title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: First depicted in the "Mortal Kombat" canon as a Japanese-American who was orphaned at a young age and fell into a life of crime, Kano is the leader of the Black Dragon criminal empire, having been deported from both Japan and the United States, and becoming a wanted man in thirty-five other countries. Initially named "Kao", his eye plate came from a gunshot by escaping Sonya Blade in a scrapped . He made his first chronological appearance in the 2000 platform game "Mortal Kombat: Special Forces", freeing fellow Black Dragon cohorts No Face, Tasia, Jarek, and Tremor from a Special Forces security facility under the pretense that they would reform the organization, though he really intended to use them as pawns to slow down any Special Forces agents who might pursue him. They kill an entire Special Forces unit during the prison break before Kano heads to Outworld, where he recovers the Eye of Chitian, an artifact through which he would acquire incredible power. While Special Forces Major Jackson "Jax" Briggs gets ahold of the object first and transports himself and Kano back to Earthrealm, the latter soon escapes custody.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: Kano enters the "Mortal Kombat" tournament in the original "Mortal Kombat" (1992) after hearing rumors that tournament host Shang Tsung's palace was filled with gold and other riches, with the intention of looting it for the Black Dragon. However, he is fervently pursued by U.S. Special Forces officer Sonya Blade, who holds a personal grudge against Kano that was left unspecified in the game's storyline. He evades capture by leaping onto Shang Tsung's junk bound for the tournament. When Sonya tracks him onto the private island, she is captured and forced to compete. She and Kano are among the competition's few survivors, and during the final battle between Shang Tsung and Shaolin monk Liu Kang, Sonya reluctantly teams up with Kano to fight off the Shokan Prince Goro. During their battle, the island immediately self-destructs following Shang Tsung's defeat, trapping Kano and Sonya in the otherworldly dimension Outworld. They are both captured and spend the events of "Mortal Kombat II" (1993) chained and on display in Outworld emperor Shao Kahn's arena.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: In "Mortal Kombat 3" (1995), Jax finds and rescues Sonya and Kano, enabling him to escape their clutches once again. Kano convinces Shao Kahn to spare his soul at the outset of the tyrant's invasion of Earth on the grounds that he can teach his armies how to use Earthrealm weaponry. While Sonya tosses Kano to his apparent death from the roof of a high-rise, he survives and is found by the centaur Motaro, who heals and imprisons him. Motaro is killed by the warrior Sheeva, who frees Kano from his prison. During the events of "" (2002), he and Sheeva originally hatched a plan to assassinate Shao Kahn, but Kano turns on her by preventing the attack. As a reward, he is promoted to general of Outworld's rapidly shrinking army before the invasion is defeated. Even in the face of overwhelming odds, Kano stood his ground and eventually manages to repel Princess Kitana and her Edenian-Shokan army. He returns to Shao Kahn's palace just as the Deadly Alliance, Shang Tsung and Quan Chi, launch their attack on the weakened emperor. After the battle, Kano declares his allegiance to the Deadly Alliance. The two have Kano oversee the enslavement of a small village, who construct a temple over Onaga's tomb to house a Soulnado. During its construction, Kano is assaulted by Li Mei, but Quan Chi intervenes, as the Alliance had made a deal with the Red Dragon leader Mavado to eliminate the swordsman Kenshi in exchange for the opportunity to fight and defeat Kano.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: Kano returns in "" (2006), in which the demigod Taven finds him being held prisoner by the Red Dragon Clan. Before escaping their facilities, Kano explains to Taven that the Red Dragon had been experimenting on him and their clansmen in an effort to create genetically engineered dragons and human-dragon hybrids.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: Kano appears as one of eleven "Mortal Kombat" characters representing the franchise in the non-canonical crossover fighting game "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe" (2008).


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: In the 2011 "Mortal Kombat" reboot, which retells the stories of the first three games, Kano is the Black Dragon's leader who tricked the Special Forces by acting as an informant and deliberately feeding them false intelligence that led to the deaths of many of Sonya and Jax's comrades, establishing their vendetta against him. During the events of the first Shaolin tournament, Kano fights Sonya following her fight with the pompous actor Johnny Cage, but he is defeated. While Kano is later beaten by Sonya again after Shang Tsung presents him to her as a challenge, the tournament host forbids her from arresting him. Following this, Kano becomes Shao Kahn's arms supplier, giving his armies Earthrealm weaponry for his impending invasion. After Kabal, a former Black Dragon member turned SWAT officer, is severely burned by the warrior Kintaro, Kano takes him away to restore his health alongside Shang Tsung and outfit him with a respirator, mask, and hookswords even in spite of his former ally's defection. However, Kabal is mortified by his condition and furious at Kano for siding against Earthrealm, so he bests him in combat and forces him to take him to Shao Kahn before knocking Kano out. Kano later joins Goro and Kintaro in holding a group of soldiers hostage before being frozen by the cyborg Sub-Zero. However, Kano manages to free himself and informs his ally Noob Saibot that Sub-Zero broke free of his controller, Sektor.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: Kano returned for the series' tenth installment, "Mortal Kombat X" (2015). His confirmation for the game was leaked by the German version of "GamePro", before his appearance was officially announced. He first appears in a comic book prequel, set after Quan Chi launched his own invasion of Earthrealm. Kano joins Sub-Zero in infiltrating a Red Dragon base to retrieve a Kamidogu dagger, though the former sought to take it for himself. Once Sub-Zero finds the dagger, Kano steals it and injures Sub-Zero with it, unaware it contained a demon. The dagger possesses Sub-Zero and quickly injures Kano, leaving him to fall back as Sub-Zero escapes. Kano is later hired by Kotal alongside the gunman Erron Black to capture Sonya and Jax's respective daughters, Cassie Cage and Jacqui Briggs. While they were successful, he and his fellow Black Dragons are ambushed by Mavado and the Red Dragon. Kano escapes after being injured in the fight, leaving Black for dead. Sometime after the comic book, and during the main game, Kano infiltrates the Shaolin Temple and steals the fallen Elder God Shinnok's amulet for Shao Kahn's daughter, Mileena, to assist in a civil war against Outworld's new ruler, Kotal Kahn. He attempts to distract the new Kahn while Mileena sets up an ambush, but Kotal realizes Kano is going to betray him and defeats the criminal. After he defeats Mileena, Kano retreats to Earthrealm. He infiltrates an Outworld refugee camp, but is caught by Kenshi and Sonya, who take him into custody.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: As of "Mortal Kombat 11" (2019), Kano escaped and aligned himself with the keeper of time Kronika. To assist her further by fixing and mass-producing Sektor, she also brought in a younger version of him. Together, the two Kanos attack the Special Forces base and kidnap younger versions of Johnny and Sonya to force them to fight for the Black Dragon's entertainment before Cassie rescues them. Amidst a stand-off, Sonya kills the younger Kano, erasing the present version from existence.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: He appears in the iOS game "" as an Easter egg fighting Batman in one of the levels. In the indie game "Punch Club", a fighter named Jax, who is designed after the" Mortal Kombat 3" incarnation of Kano, makes an appearance in one of the game's gang turf war segments.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: Kano was the final fighter to be added to the first game, where his role was to serve as the enemy of the female character Sonya. Kano originally had a large helmet with two red eyes, a concept that was dropped in favor of a smaller metal piece over his right eye. The eye piece was at first envisioned as a simple eyepatch, but then it was turned into a metal plate inspired by Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in "The Terminator". In his "" biography card, "Mortal Kombat" co-creator Ed Boon described how Kano's bionic eye in the first game was created by cutting out a piece of a plastic mask and painting it a silver color, then attaching it with spirit gum to actor Richard Divizio's face, with the infrared eye added digitally. For the first game he wore a simple gray tunic that was changed to red and black for "MK3"; Divizio said, "I thought, 'Good, get rid of that white karate outfit!'" and remarked that his versus-screen pose in the game represented his "mean Kano face". Kano's iconic heart-ripping finishing move was Divizio's idea inspired by the film "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" on which he insisted as a fan of "Indiana Jones".


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: Kano's "MK1" costume was revived as his alternate design for "Deadly Alliance" and "Armageddon," and his main costume in both titles has him shirtless with a black vest, while he wears a cord around his neck that has a tuft of Sonya's hair attached. His other constant in his series appearances, besides his eye, has been a bandolier worn across his chest that features a large glowing red implement; it has never served any purpose in the games, though it flashes a different color for each of his three gameplay variations for "Mortal Kombat X". For an intended series reboot tentatively titled "Mortal Kombat 8," former Midway Games concept artist Vincent Proce "dramatically revamped" Kano from a Black Dragon criminal into a "half Japanese, half U.S. military badass", complete with a more detailed faceplate and a simple white "gi" and red sash, while he went barefoot with his ankles heavily taped. The reboot was canceled with "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe" developed in its stead, and Kano was included in the game with his Black Dragon origins left intact.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: In all "Mortal Kombat" media from the first game to "Armageddon", Kano had either had a receding hairline or been completely bald (since Divizio had been going bald himself while filming for the first game and had shaved his head prior to shooting "MK3") and his facial hair had regularly consisted of nothing more than stubble. With "MKvsDC" and the 2011 reboot, Kano was given a full head of hair and beard, and a cosmetic addition in the reboot was two large solid-black dragon tattoos that started at his chest and snaked around his arms, while his outfits in both games were throwbacks to the two-dimensional titles. The character was originally depicted as an expediate American, until his nationality was retconned as Australian after English actor Trevor Goddard portrayed him in the first "Mortal Kombat" film.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: In the original "Mortal Kombat," Kano's special moves were the Knife Throw, making him one of two characters in the game (besides Scorpion) whose projectile was a physical weapon, while his body-propel move, the Cannonball, saw him curl into a ball and launch himself at his opponent. "Sega Visions" called the Knife Throw "a strong distance weapon and easily thrown". Kano also possessed one of the more graphic Fatalities in the game, which involved him plunging his hand into his opponent's chest and ripping out their still-beating heart. In the censored SNES version, he instead fractures the opponent's sternum with a deadly punch. Boon claimed that Sub-Zero's "Spine Rip" Fatality from the same game stood out more, because Kano's finisher did not have a "mark left on the opponent's body". Kano was cut from the Game Gear version of "Mortal Kombat" due to memory constraints, while a still image of him wielding an automatic weapon in his arcade ending was removed from the Genesis version of the game.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: Kano was not playable in "Mortal Kombat II"; according to series co-creator John Tobias in a 1994 interview with "GamePro," in the first game, "Kano and Sonya were probably picked the least. We [Midway] still wanted to include them in the storyline, so we had them captured." He then confirmed that Kano and Sonya would return in a future installment. Indeed, Kano and Sonya were playable in "Mortal Kombat 3," where his moves from the first game were retained while he gained a new "Choke" maneuver where he lifted his opponents and then violently shook them. His Fatalities were far less graphic than in the first game, as he either exploded his opponent with a laser blast from his implant, or reached down their throat to pull out their entire skeleton and hold it aloft without any blood or gore present. The game featured the unplayable hidden character Noob Saibot, who was a silhouetted sprite of Kano before being switched to a traditional ninja palette swap in "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3" and the 1996 compilation title "Mortal Kombat Trilogy", the latter of which featured the original "MK1" Kano as a selectable along with the then-current version.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: Kano was the only one of the original seven characters who was omitted from "Mortal Kombat 4" (1997), with new character Jarek debuting in his place. His role in the game was as the last surviving member of the Black Dragon following Kano's apparent death, and was being pursued by Sonya and Jax for "crimes against humanity". Jarek copied Kano's special moves as well as his "Heart Rip" and "Eye Laser" Fatalities despite possessing no cybernetic enhancements. He was not as well-received as his predecessor, and has not featured as a playable in the series again with the exception of "Armageddon".


