Concert – Auz’s Iraq

Auz‘s Iraq; original compositions from his deployments, plus covers

 

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Table of Contents:

  1. Preface
  2. Inspiration
  3. Additional Notes
  4. Covers
  5. Remixes/Rewordings
  6. Originals
  7. Stage/Performance Steps
  8. Images

 

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Preface:

They say the military amplifies who you already are; if you were good, you end up becoming great, and if you were bad, you end up becoming worse.  I went in as an artistic, health-motivated, jokes-telling, loving, studious young man, and so I ended up getting tons more ideas for what to draw, sing, write, and so on.

Choir lessons during my childhood turned into me forming and leading rehearsals for my very own/first rock band –though it was a barbershop quartet before we realized we had so much more to offer.  I also started dreaming up my own music program, school, sex university, positive life-outcome additions to all my favorite stories, and this vegan community design; Inisfree –though at this time (2004-2006) it did not yet even have its name.  You’ll probably notice that my sense of humor got a LOT edgier, too, spiced up with the kind of extreme-as-it-gets dark/morbid humor only the front-lines personnel are known for.

*This was also what led me to recruit fellow artists and writers to start our own magazine, MKM.  –Hardcopies of the first/debut issue of this magazine will be available for free at the merchandise stand/tent of/during this concert!

This was also the time when the Coliseum Amphitheater statues of my first three bandmates plus myself were sketched/designed.  I hadn’t thought to design even the audience-seating for this feature of what would be added to the city I had also not yet thought up, but it was a great and signature start, completely unprecedented.  My mind was naturally quadrupling and customizing the Statue of Liberty; another sign I was sourcing for inspiration the country I’d grown up loving and wanting to protect.

While all the uneducated, insecure, compensating/macho punks and idiots in the Corps were busy seeking heartless unnecessary glory and abusing their powers, talking shit, misunderstanding every last thing, and risking our lives, I was cranking out song after song, drawing after drawing, innovation after innovation, prayer after prayer (on behalf of us all –and not just those I was serving with, but everyone, including the gods), and, though I did not realize it at the time, powerful spell after powerful spell.  My energy flowed where it was able to.  Now, looking back, I am glad it was forced not to flow into a higher role in the U.S. military, but into so many other areas of my life and the world, dramatically bettering and fixing them all.

Deployment 1 for me was when the barbershop quartet formed.  When we’d made it back to The States, that was when getting to “find our sound” in the garage of one of our platoon member’s on-base housing… led us to decide to form my first rock band, later practicing in Craig’s on-base housing, as well as even in some of our barracks rooms.  Then deployment 2 for me came and went, obviously separating us most of the time, the missions and related work being so time-consuming, and we never ended up reforming the band we’d barely started, but the tons of inspiration remained with me all this time, and always will.

And, of course, these ~two decades later, another fruit of those labors and toils of mine is this concert plan, so it all worked out.  Even the earliest songs I’d ever thought of and written notes for, back before I even knew how to write sheet-music, were destined to resurface here today, finally having their time.  Amen.

 

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Inspiration:

These are the music bands that greatly soothed and inspired me during these (my deployments’) years.

  • A Perfect Circle (Thanks for introducing them to me, Joseph!)
  • Dimmu Borgir –and their music video “Progenies of the Great Apocalypse” gave me the idea for an even better meteor-shower visual-effect for a concert of my own
  • Evanescence
  • Rammstein
  • Sonata Arctica
  • t.A.T.u
  • (and numerous other bands on some of the Nuclear Blast CDs/series)

 

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Additional Notes:

This was when I, without knowing I could, summoned not one (as I did once when screaming out at night during my adolescence), but three shooting stars –in a row!

 

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Covers:

  1. “Chariots of Fire main theme” by Vangelis (quartet; proto-Violent Rebirth –back when we were still arguing over whether that or Violence Reborn would be our band name)
  2. Radio Check to the tune of “Dumb” by Nirvana (solo) –and for years, for some reason, I’d mis-guessed it was to the tune of some Beck, Blur, or Bush song, but finally found the right one (at the end of July 2023)
  3. Radio Check to the tune of The Marine Corps Hymn (solo)

 

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Remixes/Rewordings:

  1. Brazen Hymn of the Fuck Temple (rewording of church hymn “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” by Julia Ward Howe)
  2. “Hail to the Chief” by James Sanderson (rewording:  “Hail to the chief.  He’s the chief; you better hail now.  Hail to the chief or we’re gonna hafta shoot you bastards.”)
  3. “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles (“gonna crush my balls”; rewording by Drill Instructor Staff Sergeant Kand)
  4. “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid, by Howard Ashman (rewording sample:  “Look at her boobs, wonders untold.  How many penises can her mouth hold?  Lookin’ her up and down, ya think:  ‘Damn; this bitch has everything.’.”)
  5. (and numerous other Disney hits reworded to be as vulgar as possible)
  6. “Star of Wonder” church hymn rewording (“Star of wonder, star of light, rectal fury, burning bright, ever bleeding, balls receding, take us through, your meh-thane pipe.”)
  7. *”The Candy Man (Can)” by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, from Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (reworded for the Infantry) – I (Auz) dress up like Wonka for this one, and the ICVs set their hair to Oompa Loompa colors; green, orange, purple
  8. “The Marine Corps Hymn” reworded by me to be about “battlefields in Space”, etc.
  9. “You are My Sunshine” by Jimmie Davis (rewording:  “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, which means I’m pre-tty, fuckin’ cold, because you don’t rise, just like the Sun does, so I end up, free-zing a-lone.”)

