When I was a kid I used to create imaginary bands and come up with a lore around them just for myself. I didn't know I could've made money off of that.
Me & a friend used to do that. We even made flyers of them, but put a famous band at the top of it, & would say they were playing somewhere in town, then we'd make copies & hang them up around town. 😂 Had a good sized crowd outside of one of our local theaters one evening. 😂😂😂😂 It was awesome. & this was in the 90s when you couldn't always just go look up this stuff online.
I think that Josh is the biggest troll in the Black Metal history and he´s probably laughing his ass of as he´s watching these youtuber trying to make sense of the ´band´s´ work.
@@bpc1442wrote a song that was heavily inspired by VC. One of the lines went "glimmering perfumes hold this snow-fog bound coppice in a soporific reverie". So it's wild to me that he is now making perfumes.
VC was a fake “ecoterrorist” joke that Josh did to troll the FMP message board. That’s literally the whole story. Everything about it was meant to troll, including the back story, the stolen music, etc. The reference to Nargaroth was on purpose, because Nargaroth also faked their entire back story, but wasn’t doing it to troll. But yeah, VC, everything from the misspelled name to the ecoterror ethos, was a joke.
@@Yanforus Full Moon Productions, a notorious black metal record label from the early 2000, the FMP Forums where like 4chan but for metalheads, you can search the forums on the Wayback Machine i belive
interesting.I actually had the idea of doing eco terror based black metal,but main difference here, I mean it since im an eco anarchist 🗿 Btw never heard of them before seeing this video.
I actually did buy _Genevieve_ on CD simply because despite all the lies and fiction of VC, I absolutely adore the album. There is something so atmospheric and elegant of that album, both with and without their fake back story.
I remember I was on the southern lord message board often around the time that they re-issued Genevieve. People were so angry at them over the diesel guitar thing it was hilarious. I always took them as a band that were absolutely trolling the TRVE CVLT Black Metal mafia and it was delightful
Kind of weird seeing this. I remember back on some early social media sites (one of which was, amusingly enough, Livejournal) Josh was somewhat active and was posting in a few communities. He was aggressively contrarian, constantly insulting more traditional bands and pushing the old "it is more than just music" take on Black Metal. I still remember if someone had corpsepaint on their avatars he would ask them if the circus was in town or if they were going to play baseball or whatnot. He ended up as one of the admins on Full Moon Productions forums. Before he came along that whole forum was more-or-less black metal 4chan, but he made things even more chaotic. When moderators tried to resolve issues with users or would lock threads, Josh would leap in, unlock the thread again and purposefully start to cause even more problems between the users as he thought it was funny. At some point him and "left_hand_path" Luigi just ruined what was left of the forum by derailing every single thread just to argue with each other. The guy was chaos, irrespective of the stories he told. Sad to hear about Jim from Snowfall (the vocals on the final VC album). I used to talk to him a lot between 2001 and 2010, but I just lost contact due to things moving to the big social media sites and we just disconnected. We used to try and drink ourselves to death on numerous occasions because we thought it was funny. While it is sad in a way, I'm not shocked he died of an overdose. He really, really liked his scag.
Velvet Cacoon got me into listening to more dark ambient music. However, what I find interesting is the use of the word 'Cacoon'. If you look up information about cacoon plants, the name of the band starts to make a hell of a lot more sense.
It could be they are making a vague and obscure reference to entada rheedii the hallucinogenic vine or it could be that they just misspelled cocoon when they named the band, you be the judge
Cacoon is also a name brand for those bougie hanging tent-like outdoor snuggle chairs you see.. which would be quite impractical in velvet. Again, you be the judge; It seems in the spirit.
Black metal was very mystical during 90s early 00s, honestly to say not like today. it had so much shivering, coldness in it and of course believed those kind of weird hoax
Man I just like the music. Apple Music recommended Velvet Cacoon as I was getting into more ambient music and I fell in love with the sound. All of this is just noise, just enjoy the music if you like it. Shit is perfect late in a mushroom trip when you’re too fried to do anything but your brain is too active for sleep. Also, please give me more recommendations similar to Velvet Cacoon, specifically the soft persistent blast beats of their “Northsuite” album. Clair Cassis’ self-titled album and some songs in Mantiel’s album “Vestiges Engraved in Frozen Mysticism History,” notably the songs “Anoited in Astral Luminescence” and “Labyrinths of Perpetual Bitterness” is all I got
Ima drop a random suggestion for ambient. You ever heard of midnight oddyssy? I fell in love with their album "shards of silver fade" ages ago. Hell I don't even listen to black metal much these days but I might just go relisten to it. It's become as much of a legacy for me as wolves in the throneroom, Leviathan and agalloch.
Pest. The German band. Their logo is the plague doctor. Metal Archives lists 3 bands called Pest, and one of Gorgoroths singers is named Pest. But for what you're lo ok king for, you will need the German version.
Great video. I’m from Portland . I remember hearing about these guys years ago from at least one of my underground music scene friends but I never paid them any attention. Thanks to your video I’m definitely going to take a deep dive into their music. I absolutely love the layers of satire and parody with this artist.
Thanks for making a video about this and mentioning the archive. You still got a lot of things wrong though. We will try making our own video(s) at some point, with the whole story.