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: His eye laser is available as a special move in "Deadly Alliance", and he had a special with his knives called "Ear to Ear". This was a reference to a scene in the 1995 movie in which Kano tells Sonya that he had used his knife to slit her partner's throat "from ear to ear". One of his fighting styles in the game, ironically, is aikido, which is a defensive martial art that protects the attacker from injury. He was not included in "Mortal Kombat: Deception", in which Kabal takes over as the new leader of the Black Dragon after reforming it with new characters Kobra and Kira as they feud with rival faction, the Red Dragon, but returned in "Armageddon".


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: According to Prima Games' official guide for the 2011 reboot game, Kano's "'flinch and you will be comboed' style can be frustrating to play against, but if you are a die-hard Kano user back from the "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3" days, you will find that Kano completely fits your style". The guide also determined him to not be overly formidable nor at a great disadvantage in matches against the other characters. In "Mortal Kombat X", as with all playable characters, Kano has three distinctive gameplay variations.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: In Malibu Comics' "Mortal Kombat" series, Kano appeared with all of the characters from the first game (minus Reptile) in the 1994 "Blood & Thunder" miniseries, the first issue of which borrowed liberally from John Tobias' "MK" comic in detailing his evading of Sonya and the Special Forces and getting into an altercation with Johnny Cage onboard Shang Tsung's ship before Cage knocks him out. In the second issue, during one of only two organized tournament fights that commenced in the entire Malibu run, Kano kills Lance, Sonya's cybernetically armed partner who had accompanied her onto the island, by way of his "Heart Rip" Fatality. He later breaks into Shang Tsung's quarters and steals his mythical tome, the Tao te Zhan, which he manages to hide on his person just before he is caught by Goro and imprisoned in a dungeon with the rest of the series characters. They all are pummeled by Goro in the following issue until Raiden comes to their rescue and breaks them out of the dungeon, but they wind up scattered throughout Outworld, and as a consequence, Kano is joined by Liu Kang, and their personalities clash from the start. Kano is still in possession of the book until it is taken by Scorpion; anxious to get it back, Kano attempts to ditch Liu Kang by scheming with a group of Outworld mutants into fighting them as a distraction, enabling him to stab his knife into Liu Kang's back and leave him for dead. In the sixth issue, he defeats Sub-Zero but is then beaten in battle by Sonya. The storyline ends with the Earth warriors victorious over the Outworlders and Kano taken into custody by Sonya and Jax, but he escapes, as detailed in a mini-story titled "Breakout" that was included in the first installment of the 1995 two-issue miniseries "U.S. Special Forces", in which Kano was not featured, as the main villain therein was an original Black Dragon character named Rojack. That same year, Kano was also featured in a three-issue miniseries titled "Rayden & Kano," in which Raiden presents Kano with a magical sword called "Ebbonrule", in hopes that he would kill Shao Kahn with it in the name of personal redemption, but the opposite occurs as Kano gives the sword to Kahn instead in exchange for godlike powers.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: Kano was a featured character in the 1995 noncanonical "Mortal Kombat" novel written by Jeff Rovin, which is set before the events of the first game. He and several Black Dragon members (all originals exclusive to the book) are hired by Shang Tsung to locate a mystical amulet hidden somewhere in China. They come across a remote village in which Kung Lao resides, and Kano forces Kung Lao to accompany him on the journey. Unbeknownst to him, one of the Dragons is Sonya working undercover, as she has a personal interest in apprehending him after he had killed her fiancé several years earlier. However, Shang Tsung, Goro and Raiden interrupt the search, and Kano's Black Dragon cohorts are killed while Shang Tsung merges Kano with Kung Lao and sends the combined being to locate the amulet. After he and Kung Lao are returned to normal, Kano takes the amulet to Shang Tsung's palace, though he is assaulted by Goro after making physical contact with Shang Tsung. He then brawls with Sonya near the conclusion but the fight is inconclusive when he flees after she is momentarily distracted, thereby evading capture.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: In the 1995 "Mortal Kombat" movie, Kano was played by English actor Trevor Goddard. The film expanded upon Kano's rivalry with Sonya from the games; she now sought vengeance against Kano for killing her (unnamed) partner. Shang Tsung hires Kano to lure Sonya into the Mortal Kombat tournament, promising to reward Kano's efforts after he presumably defeats Sonya, while demanding that she is "not to be harmed, only humiliated". Kano baits Sonya into boarding Shang Tsung's ship, and is later spotted by Cage, Sonya and Liu Kang conversing with Goro. When Sonya and Kano meet in battle, his earlier plan with Shang Tsung goes astray when he is defeated, and Shang Tsung goads Sonya into finishing him; she complies by breaking his neck. Kano is described as wearing a business suit during the dining scene in the movie novelization, which also features a detailed opening scene of an unsuccessful joint mission of arresting Black Dragon members by the Special Forces and an international task force, which culminates in Kano killing the task force's lieutenant, who is designated therein as Sonya's murdered partner. Kano is spared by Sonya in their fight, as she refuses to fall prey to Shang Tsung's scheme while declaring that nobody "owned" her, and at the end of the book, he is captured and handcuffed by Sonya. Kano's wardrobe is minimalist in the film, as his game design was eschewed in favor of the character going shirtless with a simple brown vest, while he wears only a pair of pinstriped slacks, a metal choker and combat boots when he fights Sonya. The companion book published by Prima Lifestyles prior to the film's release said in his character profile: "A strapping Australian talented in all forms of martial arts, he's particularly skilled with a knife. He seems to enjoy his cat-and-mouse game with Sonya, which began after he murdered her partner."


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: Kano was a main character in "Mortal Kombat: Live Tour", and was portrayed by martial artists Joseph "Eddie" Acavedo and Mark Chemeleski.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: The character appeared twice in the animated series "," and was voiced by Michael Des Barres. In the sixth episode ("Familiar Red"), he works with Shao Kahn in fooling the Earthrealm defenders into chasing phony dimensional rips across the globe, while a flashback scene (shown from Sonya's perspective and narrated by Jax) depicting Kano's offscreen killing of Sonya's Special Forces partner Wexler prior to the first tournament was shown; this segment included a continuity violation as Kano was shown with his "MK3" design. He confronts Kabal for the first time in the ("Amends") since Kabal's defection from the Black Dragon and his turn to the side of good, and his consequential disfigurement at the hands of Kahn's forces. Kano's Black Dragon comrades received a generic design of shaved heads and facial tattoos, and were operating an underground generator used for opening portals. They are easily disposed of by the Earth warriors at the conclusion and Kabal detonates the machine with a bomb, but Kano manages to escape.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: English actor and martial artist Darren Shahlavi portrayed Kano in three episodes of the 2011 first season of director Kevin Tancharoen's "" web series. He and the Black Dragon are shipping stolen robotics to an undisclosed location under the name "Cyber Initiative", and Kano takes Sonya hostage after she is caught infiltrating the large warehouse where the Dragons carry out their operations, and plans to kill her when the facility is raided by a SWAT team led by Jax and Stryker. During the assault, Kano engages Jax in combat but is defeated, taking a vicious punch to the temple from Jax in the process that dislodges his eye. He is later recovered by his henchmen and has his cybernetic eye surgically attached. Kano makes one last appearance in the ninth episode, which precedes the aforementioned events; the receiver of the robotics from the Black Dragon in the first episode was revealed to be the Lin Kuei headquarters.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: English actor Robin Atkin Downes voices Kano in the 2020 animated film "". Australian actor David Wenham voices Kano in the 2022 animated film "".


