THE AXE DOTH SWINGETH! Shout it from the street corners and preach it from the pulpits! Let it be known far and wide in the lands of the uncouth and unheathen that the Royal Order of the Mighty Modock shall never again stroll with bones about their native soil. In the words of many a wiseguy it has been said that life is but a brief candle; a weevil-infested purgatory in which we vainly await our calling to another place, and when the hand of fate will make its' swinging sweep is a dark and haunting mystery upon which mortals have been given no capacity to dictate. Thus, let the eulogy begin.

IN the eighty-ninth year of the twentieth century came the great re-illusionment. Pressure cookers filled with Chicken Fat burst simultaneously in the minds of four young emeritus scholars of the first book of the Lleather. Vo-Dee-Oh, Klack-It-Tie-Oh, rah-rah and Hoo-de-ho! Up the creek and on with the show! Be it known that their years of monkish research and reclusivity had at last culminated to the point of dissertory hysteria. The dissertation was organized and commenced one fateful fall evening with the prophetic Whipping Boy Manifesto. A further need was aroused by this event and the formula of solution that lit the bulbs above the heads of these four lads was the widely discussed and world-famed Action Time Vision equation. Hence, the Southern Indiana Chapter of the Royal Order of the Mighty Modock was born, spewed forth like a thunderous roman candle of crackling and uncontrollable electricity and thew itself to the lions in a matter of ten action-packed months. Much ado and many a fuss was in the making but those who truly grasped the chalice and supped upon the ambrosial sacrament of the ambrosial wisdom of the tomfoolery on all sides were few and far between. One of those shining beacons of idiocy was Dr. Daniel Willems, HSQ, dedicated deacon of the theological school of Recordus Adeptus, who cast aside all allegiance to common moral decency and risked life and limb in order to capture the heartwrenching strains of the Order's limited and developing musical capacity.

It was on a frigid and dreary Hallow's Eve as the clock struck twelve that these bearers of the imperial churchkey took to the stage in a back alley known as Lindou's Blue Ribbon Room. In front of a standing-room-only audience of half-a-devil's-dozen, they held forth in the tradition of all that is sick, sober, and sorry. A blithering thirteen minutes later the law was at the front door and audience, band, and assorted hangers-on were out the back. in the wake of this triumphant disaster, Modock derived its creed and sallied forth with a tally-ho and a krak-a-toe to further massacrees of destruction at some of the finest locales in the wilds of the midwest.

Their stint as house band at the world-famous and now sadly destroyed Stud Barn included the still talked about "Lights Out Sessions" which inadvertently resulted in self-induced hypnosis and trancelike delusions which led the band to believe that they were possessed by demons. The battle of the bands at the "Down There" room at Notre Dame University ending in an utter drubbing and complete taming of heretofore ruling-caste cat-daddies Vibrolux at the hands of the Mighty Modock (available on request from Avanti Records). The Harmony High School Sock Hop on the very evening of Del Shannon's untimely death (coincidence? or fate?). And above all, not once, but thrice, the sedate, staid atmosphere of the Black Box Theatre ripped asunder in a literal torrent of White Castle slider boxes and Red, White, & Blue cans cascading forth upon the band in the very act.

The axe was poised above their heads in the sixth month of the year of Our Lord Nineteen and Ninety. The members felt themselves slipping into the vortex of nevermore. Having destroyed everything about them the realization came: now, no choice but to destroy themselves. It was held as self-evident that the double blade would inevitably obey the laws of Newton. These facts weighed heavily upon our intrepid youth as they began their ascent into obliteration on that first, fateful night which began the Modock Trilogy of Terror. The occasion was the annual WQAX Rumble of the Bands. Modock conquered the trophy, slaying all infidels with primordial howlings and ravings. As an extra treat for the peanut gallery, the last days of Pompeii were recreated on stage in a Flaming Vesuvian Eruptive Spectacle, forcing the Ripper to abandon his sacred trashcan in fear for his very life.

Having survived the first round, the boys crawled from their corner of the ring the very next night for what has become known as "The Second Story Beer bath" at the lovely Second Story Lounge. Clad in full war paint, The Genius sporting his Crown of Bones, Wolfgang von Geekus displaying his treasured Caesar's Palace Medallion and issuing forth bombastic barrages of abusive power chords, The Ripper beating out a feverdriven rhythm on his trashcan with the Ace of Spades painted upon his chest, and above all this the catastrophic collision of spastic frequencies, Bird Bath, trademark necklace of churchkeys draped wantonly round his neck, continuously throwing his guitar against his amplifier and screaming that polysyllabic phrase of undeniable truth, "Ooh Pooh Pah Doo". Beer was flung in all directions and a phenomenal time was had by all.

The scholarly amongst us will note, we hope with an approving eye, that stage three of the Rolling Rocket of Terror has been captured and reproduced herein in the hope of dragging, by main force if needed, the discerning listener of another time and place as close to the edge of sanity as possible. For only by confronting the abyss of sheer madness with unflinching ear; only by teetering precariously upon the very knife-edge of the precipice; only by steeling one's heart and soul against the unutterable and alinguistic pandemonium herein magnetically encoded can any mortal man begin to perceive a glimmer of that night of retribution and reckoning.

The field of battle was the Bluebird Boogie House, and the very foundations shook under the tread of gods, kings, and pharaohs of the saintly days of yore. Clad in the togas and ivy'd crowns befitting their rank and status as conquering heroes, the Mighty Modock cried havoc, and let slip, one final time, the dogs of war. As they mounted the stage, the spirit of Captain Jack and his fearless and stately Modoc warriors marched abreast. Men such as these are a rare sight in these sorry days. These were men whose pride led them to face their very deaths amongst the lava pits rather than succumb to the forked tongues and backstabbing dangers of a civilization in which they could find no part for themselves. Who might have thought that these young lads in selecting a moniker which held only connotations of high-school hellraising antics and homecoming football destruction had indicated the very path upon which their illustrious forebears trod as they moved to their doom? And so it is written in the rock of the land: All must foul up at the crossroads.

Lord Dent Invadore, HSQ
Bloomington, Indiana, 1991