Again, Portland has a strong metal scene that has nothing to do with the hipster bullshit. WAY better than Seattle. Who around here is doing anything remotely interesting?
I heard of them back in the early 2000,maybe through the magazines Metal Maniacs,Unrestrained,or Brave Words And Bloody Knuckles. The name sorta put me off. Looking back,I would have liked to give the band a try. Didnt have internet access to try all the bands I read about. Fullmoon Productions was originally ran out of my city of Lakeland,Florida. Some of the bands on the label had their CD's on sale at Roadrunner Records,maybe I could have found Velvet Coocoon there. I did buy Mysticum's In The Streams Of Inferno and Hades Almighty's Dawn Of The Dying sun from there,however. Good vid man,I definitely want to check em out now! I honestly thought this video was going to be about Nachtmystium or something similar.
This title absolutely needs to be a full series. Episodes can include a four or five part piece breaking down the various Batushka, how Burz is actually a very liberal guy who knows how to market, how Euronymous and Andy Kaufman are sharing an apartment in Chicago a la Perfect Strangers, how Ketel Arach whatever has never actually once wielded a sword, etc. etc.
Also, apologies to the author if he's as from Portland as he looks. But Seattle residents know to NEVER take anything from Portland seriously. Look at UADA.
@@FaerieGoatmother Portland's metal scene destroys ours what are you talking about? And Uada isn't that bad still haven't seen them, but I knew Jake back in the day and him and his brother Nick are the real deal, use to run a distro and get stuff from them all the time. Ceremonial Castings was also killer, maybe you were too young for that era but it was a great scene back in the day, now its shit.
Josh was a lonely guy who invented a series of fantasy female members to indulge in the very fantastical idea that sophisticated pretty young european women could possibly have any interest in obscure black metal back in the early 2000s (obviously this was an impossibility at that point). That was super weird and kinda makes me feel bad for the guy, creating literal imaginary female friends/lovers. And they all conformed to this very cringe sheltered wealthy posh euro white girl archetype. It's just so absurd that anyone from that background would have gotten into black metal during that era. His 2021 interview he STILL couldn't stop lying through his teeth. That said, I actually did enjoy P aa opal Poere Pr. 33. And their plagiarized material was actually very enjoyable too, so at least Josh had good taste in who to plagiarize.
@GiNgertheman oh definitely there were women in the black metal scene. But posh european white women who were into high fashion, art galleries, yacht cruises, french 19th century poetry, and gothic aesthetic? Nope... none of those kinds. He basically dreamed up his ideal waifu and inserted several variations of her into different real and fake musical projects. The interview with Pumkiva (fake) from 2003 was peak fanfiction. I can't discern if it's pathetic or hilarious; I'm leaning more toward hilarious and I think the whole thing was a tongue in cheek joke to accompany some authentically god music largely just as an early internet social experiment/troll. The dude had been around on the net in the late 90s trolling various forums and google groups, the made up lore, werewolves of venice, pumvika, and waifus were just modernized 2000s extensions of the trolling.
The diesel harp is REAL! The infamous diesel harp, spearheaded by Velvet Cacoon front man Josh Lobb AKA SGL, is indeed real. I met up with him at his 851 Driftwood Ave. home to buy it off of him as he was tight on space and no longer had use for it. All was going well until he insisted rather aggressively that I have a seat and enjoy a cup of coffee with him. Much to my dismay I obliged, and what proceeded was truly a look into the madness of this unhinged artist. First, he went ON and ON about the "Corn Wars," detailing the gruesome events of what I can otherwise only explain as a total schizophrenic delusion. Corn was part of the "Holy Trinity" including the number 3 and some sort of "Holy Bean." He handed me a book of nonsensical "scriptures" warning of the Birch Devil. At this point, I had to forcefully make my exit, with Josh screaming at me to come back and listen to "the truth." I ultimately was out $2000 and the mythical diesel harp, but God as my witness, it is, in fact, real. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe the whole thing was an elaborate scam. Damn it.
Enjoyable video on a very fun project. I have a test press of either their final release or the Clair Cassis one. I don't remember which. Might dig it out later along with my other stuff and have a big listening session
Why is it so hard for this kid to fathom that back in the 90s we had shows in places like warehouses and basements and we didnt have video cameras in our pockets.
@@wyattxhim To put it a different way, it wasn't unusual for there to be a total lack of documentary evidence for many many many bands. Like now one off bands will still have a band camp. Then a lot of bands played a couple of shows at diy venues and then disappeared. And you recorded on cassette, so if that four track tape got lost, you couldn't pull your backup from dropbox or whatever. Everything was much more ephemeral.
That sucks dude, I never did it daily but I did do it a fuck ton from age 14-18, the first few trips were pretty much my favorite experiences ever (better than even heroin) but as time went on the stuff no longer became enjoyable and was noticeably making me retarded so I stopped. Love the Acid Bath dp! I remember hearing about this band back during my DXM trips and was really excited to see a black metal band referencing DXM but while researching them I remember seeing their music was all stolen from some other band so I never ended up actually checking them out.
Josh is now running his own Business of perfumes called Slumberhouse. Look it up, I have tried a few of his creations. Very similar to VC in their spirit.
Been aware of how much of a meme band they were for years now. Regardless they are still one of my favorite projects when it comes to their original work. Genevieve was a masterpiece.