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: Along with the original series characters, Kano was highlighted on an individual track from The Immortals' 1994 album "". Titled "Use Your Might", it features a female vocalist singing the character's praises from a first-person perspective, citing him as "the strongest of them all" out of the other Mortal Kombat contestants.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: Hasbro released a 4" Kano action figure in 1994, packaged with a "Kombat Cycle" vehicle. Jazwares released a Kano action figure that was part of their 2006 "Shaolin Monks" toyline (despite the figure sporting Kano's costume from "Deadly Alliance"), in addition to a 6" twentieth-anniversary Kano figure in 2012. Kano was one of twenty "MK" characters featured on 2.5" x 3.5" collectible magnets released by Ata-Boy Wholesale in 2011, and licensed replicas of his "Raptor" knife from the first film, which was designed by Gil Hibben, were made available for purchase.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: Kano makes a brief appearance in the 2012 animated film "Wreck-It Ralph", voiced by Brian Kesinger. He performs the "Heart Rip" on "House of the Dead" zombie character Cyril while attending a "Bad-Anon" support group that featured villains from various classic video games. He is credited as Cyborg possibly since Mortal Kombat is an M-Rated franchise. The same goes with Cyril where he is credited as Zombie rather than Cyril.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: Kano placed 24th in UGO.com's 2012 selection of the series' top fifty characters, and the site had additionally ranked him in 2011 as the seventh best cyborg character of all time, ahead of RoboCop and "Star Trek" character Seven of Nine. Den of Geek placed him seventeenth in their 2015 ranking of the series' characters, commenting that "Kano is a special kind of scum, and the series is better for him existing ... [but] he probably wouldn’t rank quite as high if not for Trevor Goddard’s rocking performance in the first movie." Josh Wirtanen of Cheat Code Central listed Kano as the fifth best "Mortal Kombat" character while Game Revolution's Anthony Severino included in his 2011 "Top 10 Old School Mortal Kombat Characters" feature. Saldana praised the character as "such a scene-stealer in the movie that the "MK" team retconned everything about Kano to fit that portrayal", but Chris Buffa of Modojo.com included Kano in his "worst list" of characters from "MK3" without explanation.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: Kano's Fatalities are often well-received, although his toned-down finishers in the censored SNES version of the first game and the T-rated "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe" are regarded among the worst. Russell Frushtick of UGO Networks rated the "Heart Rip" from the original "Mortal Kombat" second in his 2011 listing of the "Top 11 Mortal Kombat Fatalities", crediting it as singlehandedly "herald[ing] the birth of anti-video game violence advocates" and describing it as "ripping the beating heart out of an opponent's chest like he's some sort of Mola Ram". Prima Games ranked it runner-up to Sub-Zero's "Spine Rip" in their 2014 selection of the series' top Fatalities. "GamePro" in 2008 rated the doctored version of the finisher from the SNES port, in which Kano instead smashes the opponent's rib cage with a deadly punch, first in their list of the series' twelve "lamest" Fatalities. Craig Skistimas of ScrewAttack ranked his "Skeleton Removal" from "Mortal Kombat 3" sixth on the site's "Top 10 Mortal Kombat Fatalities", but Dan Ryckert of "Game Informer" included it among the most confusing "MK" finishers. Kano's "Stomach Pounce" Fatality from "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe" has been particularly criticized for its tameness in a "Mortal Kombat" title negatively received for its toned-down violence. It led to his second appearance on "GamePro's" "Top 12 Lamest Fatalities" listing (fifth), with the magazine commenting that "absolutely no effort was put in [by the developers in] creating it." "Game Informer" rated it among the series' worst finishers, and Game Rant chose it as the series' worst Fatality, adding that it had no connection to the character. David Saldana of 1UP.com listed it among his selection of the "MK" series' worst Fatalities (seventh). ScrewAttack used the "Stomach Pounce" as the representative of all of "MKvsDC's" finishers topping its 2011 list of the series' worst Fatalities.


title: Kano (Mortal Kombat)

text: "We Got this Covered" rated his "Heart Transplant" Fatality from the 2011 "Mortal Kombat" reboot — in which Kano barehandedly decapitates his opponent and then rips out their heart before shoving their head into their chest cavity — among the series' top finishers, and Tony Searle of WhatCulture ranked it 18th in his 2014 list of the series' "20 Horrifically Stomach-Churning Fatalities."


title: Heart discography

text: The discography of the American rock band Heart consists of 15 studio albums, nine live albums, nine compilation albums, 64 singles and 35 music videos. They have sold about 35 million records worldwide.


title: Heart discography

text: "What About Love", "These Dreams", "Alone", "Who Will You Run To" and "There's the Girl" were released on VHS in 1988 under the title "If Looks Could Kill".


title: Heart discography

text: Ann & Nancy Wilson have also recorded albums under the moniker Lovemongers, an informal acoustic music side-project with long-time Heart contributing writer Sue Ennis as a fellow band member. Their second full-length album was later re-released presented by Heart.


title: Kintarō

text: Kintarō is supposedly based on a real person, Sakata Kintoki, who lived during the Heian period and probably came from what is now the city of Minamiashigara, Kanagawa. He served as a retainer for the samurai Minamoto no Yorimitsu and became well known for his abilities as a warrior. As with many larger-than-life individuals, his legend has grown with time.


title: Kintarō

text: Several competing stories tell of Kintarō's childhood. In one, he was raised by his mother, Princess Yaegiri, daughter of a wealthy man named Shiman-chōja, in the village of Jizodo, near Mount Ashigara. In a competing legend, his mother gave birth to him in what is now Sakata, Yamagata. She was forced to flee, however, due to fighting between her husband, a samurai named Sakata, and his uncle. She finally settled in the forests of Mount Ashigara to raise her son. Alternatively, Kintarō's real mother left the child in the wilds or died and left him an orphan, and he was raised by a yama-uba or "mountain witch" (one tale says Kintarō's mother raised him in the wilds, but due to her haggard appearance, she came to be "called" yama-uba). In the most fanciful version of the tale, the yama-uba was Kintarō's mother, impregnated by a clap of thunder sent from a red dragon of Mount Ashigara.


title: Kintarō

text: The legends agree that even as a toddler, Kintarō was active and tireless, plump and ruddy, wearing only a bib with the kanji for "gold" (金) on it. His only other belonging was a hatchet ("ono" or "masakari"). He was bossy to other children (or there simply were no other children in the forest), so his friends were mainly the animals of Mt. Kintoki and Mt. Ashigara. He was also phenomenally strong, able to smash rocks into pieces, uproot trees, and bend trunks like twigs. His animal friends served him as messengers and mounts, and some legends say that he even learned to speak their language. Several tales tell of Kintarō's adventures, fighting monsters and oni (demons), beating bears in sumo wrestling, and helping the local woodcutters fell trees.


title: Kintarō

text: As an adult, Kintarō changed his name to Sakata no Kintoki. He met the samurai Minamoto no Yorimitsu as he passed through the area around Mt. Kintoki. Yorimitsu was impressed by Kintarō's enormous strength, so he took him as one of his personal retainers to live with him in Kyoto. Kintoki studied martial arts there and eventually became the chief of Yorimitsu's Shitennō ("four braves"), renowned for his strength and martial prowess. He eventually went back for his mother and brought her to Kyoto as well.


title: Kintarō

text: Kintarō is an extremely popular figure in Japan, and his image adorns everything from statues to storybooks, anime, manga to action figures. For example, the manga and anime "Golden Boy" stars a character with the same name. Kintarō as an image is characterized with an ono, a "haragake" apron, and sometimes a tame bear. In many of Kintarō's pictures, it seems that he is trying to capture a giant black koi. This seems to glorify his strength as he is able to wrestle with such a creature.


title: Kintarō

text: Kintarō candy has been around since the Edo period; no matter how the cylinder-shaped candy is cut, Kintarō's face appears inside. Japanese tradition is to decorate the room of a newborn baby boy with Kintarō dolls on Children's Day (May 5) so that the child will grow up to be strong like the Golden Boy. A shrine dedicated to the folk hero lies at the foot of Mount Ashigara in the Hakone area near Tokyo. Nearby is a giant boulder that was supposedly chopped in half by the boy hero himself.


title: Kintarō

text: The name and certain traits of the main character of "Gin Tama", Gintoki Sakata, are loosely based on Kintarō. The relation has also been confirmed in Gin Tama's episode 98 and manga volume 10. Gintoki has its name contain the character for "silver" instead of "gold", and he has silver hair. One of his nemeses, the golden-haired Sakata Kintoki, also made an appearance.


title: Economic depression

text: An economic depression is a period of carried long-term economical downturn that is result of lowered economic activity in one major or more national economies. Economic depression maybe related to one specific country were there is some economic crisis that has worsened but most often reflexes historically the American Great Depression and similar economic status that may be recognized as existing at some country, several countries or even in many countries. It is often understood in economics that economic crisis and the following recession that maybe named economic depression are part of economic cycles where slowdown of economy follows the economic growth and vice versa. It is a result of more severe economic problems or a "downturn" than the recession itself, which is a slowdown in economic activity over the course of the normal business cycle of growing economy.


title: Economic depression

text: Economic depressions maybe also characterized by their length or duration, and maybe showing increases in unemployment, larger increases in unemployment or even abnormally large levels of unemployment (as with for example some problems in Japan in incorporating digital economy, that such technological difficulties may be resulting in very large unemployment rates or lack of good social balance in employment among population, lesser revenues for businesses, or other economic difficulties, with having signs of financial crisis, that may also reflect on the work of banks, or may result in banking crisis (in various ways that may be for example unauthorized transformations of banks), and further the crisis in investment and credit; that further could reflect on innovation and new businesses investments lessening or even shrinking, or buyers dry up in recession and suppliers cut back on production and investment in technology, in financial crisis that may be more country defaults or debt problems, and further in feared businesses bankruptcies, and overall business slowdown. Other bad signs of economic depression could be significantly reduced amounts of trade and commerce (especially international trade), as well as in currency markets that maybe fluctuations or unexpected exchange rates with observed highly volatile currency value fluctuations (often due to relative currency devaluations). Other signs of depression are prices deflation, financial crises, stock market crash or even bank failures, or even specific behaviour of economic agents or population, that are also common or also non common elements of a depression that do not normally occur during a recession.


title: Economic depression

text: In the United States of America the National Bureau of Economic Research determines contractions and expansions in the business cycle, but does not declare depressions. Generally, periods labeled depressions are marked by a substantial and sustained shortfall of the ability to purchase goods relative to the amount that could be produced using current resources and technology (potential output). Another proposed definition of "depression" includes two general rules:


title: Economic depression

text: There are also differences in the duration of depression across definitions. Some economists refer only to the period when economic activity is declining. The more common use, however, also encompasses the time until the economic activity has returned close to normal levels.


title: Economic depression

text: A recession is briefly defined as a period of declining economic activity spread across the economy (according to NBER). Under the first definition, each depression will always coincide with a recession, since the difference between a depression and a recession is the severity of the fall in economic activity. In other words, each depression is always a recession, sharing the same starting and ending dates and having the same duration.


