I am not cool, but it occasionally appears that way cuz my incidental awareness of cutting-edge music. There’s a simple reason for that, one which I share with tons of other fortunates out there: I have an older sibling. She’s cool. She dated cool guys. Those cool punk and alternative and goth guys stopped at nothing to get within sniffing distance of her bod; as such, most found it worthwhile to cultivate the kid-brother endorsement.

The astute dudes recognized that the way to my heart is through my headphones and funneled a lot of free tapes (!) and CDs my way. (One particularly smitten Doc Martens aficionado worked at local college radio and hooked me up with my own evening time slot when I was 15.) My sister and I hardly got along, so my input on her suitors was never solicited, much less heeded; I thank her for neglecting to mention this fact to all those hornballs whose awareness of interesting music exploded my horizons.

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Ah, Valentine’s Day. Reviled by most, enjoyed by the smug, and shrugged off by the belligerently ambivalent. But while most of us couldn’t care less about this specific day in February, it’s still an annoyance that comes around every year. Kind of like the common cold.

Now, most places will have shitloads of “quirky” recommendations you can do with your special someone, even if you’re of the metalhead persuasion. You can hold sweaty hands in the privacy of your parents’ basement, pour each other some classy Motorhead wine, and share a blood pudding in the dreamy light of those church candles. It’s all very nice and sweet to be… nice and sweet.

But you know what’s better? DOING IT. With a killer soundtrack. So on this very special day, I’ve made you all a romantically inappropriate mix tape.

Picking “mood” songs is a little too obvious for my taste. I mean yeah, Faith No More’s “Stripsearch” (Actually, that might be more of a stripping song than a sexing one, but ,hmm, “Evidence” maybe? Heh, “Be Aggressive” might work for some. Either way, Patton’s voice = nudity.) and NIN’s “Closer” are both appropriate (for very different reasons), but that’s no fun. Go forth and find that special someone willing to get, get naked to these select songs. There’s a little something for everyone. St. Valentine would’ve wanted it that way.

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There are a lot of places I want to see in the world, and quite a few cities I want to visit in the States. I want to go to Austin, Seattle, and up until last week, Chicago was on that list, too. As luck would have it, a dear friend of mine recently moved to Chicago, so my best friend and I took it upon ourselves to descend on her and her boyfriend for the week.

I loved it. I love Chicago. I love being in any town that has coffee shops rather than nine Starbucks on every street corner, and Chicago gave me a glorious coffee shop with an ‘80s theme; there was a DeLorean parked in the shop, along with posters of Ghostbusters, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and various other kitschy things like a wall of old lunchboxes. But there was no Ninja Turtles one, and that was my choice of lunch transport in first grade. But I let it slide.

Beyond all that though, Chicago is home to a very special place. A place with unmatched burgers. A place that celebrates heavy metal. A place known as Kuma’s Corner.

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A reader calling him (or her, but probably him)self “K S” sent us the below track, which is apparently called “MINÄ MÄÄRÄÄN!”, and is by a Finnish industrial band called Turmion Kätilöt.

Holy shit, could there be any more umlauts up there? Mötley Crüe are suffering from some serious umlaut envy right now.

ANYWAY, K S suggested that this band might be better than Rammstein, and I have to disagree. This songs features what has to be one of the more generic industrial riffs I’ve ever heard. I know that most industrial riffs are kinda basic, but there’s a massive difference between this and the epic, pseudo-symphonic majesty of Rammstein’s “Mein Herz brennt,” or even the filthy, scummy, punch-you-in-the-face-for-no-reason guitars that power My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult’s “After the Flesh.” The below song is just, like, industrial’s answer to a Triple A riff.

Check out Turmion Kätilöt below, and let K S know what you think in the comments section.

-AR