Josh Lobb made perfume and cologne under the name Slumberhouse. The ones I got a hold of smell good. I got them from scentsplit if anyone is interested.
GENEVIEVE is one of the best Atmospheric BM / Ambient DSBM albums of all times. Don’t care about the fuss and theatrics around the guy. Good for him, made his project bigger than it woulda been
Back in the day when these guys first started popping up it was only the most tourist of scene people who fawned after em and believed all the nonsense. I'm glad the truth eventually came out.
Reading the comments it is funny that until this day, the band is still so polarizing. People praising the music and others dismissing the whole thing just based on some basic statements about the band. The concept still works and I wish Josh would fire up the dieselharp once again.
Love the way you speaking and explaining things man, easily understand by me as a non-native speaker. And when Portland, Oregon is mentioned, i automatically associate it with Agalloch
Kind of surprised you didn't miss that Skv part, lol. When i stumbled upon this video, the first thing came to my mind was "Is this that mythical band that tries hard to sound edgy by letting one of their member commit suizid?"
record shop i used to love went out of business in 2021. i bought their entire black metal collection for dirt cheap. Genevieve was among the records i got
back in 2006 someone uploaded a video of a vhs video of a Indian family going to the zoo for vacation and in the video the ambient track of bloodcents was being played. It was just a video of a family visiting the zoo and the music made it really creepy and I have a feeling is the workings of the founder of VC.
Wow that was... a story!! I'll have to check them out. But yeah no matter how fake it was, it is why people talk about them. Great video as usual Wyatt!
Not even that long ago! I attended one event probably 15 years ago now that had the craziest performances, a bunch of ritual dancing ambient stuff and all kinds of madness. Exciting times.
@@BeckettWarren Yeah its crazy how well known that incident is. It wasn't anyone I know but definitely people I knew at one point had a few friends that died. I honestly wonder if there is anything interesting going on anymore. I feel like I went through a time period that is now absent, stuff like Fauna, Waldteufel, and Soriah were a different level than anything going on in mainstream music. Does mutant fest even exist anymore? Is it purely techno now?
@@patrickbertlein4626 I'm not sure about Mutant Fest, a buddy of mine told me I should go, but that was more than a decade ago. I think there has been a lot of structural societal shifts that has fundamentally changed underground music. One thing that I don't have any like proof of before someone yells at me in comments, is when there was the financial crisis in 07, a bunch of rich kids went to their parents and was like there are no jobs right now, why don't you give me some money so I can professionalize my music stuff, I can do PR!
So the things that sound real in this story. A lonely dude makes up a band, creates pretty good although sometimes repurposed palargised music on his own, gets high on cough syrup and probably had friends in the ELF , because Portland. Conclusion, hell of an art project, it sounds like to me. Respect.
I have a couple albums on my channel. Love this band... They messaged me and promised new music was coming. It's almost been 4yrs and I'm still waiting!!!😂
I still have Genevieve and Northsuite on CD, but once I found out at the time he was plagiarising other people's work, I just lost interest, but the sound is good! I remember hearing that they could have been linked to a band called Procer Veneficus who are pretty good.
@patrickbertlein4626 I think that they live in different states, but they have quite a similar sound, very hazy, black and ambient. I really can't remember for the life of me where I heard that they were in some way linked, unless they did a collaboration at some point.
Good times. I was on FMP666 forum when they/he was around and trolling everyone. Their own albums were great but so was the stuff they plagiarised - I even ended up contacting Korouva, whose album Shipwrecks & Russian Roulette VC stole for one of their demos, just to buy it directly from her. iirc she knew Josh personally but wasn't in on the fake demo thing.
Never heard of Velvet Cacoon cause I lived in Portland Oregon since 1999. I think they lied about their history cause I know about the local scene back in the day. Well known Black Metal band was Thy Inferno from Portland Oregon but, they are split up and now resides in Texas I do believe.
Seeing as you mention 'grim', are you familiar with Grim? Some of the very best Japanoise that's really different to all the others. I started with Factory Ritual, a classic. Check em out. Really funny, too. I call him Grim Humour.
Where you are supposed to set the band formation year? I have for example one man project that has earliest songs written in 1999 and 2000 and I've yet not released single album. The name of the project is from 2000. First release is going to be in 2025 or 2026.
As far as I'd be concerned the band formation date for one man bands may as well be when the first song is recorded or written. For bands with more than one member, first rehearsal/show or recording/song written would make sense. I'm sure people have different opinions on it since it's just for people to use for reference to begin with. Arguably the first physical release that is in circulation is all that's worth noting.
aside from their material being good, mystery is definitely an appealing factor..they would have a different effect without fabricated lore..it's agreeably embedded in the art form..something intangible was captured, which permeates through chaotically chosen/executed pathways of intricate musical presentation..
@@jslaughterofthesoul4939 yeah thank you I keep seeing that same kind of comment made and while I am not as up to date with what has been going on, I know for sure Portland has a way stronger underground metal scene than Seattle does.
Portal yessssssss!!!!!! I Like your tee Shirt and Portal so much man !!! Happy new year to you and your Family !!! Favorite Song by Portal „ Larvae „!!!
Velvet Cacoon!!! Haven't heard that name in years. Such a wild story, i remember all the post on the old NWN! Forum about the hoax. This bring me back to 2010/11 so bad lol.