title: Economic depression

text: Under the second definition, depressions and recessions will always be distinct events however, having the same starting dates. This definition of depression implies that a recession and a depression will have different ending dates and thus distinct durations. Under this definition, the length of depression will always be longer than that of the recession starting the same date.


title: Economic depression

text: A useful example is a difference in the chronology of the Great Depression in the U.S. under the view of alternative definitions. Using the second definition of depression, most economists refer to the Great Depression, as the period between 1929 and 1941. On the other hand, using the first definition, the depression that started in August 1929 lasted until March 1933. Note that NBER, which publishes the recession (instead of depression) dates for the U.S. economy, has identified two recessions during that period. The first between August 1929 and March 1933 and the second starting in May 1937 and ending in June 1938.


title: Economic depression

text: Today the term "depression" is most often associated with the Great Depression of the 1930s, but the term had been in use long before then. Indeed, an early major American economic crisis, the Panic of 1819, was described by then-president James Monroe as "a depression", and the economic crisis immediately preceding the 1930s depression, the Depression of 1920–21, was referred to as a "depression" by president Calvin Coolidge.


title: Economic depression

text: However, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, "financial" crises were traditionally referred to as "panics", e.g., the 'major' Panic of 1907, and the 'minor' Panic of 1910–1911, though the 1929 crisis was more commonly called "The Crash", and the term "panic" has since fallen out of use. At the time of the Great Depression (of the 1930s), the phrase "The Great Depression" had already been used to refer to the period 1873–96 (in the United Kingdom), or more narrowly 1873–79 (in the United States), which has since been renamed the Long Depression.


title: Economic depression

text: Common use of the phrase "The Great Depression" for the 1930s crisis is most frequently attributed to British economist Lionel Robbins, whose 1934 book "The Great Depression" is credited with 'formalizing' the phrase, though US president Herbert Hoover is widely credited with having 'popularized' the term/phrase, informally referring to the downturn as a "depression", with such uses as "Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement", (December 1930, Message to Congress) and "I need not recount to you that the world is passing through a great depression" (1931).


title: Economic depression

text: Due to the lack of an agreed definition and the strong negative associations, the characterization of any period as a "depression" is contentious. The term was frequently used for regional crises from the early 19th century until the 1930s, and for the more widespread crises of the 1870s and 1930s, but economic crises since 1945 have generally been referred to as "recessions", with the 1970s global crisis referred to as "stagflation", but not a depression. The only two eras commonly referred to at the current time as "depressions" are the 1870s and 1930s.


title: Economic depression

text: To some degree, this is simply a stylistic change, similar to the decline in the use of "panic" to refer to financial crises, but it does also reflect that the economic cycle – both in the United States and in most OECD countries – though not in all – has been more moderate since 1945.


title: Economic depression

text: There "have" been many periods of prolonged economic underperformance in particular countries/regions since 1945, detailed below, but terming these as "depressions" is controversial. The 2008–2009 economic cycle, which has comprised the most significant global crisis since the Great Depression, has at times been termed a depression, but this terminology is not widely used, with the episode instead being referred to by other terms, such as the "Great Recession".


title: Economic depression

text: The largest depression of all time occurred during the General Crisis. The Ming Empire of China went bankrupt and the Stuart Monarchy fought a civil war on three fronts in Ireland, Scotland, and England. Thomas Hobbes, an English philosopher, created the first recorded explanation of the need for a universal Social Contract in his 1652 book "Leviathan" based on the general misery within society during this period.


title: Economic depression

text: This depression is acknowledged to be a worse depression in the United States than the later Great Depression of the 1930s. This depression ended in the United States due to the California Gold Rush and its tenfold addition to the United States' gold reserves. As with most depressions, it was followed by a thirty-year period of a booming economy in the United States, which is now called the Second Industrial Revolution (of the 1850s).


title: Economic depression

text: The Panic of 1837 was an American financial crisis, built on a speculative real estate market. The bubble burst on 10 May 1837 in New York City, when every bank stopped payment in gold and silver coinage. The Panic was followed by a five-year depression, with the failure of banks and record high unemployment levels.


title: Economic depression

text: Starting with the adoption of the gold standard in Britain and the United States, the Long Depression (1873–1896) was indeed longer than what is now referred to as the Great Depression, but shallower in some sectors. Many who lived through it regarded it to have been worse than the 1930s depression at times. It was known as "the Great Depression" until the 1930s.


title: Economic depression

text: The Great Depression of the 1930s affected most national economies in the world. This depression is generally considered to have begun with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and the crisis quickly spread to other national economies. Between 1929 and 1933, the gross national product of the United States decreased by 33% while the rate of unemployment increased to 25% (with industrial unemployment alone rising to approximately 35% – U.S. employment was still over 25% agricultural).


title: Economic depression

text: A long-term effect of the Great Depression was the departure of every major currency from the gold standard, although the initial impetus for this was World War II (see Bretton Woods Accord).


title: Economic depression

text: Beginning in 2009, Greece sank into a recession that, after two years, became a depression. The country saw an almost 20% drop in economic output, and unemployment soared to near 25%. Greece's high amounts of sovereign debt precipitated the crisis, and the poor performance of its economy after the introduction of severe austerity measures slowed the entire eurozone's recovery. Greece's troubles led to discussions about its departure from the eurozone.


title: Economic depression

text: The economic crisis in the 1990s that struck former members of the Soviet Union was almost twice as intense as the Great Depression in the countries of Western Europe and the United States in the 1930s. Average standards of living registered a catastrophic fall in the early 1990s in many parts of the former Eastern Bloc, most notably in post-Soviet states. Even before Russia's financial crisis of 1998, Russia's GDP was half of what it had been in the early 1990s. Some populations are still poorer today than they were in 1989 (e.g. Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia, Central Asia, Caucasus). The collapse of the Soviet planned economy and the transition to a market economy resulted in catastrophic declines in GDP of about 45% from 1990 to 1996 and poverty in the region had increased more than tenfold.


title: Economic depression

text: Finnish economists refer to the Finnish economic decline during and after the breakup of the Soviet Union (1989–1994) as a great depression ("suuri lama"). However, the depression was multicausal, with its severity compounded by a coincidence of multiple sudden external shocks, including loss of Soviet trade, the savings and loan crisis and early 1990s recession in the West, with the internal overheating that had been brewing throughout the 1980s. Liberalization had resulted in the so-called "casino economy". Persistent structural and monetary policy problems had not been solved, leaving the economy vulnerable to even mild external shocks. The depression had lasting effects: the Finnish markka was floated and was eventually replaced by the euro in 1999, ending decades of government control of the economy, but also high, persistent unemployment. Employment has never returned even close to the pre-crisis level.


title: Economic depression

text: The late 1910s and early 1920s were marked by an economic depression that unraveled in particularly catastrophic circumstances: World War I and its aftermath led to a global nosedive in commodities that ruined many developing nations, while servicemen returning from the trenches found themselves with high unemployment as businesses failed, unable to transition into a peacetime economy. Also, the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918–20 brought economic activity to a standstill as even more people became incapacitated. Most developed countries had mostly recovered by 1921–22, however Germany saw its economy crippled until 1923–24 because of the hyperinflation crisis.


title: Economic depression

text: The 1973 oil crisis, coupled with the rising costs of maintenance of welfare state in most countries led to a recession between 1973 and 1975, followed by a period of almost minimal growth and rising inflation and unemployment. The 1980–82 recession marked the end of the period.


title: Economic depression

text: The savings & loans and the leveraged buyout crises led to a severe depression in mid-to-late 1989, causing a recession in 1990–91 (also fueled by the oil price crisis), whose effects lasted as late as 1994. This downturn is more remembered for its political effects: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had to resign in November 1990; and while his approval ratings were above 60%, U.S. President George H. W. Bush lost the 1992 election to Bill Clinton because of the domestic malady marked by the depression and increasing urban decay.


title: Economic depression

text: In 2005, the persistent oil price rises and economic overheating caused by deregulation led to a gradual deterioration of the world economy with inflation and unemployment rising as growth slowed: The housing bubble in the U.S. burst in 2007, and the American economy slipped into a recession. This, in turn, provoked the failure of many prominent financial institutions throughout 2008, most notably Lehman Brothers, leading to the loss of millions of jobs.


title: Economic depression

text: Several Latin American countries had severe downturns in the 1980s: by the Kehoe and Prescott definition of a great depression as at least one year with output 20% below trend, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico experienced great depressions in the 1980s, and Argentina experienced another in 1998–2002. South American countries fell once again into this in the early-to-mid 2010s.


