Somewhere in Fargo…

Here’s a freaky story for ya: Back in 2000 this one friend from Russia, Ike, gave me an LP that was pressed on x-ray film with some of the weirdest music that I’ve ever heard. He explained that only 75 first edition copies of “Monday” were ever made. He had two copies and he thought I would appreciate it the history behind such a rarity of metal, rather than be a buttwipe and sell it on ebay. He was right.

The record cover was a photocopied picture of some woman in chains. Ike said that her name was Zoya Malama, and that she actually committed suicide on stage when her band sold out and almost became mainstream. She was the founder of a underground band from Irkutusk (sp) called Upir’s Mark known for doing obscene stuff on stage, and their alleged serial killer bassist/electronic musician/male lead singer. It was such a weird story and such an odd style of metal, I had to learn more. Finding anything on the Internets was pretty impossible, so Ike helped me with research. In 2003, we managed to track down the alleged serial killer bassist/electronic musician/male lead singer at some new age expo in San Francisco. Ike and me totally felt out of place with all the granola people, unicorn lovers and the nature worshipers. The smell of incense and aromatherapy made us want to puke. They did have some awesome hemp burgers and cheap vegan beer, so it wasn’t a total suckfest.

Lord Dmitri Satan 121-666, now going by the name of Dima Cataha, was promoting his latest solo release. It was an ambient theremin thing that lacked the edge and rage of his original music with Upir’s Mark. I hate easy listening, so I am biased.

Ike asked him why he had made such a huge nosedive into wussdom. Dima was confused until we pulled our copies of the ultra-rare x-ray LP. Dima laughed himself to tears and turned bright red. He said, “Oh gods, I can’t believe anyone still remembers that train wreck.” He was a really nice guy, really shy, and really smart and almost obsessive when it came to obscure music. He totally put us to shame, and we have the most complete collection of Fintroll bootlegs outside of Finland.

Ike asked Dima if the stuff about him being a vampire psycho killer was true. The dude rolled his eyes and laughed, and told us that if that were true, he would probably be in jail and not signing CDs full of wuss music. He had a point. Dima explained that most of the craziness of the Upir’s Mark days was fake, although he claimed that Zoya’s suicide was for real, and he did admit to undergoing rehab and let us know that he was definitely not an angel. Dima let us take some souvenir pictures with Ike’s Polaroid, and was cool enough to autograph them and our Upir’s Mark records. Dima invited us to go drink some beers and shoot pool with him and his buddies after the expo at this one cool dive bar down the street. We thought that was awesome, we bought of his crappy Yanni-wannabe CDs to add to our collection.

We had a nice time at the bar, listening to this one weak cover band (can’t remember who the hell they were) while we played billiards, got good and drunk and made conversation with the pretty waitresses. Dima paid for every round. Ike and I took a cab back to the Motel 6, played a few games on our trusty PlayStation, smoked a bit too much, and blabbed on about our day. We sort of kept in touch with one of Dima’s buddies, when we remembered.

Anyway, here’s where things get freaky. In early 2004, we found out from Dima’s buddy, that Dima been arrested for murdering his psychiatrist, and he confessed to killing a bunch of people. After he was sentenced, he just up and disappeared. No manhunt or nothing. Then his friends told me that there had been some weird report on the news that Dima had been released and that they found evidence that he was not a killer, after all. Dima’s friend actually witnessed the aftermath, thought the official story was total BS, and was confused by the whole thing. He thought that Dima might have been framed, but considering he was begging him to call the cops and was really upset, it didn’t seem likely. Still, there was no trace of Dima at all after that mess, and his upcoming album’s release was placed on indefinite hold. Weird. It was almost like a conspiracy or something, but whatever.

For the hell of it, here’s the Polaroid Ike took with me and the nicest possible serial killer I ever met. Scary.

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