Hell-O!

Hell-O! Was the band's debut album, being released in 1988. It was a crossover of thrash metal and punk. It was released under Shimmy Disc. The label released it on cassette and on vinyl 331⁄3 format. The vinyl album was produced in regular black vinyl and a limited rare red vinyl, which was limited to 500 copies. To support the album, the band started touring, though, Steve Douglas left the band the same year, to later form another band. Him and his alias was replaced by Michael Derks, whom is currently still the guitarist for the band. The angle Gwar took on this album was much like a morbid punk band,  obsessed with debauchery, violence and toilet humor. The songs generally support the theme of the group quite well, expanding the band’s concept to comic proportions and supporting the back story. For the original version of the album that was released on Shimmy Disc, the European version of the album includes a bonus track “Black and Huge” which would be a normal track on Scumdogs of the Universe, though on that album it’s very different from the Hell-O version. Under Metal Blade Records, the album was remastered and that release does not include “Black And Huge”.

A comic book about the band was included on the original vinyl of the album. The artwork parodied Picasso's *Guerncia* (Being renamed "Gwarnica") and pokes fun at the "this is your brain on drugs" type of commercials ("This is your brain on Gwar"). The album's cover art features the band gleefully terrorizing Earthlings, particularly skinheads, who would attend the band's early shows and harass them with heckling, violence and throwing food, such as toast, onstage, and bulldozing their bodies into ditches.

Musically and conceptually, the record fits in with and came from the arty 80s noise rock or "scum rock" scene (Butthole Surfers, Pussy Galore, early Ween) with similarities to grunge (Tad, Mudhoney), funny punk (Meatmen, Angry Samoans, Dead Milkmen, Happy Flowers, Nig-Heist), punk (The Mentors, The Misfits, Black Flag, Samhain), hardcore (Dead Kennedys, Bad Brains, Ministry) and heavy metal (M.O.D., S.O.D., Slayer).

## Song Topics

Topic wise, the album shows off what GWAR is about. You have songs like "Time For Death", "War Toy", "I'm In Love (With A Dead Dog)", and "Bone Meal", of which discuss how GWAR wishes to use Earth and it's humans for their own sadistic perverse pleasures, while enslaving and torturing them. Songs such as "Ollie North" and "Americanized" are sooth-sayers to the U.S.A. And then "Slutman City" is about modern human society as a whole. Techno Destructo sings his own song ("Techno's Song"), in wich he states he's come to Earth to take GWAR back to space to serve "The Master" in a "holy jihand against the universe". Normally, Hunter Jackson would play Techno, but due to him being out of state, Don Drakulich plays him on that song. Songs like "GWAR Theme" cover rather weird themes, but that song is simply introducing the mighty aliens themselves. "Je M' Appelle J. Cousteau" features famous aquanaut Jacques-Yves Cousteau in a Dada-esque romp. The English alphabet is debating on whether being property of Gor-Gor or Satan in "AEIOU". The first song ever written by the band, "Rock 'N' Roll Party Town" concludes the album in scenes of rock debauchery.

## Reviews

When it comes to reviews and people’s opinions on the album, fans either love it or hate it. This album is the least played album live and discussed by the band, though that could very well be due to the fact no member from when that album was recorded is still in the band today. The songs “Gwar Theme” and “Pure As The Arctic Snow” are played live very rarely, but they’re still the most common to be played from the album. Occasionally, the band will play a medley of songs from the album, ranging anywhere from three songs to twelve songs, which is more than half the album. On the Gwar fan page “Bohab Central”, Chuck Varga posted that he was so disgusted with the sound quality of the recording that he walked out of the session after hearing a few tracks. He stated, “I know the band's music and it sounded much better than it did on Hell-О!,” He went on to say that that producer Mark Kramer “didn't care how Gwar sounded” and “gave us one of the most embarrassingly recorded LP's in history.” (Personally, I do agree with this. The sound quality on that album is horrid, and it actually ruins something that could’ve been so good). The fact the recording session of the album was a single weekend, only furthers the reasoning as to why the quality of the production was so low.

## Personnel

* Dave Brockie (Oderus Urungus) – lead vocals
* Dewey Rowell (Flattus Maximus) – lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals
* Steve Douglas (Balsac the Jaws of Death) – lead and rhythm guitar, backing vocals
* Michael Bishop (Beefcake the Mighty) – bass, backing vocals
* Rob Mosby (Nippleus Erectus) – drums
* Don Drakulich (Techno Destructo) – lead vocals on "Techno's Song"

## Miscellaneous

* In the song "Captian Cruch," the opening line ("Everybody needs somebody to be abuse") is reminiscent of lyrics from the Eurythmics‘ 1983 hit “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)”:

> *`"Everybody’s looking for something`*
>
>
> *`[…]`*
>
>
> *`Some of them want to abuse you`*
>
>
>
> *`Some of them want to be abused"`*
>
>

GWAR would later be nominated for Best Long Form Music Video at the 1993 Grammy Awards, though they ended up losing out to Eurythmics frontwoman Annie Lennox’s *Diva* video album. The band lampooned this loss (and the Eurythmics' “Here Comes The Rain Again”) in their 1994 song “Jack The World”:

> *`"I wanna suck like lovers do`*
> *`I wanna lose a Grammy too"`*
>
>

To further the irony, Marilyn Manson, who GWAR routinely killed an effigy of onstage in the late 90s, would later cover “Sweet Dreams”.

* This album would be the only album with Steve Douglas and Rob Mosby, as they'd both leave right after the album was released.
* "Techno's Song" has Drakulich on vocals, appose to Hunter Jackson who actually plays Techno.