title: Economic depression

text: This definition also includes the economic performance of New Zealand from 1974 to 1992 and Switzerland from 1973 to the present, although this designation for Switzerland has been controversial.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: The Nathu La and Cho La clashes, sometimes referred to as the Sino-Indian War of 1967, consisted of a series of border clashes between India and China alongside the border of the Himalayan Kingdom of Sikkim, then an Indian protectorate.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: The Nathu La clashes started on 11 September 1967, when China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) launched an attack on Indian posts at Nathu La, and lasted till 15 September 1967. In October 1967, another military duel took place at Cho La and ended on the same day.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: According to independent sources, India achieved "decisive tactical advantage" and managed to hold its own against and push back Chinese forces. Many PLA fortifications at Nathu La were destroyed, where the Indian troops drove back the attacking Chinese forces.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: The competition to control the disputed borderland in Chumbi Valley is seen as a major cause for heightening the tensions in these incidents. Observers have commented that these clashes indicated the decline of 'claim strength' in China's decision to initiate the use of force against India, and stated that India was greatly pleased with the combat performance of its forces in the Nathu La clashes, seeing it as a sign of striking improvement since its defeat in the 1962 Sino-Indian War.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: Following the 1962 Sino-Indian War, tensions continued to run high along the Himalayan border shared by India and China. Influenced by its previous defeat, the Indian Army raised a number of new units, nearly doubling their deployed forces along the disputed region. As a part of this military expansion, seven mountain divisions were raised to defend India's northern borders against any Chinese attack. Most of these divisions were not based near the border, save for the Chumbi Valley, where both Indian and Chinese troops are stationed on both sides at close range. Particularly at the Nathu La pass in the valley, alongside the Sikkim-Tibet border, the deployed Chinese and Indian forces are stationed about 20–30 meters apart, which is the closest of anywhere on the 4000 km Sino-Indian border. The border here is said to have remained "un-demarcated". Chinese held the northern shoulder of the pass, while the Indian Army held the southern shoulder. Two major parts of the pass, south and north of Nathu La, namely "Sebu La" and "Camel’s back," were held by the Indians. From 1963, small-scale clashes in the region were frequently reported in the press. On 16 September 1965, during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, China issued an ultimatum to India to vacate the Nathu La pass. However, GOC 17 mountain division's Major General, Sagat Singh, refused to do so, arguing that Nathu La was on the watershed which comprised the natural boundary.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: Starting from 13 August 1967, Chinese troops started digging trenches in Nathu La on the Sikkimese side. Indian troops observed that some of the trenches were "clearly" to the Sikkemese side of the border, and pointed it out to the local Chinese commander Zhang Guohua, who was asked to withdraw from there. Yet, in one instance, the Chinese filled the trenches again and left after adding 8 more loudspeakers to the existing 21. Indian troops decided to stretch a barbed wire along the ridges of Nathu La in order to indicate the boundary.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: Accordingly, from 18 August, wires were stretched along the border, which was resented by the Chinese troops. After two days, armed with weaponry, Chinese troops took positions against the Indian soldiers who were engaged in laying the wire but made no firing.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: Again on 7 September, when the Indian troops started stretching another barbed wire along the southern side of Nathu La, the local Chinese commanders along with the troops rushed to the spot and issued a "serious warning" to an Indian Lt. Col. Rai Singh Yadav to stop the work, after which a scuffle took place in which some soldiers from both sides were injured. Chinese troops were agitated by the injuries to their two soldiers.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: In order to settle the situation, the Indian military hierarchy decided to lay another wire in the centre of the pass from Nathu La to Sebu La to indicate their perceived border, on 11 September 1967.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: Accordingly, in the morning of 11 September 1967, the engineers and "jawans" (soldiers) of Indian Army started laying the stretch of fencing from Nathu La to Sebu La along the perceived border. According to an Indian account, immediately a Chinese Political Commissar Ren Rong, with a section of Infantry, came to the centre of the pass where the Indian Lt. Col. Rai Singh Yadav was standing with his commando platoon. Rong asked Yadav to stop laying the wire. Indian soldiers refused to halt, saying they were given orders. An argument started which soon turned into a scuffle. After that, the Chinese went back to their bunkers and the Indians resumed laying the wire.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: Within a few minutes of this, a whistle was blown from the Chinese side followed by medium machine gun firing against Indian troops from north shoulder. Due to the lack of cover in the pass, the Indian troops initially suffered heavy casualties. Shortly thereafter, the Chinese also opened artillery against the Indians. A little later, Indian troops opened artillery from their side. The clashes lasted through the day and night, for the next three days, with use of artillery, mortars and machine guns, during which the Indian troops "beat back" the Chinese forces. Five days after the clashes had started, an "uneasy" ceasefire was arranged. Due to the advantageous position Indian troops had because of their occupation of high grounds at the pass in Sebu La and Camel's back, they were able to destroy many Chinese bunkers at Nathu La.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: The Indian and Western perspectives attributed the initiation of these clashes to the Chinese side. The Chinese, however, blamed the Indian troops for provoking the clashes, alleging that the firing had started from the Indian side.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: On 1 October 1967, another clash between India and China took place at Cho La, a border pass a few kilometers north of Nathu La.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: Scholar van Eekelen states that the duel was initiated by the Chinese troops after a scuffle between the two, when the Chinese troops infiltrated into the Sikkim-side of the border, claimed the pass and questioned the Indian occupation of it.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: China, however, asserted that the provocation had come from the Indian side. According to the Chinese version, Indian troops had infiltrated into the Chinese territory across the pass, made provocations against the troops stationed there, and opened fire on them.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: The military duel lasted one day, during which the Chinese were driven away, and it boosted Indian morale. According to Indian Maj. Gen. Sheru Thapliyal, the Chinese were forced to withdraw nearly three kilometers in Cho La during the clash.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: The Defence Ministry of India reported: 88 killed and 163 wounded on the Indian side, while 340 killed and 450 wounded on the Chinese side, during the two incidents.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: According to Chinese claims, the number of soldiers killed was 32 on the Chinese side and 65 on the Indian side in Nathu La incident; and 36 Indian soldiers and an 'unknown' number of Chinese were killed in the Cho La incident.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: According to scholar Taylor Fravel, the competition to control the disputed land in Chumbi valley had played a key role in escalating tensions in these events. Fravel has argued that these incidents demonstrate the effects of China's "regime insecurity" on the use of force. He states that three factors in these clashes emphasized the role of "declining claim strength in China's decision to initiate the use of force" against India. The first was the Indian Army's expansion in size after the 1962 war, leading to the strengthening of its borders with China. The second was the apparent Indian aggression in asserting its claims near the border. The third was the Chinese perceptions of Indian actions, for which Fravel says that the most unstable period of Cultural Revolution in China, which coincided with these incidents, was a possible contributing factor. Fravel remarks that the Chinese leaders possibly magnified the potential threat from India due to the border tensions and the perceived pressure from India to strengthen its claims across the border, and decided that a severe attack was needed.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: Fravel has stated that the initial Chinese attack was perhaps not authorized by the Central Military Commission (China). He also noted that after the attack was launched at Nathu La by the Chinese, the then Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai, instructed Chinese forces to return fire only when fired upon.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: Scholar John Garver states that, due to the Nathu La incident, Indian concerns were roused about China's intentions regarding Sikkim. Garver also remarks that India was "quite pleased with the combat performance of its forces in the Nathu La clashes, seeing it as signalling dramatic improvement since 1962 war."


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: Sikkim became an Indian state in 1975, after a referendum which resulted in overwhelming support for the removal of monarchy and a full merger with India. The Indian annexation of Sikkim was not recognised by China during the time. In 2003, China indirectly recognised Sikkim as an Indian state, on agreement that India accept that the Tibet Autonomous Region as a part of China, though India had already done so back in 1953. This mutual agreement led to a thaw in Sino-Indian relations.


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said in 2005 that "Sikkim is no longer the problem between China and India."


title: Nathu La and Cho La clashes

text: The Nathu La clashes between the Indian Army and Chinese Army are depicted in the 2018 Indian Hindi-language film Paltan (film), starring Jackie Shroff as Maj. General Sagat Singh, Arjun Rampal as Lt. Col. Rai Singh Yadav, Harshvardhan Rane as Maj. Harbhajan Singh, Gurmeet Choudhary as Capt. Prithvi Singh Dagar and Abhilash Chaudhary as Hav. Lakshmi Chand.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: Ghost Stories is the sixth studio album by British rock band Coldplay. Co-produced by the band with Paul Epworth along with returning "Mylo Xyloto" producers Daniel Green and Rik Simpson, it was released by Parlophone on 16 May 2014. The album was released by Atlantic Records in North America on 19 May 2014. It is the first album by the band in North America under Atlantic, after Coldplay were transferred from Capitol Records in 2013, following the purchase of EMI and its assets by the Universal Music Group in 2012, which required the sale of Parlophone to Warner Music Group.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: The album was recorded by the band throughout 2013 and 2014 at the band's purpose-built home studios in London, England, and in Los Angeles. It features guest producers Avicii, Timbaland and Madeon, and the band's frequent collaborator Jon Hopkins. It was promoted by the band with an accompanying prime time TV special, a visual album, and a special six-date promotional tour of the album, as well as various appearances on television and radio. The album was promoted by four singles: "Magic", the lead single, released in March; "A Sky Full of Stars", released in May; "True Love", released in August; and "Ink", released in October. "Midnight" was released in April as a promotional single for Record Store Day as well. The album was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 57th Grammy Awards and named Top Rock Album at the 2015 "Billboard" Music Awards.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: The album received mixed to positive reviews, with many critics praising the band's return to the more somber and melancholy style of their earlier music, though some found the album repetitive and lacking direction. It is reported by several media outlets that Chris Martin has said that the album was inspired by his and Gwyneth Paltrow's split in 2014.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: In 2011, Coldplay released their fifth studio album, "Mylo Xyloto". Originally conceived by the band as a "stripped-down, more acoustic collection", it became one of Coldplay's most experimental and pop-oriented records to date, being described as "luxuriously colourful" where "the choruses are bigger, the textures grander [and] the optimism more optimistic." Produced by Markus Dravs, Brian Eno, Rik Simpson and Dan Green, the album peaked at number one on 18 national album charts and was certified Platinum in 16 countries. "Mylo Xyloto" had also sold 8 million copies within the first year of release. Coldplay's 2011 single, "Paradise", became the band's second UK number-one single after 2008's "Viva la Vida". Coldplay's subsequent world tour in promotion of "Mylo Xyloto" visited North America, Europe, Australia and Africa, raising $99.7 million in revenue.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: Going into the creative process for their sixth studio album, the band wanted to return to the "stripped-down, more acoustic collection" they had stated their fifth album would be, returning to the original idea of an acoustic-orientated album, with less of the production and sound that made "Mylo Xyloto". At the 2013 Brit Awards, drummer Will Champion spoke to Jo Whiley of BBC Radio 2 fame, saying in response to a question about Coldplay's sixth album being more stripped-back: "Yeah, that might be nice, actually. There's only so far you can go without becoming pompous and a bit overblown, so we'll tread that line very carefully. Reset. Recalibrate."


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: "Ghost Stories" has been described as featuring electronica and synth-pop throughout. It is a spiritually driven album that revolves around two major themes mentioned by lead singer Chris Martin. The album explores the idea of past actions, and the effects they can have on your future and one's capacity for Unconditional Love. To him, "Ghost Stories" represents "a journey learning about Unconditional Love" (as said in the televised "Making of Ghost Stories" with Fearne Cotton).