Yeah, I was around for the entirety of this crazy saga. Genevieve is actually a genuinely great album. I owned the original first release of Genevieve on CD and I have the Southern Lord vinyl as well. As much as the story and all the stuff they did is just bullshit that is a solid album, even if the the last track is a plagerized version of Mathias Grassow - Soham.
As far as I can tell the joke that began with dextronaut never stopped and Josh has had and might still be having helluva fun time making fun of the whole thing or Josh is pathological liar who cannot but constantly come up with wilder and wilder bullshit. Its just quite hard for me to think that someone would have told all that bullcrap with any other motivations than to fuck with people or that they simply cannot but lie as some people do. Guess he was also rather good musician aside from all the plagiarism which, if not the lies, is a huge stain on the project.
Dextromethorphan aka DXM found in mass quantity compared to robitussin, is a pretty wild experience especially when you do it back to back. Like tripped 1 day then the next day did it again. Deff. Don't drive on it thats for sure lol
>started as a joke and suddenly got out of hand
Oh boy, doesn't that feel like the story of my life.
Lmfao preach 🙌 👏 🙏
Are you telling me that the real Velvet Cacoon was the friends we made along the way??
😂😂
No
@@frostyorb there there, lil buddy
I didn’t make any friends either
🤣
Okay this made me laugh more than it should
When I was a kid I used to create imaginary bands and come up with a lore around them just for myself. I didn't know I could've made money off of that.
That could be the base for an animated series. I used to draw fictitious album covers of non existent artists.
@@Hispandinavian bet theyre fire
Me & a friend used to do that. We even made flyers of them, but put a famous band at the top of it, & would say they were playing somewhere in town, then we'd make copies & hang them up around town. 😂 Had a good sized crowd outside of one of our local theaters one evening. 😂😂😂😂 It was awesome.
& this was in the 90s when you couldn't always just go look up this stuff online.
I think that Josh is the biggest troll in the Black Metal history and he´s probably laughing his ass of as he´s watching these youtuber trying to make sense of the ´band´s´ work.
He's too busy making perfumes.
@@bpc1442😂
@@bpc1442wrote a song that was heavily inspired by VC. One of the lines went "glimmering perfumes hold this snow-fog bound coppice in a soporific reverie". So it's wild to me that he is now making perfumes.
I don't know anything about Black Metal, but I immediately assumed this was just all a joke/troll to go along with this Josh guy's album.
I would say its more unintentional and he was mostly just trying to get attention more than anything.
I love videos like this way more than regular album reviews and stuff like that, and I hope you're enjoying making them, because I'd love to see more
VC was a fake “ecoterrorist” joke that Josh did to troll the FMP message board. That’s literally the whole story. Everything about it was meant to troll, including the back story, the stolen music, etc. The reference to Nargaroth was on purpose, because Nargaroth also faked their entire back story, but wasn’t doing it to troll.
But yeah, VC, everything from the misspelled name to the ecoterror ethos, was a joke.
Hardline Straight Edge Black Metal
Hei,whats FMP?
Cheers
@@Yanforus Full Moon Productions, a notorious black metal record label from the early 2000, the FMP Forums where like 4chan but for metalheads, you can search the forums on the Wayback Machine i belive
@@Yanforus Fullmoon Productions.
interesting.I actually had the idea of doing eco terror based black metal,but main difference here, I mean it since im an eco anarchist 🗿 Btw never heard of them before seeing this video.
Lmao love how this dude trolled the fuck out of the metal scene so easily. Seth Putnam is laughing from the void
Love the lore stories so much! All around, this is such an underrated channel!
This channel is neat.
I actually did buy _Genevieve_ on CD simply because despite all the lies and fiction of VC, I absolutely adore the album. There is something so atmospheric and elegant of that album, both with and without their fake back story.
I remember I was on the southern lord message board often around the time that they re-issued Genevieve. People were so angry at them over the diesel guitar thing it was hilarious. I always took them as a band that were absolutely trolling the TRVE CVLT Black Metal mafia and it was delightful
Kind of weird seeing this. I remember back on some early social media sites (one of which was, amusingly enough, Livejournal) Josh was somewhat active and was posting in a few communities. He was aggressively contrarian, constantly insulting more traditional bands and pushing the old "it is more than just music" take on Black Metal. I still remember if someone had corpsepaint on their avatars he would ask them if the circus was in town or if they were going to play baseball or whatnot.
He ended up as one of the admins on Full Moon Productions forums. Before he came along that whole forum was more-or-less black metal 4chan, but he made things even more chaotic. When moderators tried to resolve issues with users or would lock threads, Josh would leap in, unlock the thread again and purposefully start to cause even more problems between the users as he thought it was funny. At some point him and "left_hand_path" Luigi just ruined what was left of the forum by derailing every single thread just to argue with each other. The guy was chaos, irrespective of the stories he told.
Sad to hear about Jim from Snowfall (the vocals on the final VC album). I used to talk to him a lot between 2001 and 2010, but I just lost contact due to things moving to the big social media sites and we just disconnected. We used to try and drink ourselves to death on numerous occasions because we thought it was funny. While it is sad in a way, I'm not shocked he died of an overdose. He really, really liked his scag.
