Marc Bolan: Conan, Elric, & Tolkien

Plus Geek Rock & "We Die Young" Grunge-Inspired Supernatural RPG

This whynow article describes a 1975 interview that T. Rex’s Marc Bolan conducted with Marvel Comics’s Stan Lee. The following Marc Bolan quote from their discussion references characters from Appendix N authors Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock:

“In fact, I don’t like Conan as a character—I think he should be something less of a barbarian, more like one of Michael Moorcock’s characters,” Bolan added. “You could make a much better composite character using Moorcock’s Elric, with a bit of the Silver Surfer, a bit of Thor, and create a far more involved character, a character more in touch with now.”

You can listen to the full conversation between Bolan and Lee here:

Marc Bolan’s lyrics were often inspired by fantasy and science fiction literature. The eponymous T. Rex album was especially influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien, filled with references to magic and wizards. His producer Tony Visconti once said “He saw himself, maybe, as possibly, a reincarnation of some bard or some wizard that lived in the time when elves walked the earth.”

This Clarkesworld magazine article from 2015 details the “science-fantasy glamour of Marc Bolan and T. Rex.” The article even draws an association between the lyrics of T. Rex’s “Get It On (Bang a Gong)” and the release of the Chainmail rules for medieval miniatures by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren!

July 1973 issue of Circus featuring Marc Bolan plus Chainmail rules for medieval miniatures

No discussion of Marc Bolan and Tolkien would be complete without mentioning Steve Peregrin Took, percussionist for pre-T. Rex band Tyrannosaurus Rex. A serious Tolkien fan, he named a later band “Shagrat” after an Orc captain from The Lord of the Rings.

Geek Rock

Generation Blue is an oral history book and vinyl compilation that explores “the Hollywood Geek Rock scene of the '90s and early 2000s.” It is curated and edited by S.W. Lauden from the excellent Remember the Lightning newsletter. In an article series on the history of this scene, he shares the following quote in which Parry Gripp from Nerf Herder describes how he could relate to the D&D references in Weezer’s “In the Garage”:

Parry Gripp (Nerf Herder): Around that time Nerf Herder got together, Steve and I went to Marko DeSantis’ twenty-second birthday party at Alex’s Cantina and the bands playing were Green Thumb, which had Chris Shifllett (later of Foo Fighters), Wax and Weezer. It was right after the Blue Album came out, and there’s Rivers up there with a bowl cut and thick glasses and he’s singing ‘In the Garage’ about his twelve-sided die and his dungeon master’s guide and I was like ‘Oh, wow! This guy is me. He’s singing about something I could relate to.

You can order Generation Blue from the Big Stir Records website.

Grunge-Inspired Supernatural RPG

Bloat Games is currently crowdfunding We Die Young, a supernatural retro tabletop roleplaying game for Old-School Essentials and Ultimate SURVIVE THIS!! game systems. It’s inspired by 1990s music as described in the following:

A spiritual sequel to Bloat Game’s 1980s-based RPG, DARK PLACES & DEMOGORGONS, WE DIE YOUNG is set in Seattle in the 1990s during the grunge and alternative music counter-culture movements.  Seattle became the epicenter of popular culture and began attracting musicians, artists, and supernatural creatures from all over.  This game is heavily inspired by the music of Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and many more.

In WE DIE YOUNG, you play as 20-something humans, Vampires, Werebeasts, Mummies, Fey and Fairies, and multiple other types of supernatural creatures and character classes.  Each creature and character class has its unique history and abilities.

There are less than two weeks left in the campaign, so pledge your support here.