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: The creative process and recording sessions for the band's sixth studio album took place between 2013 and early 2014, at their purpose-built studios The Bakery and The Beehive in North London, England, then in Los Angeles for the final process. The creation of the album actually started at Guy Berryman's house in London in early 2013 where he had settled a little studio where everyone gathered to jam and try some new music during a break after the band's big tour for Mylo Xyloto. The band took a different approach for their sixth studio album in contrast to their previous studio albums. Lead singer Chris Martin invited the band to contribute original songwriting material for the album, as opposed to building songs off Martin's ideas as they had done during previous recording sessions. For example, "Magic" was built off a bass riff originally conceived by bassist Guy Berryman in the studio.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: The album artwork for "Ghost Stories" was etched by British-based Czech etching artist Mila Fürstová. The medieval art-driven artwork, measuring 100 by 100 cm, features a pair of angel wings imposed onto a painting of an ocean under a sky at night. The angel wings resemble a broken heart, representing the album's somber theme of melancholic breakups. The wings themselves also feature cryptic imagery of medieval-style drawings of fairly contemporary objects and concepts. The images include a couple in love, a man facing a mirror, a flight of white doves, a circular maze, a girl by candlelight, a window looking out onto an incoming tornado and a garden plant with a ladder, amongst other imagery depicted in the artwork. A larger, digital version of the artwork is available on Coldplay's official website, with the ability to zoom into the artwork with a screen magnifier.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: Fürstová had etched the artworks for all of the releases in the "Ghost Stories" album cycle, including the artwork for singles "Magic" and "Midnight", which all use the same motif of a scenario taking place in a larger body. Fürstová, whose work has been described as "dazzling images [that] are both contemporary and personal, searching in the surreality of dreams, tales and fables that can map the framework of our consciousness", and has won numerous awards, including the Royal College of Art Society Award in 2001 and becoming the youngest academician at the Royal West of England Academy in 2009, was invited by Coldplay to etch artwork for their new album in January 2013. She described the collaboration between her and the band as "a most inspiring journey and a truly humbling experience to cooperate with such talented people".


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: There are plans for an exhibition of Fürstová's "Ghost Stories" artworks in the Autumn of 2014 in central London. 25 original etchings and 100 high-quality digital prints of the artwork, all hand-signed by Fürstová, are also set to go on sale on 19 May 2014, the same day "Ghost Stories" releases in the United Kingdom and the United States.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: Coldplay performed on the opening night of the televised 2014 iTunes Festival at SXSW on 11 March 2014 at the Moody Theater in Austin, Texas. In addition to performing "Magic" and "Midnight", the band performed "Always in My Head" and "Another's Arms"; the first live performances of the four songs. The band also performed "Magic" in a pre-recorded segment of "Sport Relief 2014", which aired on BBC One on 21 March 2014.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: In April 2014, Coldplay announced an international scavenger hunt for sheets containing lyrics to the nine songs on the album. The notes, handwritten by Martin, were placed in ghost story books in libraries around the world, with the band tweeting clues leading to their locations. One of the hidden envelopes also contained a special Golden Ticket, allowing its finder and their guest to go to London for the Coldplay concert at the Royal Albert Hall in July.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: The lyric sheets were found in libraries in Mexico City, Singapore, Helsinki, Barcelona, Dartford, New York City, Tauranga, Dublin and Johannesburg.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: A TV special titled "Coldplay: Ghost Stories" was filmed 21–23 March 2014 by the Grammy-nominated director Paul Dugdale (Adele, The Rolling Stones) on a custom-built stage in a Sony Pictures movie soundstage in Los Angeles. Coldplay performed material from the album in its entirety for the first time. The show, which included cinematic vignettes and 360-degree projections, was attended by an audience of 800 fans and press, and was broadcast in prime time in several countries in May and June 2014. The special was then sold on DVD and Blu-ray in November 2014. Additional footage was shot at Paradise Cove in Malibu, California, and at Woollett Aquatics Center in Irvine, California, for the film.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: Chris Martin said, "The Ghost Stories show at Sony Studios was a very special moment for our band ... This film is basically our original vision for the Ghost Stories album."


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: Coldplay was also the musical act for 3 May airing of NBC late-night sketch comedy show "Saturday Night Live" and performed "Magic" and "A Sky Full of Stars". It was the band's fifth appearance on the show.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: On 12 May 2014, seven days before its release date, the album became available to stream in full via iTunes, accompanied by an animated video revolving around Fürstová's album artwork, but the band refused to allow Spotify, Beats Music, Deezer, and Rdio to stream the album until 22 September 2014, which they had previously done on their last album, "Mylo Xyloto".


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: A music video for "Midnight", the fifth track on the album, was released as a teaser for the band's sixth studio album on 25 February 2014. "Ghost Stories" was officially unveiled by Coldplay and Parlophone a week later on 3 March 2014, along with its artwork and track listing. "Magic" was released on the same day, being the album's lead single. It was made available to download through iTunes and Amazon.com by pre-ordering the album, with the track working as an "instant-grat" download. Following the release of the song, it charted on 25 national record charts, peaking within the top ten on 18 of them. "Midnight" was then released as a promotional single by Parlophone on 17 April 2014 with a one-sided 7-inch vinyl for Record Store Day, which was limited to 3000 copies.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: "A Sky Full of Stars" was released digitally as the second official single on 2 May 2014. Within 24 hours from its iTunes release, the track had sold 121,690 units worldwide, peaking at number one in 86 countries on the iTunes Store Charts. The song reached number ten on the "Billboard" Hot 100, making it their third top 10 hit and first since "Viva la Vida" in 2008. It also became their first number-one single on the "Billboard" Hot Rock Songs chart. On 4 August 2014, the band announced that "True Love" would be the third effort from the album. A music video directed by Jonas Åkerlund was released on 22 August 2014, Chris Martin and Jessica Lucas stars as lovers in it.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: On 13 October 2014, "Ink" was served as the fourth and final single to Italian contemporary hit radio. On 18 November, the track was sent to modern rock stations in the United States. The music video was written, directed and animated by Blind, which worked with a company by the name "Interlude" to create over 300 possible journeys.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: A video for "All Your Friends" was released on 7 November 2014 for the commemoration of the first World War. Although the track is not available on the standard edition of "Ghost Stories", it is available on the "A Sky Full of Stars" EP worldwide – except for the United States where it is included on the deluxe version of "Ghost Stories" sold by Target. An official music video for "Ghost Story" was released as a part of the "Ghost Stories Live 2014" DVD on 24 November 2014; it was uploaded on the band's official YouTube channel on 9 March 2015. The video was shot in black and white, and shows the band performing the song during their Ghost Stories Tour. Similar to "All Your Friends", the song is available on the "A Sky Full of Stars EP" and on the Target deluxe edition of the album is the U.S.


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: "Ghost Stories" received mixed to positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 61, based on 31 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Jason Lipshutz of "Billboard" wrote the magazine's track-by-track review of the album, praising it as the band's "most listenable album in years" and describing it as "an evocative concoction of sullen phrases, sparse arrangements and powerful themes." Kyle Anderson of "Entertainment Weekly" commented that "Ghost Stories" "will likely be remembered as a transitional album" and noted that "while being solid, it feels like a prequel to something better". Larry Fitzmaurice of "Pitchfork" wrote that the album is a "subdued work that finds Chris Martin and his band crisply moping through mid-tempo soundscapes and fuzzy electronic touches that have the visceral impact of a down comforter tumbling down a flight of stairs." Nick Hasted of "The Independent" wrote that Martin "accepts his loss too meekly to approach the anguish of a great break-up album", but concluded that the band's "step away from grand platitudes is still one in the right direction". Stephanie Benson of "Spin" wrote that "its deep sea of synth-encrusted pop glistens under a halo of angelic ambient touches and Martin’s ever-rosy perspective."


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: Jerry Shriver of "USA Today" felt that "within the realm of memorable breakup albums", "Ghost Stories" lacked "the confessional gut-punch of Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks", the acrimony of Richard and Linda Thompson's "Shoot Out the Lights" and the irresistible sonic appeal of Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours"", ultimately describing it as "not even a particularly memorable Coldplay album". While noting that "Ghost Stories" "should be applauded for scaling back the gaudy excesses of their previous albums", Consequence of Sound's Josh Terry opined that its songs "suffer from a lack of direction" and "could use the vitality that launched them to the top in the first place". Mikael Wood of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote, "The nine songs on "Ghost Stories" hum gently, cultivating an effective sense of intimacy. As always, there's a lot going on in the music, sculpted by the band along with various collaborators." He added, "Coldplay's new album, 'Ghost Stories,' finds the British band setting aside its trademark grandiosity."


title: Ghost Stories (Coldplay album)

text: "Ghost Stories" went number number-one in over 100 countries on iTunes. In the UK Albums Chart, the album sold 168,048 copies during its opening week, becoming the second biggest debut of the year and Coldplay's sixth consecutive number-one album. With 375,000 copies sold by July, it became the best-selling album of the first half of 2014. In the United States, the album opened with 383,000 copies and earned the band's fourth number-one on "Billboard" 200. It has sold 853,500 copies on the country as of November 2015. Meanwhile, on the Canadian Albums Chart, "Ghost Stories" sold 49,000 copies during its first week, becoming the fifth-best-selling album of 2014 by selling 117,000 throughout the year. As of August 2017, it has sold over 160,000 copies on the country. Worldwide, the album sold over 3.7 million copies, being the best-selling project of 2014 by a group.


title: Cedrus deodara

text: Cedrus deodara, the deodar cedar, Himalayan cedar, or deodar, is a species of cedar native to the Himalayas.


title: Cedrus deodara

text: It is a large evergreen coniferous tree reaching tall, exceptionally with a trunk up to in diameter. It has a conic crown with level branches and drooping branchlets.


title: Cedrus deodara

text: The leaves are needle-like, mostly long, occasionally up to long, slender ( thick), borne singly on long shoots, and in dense clusters of 20–30 on short shoots; they vary from bright green to glaucous blue-green in colour. The female cones are barrel-shaped, long and broad, and disintegrate when mature (in 12 months) to release the winged seeds. The male cones are long, and shed their pollen in autumn.


