Hasta La Ideas

Compressorhead, a new hard rock three piece whose covers are garnering praise on YouTube, look set to take Australia by storm in a few weeks’ time. They’re pretty tight, too, but being a band of robot musicians (with a four-armed drummer) you wouldn’t expect timing to be an issue…

According to compressorheadband.com, the group – Fingers (guitar), Stickboy (drums) and Bones (bass) – are “the world’s heaviest metal band.” In as much as their setlist reflects this – Motörhead, Black Sabbath, Pantera et al – so does their combined weight which is, apparently, six tonnes.

And by the looks of things, this is no elaborate hoax, or the beginnings of an ad campaign for a new metal website. (If it is, it’s been very well put together.)

Each of the robots appears to have been built by a different team – the 78-fingered guitarist by a German team at Kernschrott (details on his or her construction, here); while the four-armed Stickboy is the creation of by Frank Barnes at Robocross Machines. Backstory on Bones, the enigmatic bassist, has proven hard to find though – he only joined last year.

So if motorik-style drumming and some heavy chordage is your thing, then keep an eye on the band’s schedule. They play the touring Big Day Out festival in Australia, which takes in Sydney, Gold Coast, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Perth from January 18. More at bigdayout.com.

A couple of further clips of the band covering Pantera and, we think, Helmet’s Unsung, below. More at compressorheadband.com/media.

CR in Print
The January issue of Creative Review is all about the Money – well, almost. What do you earn? Is everyone else getting more? Do you charge enough for your work? How much would it cost to set up on your own? Is there a better way of getting paid? These and many more questions are addressed in January’s CR.

But if money’s not your thing, there’s plenty more in the issue: interviews with photographer Alexander James, designer Mirko Borsche and Professor Neville Brody. Plus, Rick Poynor on Anarchy magazine, the influence of the atomic age on comic books, Paul Belford’s art direction column, Daniel Benneworth-Gray’s This Designer’s Life column and Gordon Comstock on the collected memos, letters and assorted writings of legendary adman David Ogilvy.

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

CR for the iPad
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