29: Call of the Winter Moon - Immortal

Blanket Fort.

Like what?

Blanket Fort.

Blanket Fort, oh.

Hello and welcome to We Can't Rewind with Gone Too Far,

a podcast where we discuss the worst, silliest and weirdest as fuck music videos.

Hi, I'm Neily.

Hi, I'm Dave.

Hi, I'm Neil.

We're back after a few months of skiving, uh, working hard,

and we are ready to frog, rock and roll our way out of figuring if the Call of the Winter Moon by

Water... by Watermelon... by Immortal... is the single most unintentionally hilarious video that has ever existed.

Hmm.

Hmm.

This video can be best described as "Baby's first LARPing experience."

We see the band immortally flocking around a local Norwegian woods.

Wait, hold up, hold up.

You do know that the band's name is Immortal, right?

Oh, sorry.

It's not saying Immortally, the band is Immortal.

Sorry, we see the band.

Let me put a comment in there.

Immortally frolicking though.

If we did show titles, that would be the showtime.

Okay.

We see the band, Immortal,

frolicking through the local Norwegian woods,

wearing capes, pointy wizard hats,

wearing a lo-fi, kiss-style makeup,

and most likely shouting "Lightning Vault" in between the shots.

Excuse my voice today.

The song, taken from the album Diabolical Full Moon Mysticism,

Jesus, isn't it,

shares a limelight with six other tracks with amazing titles like

Black in the Darkness,

Cryptic Winter Storms,

and Unholy Forces of Evil.

The story of the video is probably even more hilarious.

Shot in the forest around the ruins of a Norwegian monastery,

it features the members of the mortal,

immortalising themselves in corpse face paint,

angry looks,

long styled hair,

and spiky armbands.

According to the band,

The video was shot in two hours.

In an interview with one of the band members,

he said, in regard to the stylistic choices,

as far as I can remember, we were a bit confused in those days.

I'm sure a lot has changed in the 30 years since making video.

That pretty much sums up any time I try to remember anything.

I think I was a bit confused at the time.

To be honest, their confusion is pretty much spelt on their faces,

and that's fine.

So, initial thoughts on this greenie VHS-looking masterpiece?

Well, I was confused, not gonna lie.

First video back after a while.

I was.

You forgot what that podcast was about.

I forgot we had a podcast and I forgot the quality of videos we sometimes choose for this

podcast and I can't speak for the rest of the group, but I feel personally this has hit an

all time low.

This this this video is very questionable.

For many reasons.

One, because it's quite hard to see what's actually going on.

And the best way to describe it is listeners.

Imagine wherever you are, just just just look at whatever you're looking at.

Now, if you happen to have Vaseline next to you,

smear that across your eyes,

on your eyeballs, that's correct,

and just have a look at the world

and describe the shapes and the colours

and the textures,

and pretty much what you see

is what this video is showing.

Mind you, there is swords,

man-larping, which, yep,

don't get me wrong, which is fun.

They were all confused, so that's fine.

I feel like I can relate

to the actual musicians in this

because I don't think anyone knew

what was going on.

It definitely has the feel of just a bunch of pals

who just grabbed the camera and went and fucked around in the woods.

I was watching it, like, what is their objective?

What are they all doing?

As far as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be an objective.

I've only watched it a couple of times.

Is there something I'm missing?

Or is it just...

I mean, it's just you guys in variety.

Black metal band trying to look very edgy.

I don't know how old they were.

I presume they were not very old.

Yeah, it's hard to tell through the makeup.

I'm gonna...

Considering they've been playing for, like, 30-odd years,

I'm gonna say probably late teens,

very early 20s is the best. I've never been LARPing

but I'm a fan of

abandoned buildings and wandering around forests.

It looks like they're having a good time and I think

that kind of came at me by osmosis.

So the lead singer

is 48. Now are they?

He's still LARPing.

Yes, he's 18. He's going strong.

No, he's 48 now.

So he was 18. They were

17, 18. They were kids. Which

makes so much sense suddenly.

Had you heard any of the other music or

seen any of the other videos other than this before?

How did you find this, Nellia?

I don't actually know.

Yeah, hi.

Why?

What were you doing?

I don't remember why.

I know how.

