Daily Jam - Supernaut

Way back in 2015, my wife and I moved into a new house, an event that comes with its own seemingly endless series of headaches, chores, and surprises. And while I was expecting that, the nature of the beast as they say, packing and unpacking boxes of stuff, old and new alike, you realize just how much shit you have. And so I got rid of some stuff, trips to Goodwill, trips to Ebay, trips to the curb, trips to the garbage. I did well. But then I got to the box with years of old mixtapes in it, and that progress came screeching to a halt. Of course I had to go through and listen to all of them.

The cassettes, predominantly from junior high and high school with a couple of stragglers from 6th grade and college (yes I am that old) thrown in, were a hodgepodge of random pop songs, some great and some embarrassingly awful (a little too much Korn honestly), but they act as a time capsule, like an audio yearbook from my teenage days. Sadly, there were not really any tapes from my grade school years as I tended to reuse the cassettes, recording and re-recording over them again and again, so there were no relics from the Reagan Era to sift through. But the now 30-something year old mixes were still a fun listen.

A few things learned from gleaning through my old mixtapes:

1. I was clearly searching for some kind of identity through the music I listened to.

2. Then, as now, taste is completely subjective.

3. Some sort of groundwork for my continued listening tastes was being set back then.

4. I really, really, really like “Supernaut” by 1000 Homo DJ’s.

The Black Sabbath cover appeared on not one, not two, not three, but four different cassettes. It was on all of my mixtapes. It was on everyone’s mixtape.

1000 Homo DJ’s was a Ministry side project in the late 80’s/early 90’s, one of many that Al Jourgensen lent his scuzzy, screeching talents to. Consisting of a slew of industrial and electronic artists, the band put out two EP’s, the latter of which featured the Sabbath cover, originally recorded with Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor on vocals, though that version would eventually be scrapped due to licensing issues between record labels. Jourgensen would later re-record the vocals for the release. Legend has it, partying with each other led to these various industrial super group recording sessions with whomever was drunkest manning the drums. That’s probably way too awesome and amazing to actually be true, but I’m not one to call foul on music myth building. It should be true. It needs to be true.

I need to put this on a new mixtape.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.