Velvet Cacoon got me into listening to more dark ambient music. However, what I find interesting is the use of the word 'Cacoon'. If you look up information about cacoon plants, the name of the band starts to make a hell of a lot more sense.
It could be they are making a vague and obscure reference to entada rheedii the hallucinogenic vine or it could be that they just misspelled cocoon when they named the band, you be the judge
Cacoon is also a name brand for those bougie hanging tent-like outdoor snuggle chairs you see.. which would be quite impractical in velvet.
Again, you be the judge; It seems in the spirit.
Black metal was very mystical during 90s early 00s, honestly to say not like today. it had so much shivering, coldness in it and of course believed those kind of weird hoax
Some is legit though
What was mystical about a bunch of edgelords trying to play guitars and scream about satan
That was before 4 chan and teenagers edge lording. now we know what to look for.
When he says a lot of people wondered if they really formed in 1996, what he really meant was a couple people
Two of them, to be precise
Man I just like the music. Apple Music recommended Velvet Cacoon as I was getting into more ambient music and I fell in love with the sound. All of this is just noise, just enjoy the music if you like it. Shit is perfect late in a mushroom trip when you’re too fried to do anything but your brain is too active for sleep.
Also, please give me more recommendations similar to Velvet Cacoon, specifically the soft persistent blast beats of their “Northsuite” album. Clair Cassis’ self-titled album and some songs in Mantiel’s album “Vestiges Engraved in Frozen Mysticism History,” notably the songs “Anoited in Astral Luminescence” and “Labyrinths of Perpetual Bitterness” is all I got
Paysage D'Hiver is for you if you really dig Velvet Cacoon
Weakling - Dead As Dreams, more progressive rather than ambient.
Ima drop a random suggestion for ambient. You ever heard of midnight oddyssy? I fell in love with their album "shards of silver fade" ages ago. Hell I don't even listen to black metal much these days but I might just go relisten to it. It's become as much of a legacy for me as wolves in the throneroom, Leviathan and agalloch.
Pest. The German band. Their logo is the plague doctor.
Metal Archives lists 3 bands called Pest, and one of Gorgoroths singers is named Pest. But for what you're lo ok king for, you will need the German version.
godemiche, sterres, turdus merula, maybe wrnlrd, the sun came up upon the left, peordh, arizmenda, xothist, striborg, xasthur, illunis, reverorum ib malacht, jute gyte, venymysgourvleydh, cloak of altering, cryostasium/abigorum collab, moria's treasure, manierisme, yamatu, the horn, trayjen▪︎nefarion split, helvintr, trou noir, benighted leams, k.f.r, organ |apoplexy in six parts|, esoterica {idololatriae}, thantifaxath (2011 ep), shades adjacent to fleurety-ved buens ende-virus, blut aus nord, early manes [both], possibly initial sammath, older dimmu borgir + emperor ...and oceans & thy primordial, darkspace, starcave nebula, trha, pieces mirroring imperial triumphant~impetuous ritual~portal *heavier; increasingly abstract*, draugadrottinn, xerion, ildjarn, shining, ultima thule °netherlands°, zygmythkaupt, vpaahsalbrox, also torcularis septemtrionalis..
Great video. I’m from Portland . I remember hearing about these guys years ago from at least one of my underground music scene friends but I never paid them any attention. Thanks to your video I’m definitely going to take a deep dive into their music. I absolutely love the layers of satire and parody with this artist.
Waking up to Wyatt's new video, best way of starting the day
I have never heard of Velvet Cacoon before this video
rs
Me neither lol
I vaguely remember them around /mu/ threads but never listened.
Thanks for making a video about this and mentioning the archive. You still got a lot of things wrong though. We will try making our own video(s) at some point, with the whole story.
Given they’re from PDX we might have guessed the entire project was wrapped in irony, satire, and parody.
Bunch of hipsters down there man.
Again, Portland has a strong metal scene that has nothing to do with the hipster bullshit. WAY better than Seattle. Who around here is doing anything remotely interesting?
I heard of them back in the early 2000,maybe through the magazines Metal Maniacs,Unrestrained,or Brave Words And Bloody Knuckles. The name sorta put me off. Looking back,I would have liked to give the band a try. Didnt have internet access to try all the bands I read about.
Fullmoon Productions was originally ran out of my city of Lakeland,Florida. Some of the bands on the label had their CD's on sale at Roadrunner Records,maybe I could have found Velvet Coocoon there. I did buy Mysticum's In The Streams Of Inferno and Hades Almighty's Dawn Of The Dying sun from there,however.
Good vid man,I definitely want to check em out now! I honestly thought this video was going to be about Nachtmystium or something similar.
I thought about starting a music project with a bunch of fictional lore behind it, but I'm not a good storyteller, so there goes that plan.
This title absolutely needs to be a full series. Episodes can include a four or five part piece breaking down the various Batushka, how Burz is actually a very liberal guy who knows how to market, how Euronymous and Andy Kaufman are sharing an apartment in Chicago a la Perfect Strangers, how Ketel Arach whatever has never actually once wielded a sword, etc. etc.
Also, apologies to the author if he's as from Portland as he looks. But Seattle residents know to NEVER take anything from Portland seriously. Look at UADA.
Damn I’ll definitely consider it .