I don't remember why.

A friend of mine decided to save me this video.

I do not remember what the context was.

Kind of stuck in my brain as something to remember.

You know who you are, save me that fucking video.

Fuck you.

But also it's an amazing video, so.

But yeah, no, it's LARPing.

So they're basically just LARPing.

Yeah.

I'm not all that fit.

I'm aware that it exists.

I don't know what the rules of LARPing are.

What are the rules of engagement when you're LARPing?

Do you just go into the forest and fuck around like this?

Is that the general idea?

Very much.

The thing, like, I knew people who did that when we were teens, like...

It stands for live action roleplay or something, doesn't it?

Yeah.

So we basically dressed up.

I don't remember anyone going to the extent of doing full mime makeup.

You know, like, dressing up in, like, some ways.

It's not too much because we still went to the forest.

We're fully aware we're going to the forest.

Don't wear free flops or heels or whatever.

Because we're not insane.

You had a cape and walking boots.

Kind of and a loaf of beer.

But we never went to the extent of doing the proper waving stuff around and fighting or something.

It does have a great fun.

I think I have just remembered there's something that could maybe technically...

We did the Lord of the Rings drinking game.

I think we were about 21 or 22 at the time.

My mate, for some reason, had a box of just random hats,

like fucking wizard hats and shit.

I can't remember why.

So we put all them on, and we ran out of booze

by the end of the second film, I think.

So we did walk to the shop with our wizard hats

and all that shit on to get more booze.

I just remember the look on the people's face

as these absolutely hammered people in wizard hats walk in.

We're on a mission.

We need more booze.

We're watching the extended edition.

We didn't prepare for how fucking long these conditions are.

How did you not fall asleep after the second one?

We made it, but not by much.

I still remember the hangover to this day.

It was brutal.

Fair enough.

Neil, have you got any experiences of this?

From LARPing?

No, but my friend of mine used to make short films,

and he always used to make them outside in the woods.

That always used to piss me off because I don't like woods.

Well, I do like woods.

I like walking through woods, not working on woods.

So I can kind of see how they felt a bit confused.

You know, run from this point to that point.

Look like you're concerned.

Give me some sort of action.

I think their makeup hides a lot of their actual emotions,

which is interesting, but I can see through it.

I can see the sadness behind the makeup.

I think LARPing is something I would...

My brother, he...

My brother was the type who would grow up with, you know,

wanting to play with swords.

It's the best way to describe it.

This is a podcast exclusive.

My brother was playing with said sword once,

And I was inside on the computer.

This was 2001, by the way.

First year ever having a computer.

And I heard him scream.

And he came running in.

And he had to stab himself in the leg.

Yeah, he stabbed himself.

And, you know, I was 11.

And I didn't know what to do.

I mean, I'm 11-year-old, not first-year-old trained.

He had to hobble up my neighbor's steps.

He had about 15 steps up to the front door.

They weren't in.

And then he went to the other neighbor who were in.

They called an ambulance.

And the paramedics arrived.

And my brother was doing this outside in the back garden in his pajamas.

His paramedics arrived and it was these two attractive females.

And they had to cut his structures off.

And he's in pajamas, so he didn't have any underwear on.

So let's just say he never played with swords again.

Wow.

Yeah.

You need to finish the picture fully.

Were his pajamas all over the ring pajamas?

Well, yeah, they probably had some sort of game theme to them.

He never lived that down this year.

Well, he almost died.

He almost had an artery.

So, you know, it's not a laugh and murder.

Did he actually?

No, he didn't.

Almost.

He almost did.

That's kind of hilarious.

They've got a lot of flaming staffs in this video.

I mean, you could hurt yourself with that, I guess.

Accidentally set your mate on fire.

I mean, I don't know how flammable their makeup is.

That's the main concern for me.

I don't think that was a worry of a 17, 18-year-old.

I don't know whether they were drunk.

I don't want to presume just because they were in a black metal band.

But it's probably safe to assume there was some form of alcohol involved.

I think the drinking age in Norway, I think it's a 16, maybe.

It would be a shame to go into the forest with a bunch of flaming sticks

and not have some beer, in my opinion, I think.

You absolutely need alcohol to get the flaming.

