Zombie. Beatles. “A Hard Day’s Night of the Living Dead.” Video after the cut. (more…)

Most people probably hadn’t heard of sarin gas before the 1994 and 1995 attacks in Japan by the Aum Shinrikyo cult.

Sarin is an odorless, colorless gas which damages your nervous system if you inhale it or get it on your skin. It inhibits the mechanism by which your body allows its muscles to relax, leading to convulsions and a loss of bodily control, inability to breath and likely death.

The only good thing about sarin is that it doesn’t store well, which makes it difficult to stockpile for use as a weapon.

“Aum Shinrikyo” used sarin in two terrorist attacks in Japan, in 1994 and 1995, killing a total of 19 people.

WFMU describes Aum Shinrikyo’s beliefs as “a wild mixture of Buddhism, Hinduism, Nostradamus, and the Book of Revelations” – something which I normally would respond to as “you can’t get there from here” – but apparently you can.

Informed by everything from buddhism and anime to Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy, they started out studying yogic meditation (the Wikipedia article on them uses another unlikely combination of words, “elite meditation boutique”), they became more militant over time, driving around in an armored Mercedes, until finally they involved themselves in terrorist attacks, kidnapping and microwave incineration.

In a Buckaroo Banzai-like twist, their mostly blind leader, Shoko Asahara, not only masterminded their transformation from meditators to terrorists, but also recorded music.

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Sadly, the Robot Uprising just hasn’t gotten a lot of play lately, but that’s all changing thanks to The Flight of the Conchords on HBO. A YouTube clip of their performance of “The Humans Are Dead” follows the break.

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If the bombs fell today, would you be ready? Do you have clean water put aside? Supplies of dry food? Is your fallout shelter dug?

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In the grand tradition of bands like Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd, rock stars Spinal Tap will reunite for the July 7th global warming benefit Live Earth. They’ll be performing at Wembley Stadium in London.
Rob Reiner is also putting together a 15 minute reunion film to be aired at the opening night of the Tribeca Film Festival.

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There’s nothing like a Eurovision entry to give you the sense of a country’s national mood, and Israel’s must be pretty grim as they’ve voted for the band Teapacks’ songs “Push The Button” as their entry in the European music contest. I suppose it’s not surprising given that the leader of Iran has made it quite clear that he wants to annihilate Israel.

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Rock is going to save the world (again)! This time it’s “Live Earth”, a set of eight concerts taking place around the world on July 7, 2007. The concerts will take place in South Africa, England, China, Australia, the US, Brazil, Japan and – Antarctica.

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What if I were to tell you there was another “Apocalyptica”? No, not a Calypso soundtrack to “Apocalypse Now”. Even better – a Finish heavy metal cello band that got their start doing Metallica covers on cello (I know I mentioned the cellos already but I just had to say it again – “cello”).
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Normally copyright isn’t something that we have to deal with much here at the Apocalypse Blog (not is it something that certain savory third parties who blatantly violate the Apocalypse Blog’s copyright by reposting our articles on another blog worry much about, either), but recently copyright has been in the news in the UK.

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A while back, Wired ran a fun article called “Album Cover Apocalypse”. It’s a fight to the death amongst classic album covers. Remember album covers? Remember albums? You know, back in the day. For kids.

As proof that I’m a sucker for anything with the word “apocalypse” in it, here you go: Album Cover Apocalypse