@@FaerieGoatmother Portland's metal scene destroys ours what are you talking about? And Uada isn't that bad still haven't seen them, but I knew Jake back in the day and him and his brother Nick are the real deal, use to run a distro and get stuff from them all the time. Ceremonial Castings was also killer, maybe you were too young for that era but it was a great scene back in the day, now its shit.
Josh was a lonely guy who invented a series of fantasy female members to indulge in the very fantastical idea that sophisticated pretty young european women could possibly have any interest in obscure black metal back in the early 2000s (obviously this was an impossibility at that point). That was super weird and kinda makes me feel bad for the guy, creating literal imaginary female friends/lovers. And they all conformed to this very cringe sheltered wealthy posh euro white girl archetype. It's just so absurd that anyone from that background would have gotten into black metal during that era.
His 2021 interview he STILL couldn't stop lying through his teeth.
That said, I actually did enjoy P aa opal Poere Pr. 33. And their plagiarized material was actually very enjoyable too, so at least Josh had good taste in who to plagiarize.
the greek black metal scene had quite a few females involved actually. Astarte was a female-only band and they were founded in the mid 90s
@GiNgertheman oh definitely there were women in the black metal scene. But posh european white women who were into high fashion, art galleries, yacht cruises, french 19th century poetry, and gothic aesthetic? Nope... none of those kinds. He basically dreamed up his ideal waifu and inserted several variations of her into different real and fake musical projects. The interview with Pumkiva (fake) from 2003 was peak fanfiction. I can't discern if it's pathetic or hilarious; I'm leaning more toward hilarious and I think the whole thing was a tongue in cheek joke to accompany some authentically god music largely just as an early internet social experiment/troll. The dude had been around on the net in the late 90s trolling various forums and google groups, the made up lore, werewolves of venice, pumvika, and waifus were just modernized 2000s extensions of the trolling.
@@VastChoirs if the music was trash Id probably think this is pathetic but with music that good might as well respect it lol
I don't know about the US but over here in Europe around that time you had plenty of women in the scene and there still are actually. Hot ones too.
@@EzekielGoldbergII I was gonna say, this character sounds distinctly like Runhild Gammelsæter of Thorr's Hammer.
The diesel harp is REAL!
The infamous diesel harp, spearheaded by Velvet Cacoon front man Josh Lobb AKA SGL, is indeed real. I met up with him at his 851 Driftwood Ave. home to buy it off of him as he was tight on space and no longer had use for it. All was going well until he insisted rather aggressively that I have a seat and enjoy a cup of coffee with him. Much to my dismay I obliged, and what proceeded was truly a look into the madness of this unhinged artist. First, he went ON and ON about the "Corn Wars," detailing the gruesome events of what I can otherwise only explain as a total schizophrenic delusion. Corn was part of the "Holy Trinity" including the number 3 and some sort of "Holy Bean." He handed me a book of nonsensical "scriptures" warning of the Birch Devil. At this point, I had to forcefully make my exit, with Josh screaming at me to come back and listen to "the truth." I ultimately was out $2000 and the mythical diesel harp, but God as my witness, it is, in fact, real. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe the whole thing was an elaborate scam. Damn it.
Enjoyable video on a very fun project. I have a test press of either their final release or the Clair Cassis one. I don't remember which. Might dig it out later along with my other stuff and have a big listening session
Why is it so hard for this kid to fathom that back in the 90s we had shows in places like warehouses and basements and we didnt have video cameras in our pockets.
@@Shanesawendsley why is it so hard for this geezer to understand what I’m bringing up plays into VC story they were making up ?
@@wyattxhim To put it a different way, it wasn't unusual for there to be a total lack of documentary evidence for many many many bands. Like now one off bands will still have a band camp. Then a lot of bands played a couple of shows at diy venues and then disappeared. And you recorded on cassette, so if that four track tape got lost, you couldn't pull your backup from dropbox or whatever. Everything was much more ephemeral.
Bring out the Robitussin!
Did it daily from 16 to 19 . Stuff messed my body all up. Now I shake like a leaf 20 years later.
That sucks dude, I never did it daily but I did do it a fuck ton from age 14-18, the first few trips were pretty much my favorite experiences ever (better than even heroin) but as time went on the stuff no longer became enjoyable and was noticeably making me retarded so I stopped. Love the Acid Bath dp!
I remember hearing about this band back during my DXM trips and was really excited to see a black metal band referencing DXM but while researching them I remember seeing their music was all stolen from some other band so I never ended up actually checking them out.
What’s that record you have displayed, with the colorful whimsical cover?
My friend’s band from Germany
Markgraf - Hohenbaden
Markgraf Rules!
Josh is now running his own Business of perfumes called Slumberhouse. Look it up, I have tried a few of his creations. Very similar to VC in their spirit.
There is nothing to purchase on the website? 🤔
I actually liked some of VC's tracks back in the day lol I actually forgot about them. Awesome video man
Anyone can say what they want about Velvet Cocoon but you gotta respect the commitment to the bit.
Love these small doco type videos! Never heard of this band before but I'm a black metal newbie! Cheers mate.
Been aware of how much of a meme band they were for years now. Regardless they are still one of my favorite projects when it comes to their original work. Genevieve was a masterpiece.
