Scumdogs Of The Universe

The band would set up to record their sophomore album, Scumdogs of the Universe, as they now had a somewhat solidified lineup. The album released worldwide on January 8th, 1990. It released on producers Ivan Healy Purvis’ label Master Records, a subsidiary of Blue Beat Records. The album is their best selling to date, as it also met moderately large mainstream success, and would become the signature album for the band. It would also start the career of the band under the Metal Blade Records record label. In support of the album, they toured extensively, releasing the live VHS tape Live From Antarctica in July of 1990. This VHS included, among other things, the music video for the song “Sick Of You” which is largely considered the band’s signature and most popular song, as the video did get regular airplay on MTV. Not too long after the release of Sick Of You’s video, a new, young artist, Matt Maguire was took in by Slave Pit Inc. to help out with the costumes, and other art forms, including illustrations for comics. Scumdogs of the Universe was originally released through the U.K. label Master before being picked up by Metal Blade in 1991. In the group's hunt for a larger label, they auditioned for Relativity Records, one of the larger independent heavy metal labels. The group failed their audition when they arrived in costume and Slymenstra Hymen broke a blood capsule from her codpiece onto one of the office chairs, simulating menstruation. The album’s concept is about the Scumdogs (Aka Gwar themselves) reign of terror on Earth. “Death Pod” Explains how Gwar came to the planet to begin with. For this album they also began to experiment with samples to a degree, as in the song “Maggots”. Also, technically in the song “Love Surgery” this applies, as Mike Derks claims he stole a Slayer riff in a specific part of the song, as he didn’t exactly know what metal music was, and he was trying his best to figure it out. With that, he stole a Slayer riff from a Public Enemy song that also had taken the same exact riff. So, as Derks said, “I stole the Slayer riff from Public Enemy instead of stealing it from Slayer.” The riff he stole was from the Slayer song *Angel Of Death.*

Lyrically, the songs are more socially relevant in this album as well. Examples include “Slaughterama”, which involves Gwar killing hippies and nazi-skinheads (also known as neo-nazis) in a game show-style fashion. The opening track, “The Salaminizer”, in which the first verse was inspired by/based on “Gangsta, Gangsta”, a song by the rap group N.W.A. Other references include history, seen in the song “Vlad the Impaler” and Lovecraft mythology, “Horror of Yig.” Most of the album is centered on twisted jokes about insane medical practices and sexual perversion.

## Reviews

To Gwar fans, and the band themselves, this album is viewed as an ultimate masterpiece. This album has the most songs played live than any other album. “Sick Of You” has been played live the most, as it’s usually the finale song. This album was the first to feature more than two characters singing lead vocals. (“Slaughterama” has Sleazy P. Martini on the spoken-word song. “Sexecutioner” obviously, has the character Sexecutioner, singing. And the song “Cool Place to Park” debuts Beefcake the Mighty’s vocals). All other songs were sung by Oderous.

## Track Listing

The tracks "The Years Without Light" and "Cool Place to Park" do not appear on versions released under the Master label, only versions released under Metal Blade label. For the original 1990 Metal Blade release of the album, "Cool Place to Park" is a CD only track.

## Track Listing (30th Anniversary Remixed and Remastered Version)

The 30th anniversary track order has been changed to match the remastered vinyl release, while the pre-order download version featured the tracks numbered to match the 1990 release order. The remastered CD's track listing erroneously omits "Sexecutioner", with the numbering jumping from track 8 to track 10, similar to censored versions of *This Toilet Earth*.