*This version of “The Candy Man” has many versions all collectively known as “The S&M Man”.  The military version I heard during my enlistment was pretty close to what follows:

  • Who can take a prie-eest,
    bend ‘im o’er a pew,
    fuck him in the ass ’til he admits that he’s a jew?
    The Infantry/81s can.
    The Infantry/81s can ’cause they mix it up with smut and make the hell taste gooood.
    (projector screen shows:  porn-in-churches clips or collage of clips)
  • Who can take a fat bitch,
    sit ‘er on a chair,
    stab ‘er with an ice pick and cut off all her hair?
    The Infantry/81s can.
    The Infantry/81s can ’cause they mix it up with smut and make the hell taste gooood.
    (projector screen shows:  [fat pics/vids are illegal in my realm, so what here?])
  • Who can take a married bitch,
    throw ‘er on the floor,
    fuck ‘er in her ass while her husband’s at the door?
    The Infantry/81s can.
    The Infantry/81s can ’cause they mix it up with smut and make the hell taste gooood.
    (projector screen shows:  wedding-dress, hot-wife, and cuckold/-quean/-cake porn)
  • Who can take a pregnant bitch,
    tie her to the bed,
    fuck her so hard that her fetus gives you head?
    The Infantry/81s can.
    The Infantry/81s can ’cause they mix it up with smut and make the hell taste gooood.
    (projector screen shows:  pregnant porn, esp. gloryholes of them –such as that face-model medium-tan smiling preg’ slut who said her sexual appetite went up during pregnancy)
  • Who can take a spoiled bitch,
    hit ‘er with a bat,
    piss into her ass and fill her mouth with scat?
    The Infantry/81s can.
    The Infantry/81s can ’cause they mix it up with smut and make the hell taste gooood.
    (projector screen shows:  porn of perfect-10 rich girls such as the smiling nina-face blonde in stripes-dress on bed)
  • Who can take a litt-le girrrrl,
    before she’s on the rag,
    nut inside ‘er, kill ‘er, and stuff ‘er in a body bag?
    The Infantry/81s can.
    The Infantry/81s can ’cause they mix it up with smut and make the hell taste gooood.
    (projector screen shows:  porn of petite/extra-small girls)
  • Who can take a ba-by,
    spank it ’til it’s red,
    ig-nore all its crying and-fuck the soft-spot on its head?
    The Infantry/81s can.
    The Infantry/81s can ’cause they mix it up with smut and make the hell taste gooood.
    (projector screen shows:  lolicon hentai, some animated/GIFs –and “Don’t kick the baby” Southpark clips)
  • Who can take a hadji,
    drive him to the zoo,
    facefuck his little sister while the pigs fuck her, too?
    The Infantry/81s can.
    The Infantry/81s can ’cause they mix it up with smut and make the hell taste gooood.
    (projector screen shows:  all muslim comics/memes)

 

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Originals:

  1. (Aquarians) Come On Up; the Time is Now (to the tune of an Iron Maiden hit)
  2. Cuidado (“silencio o matara”; poor pre-translation of/for “shut up or I will kill you”)
  3. Love Song (“…all of our hopes and all of our dreams”)

“Cuidado” final lyrics/verses drafted in July of 2023:

  • Cuidado, piso mojado.
    (projector screen shows top half of a janitor mopping while singing to his mop handle)
    Cuidado, piso mojado.
    (camera view pans out slowly to show more of him and the dark lockerroom)
    Silencio o matara.
    (camera now shows he is mopping a tile floor covered in blood)
  • Cuidado, maté a alguien.
    Cuidado, maté a alguien.
    Silencio o te mato.
    (screen shows mopping out an interrogation cell)
  • [Dif notes format/verse]
    ¿Sabes lo que es quitar una vida?  para acabar con un hombre tonto?
    es maravilloso.  te lo recomiendo mucho.
    (screen shows mopping out a HMMWV)
  • [back to original verse notes]
    Cuidado.  Hay-un-tonto por ahí.
    Cuidado.  Hay-un-tonto por ahí.
    volveré enseguida.  por favor tenga un balde nuevo… listo.

 

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Stage/Performance Steps:

  • stage preset with an authentic HMMWV, mounted M-240 and TOW just like my HMMWV/s had
  • VR2 takes their positions, I dressed in my desert MARPAT uniform and flak jacket just like when I’d composed a lot of these songs
  • projector screen shows the pics in the following album, plus others, even a video of a clandestine one-way time-portal to VR1’s rehearsals in the various locations/residences we utilized –and, of course, showing Raz rapidly playing (“Flight of the Bumblebee” on) his electric guitar while putting it up on his shoulders behind his head
  • also show a reenactment or time-portal footage of when (SSgt) Kand sang that Beatles rewording during my Crucible Week; at that one obstacle with the house-like vertical-wedge of parallel logs to roll over/around
  • spotlighting the band-member statue behind us during the respective songs credited to them/each
  • 3 shooting stars (represented/notional; IC FJs or something) overhead during the quiet intervals/intermission/s

 

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