You popped up in my feed with this video, I immediately think "I wonder if he has a Silencer video."
Did not disappoint. Subscribed. ❤
Josh Lobb made perfume and cologne under the name Slumberhouse. The ones I got a hold of smell good. I got them from scentsplit if anyone is interested.
Happy New Year's man!!
Bathory lied about them just having one member to get a album and tour deal
this kind of an act is what gives us all a real good laugh and it CAN really be that easy to be a one entity band, i should know.
GENEVIEVE is one of the best Atmospheric BM / Ambient DSBM albums of all times. Don’t care about the fuss and theatrics around the guy. Good for him, made his project bigger than it woulda been
Sounds like the Black Metal equivalent of Spinal Tap
The question is how much more Grim can it be? And the answer is none. None more Grim
Just discovered your channel, love it. Unsolicited ideas of future deep dives:
Cobalt
Ghost Bath
Aghast
Back in the day when these guys first started popping up it was only the most tourist of scene people who fawned after em and believed all the nonsense. I'm glad the truth eventually came out.
Didn't "fawn" over them but did enjoy them. Thought all the BS was hilarious. Were you even around when this whole thing went down?
Wait until he finds out GWAR aren't actually monsters.
When i read the title, i thought this was about Nargaroth.
Reading the comments it is funny that until this day, the band is still so polarizing. People praising the music and others dismissing the whole thing just based on some basic statements about the band. The concept still works and I wish Josh would fire up the dieselharp once again.
The thumbnail made me think this was about the black satans 😂
Love the way you speaking and explaining things man, easily understand by me as a non-native speaker. And when Portland, Oregon is mentioned, i automatically associate it with Agalloch
Kind of surprised you didn't miss that Skv part, lol. When i stumbled upon this video, the first thing came to my mind was "Is this that mythical band that tries hard to sound edgy by letting one of their member commit suizid?"
he was impressed that people actually cared someone lied alot
record shop i used to love went out of business in 2021. i bought their entire black metal collection for dirt cheap. Genevieve was among the records i got
back in 2006 someone uploaded a video of a vhs video of a Indian family going to the zoo for vacation and in the video the ambient track of bloodcents was being played. It was just a video of a family visiting the zoo and the music made it really creepy and I have a feeling is the workings of the founder of VC.
As a deep lover of black metal, I'm super glad TH-cam suggested this watch. Great work dude 🫡
One of my faves and the one band to out-Burzum Burzum with Genevieve.
Also: You should have displayed the test pressing just to confuse everyone
I saw the title and thought it is about Nargaroth
Wow that was... a story!! I'll have to check them out. But yeah no matter how fake it was, it is why people talk about them. Great video as usual Wyatt!
I really admire his creativity with the names of projects/songs etc
Back in the day there were underground warehouse shows
Not even that long ago! I attended one event probably 15 years ago now that had the craziest performances, a bunch of ritual dancing ambient stuff and all kinds of madness. Exciting times.
@@patrickbertlein4626 Ghost Ship fire really put warehouses under a lot of scrutiny.
@@BeckettWarren Yeah its crazy how well known that incident is. It wasn't anyone I know but definitely people I knew at one point had a few friends that died.
I honestly wonder if there is anything interesting going on anymore. I feel like I went through a time period that is now absent, stuff like Fauna, Waldteufel, and Soriah were a different level than anything going on in mainstream music. Does mutant fest even exist anymore? Is it purely techno now?
@@patrickbertlein4626 I'm not sure about Mutant Fest, a buddy of mine told me I should go, but that was more than a decade ago.
I think there has been a lot of structural societal shifts that has fundamentally changed underground music.
One thing that I don't have any like proof of before someone yells at me in comments, is when there was the financial crisis in 07, a bunch of rich kids went to their parents and was like there are no jobs right now, why don't you give me some money so I can professionalize my music stuff, I can do PR!
So the things that sound real in this story. A lonely dude makes up a band, creates pretty good although sometimes repurposed palargised music on his own, gets high on cough syrup and probably had friends in the ELF , because Portland. Conclusion, hell of an art project, it sounds like to me. Respect.
96 and 97 was magic all around. Death, Crust, Street, EVERYTHING!
...sludge, grind, powerviolence. Yes, glorious era
I have a couple albums on my channel. Love this band...
They messaged me and promised new music was coming. It's almost been 4yrs and I'm still waiting!!!😂
He trolled you 💀
I've been trying to make this video for like 10 years now. Good on you my guy.
btw, where did you get that PORTAL shirt? i need one like that.
Thanks video, made me look up portal. I love hearing stuff for the first time ❤
Based on the title I wasn't sure would this video be about Velvet Cacoon or Nargaroth
what a way to begin this year what a great band
Missing quite a lot important stuff (which admittedly would be way too much to list here) but nice little overview regardless.
I still have Genevieve and Northsuite on CD, but once I found out at the time he was plagiarising other people's work, I just lost interest, but the sound is good!
I remember hearing that they could have been linked to a band called Procer Veneficus who are pretty good.
That last part sounds familiar, but its been so long since all that shit happened who knows.
@patrickbertlein4626 I think that they live in different states, but they have quite a similar sound, very hazy, black and ambient. I really can't remember for the life of me where I heard that they were in some way linked, unless they did a collaboration at some point.
