the ground from the unceremonious joining of his skull and a projectile pumpkin, my friends and I decided to leave. We walked back to Grand Central and got our asses unceremoniously mugged. I love Halloween.

Two or three years later some friends and I traveled into the cold white north, catching the Drab Four in Kitchener, Ontario. EHC were opening again and I was able to speak with Thomas Thorn about the infamous Roseland show. "You were there!?" His cocaine eyes lit up with renewed purpose... "That show was fucking awesome!" Yes it was. I would catch Type O Negative off and on over the following years, they were always sonically overpowering and awe inspiring to witness.

I crossed path with Mr Steele at L'amour some years ago, he had come to see his good friends and European touring partners in Moonspell. He stopped and talked music with me and my dweeby metal head friends for some time. If I remember correctly it was us that said we had to get going. He seemed perfectly content to shoot the shit with us about this band or that. The man was a gentleman, and the coolest fucking thing to ever come out of Brooklyn.

RIP Pete Steele. 1/4/1962 – 4/14/ 2010

...take that D train, take it down to Brighton Beach...

Cinnamon Girl

The late 90s were good times for Brooklyn's Type O Negative. Their brand of gothic/doom metal had taken a decidedly pop tone culminating in the album October Rust. It all seemed to bode well for the mental state of lead singer Mr. Steele, but alas it was not to last... The band's music would soon imitate life and begin to spiral into much angrier and depressed regions. But still, the late 90s were good times. So here, for your listening pleasure, is the single for their cover of Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl." It's a remix by Charlie Clouser, whose credits include NIN membership and various production work with numerous bands including White Zombie. It's a decidedly fun remix, despite its' "Depressed Mode Mix" title. I've always felt that Type O should do an entire album of covers... that has nothing to do with anything really, just thought I'd share that thought with you.

My baby loves to dance...