Oh, the flame blower guy.

Yes.

Fire breather, fire breather.

Yes, you need alcohol for this.

A guy from uni, Paul's grad, so this guy, he's mid-30s.

He has a very, very large collection of swords,

Which, as far as I know, as far as I remember him saying that he just kind of has a pile of them.

I don't think he actually has them anywhere proper.

But I've seen videos, like Instagram videos, of him drunk.

Just swinging actual swords around.

It's kind of hilarious.

Don't play with swords when you're drunk, kids.

That's going to end badly.

I don't think it's the worst thing he's done when he's drunk, so he's fine.

There's a Bulgarian expression that God protects the idiots and the drunk.

And I think he's kind of in the ball category.

That's a good point.

Yeah.

I like that saying.

It is.

It's a very,

it's a very kind of good saying.

Whenever someone's like,

oh,

this good drunk person

is going to something,

them is like,

it's fine.

They'll be fine.

They'll be fine.

How do you say that in Bulgarian?

Just to have interest.

That's your Bulgarian lesson

for today.

Bless you, Nelly.

Bless you.

Bless you, my child.

Do you want to ask

anything, Scott?

He's...

Yeah,

has he ever been laughing?

Scott.

What?

Do you have any

this face right now.

I'm sorry, guys.

Do you have any stories

of swinging swords

while you're boy scouting?

We didn't do laughing at scouts.

We just got sick

in the light for each other.

It's the same concept

as a sword.

Shall you tell the Templars that?

I can take a second

and appreciate the ban

member names

because they're

fucking amazing

Abath Doom

Okulter

Armageddon

Grimm

Iskari

Iskari

I want to say

it's a Jewish name

or biblical name

but I don't

it's a biblical name

yeah it does sound

biblical

it just

Judas

Judas Iskari

oh yeah

Apollyon

Apollyon

spelled H-O-R-G-H

pronounced

Hans

Neil

Orgish

pretty sure

that's a

brand of car

the new

hoggish

and a piece of

Ikea furniture

I'm just sitting

on my hoggish

piece of Ikea

cough syrup

goes on my

Ikea cough syrup

right now

yeah

in the notes

you've written

it sounds like

a random edgy

name generate

they found

a fantasy

name generate

oh you found

one okay

I did yeah

but there is

Vex Shadow Walker

spelled with

double X

and double W

Vex

Vex

Vex

Vex

Obsidian

Morgan

Obsidian

an obsidian morgan.

That's a good one actually.

My old friend obsidian morgan.

How do you do obsidian?

So if you had to shoot

a black metal video

what would you do?

I definitely think fire

would be involved for me

as much fire as physically possible.

Forest is kind of a safe bet

when it comes to this sort of stuff.

Sort of fantasy

witches and wizards.

Lots of trees to walk through.

It feels very adventurous.

I think a graveyard.

Graveyard a good shout

because it sometimes has trees

and obviously you have gravestones

and there'll be lots of fire.

I think zombies.

There'll be some sort of theme around

raising the dead.

Lots of smoke.

Now, they actually done a lot of this

in this video,

just that it was shot through a potato.

So you can't really make it out.

That's a good point.

I think you said

an actual production company shot this.

Allegedly.

According to Wikipedia.

Because it really does look like

one of those old handy cams or whatever

you'd shove a full-size VHS in.

I didn't catch the year of this.

92.

Wow.

Is that what 1992 looked like?

Shit.

just realize something the end of the video you see it going on to whatever was next in the program

so maybe the reason this look this looks so shit is literally because it's ripped off of hs rather

than the original looking this shit i don't think the original looked much better because it wasn't

being shot for tv so has the resolution of potato the 90s were a weird time for videos like this like

really low budget music videos shot on really low and cameras really old school tape like this is a

Terrible, terrible.

Tape transfer, yeah, it's done on the absolutely lowest quality.

It's been put on a VHS and then it's been put on YouTube

before people uploaded HD videos on YouTube

as we've ranted about many times.

Very much.

Safe to present, but it still wasn't great initially.

I just want to circle back for a second for the Black Metal music video.

Great suggestions, guys.

I'm just disappointed that you went for the boring safe route

as opposed to something more adventurous like...

Blanket Forth.

