Last month Silvio Novelletto Jr. sent me e-mail requesting that Fireaxe appear on his Brazilian metal radio show entitled "Star Trips". It was an offer that I could hardly refuse. Silvio's show features both signed and unsigned metal acts alike. So I sent Silvio a copy of "Lovecraftian Nightmares" and he selected "Despair" as the song to play for his show. He also sent me a tape of the entire show so that I could enjoy it as well, which is very cool of him.

Fireaxe was in good company that night, check out the playlist.

Playlist of 13/02/2000 From Star trips Show:

Motorhead - Going to Brazil
S.O.D. - Bigger than the devil
Sick of it all - Pass the buck (audience request)
Hammer of the gods - Blind innocence(brazilian heavy metal)
Triumph - allied forces(audience request)
Nightfall - Diva(Greek gothic metal )
Hi standard - my sweet dog(punky pop)
Ebony Tears - A handful of nothing(melodic death metal)
Canvasser - Stella Mortalla(czech doom)
Fatal Liquidation - Body of knoledge(death metal from FL)
FIREAXE - DESPAIR
Lard - Forkboy(Jello biafra band)
Iced Earth - Life and death

If you are ever in Sao Paulo, check out Slivio's radio station: Radio Star Sul FM - 102,9 MHZ, which plays more metal than all of L.A. (sad but true).

How to order "Lovecraftian Nightmares"

Order your copy of the second Fireaxe CD "Lovecraftian Nightmares" by doing the following:

• 1. Send me e-mail requesting the new CD and giving your address (if you prefer, you can send your address via snail mail)
• 2. Mail $5 ($7 if overseas) and a note requesting the Fireaxe CD "Lovecraftian Nightmares" to the following address. Make sure to include your return address.

Brian Voth
21426 Lake Forest Dr. Apt H
Lake Forest, CA, 92630 USA

If you review CDs on a website or in a magazine, the CD is free of charge in exchange for the review. In this case all I need is the e-mail request. Please send me the URL of your review site or copy of your magazine with the review in it when it is ready. If you want to exchange CDs, tapes, or stuff of equivalent value, make these requests via e-mail and we'll arrange a trade.

The CD comes with a booklet filled with awesome art, a picture of yours truly in his studio, and some information about the CD which can also be found on this website.

Fireaxe returns to high school

No, not like Mariah Carey, better actually. Hickman High School of Columbia, Missouri recently started up an "Alumni Authors Project" and invited all past alumns who had a published work of some kind, whether it be fiction, prose, art, music, etc., to send in a copy of their work. I think that the idea is to graphically demonstrate to the students that someone other than Sam Walton had graduated from Hickman High (well, escaped is more like it) but didn't let it hold them back. Being a survivor of three years of torture at the hands of several less than competent administrators, I felt compelled to donate a copy of "Lovecraftian Nightmares" to the cause. I know that the students there need to feel as though their educational path isn't a dead end, and that indeed, what does not kill you makes you strong.

Fortunately the director of the project didn't look up my old high school record before accepting the CD and now a shiny copy of the latest Fireaxe work sits in the Hickman High School library waiting for any student to enjoy it. I have no idea whether anyone at the school will play the CD let alone like it, but it was a kick sending them a copy of the disk. Also, for any student who does spin the disk, and knowing what I know about the school, "Despair" would be an appropriate choice of songs before heading off to class in the morning.

A special thanks goes to my sister Diane for alerting me to the Alumni Project.

Fireaxe signs on with IUMA

IUMA may not have the hits that MP3.com has, nor do they have the number of bands, but they certainly do have a very slick new website that promotes unsigned bands on the internet. For all you folks out there who are looking for another way to get your band on the internet, definitely check into IUMA.

In my opinion their setup and presentation is much better than MP3.com. The site has a much better look and feel. Also, they have an awesome tool for uploading MP3s, JPGs, and artist information. They even give out a more compact URL than MP3.com. So check out Fireaxe's newest home on the internet

The meaning of the songs - Index

Some of you have written to me wanting to know what a particular song means. One good use of this newsletter has been to tell you all what the songs mean (at least to me) as well as give some other comments about how they were written and anything else interesting. So far I have described the meaning of all the Fireaxe songs from "Unholy Rapture", "A Dream of Death", and "Lovecraftian Nightmares". The trouble is that the organization of those descriptions leaves a little to be desired. So here is an index as to what issues of the Burning Blade contain which song descriptions. The back issues of the Burning Blade can be found on the Fireaxe website.

Issue 1.1 : "Beyond Zimbabwe"
Issue 1.2 : "Godslayer" and "Nathicana"
Issue 1.3 : "DeathMachine" and "Nightmare Lake"
Issue 1.4 : "Blind" and "Festival"
Issue 1.6 : "Forgotten Son" and "The Ancient Track"
Issue 1.7 : "Heart and Steel" and "The Outpost"
Issue 2.1 : "Light of Day" and "Despair"
Issue 2.2 : "Fall to the Flame" and "Nemesis"
Issue 2.3 : "The Rack" and "Earthbound Goddess"
Issue 2.4 : "The New God" and "Another Dream"
Issue 2.5 : "Whispers in the Night" and "Hounds of Tindalos"
Issue 2.6 : "Unholy Rapture" and "I Am the Destroyer of Dreams"
Issue 3.1 : "All In Flames" and "Where's the Sun?"
Issue 3.2 : "A Wrench in the Works" and "One Last Kiss"