title: Cedrus deodara

text: The bark of "Cedrus deodara" contains large amounts of taxifolin. The wood contains cedeodarin, ampelopsin, cedrin, cedrinoside, and deodarin (3′,4′,5,6-tetrahydroxy-8-methyl dihydroflavonol). The main components of the needle essential oil include α-terpineol (30.2%), linalool (24.47%), limonene (17.01%), anethole (14.57%), caryophyllene (3.14%), and eugenol (2.14%). The deodar cedar also contains lignans and the phenolic sesquiterpene himasecolone, together with isopimaric acid. Other compounds have been identified, including (−)-matairesinol, (−)-nortrachelogenin, and a dibenzylbutyrolactollignan (4,4',9-trihydroxy-3,3'-dimethoxy-9,9'-epoxylignan).


title: Cedrus deodara

text: The botanical name, which is also the English common name, is derived from the Sanskrit term "devadāru", which means "wood of the gods", a compound of "deva" "god" and "dāru" "wood and tree".


title: Cedrus deodara

text: The species natively occurs in East-Afghanistan, South Western Tibet, Western Nepal, Northern Pakistan, and North-Central India.


title: Cedrus deodara

text: It is widely grown as an ornamental tree, often planted in parks and large gardens for its drooping foliage. General cultivation is limited to areas with mild winters, with trees frequently killed by temperatures below about , limiting it to USDA zone 7 and warmer for reliable growth. It can succeed in rather cool-summer climates, as in Ushuaia, Argentina.


title: Cedrus deodara

text: The most cold-tolerant trees originate in the northwest of the species' range in Kashmir and Paktia Province, Afghanistan. Selected cultivars from this region are hardy to USDA zone 7 or even zone 6, tolerating temperatures down to about . Named cultivars from this region include 'Eisregen', 'Eiswinter', 'Karl Fuchs', 'Kashmir', 'Polar Winter', and 'Shalimar'. Of these, 'Eisregen', 'Eiswinter', 'Karl Fuchs', and 'Polar Winter' were selected in Germany from seed collected in Paktia; 'Kashmir' was a selection of the nursery trade, whereas 'Shalimar' originated from seeds collected in 1964 from Shalimar Gardens, Kashmir and propagated at the Arnold Arboretum.


title: Cedrus deodara

text: "C. deodara" and the three cultivars 'Feelin' Blue', 'Pendula' and 'Aurea' have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit (confirmed 2021).


title: Cedrus deodara

text: Deodar is in great demand as building material because of its durability, rot-resistant character and fine, close grain, which is capable of taking a high polish. Its historical use to construct religious temples and in landscaping around temples is well recorded. Its rot-resistant character also makes it an ideal wood for constructing the well-known houseboats of Srinagar, Kashmir. In Pakistan and India, during the British colonial period, deodar wood was used extensively for construction of barracks, public buildings, bridges, canals and railway cars. Despite its durability, it is not a strong timber, and its brittle nature makes it unsuitable for delicate work where strength is required, such as chair-making.


title: Cedrus deodara

text: The inner wood is aromatic and used to make incense. Inner wood is distilled into essential oil. As insects avoid this tree, the essential oil is used as insect repellent on the feet of horses, cattle and camels. It also has antifungal properties and has some potential for control of fungal deterioration of spices during storage. The outer bark and stem are astringent.


title: Cedrus deodara

text: Because of its antifungal and insect repellent properties, rooms made of deodar cedar wood are used to store meat and food grains like oats and wheat in Shimla, Kullu, and Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh.


title: Cedrus deodara

text: Cedar oil is often used for its aromatic properties, especially in aromatherapy. It has a characteristic woody odor which may change somewhat in the course of drying out. The crude oils are often yellowish or darker in color. Its applications include soap perfumes, household sprays, floor polishes, and insecticides, and is also used in microscope work as a clearing oil.


title: Cedrus deodara

text: Among Hindus, as the etymology of deodar suggests, it is worshiped as a divine tree. Deva, the first half of the Sanskrit term, means "divine", "deity", or "deus". Dāru, the second part, is cognate with (related to) the words "durum", "druid", "tree", and "true". Several Hindu legends refer to this tree. For example, Valmiki Ramayan reads:


title: Psychobilly

text: Psychobilly is a rock music fusion genre that fuses elements of rockabilly and punk rock. It's been defined as "loud frantic rockabilly music", it has also been said that it "takes the traditional countrified rock style known as rockabilly, ramp[ing] up its speed to a sweaty pace, and combin[ing] it with punk rock and imagery lifted from horror films and late-night sci-fi schlock... [creating a] gritty honky tonk punk rock."


title: Psychobilly

text: Psychobilly is often characterized by lyrical references to science fiction, horror (leading to lyrical similarities to horror punk) and exploitation films, violence, lurid sexuality, and other topics generally considered taboo, though often presented in a comedic or tongue-in-cheek fashion. Psychobilly bands and lyrics usually take an apolitical stance, a reaction to the right- and left-wing political attitudes which divided other British youth cultures. It is often played with an upright double bass, instead of the electric bass which is more common in modern rock music, and the hollowbody electric guitar, rather than the solid-bodied electric guitars that predominate in rock. Many psychobilly bands are trios of electric guitar, upright bass and drums, with one of the instrumentalists doubling as vocalist.


title: Psychobilly

text: Psychobilly has its origins in New York City's 1970s punk underground, in which The Cramps are widely given credit for being progenitors of the genre and the first psychobilly band to gain a following. The music gained popularity in Europe in the early 1980s, with the UK band The Meteors, but remained underground in the United States until the late 1990s. The second wave of psychobilly began with the 1986 release of British band Demented Are Go's debut album "In Sickness & In Health". The genre soon spread throughout Europe, inspiring a number of new acts such as Mad Sin (formed in Germany in 1987) and the Nekromantix (formed in Denmark in 1989), who released the album "Curse of the Coffin" in 1991. Since then the advent of several notable psychobilly bands, such as the US band Tiger Army and the Australian band The Living End, has led to its mainstream popularity and attracted international attention to the genre.


title: Psychobilly

text: The evolution of psychobilly as a genre is often described as having occurred in waves. The first wave occurred in New York City in the 1970s and reached Britain in the early 1980s, the second wave took place at the end of that decade and spread through the rest of Europe, and the third crested in the late 1990s with the genre finding international popularity.


title: Psychobilly

text: The wildly theatrical shock rock aesthetic of Screamin' Jay Hawkins in the 1950s, and the outsider music of the Legendary Stardust Cowboy in the late 1960s have been cited as a precursor to what would become psychobilly.


title: Psychobilly

text: In the mid- to late 1970s, as punk rock became popular, several rockabilly and garage rock bands appeared who would influence the development of psychobilly. The term "psychobilly" was first used in the lyrics to the country song "One Piece at a Time", written by Wayne Kemp for Johnny Cash, which was a Top 10 hit in the United States in 1976. The lyrics describe the construction of a "psychobilly Cadillac using stolen auto parts."


title: Psychobilly

text: The Cramps, who formed in Sacramento, California, in 1972 and relocated to New York in 1975 where they became part of the city's thriving punk movement, appropriated the term from the Cash song and described their music as "psychobilly" and "rockabilly voodoo" on flyers advertising their concerts. The Cramps have since rejected the idea of being a part of a psychobilly subculture, noting that "We weren't even describing the music when we put 'psychobilly' on our old fliers; we were just using carny terms to drum up business. It wasn't meant as a style of music." Nevertheless, The Cramps, along with artists such as Screamin' Jay Hawkins, are considered important precursors to psychobilly. The Cramps' music was heavily informed by the sound and attitude of 1950s American rockabilly, including Hasil Adkins, whose song "She Said" they covered on 1984's compilation album "Bad Music for Bad People", along with other songs from the Sun Records catalog. Their 1979 album "Songs the Lord Taught Us" is considered influential to the formation of the psychobilly genre.


title: Psychobilly

text: Although the Cramps have been recognized as an "early" or "pioneering" psychobilly band, About.com calls The Meteors "the first true psychobilly band", noting their blend of the "themes of horror, punk and rockabilly". They were the first band to use the term 'Psychobilly' as a description of their music. Formed in South London in 1980, they are considered the first verifiable psychobilly band. Their albums "In Heaven" (1981) and "Wreckin' Crew" (1983) are recognized as landmarks of the early years of the genre. "Starting in the neo-rockabilly scene, the Meteors were quickly shunned for being too different. Excuses for exclusion from rockabilly concerts varied from the band having too extreme of a sound to their drummer having green hair." The Meteors blended elements of punk rock, rockabilly, and horror film themes in their music. Another commentator argues that The Misfits' "American Nightmare" may have been the first psychobilly song.


title: Psychobilly

text: The Meteors also articulated psychobilly's apolitical stance, a reaction to the right- and left-wing political attitudes which divided other British youth cultures. Fans of The Meteors, known as "the Wrecking crew", are often attributed with inventing the style of slam dancing known as "wrecking", which became synonymous with the psychobilly movement. The short-lived Sharks, formed in Bristol in 1980, followed closely behind The Meteors with their influential album "Phantom Rockers". Demented Are Go are a Welsh psychobilly band that was formed around 1982 in Cardiff. They were one of the earliest in the initial wave of bands to mix punk rock with rockabilly, and as a result, are considered to be highly influential to the psychobilly scene. Another significant British band were the Guana Batz, formed in Feltham, Middlesex in 1983. Their first album, 1985's "Held Down to Vinyl at Last", has been described by Tiger Army frontman Nick 13 as "the most important release since the Meteors' first two albums."


title: Psychobilly

text: The Klub Foot nightclub, opened in 1982 at the Clarendon Hotel in Hammersmith, served as a center for Britain's emerging psychobilly movement and hosted many bands associated with the style. Johnny Bowler of the Guana Batz describes the club as "the focal point for the whole psychobilly scene. You'd get people from all over at those gigs. It built the scene." Representatives from record labels such as Nervous used the Klub Foot as a recruiting ground to sign up new bands. A live compilation album entitled "Stomping at the Klub Foot" was released in 1984, documenting the club's scene and the bands who played there. At the same time psychobilly bands were forming elsewhere in Europe, such as Batmobile who emerged in the Netherlands in 1983, released their debut album in 1985, and soon began headlining at psychobilly festivals and at the Klub Foot.


