Tuesday Night Music 4 20 10

It is with great sadness that we report that Peter Steele of Type O Negative has died. After years of making various wry and self-deprecating jokes about wanting to kick the bucket, the Reaper has finally obliged. Heart failure, or so they say.

My first exposure to Peter Steele came by way of a friend who had CDs of his old band, Carnivore. He would sing the lyrics to "Jesus Hitler" for laughs, and it is, indeed, a very funny song. Also very offensive. I think Peter liked to ski between those two poles - very much in the mold of The Stranglers, right down to the barrel organ that gave his songs a weird, deeper dimension.

The first TON CD I ever got was "October Rust," which was both good and bad. Good because it's an amazing piece of work. Bad because it is nothing like anything that TON did before it or after it. As a result, I was kind of put off by the band's earlier and later output, wondering why it wasn't more like that. I suppose that's like falling in love with Chumbawamba over "Tubthumping" and not realizing it was just a pop song to get the punters in so they could rant at them with their normal songs.

But, in honor of his passing, and because it was the first song I ever heard by them, this is "Love you to death." Vinland forever!