Looks like they've found those weapons of mass destruction. WSJ article about Iraqi heavy metal outfit Acrassicauda, and what life is like trying to obliterate audiences with satanic soundwaves after the fall of Saddam.
The members of Acrassicauda honed their English by singing along to black-market Megadeth and Metallica CDs. They developed their stage moves by copying what they saw on pirated videotapes of American rock concerts. Now they're learning a different lesson: the difficulties of reviving culture and entertainment in a society ripped apart by war.
The four members of Acrassicauda, which means Black Scorpion in Latin, hope they can prove just as resilient. The young men — Mr. Talal, bassist Faris al-Lateef, drummer Marwan Mohammad Riyak and guitarist Tony Aziz — met as high-school students and formed the band, along with another member, in 2000. Scions of prominent families, they were drawn together by their love of Western heavy-metal bands like Slayer and Judas Priest, which appealed to their feelings of isolation and disillusionment.
"It's about feeling powerless and lonely and wanting to scream out because no one else is paying attention to what you're feeling," says Mr. Lateef, 23, who has spiky hair, a goatee and tinted sunglasses that he wears indoors. "The songs were sung by Americans but they could easily have been written by us as Iraqis."
Link, more here via Channel One News (Thanks, Ollie)
Update: BoingBoing reader Eric Eberhardt says, "There's a (slightly) more sensationalistic article about these guys in last February's Vice — Link." Photo above by Gideon Yago, from the Vice article.