The Future

Over the last year, I've been thinking of some new song ideas revolving around a theme of religious warfare, fundamentalism, and ideological conflict. Although we feel safe in our modern world that open warfare and chaos cannot happen in our "sane" and "stable" society, nothing could be further from the truth. Volatility seems to be at an all time high for the latter half of this century. Throughout the world people are embracing extremism in greater and greater numbers. These people's beliefs are far outside the mainstream and they are willing to commit all manner of atrocity to support those beliefs. It appears that this situation will only escalate. The next Fireaxe CD will explore this theme. It will examine why people embrace radical ideologies, explore the emotions which typify extremism, and study the seeds of violence which are prevalent in our society. The CD will be titled "Food for the Gods" meaning that WE are the food for the gods. Any extremist ideology is effectively "God" and people are slaughtered or enslaved in that God's name (i.e. the ideology feeds on the bodies of the slain and beaten down). The CD will fit loosely around the themes in "A Dream of Death" but will explore the more violent aspects of belief in depth. If you ever wondered what drives a person to kill and commit horrible acts, "Food for the Gods" will try to answer that question. It will be an extremely intense CD.

In light of the recent Columbine High School incident, and the following Conyers, Georgia shooting (a city one Fireaxe listener hails from), it's become apparent that the eventual release of "Food for the Gods" might meet with a lot of objections. The CD will glorify violence in parts, it will be graphic, it will be intense, and it will capture all manner of 'negative' emotions. I feel that there is simply no other way to approach the subject matter. One song planned for the CD will be an examination of the explosive suicide trend which has swept not only through our high schools, but through the general public as well. One thing I could do is to scrap my plans for the CD and produce something more socially acceptable. I won't. Another thing I could do is put up a false righteousness and claim that the CD is really against violence. It isn't. What I will do is stay true to my concept and produce the CD that I envision. In other words, "Damn the false prophets and the true believers, full speed ahead!".

The opposition to violence in art and media is truly hypocritical. Watching Bill Clinton proclaiming that "violence is not the answer" while at the same time bombing the crap out of Serbia and Kosovo is truly the pinnacle of cognitive dissonance. He says one thing and does another. If there is any message coming from the White House, it is that when you can't get what you want, violence is the solution. Columbine is only a reflection of the big picture. The big picture is what I will attempt to reveal in "Food for the Gods".

My goal is to deliver music to whoever wants to hear it in whatever way is necessary. Whatever the market demands, I will supply, but I do want to avoid the mass marketing channel. Exposure is fine, but in the modern business, the substance of the music must be altered to match the demands of the marketplace. This would totally defeat the purpose of why I write music in the first place. I write music because it is a way to express my emotions. What I both think and feel goes into the songs. That is the power, Fireaxe is the channel, and any diversion diminishes the emotive effect. Thus I try to avoid such diversions. That is how art should be.

Rights to duplicate Fireaxe materials

Currently Fireaxe is not for profit. I sell the CDs for $5 each which covers the production and mailing costs. For CDs sent out of the country, I'll have to charge $7 per disk to cover the additional mailing cost. If you write reviews or put samples on your website I'll give you a CD for free. Since I am not making any money with the current recordings, you are free to make duplicates of them to distribute as long as you obey the following guidelines:

• 1. You can only sell the duplications for the price of the medium or less, plus any delivery cost. You are not allowed to make any profit with the music.
  
• 2. You should tell me how many copies you gave out and who got them so I can keep track. Also, if they have an e-mail address I'd like that as well so I can add them to the mailing list.
  
• 3. You are likewise free to adorn any webpages or duplications with the gifs and jpgs on my website as long as you include an obvious link back to my website. This includes putting Fireaxe song samples on your site as well.
  
• 4. You are free to play any Fireaxe songs (in unaltered form) provided you are an unsigned band without a marketting tie-in. You are not allowed to record those songs onto anything that you will sell.
  
• 5. You are required to crank the song "Hounds of Tindalos" as loud as you can as often as you can. It's your only defense against THEM. Be warned, they come through angles. Note that the CD is round. Are your speaker cabinets square?
  
• 6. Cthulhu, the Necronomicon, Hastur the Unspeakable, and all other mythos creatures are purely the inventions of Lovecraft and other fiction authors. None of it is real, at least that's what I'm going to say in court if you try to sue me for destruction of your property, house, city, or soul as a result of listening to the "Lovecraftian Nightmares" CD too much.
  
• 7. Fireaxe will not be held responsible for the destruction of hopes and dreams that may come while listening to this CD. Also, any subsequent social revolution which follows from this CD is simply not my fault. It's all part of the big picture. Just listen to the disk and you'll understand what I mean.
  
• 8. You are not free to commit suicide while listening to any Fireaxe song. I'm sorry, I'll have to prosecute. On a serious note, if you are thinking about doing it, please e-mail or call me if you have no one else to talk to. When I was in my teens the album "The Wall" by Pink Floyd used to really get to me. Just hearing songs like "Comfortably Numb", and "Hey You" would get me pretty depressed and mildly suicidal. I'm just trying to say that I've been there. If my music is having that effect on you, please get in touch. You aren't alone.
  

The gist of it is that you can do just about anything with the music as long as you don't profit from it and that I get some sort of credit for having written it. I'm open to any methods of distributing my music, such as compilation tapes or CDs, radio play, or recording label distribution. However, you will need my direct permission to do so or some kind of legal agreement.

Brian Voth - Creator of Fireaxe

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