Like what?

Blanket Forth.

Blanket Forth.

Blanket Forth, no.

They're in the forest.

Yeah, they're in the forest, but not real one.

Turns out that it's just some 10-year-olds,

eight-year-olds in a blanket fort,

thinking that they're in the forest,

pretending, like, playing in the forest.

And here's why it's such a fucking bad video,

because it's eight-year-olds pretending to be in the forest.

And they think, oh, yeah, yeah,

imagine how cool it would be if we had swords.

Imagine if we had fire.

Fire in the wood would be so cool.

And when you imagine that video actually being in the mind of an eight-year-old

who wants to play with their eight-year-old friends,

it certainly makes much more sense.

That would tie the whole thing together, I think.

So we need a time machine.

We need to go back and tell them to do this.

Blanket for us.

I think about this video.

I'm only real complainant about it is that there's no objective.

There's no storyline.

There's no reason for what they're doing, as far as I can tell.

If they just had something in there where it was like, this is why we're here.

Like, I don't know, finding some magical sword or some shit.

Just pull any shit out and put that at the end and it would have been a lot better.

Because at the moment it's just shots of people sort of jumping around randomly.

Although I thought some of the shots were decent enough for what it was.

I feel this podcast has hit an all-time low thanks to this video.

The Worst of Potato Quality video is something that I recommend sharing with your worst enemy.

a video that was apparently made in two hours they honestly would have been better off making a video

about paint drying this is really a genre music i'm interested anyway and the auto the auto close

captioning on youtube couldn't translate this nonsense noise yeah i tried to think i wonder if

i can hear the lyrics but it just sounds like your stomach when it's hungry inaudible grumbling in

norwegian so what's your film plays nilly lightning bolt is that the full review oh kind of if you if

If you've seen the lightning bolt video, if you've been taught lightning bolt, you immediately

get what I mean.

So my favorite part, I think it's the shot where it's the guy blowing the fire, he's

getting a looped and he's going I think that was quick.

And the worst part is whoever transferred this over to YouTube didn't put it in a proper,

whoever fucked up the transfer is what I'm trying to say.

It's definitely that person's fault for the quality of this video and not just the video

If anyone has a higher quality version of this or any of the fucking videos we fucking look at, let us know.

What are the chances?

You never know. You never know.

Slim to slightly above none. I'm taking it.

And go to firecast.gmail.com. Please email us.

Neil, what are your favorite worst moments?

Favorite part was I just tried to put myself in the position of them during that shoot.

And I want to know whose idea was to bring a fire breather to a forest.

I mean they were clearly

following a very strict risk assessment

for that location

because they didn't burn the forest down

maybe they did

that actually might explain why

YouTube only has a 3 minute version

of a video or a song

which is 5 and a bit minutes

yeah the quality is pretty much unforgiving

as Dave just said

I think whoever did upload this

is a complete and utter moron

but then again it's 2

the video is listed as 2000

so I mean early 2000

It's better than losing it entirely, I guess.

My favorite part is, I'm down exactly the 10 second mark.

The guy just popping his head from behind the tree just going,

Hi guys!

I don't know why, it feels so slapsticky.

Unintentionally, I think, but it's hilarious.

I understand what you guys are saying about the non-existent quality of the video.

Really, there's not much to hate about a bunch of dogs in carnival shop costumes

trying to look edgy and angry.

Especially considering that you, when you realized that they were 17 and 18, like, yeah, I probably would have done the same when they were 18.

I'm going to give an aye, just for sheer comedy value.

Aye, if you're into cheesy, but B-movie, quality films, and no, if you're a boring person, or if you're called Neo, apparently.

I mean, I don't like this, but I would recommend it, because it's, you know, to your worst enemy.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

I'm kind of conflicted.

I can't recommend it for multiple technical reasons,

but it's not really the artist's fault,

considering they were confused.

Take a look at the show notes for links to today's video,

links to Instagram, and also links to the Lightning Bolt video.

Also, email us at gontofarcast at gmail.com.

We'd love to hear your thoughts and any recommendations for videos.

If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

or your podcast player of choice.

That actually does help us.

Thank you.

Bye.

Good to be back.

Bye, everyone.

Let's go.