The winning entry of the Red Bubble A.R.S.E Group I AM THE BAND Challenge
Written and designed by the mysterious IWML from Melbourne Australia, the story begins in the 1990s with an interview with the Nihilistic Norwegian Black Metal Band SAD PANDA and its members
Bambucifer, Chaosbear & Ailuropoda Melancholia
They go onto break up and release solo projects only to reform under another guise missing a member.
It's all intrigue, bad manners and rock n roll.
This blog will run the complete saga over the next couple of weeks as part of the prizes awarded for such conceptual brilliance.
IMWL is responsible for all writing, art, animation and music and is a deserving winner.
AFTER SAD PANDA DECIDED TO SPLIT IT KEPT TRUE TO ITS PROMISE AND BECAME THREE DIFFERENT ENTITIES.
Chaosbear became ETERNAL CANDLESHADOW OF THE NEKRODEMONCHALICE (Faces The True Desolation Of Sacrificial Grimskulls In The Moonforest Of The Thronegoat)
The album
Ailuropoda Melancholia became DISAPPOINTED MARMOSET
The album
Bambucifer became BLACKSOIL
The album
ALL SONGS BY ALL THREE BANDS CAN BE HEARD HERE AS WELL AS CLASSIC SAD PANDA SONGS
The things went quiet for awhile until METALVANKER Magazine chased the legends down.
THEN FOLLOWING THIS ISSUE IWML CAME UP WITH SOME DELICIOUS GOSSIP.
..... this is not the place for such whimsical nostalgia – this the place for ACTION. and the latest ACTION on the SAD PANDA front is a series of strange rumours i’ve heard around the traps lately. the first is something i read in the METAL VANKER MAGAZINE special, something about how ‘the boys might be getting the band back together again’. but this totally contradicts a rumour written in the VERY SAME MAGAZINE, which insisted that Bambucifer would NEVER play with SAD PANDA again. so which is true? clearly ONE of them must be false at very least.
just as bamboozling was the rumour i heard the other day from a friend (an old friend of Gustav Zeugenschnapper’s actually (yes, THE Gustav Zeugenschnapper!) – but now i’m just name-dropping). this particular rumour speculated that Chaosbear had been seen lurking around with infamous Swiss black industrial figurehead, NEKROSVEN (you may know him better as ‘Sven Axel von Perssensensen’, from seminal Swiss black industrial bands ‘Steel Eye Hammer’ and ‘Shadow on The Ice’). so… what’s going on here? beats me. but it could be exciting! imagine, the band back together… with NEKROSVEN producing! maybe he could even convince them to record another song???? i know this kinda stuff doesn’t excite many of you, but i for one, am virtually DROOLING over the possibilities…
anyway. that’s all. i shouldn’t get so excited. i mean, Bambucifer has already stated many times that he’ll never play the bass again, let alone with SAD PANDA. but still… with rumours like these, it’s hard not to hope.
i guess only time will tell…
THEN AS IF WAITING AN ANNOUNCEMENT THIS APPEARED
for those of you who don’t know NEKROSVEN, here’s a poster from the ‘SHADOW ON THE ICE’ fanboy special from an issue of METAL VANKER from a year or so ago.
.......in panda-related news… well, i THINK i’m happy – but part of me is worried. turns out the rumours were ALL correct… SAD PANDA is reforming! now, this news would normally have made my HEAD EXPLODE with joy… but it appears Bambucifer WILL NOT be rejoining the band on bass.
apparently, he insists that being in a band is ‘too much of the funnytimes, too much laughy laughs and party party, FUCK that, i will never party again’.
so what i hear now, is that SAD PANDA is recruiting Sven Axel von Perssensensen instead of Bambucifer… and that there will be ‘big changes coming to the band’.
so… what does THAT mean? i don’t want big changes – i just want the SAD PANDA of old to be back together again! big changes… plus the fact that NekroSven has never played a bass in his life, and makes a whole different style of music…
well… i’m kinda hopeful, kinda scared.
WELL IT CAME TO A HEAD SEVERAL DAYS LATER WITH THE RELEASE OF THIS PHOTO AND ARTICLE:
"OH MY LORDY ME… all the pieces of the puzzle come together.
SAD PANDA is not getting back together at all. Ailurpoda Melancholia and Chaosbear are forming a ‘hard-wave darktronika’ band (their description, not mine) which (and i quote) ‘extends the concept of SAD PANDA and confronts the robot machine interface of mortal existence’. whatever that means.
and NOW i understand the inexplicable. PAANDAAR ARE THE NEW SAD PANDA"
THIS IS THEIR FIRST SINGLE MASTICATORY OBFUSCATION
THE ALBUM ARTWORK OF THE SOON TO BE RELEASED PAANDAAR ALBUM
SAD PANDA BIOGRAPHER IWML HAD THE LAST WORD ON THE WHOLE SAGA WITH HIS REVEALING EPILOGUE OF HIS LAST ARTICLE:
"now. on to more serious topics. as you probably all know, i’m still in shock about this whole ‘sad panda breaking up’ thing, let alone getting used to the idea that they’ve reformed as some terrible not-black-metal-AT-ALL post-gabba cyber-pop neo-industrial ‘darkwave’ band. so i’ve been listening to SAD PANDA’s old catalogue (granted, it’s only one song, but it is a LONG one) – and i think i’ve discovered something. something that could have been the kiss of doom, the cruel harbinger of destiny, the seal on the nail in the coffin of fate for the end of SAD PANDA – and that signals LOUD AND CLEAR that the bass-player, BAMBUCIFER, was already sick and tired of the black metal scene, even back then, when they recorded their one and only song.
this mystical, perplexing, why-didn’t-i-notice-it-before clue is this:
listen to “sad panda (stares into the abyss)” – at about 9 minutes and ten seconds, i SWEAR i can hear Bambucifer playing ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’. try to block out that atonal shrieking mess of guitars, and just concentrate on the bass part – tell me i’m wrong. it’s either ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ or ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, but i’m 99% sure he’s playing fucken ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’! which is, i don’t need to tell you, is NOT VERY BLACK METAL.
NOT VERY BLACK METAL
so. it all makes more sense to me now – why he split up the band. why he refuses to rejoin. why he has let it turn into some god-awful ‘commercial’ blackcore disco band, in the hands of someone like NEKROSVEN – because, even back in the legendary early days of SAD PANDA, and on their ONE OFFICIAL RECORDING, Bambucifer really didn’t give a shit about black metal.
and how black metal is that!! AWESOME! i mean, ‘not giving a shit’ is the CORE of TRUE KVLT NEKRO BLACK METAL!!!! throw those horns NOW!
he is my new hero."
