Fairies Wear Boots & Glass Hammer's Dreaming City

Plus The Black Rainbow Society

In a recent issue of The Run Out Grooves newsletter, Mitchell Stirling takes a deep dive into Black Sabbath’s “Fairies Wear Boots.” I thought Critical Hit Parader readers might get a kick out of the following quote from the introductory paragraph:

In the early 1970s, when Led Zeppelin were not just sliding references to J.R.R. Tolkien into songs like 'Misty Mountain Hop' and 'Ramble On', but actually performing whole songs that were alluding to passages in The Lord of The Rings, it would be easy to assume that 'Fairies Wear Boots' could be about what type of go-go boots Tinkerbell wore.

The Run Out Grooves newsletter features commentary on the last songs on various albums, and I appreciate the diverse genres and artists that Mitchell covers. Read the whole “Fairies Wear Boots” article and subscribe to The Run Out Grooves here:

You gotta believe me

Glass Hammer’s Dreaming City

Prog magazine recently published an article about how the band Glass Hammer entered the world of sword & sorcery for their album Dreaming City.¹ The album came out in 2020, and the interview with band members Steve Babb and Fred Schendel took place the same year. Bassist/lyricist Babb is an author as well as musician, and he wrote the novel Skallagrim - In The Vales Of Pagarna.² He describes the album’s Appendix N-inspired concept in the following excerpt from the article:

Almost by accident, Dreaming City is undeniably tailor-made for a certain breed of prog and metal fans, inspired as it is by the Michael Moorcock and Robert E Howard novels that Babb absorbed as a youth. A concept piece that takes place in the same world as 2005’s The Inconsolable Secret album, it follows a troubled, sword-wielding warrior who must battle his way through “a spectrum of horrors” to rescue his lost love.

“I knew I wanted to do a concept about a desperate man. I thought I might give it a Western motif, but everybody talked me out of that,” Babb chuckles. “Then I suggested swords and sorcery, and everyone was like, ‘Ooh, that’s very cliché!’ and I said, ‘Fine, let’s do it, let’s embrace the clichés and just run with it!’ [Laughs] With prog rock, you hear all the clichés about elves and wizards and all that stuff, so I just wanted to go with that. I wanted a story about a guy with a sword who’s an anti-hero. That’s not typical Glass Hammer to me, really. With us it’s usually about the happy ending. But things don’t always end happy! So he has hope at the end, but whatever he’s been looking for has not been resolved.”

The Elric-inspired album cover for the Dreaming City album reinforces the lyrical themes, as described in the Prog article:

Back in the depths of fantasy, Dreaming City definitely looks the part, too. Its artwork was once again created by Polish artist Michaeł ‘Xaay’ Loranc, who designed the band’s current logo and whose work has adorned every Glass Hammer album since 2014’s Ode To Echo. This time, Babb had a very specific vision in mind.

“I told Michael I wanted it to look like one of my old Elric [The Elric Saga – Michael Moorcock’s series of fantasy novels] paperbacks and give it that feel,” he notes. “I always give this guy tons of ideas and he says ‘Yeah, I get it!’ and then he gives me something completely different and blows me away. We do this little dance and we both pretend that he’s gonna do what I want him to do, and then he does what he wants anyway! [Laughs] I did say I wanted this scarred-up, rugged-looking guy and the sword and the city, and he did do all of that, so I’m more than happy.”

You can preview and purchase the Dreaming City album from the Glass Hammer Bandcamp page.

The Black Rainbow Society

Gavriel Quiroga recently launched a crowdfunding campaign for a tabletop roleplaying game called The Black Rainbow Society. It’s a spinoff from the author’s previous metal-album-cover-inspired Hell Night. Check out this description…“A lysergic rollercoaster ride to the jagged edges of the mind. A RPG tribute to 80´s metal zines and the works of William Burroughs!”

An EN World interview with Gavriel Quiroga provides more details:

The premise goes: A group of radical psychonauts with anarcho-punk tendencies strive to comprehend our reality through paranormal investigation and lysergic exploration. After stealing an experimental drug from a military complex they find more than they can handle. It will be my most experimental work yet, a tribute to the 80s punk zine era and the works of William Burroughs. My creative process involved cut-up techniques, meditative states and collages.

I love this quote as well:

“The Lost Boys provides the awesomeness as well, the bikes, the hair and cool sunglasses while listening to heavy metal tunes. Thats what Black Rainbow Society is about.”

The game includes a playlist that features a bunch of cool artists, including personal favorites such as Killing Joke, Suicide, Sisters of Mercy, Tangerine Dream, and the Cult:

The Cult selections are especially inspired with lesser known gems like “Zap City” and “Moya” (Southern Death Cult studio version). You can get more detail and support The Black Rainbow Society here.

1. H/T to Lyn Perry's S&S Roundup for calling my attention to the Prog article.

2. To add to Glass Hammer’s fantasy literature bonafides, their The Inconsolable Secret album won “The Imperishable Flame Award For Tolkien-Inspired Creativity” by The Northeast Tolkien Society.