title: Psychobilly

text: The mid-1980s saw another, even darker side to psychobilly. As soon as the music crashed into action, the audience simply set upon each other in a free-for-all brawl. These gigs were advertised as such. Not surprisingly, this dangerous trend was short-lived, but the occasional fracas persisted.


title: Psychobilly

text: The second wave of psychobilly is noted as having begun with the 1986 release of British band Demented Are Go's debut album "In Sickness & In Health". The genre soon spread throughout Europe, inspiring a number of new acts such as Mad Sin (formed in Germany in 1987) and the Nekromantix (formed in Denmark in 1989), who released the album "Curse of the Coffin" in 1991. The Quakes formed in Buffalo, New York in 1986, but had such difficulty building a following in their hometown that they moved to London the following year, where they released the album "Voice of America" in 1990. Another significant release of this era was the compilation album "Rockabilly Psychosis and the Garage Disease", which acknowledged the genre's roots in rockabilly and garage rock.


title: Psychobilly

text: The second-wave bands broadened the music's scope, with the introduction of new and diverse musical influences into the sound. Record labels such as Nervous and Crazy Love helped the genre to expand, although it still remained largely unnoticed in the United States, where the albums were poorly distributed and most psychobilly bands preferred to play weekenders than to tour. Nick 13 states that while other British youth trends such as scooter riding, the skinhead subculture, and 2 Tone ska crossed over to the United States during the 1980s, psychobilly did not.


title: Psychobilly

text: However, one American act that emulated the style was The Reverend Horton Heat, formed in Dallas, Texas in 1985. Their 1990 single "Psychobilly Freakout" helped introduce American audiences to the genre. The band was heavily inspired by The Cramps, and original Cramps members Lux Interior and Poison Ivy have both identified The Reverend Horton Heat as the latter-day rockabilly/psychobilly band most closely resembling the style and tone of The Cramps. Horton Heat noted that the lack of audience awareness of the band was in some ways a benefit: "Somehow, as a band, we continue[d] to fly just below the radar of the whole music business. Which means we g[o]t to concentrate on being [touring] musicians, not recording artists."


title: Psychobilly

text: The third wave of psychobilly began in the mid-1990s, with many acts incorporating influences from genres such as: hardcore punk, indie rock, heavy metal, new wave, goth rock, surf rock, country, and ska. Psychobilly became popular in the United States, particularly in southern California, where punk rock had thrived and remained popular since the 1970s. The area's large Latino community, which revered early rock and roll icons, also played a part, as did the popularity of bands like the horror-influenced Misfits and country/rockabilly-inspired Social Distortion, as well as a celebration of hot rod and motorcycle culture. In the mid to late 1990s European bands Demented Are Go, Godless Wicked Creeps and The Hangmen each played their own US live tours, motivating the fledgling US scene.


title: Psychobilly

text: Tiger Army, formed in Berkeley in 1996, became the dominant American psychobilly act following the release of their 1999 self-titled debut. Their touring in support of the album helped to establish a foothold for psychobilly across the United States. Los Angeles-based Hellcat Records, run by Rancid's Tim Armstrong, became home to many psychobilly acts, including Tiger Army, Devil's Brigade and the Danish groups Nekromantix and HorrorPops, both of whom relocated to southern California in the early 2000s.


title: Psychobilly

text: Guana Batz members Pip Hancox and Johnny Bowler relocated there as well, moving to San Diego where they sometimes perform with Slim Jim Phantom of the Stray Cats under the name Guana Cats. Another notable California psychobilly band formed in the 1990s was The Chop Tops. They have toured with bands like German psychobillies Mad Sin and the Nekromantix, and have opened for the Dead Kennedys, Suicidal Tendencies, Dick Dale, John Lee Hooker, and Chuck Berry.


title: Psychobilly

text: The genre remained vital in Europe, where new acts continued to appear. In 1992, the Kryptonix emerged in France while the Godless Wicked Creeps formed in Denmark the following year, The Sharks re-formed in Britain, releasing the album "Recreational Killer", The Snakes formed in Italy in 2004. Psychobilly also expended to new continents Battle of Ninjamanz formed in Japan in 1994 and Os Catalepticos formed in Brazil in 1996.


title: Psychobilly

text: In the UK however most bands had split up, The Hangmen – who had formed after the first and second waves – became reliant on live events that did not specifically cater to the much depreciated Psychobilly audiences, resulting in the genre being introduced to a wider audience and the band acquiring a more diverse following that included punks and bikers.


title: Psychobilly

text: Psychobilly also spread to Canada. Stylistically, Déjà Voodoo (who sometimes described themselves as "sludgeabilly") and Condition, both from Montreal, might be considered early forerunners of the genre. As early as 1983, both bands issued recordings that displayed the rockabilly and garage punk influences of psychobilly, as well as a lyrical tendency towards horror and dark themes, often presented with humour.


title: Psychobilly

text: Although it was not acknowledged as such at the time, Montreal's Mongols likely came closest to true psychobilly. From the somber Cramps-ish original title track to the covers of deranged rockabilly (Hasil Adkins), fifties rhythm 'n' blues (via psychobilly forefathers The Sonics), sixties garage rock by Quebec teenage sensations Les Lutins, and obscure, off-kilter instrumentals (one by The Nautiloids), their mini-LP "Sleepwalk" (1986) runs the gamut of all the musical bases of the genre. In addition, a few years later, The Mongols had their only other recording, "Bébé Cadavre" (Cadaver Baby), included on the "Lachés Lousses" compilation (1990).


title: Psychobilly

text: Edmonton's Dusty Chaps might also be seen as an early exponent of the style with the inclusion of their sinister "Psychopath of Love" on Nervous Records' compilation "Boppin' In Canada" (1991). Following in those tracks, in the mid-nineties, were Vancouver's Deadcats. Their guitarist, Mike Dennis, had previously played in hardcore punk bands The Bill Of Rights and Forbidden Beat. Besides his own band, Dennis also issued early recordings by Montreal psychobillies The Alley Dukes, and Bloodshot Bill – who is also sometimes associated with the genre – on his Flying Saucer Records label.


title: Psychobilly

text: The Gutter Demons were a band formed in 2002 in Montreal, Quebec, who became one of the most recognizable Canadian psychobilly bands, their live debut came supporting The Hangmen from the UK on their Canadian Tour of that year. The Brains is a band from Montreal.


title: Psychobilly

text: The Creepshow is a band from Burlington, Ontario, Canada. which formed in 2005; they write the majority of their songs about horror films. The Switchblade Valentines are a Canadian psychobilly band from Victoria. Big John Bates is known as "one of Vancouver's most notorious musicians" ("Globe & Mail" - Toronto). The band re-branded in 2011 as "Americana Noir" (a rustic offshoot of the dark cabaret genre) when the Gretsch-endorsed Bates was joined by Montana's Brandy Bones on Hofner upright bass and cello. Lauren Spike is a band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, who have played many large shows such as Amnesia Rockfest.


title: Psychobilly

text: Musically, psychobilly is rooted primarily in two genres: late 1970s punk rock and 1950s American rockabilly. Tiger Army frontman Nick 13 explains: "The number-one misconception people have is that psychobilly is the same thing as rockabilly. Rockabilly is on the family tree, but it's a totally different sound and attitude." Psychobilly progenitors The Cramps acknowledge their music's deep roots in American blues, rhythm and blues, and traditional rock and roll. "Alternative Press" writer Ryan Downey notes that contemporary psychobilly also draws from other rock genres and subgenres: "Driven by the rhythmic pounding of a stand-up bass, the music swings with the snarl of punk rock while sometimes thrashing alongside speed metal or crashing headlong into country icon Hank Williams."


title: Psychobilly

text: Craig Brackenridge lists other sources of inspiration: 1960s garage punk, glam rock, revival rock 'n' roll, and heavy metal. Nate Katz states that "[w]hile traces of glam, metal, and punk can be found in psychobilly, at its core, psychobilly emerged from rockabilly, particularly the neo-rockabilly movement [in] London during the late 1970s". Katz states that "The Sharks brought in elements of new wave music to their sound." Moreover, "[i]n the song 'Take a Razor to Your Head,' they clearly seek out those breaking away from neo-rockabilly into psychobilly".


title: Psychobilly

text: Downey acknowledges that contemporary psychobilly's roots extend into 2 Tone ska, garage rock, hardcore punk, street punk and Oi!. Hilary Okun, publicist for Epitaph and Hellcat Records, notes: "The music appeals to fans of punk, indie, metal, new wave, goth, rockabilly, surf, [and] country." The influence of heavy metal on the psychobilly style resulted in the Nekromantix's 1994 album "Brought Back to Life" being nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of "Best Heavy Metal Album".


title: Psychobilly

text: Psychobilly is commonly played with a simple guitar/bass/drum/vocal arrangement, with many bands consisting of only three members. Often the guitarist or bassist will be the lead vocalist, with few acts having a dedicated singer (Mad Sin being one of the examples with a dedicated singer).


title: Psychobilly

text: Psychobilly guitarists often play rockabilly-style hollowbody archtop guitars with f-holes and a tremolo bar. Guitarists may play punk-style power chords one moment, and then shift into rockabilly-style fingerpicking and rockabilly guitar-style seventh chords, with a heavy focus on minor chords and palm muting. Notes are often bent, either by pulling the string down or by using the tremolo bar. Gretsch hollowbody guitars are a popular choice. Guitarists often use 1950s-style tube amplifiers such as by makers such as Fender and it is common to see stacks of two speaker cabinets. As with rockabilly guitarists, the overdrive tone usually comes from what is produced naturally by overdriving the tube amp, rather than by plugging into a distortion pedal.


title: Psychobilly

text: An upright double bass is often used instead of the electric bass found in most rock bands (though an electric bass is sometimes optional). The use of the upright bass is influenced by 1950s rockabilly and rock and roll musicians, particularly in the use of walking bass lines and the use of slapping.