Good times. I was on FMP666 forum when they/he was around and trolling everyone. Their own albums were great but so was the stuff they plagiarised - I even ended up contacting Korouva, whose album Shipwrecks & Russian Roulette VC stole for one of their demos, just to buy it directly from her. iirc she knew Josh personally but wasn't in on the fake demo thing.
the second I heard the title "dextronaut" I immediately knew what I was in store for lmao. frequently used term in relation to dxm.
BTW: Slumberhouse is actually a legit and coveted niche perfume among fragrance aficionados. Good deep-dive on Velvet C. !
To this day I still can't believe that people actually thought the dieselharp was a real thing.
Never heard of Velvet Cacoon cause I lived in Portland Oregon since 1999. I think they lied about their history cause I know about the local scene back in the day. Well known Black Metal band was Thy Inferno from Portland Oregon but, they are split up and now resides in Texas I do believe.
Seeing as you mention 'grim', are you familiar with Grim? Some of the very best Japanoise that's really different to all the others. I started with Factory Ritual, a classic. Check em out. Really funny, too. I call him Grim Humour.
yeah, Grim is a very interesting project - and it's not all just noise
Oh my god, I only heard about Velvet Cacoon when I was younger because apparently they stole tracks from Ahulabrum
tbh I didn't look at the thumbnail and immediately thought this was a Vothana video lmao
Man I had no idea he was behind Slumberhouse. They're kind of a big deal in niche perfume circles
isnt psychonaut 4 also related to dextromethorphan. any others i should know about.
Where you are supposed to set the band formation year? I have for example one man project that has earliest songs written in 1999 and 2000 and I've yet not released single album. The name of the project is from 2000. First release is going to be in 2025 or 2026.
The band formation year is the year the band formed, regardless of releases. Could have formed in '93 with their first EP in 2001. Still formed in '93
As far as I'd be concerned the band formation date for one man bands may as well be when the first song is recorded or written. For bands with more than one member, first rehearsal/show or recording/song written would make sense.
I'm sure people have different opinions on it since it's just for people to use for reference to begin with. Arguably the first physical release that is in circulation is all that's worth noting.
aside from their material being good, mystery is definitely an appealing factor..they would have a different effect without fabricated lore..it's agreeably embedded in the art form..something intangible was captured, which permeates through chaotically chosen/executed pathways of intricate musical presentation..
I was in Thy Infernal from Portland. We started in 1996 and were the only black metal band from there in 96.
Nargaroth and Moonblood being brought up in the same sentence is one hell of a tipping of the scales
How? Just curious. As in with the band in question or those two bands names together?
Man I loved this band back in the day, the lore was crazy and the music was really good.
If something or someone is from Portland it automatically makes it suspect.
There are and have been a million great bands from Portland
@@jslaughterofthesoul4939 yeah thank you I keep seeing that same kind of comment made and while I am not as up to date with what has been going on, I know for sure Portland has a way stronger underground metal scene than Seattle does.
Portal yessssssss!!!!!! I Like your tee Shirt and Portal so much man !!! Happy new year to you and your Family !!! Favorite Song by Portal „ Larvae „!!!
What record is that on the shelf? Cool artwork,.
@@drackaris_ Markgraf - Hohenbaden
How did you manage to forget the Atropine album?
@@runglerhz5590 it’s not recognized as a legit album by VC
@@wyattxhim interesting :D
With all the hassle around VC I just choose to recognise it as legit ;-)
Saw the title and immediately knew who this video was about lmao
Happy new year!
Velvet Cacoon!!! Haven't heard that name in years. Such a wild story, i remember all the post on the old NWN! Forum about the hoax. This bring me back to 2010/11 so bad lol.
Regardless of the mythos surrounding VC, Genevieve and Northsuite are musically undeniably brilliant .
Yeah, I was around for the entirety of this crazy saga. Genevieve is actually a genuinely great album. I owned the original first release of Genevieve on CD and I have the Southern Lord vinyl as well. As much as the story and all the stuff they did is just bullshit that is a solid album, even if the the last track is a plagerized version of Mathias Grassow - Soham.
I like to think Im up to date with whats going on in black metal...
Then I see a video like this where I never heard of any of the bands covered.
I know you don't usually respond to comments, but I was wondering if you had a P.O. Box for fan mail or anything?
As far as I can tell the joke that began with dextronaut never stopped and Josh has had and might still be having helluva fun time making fun of the whole thing or Josh is pathological liar who cannot but constantly come up with wilder and wilder bullshit. Its just quite hard for me to think that someone would have told all that bullcrap with any other motivations than to fuck with people or that they simply cannot but lie as some people do. Guess he was also rather good musician aside from all the plagiarism which, if not the lies, is a huge stain on the project.
Give Erika and Ted's project Autumn Tears (darkwave) Erika has done some guest appearances in some bands including December wolves
Couldnt stop laughing at the "live show" story 🤣
The 10 year old girl with the torch was my older sister
Honey wake up new close to half an hour wyattxhim video just dropped
SLAY
💀
Dextromethorphan aka DXM found in mass quantity compared to robitussin, is a pretty wild experience especially when you do it back to back. Like tripped 1 day then the next day did it again. Deff. Don't drive on it thats for sure lol
Worst of all, “cocoon” was deliberately spelt wrong. False metal