Crabsu was a tour van train of thought idea that reached its logical limit. A tribute to Texan black metal band Absu with crustacean worship thrown in for good measure. This stems from the word replacement game, in this case adding the word "crab" to existing band names.
They formed to play a one-off gig at The Borough in Sunderland on Friday the 5th of August 2011 alongside Burial and Gary Marchant. They had two practice sessions beforehand, and several of the members had never heard the source material before then.
The members are all active musicians in the north-east of England, playing in a wide variety of bands including Wodensthrone, Dawn of Chaos, The Axis of Perdition, That Hideous Strength, Risen Prophecy and Hesper Payne.
For this performance they came up with pseudonyms, which are listed here:
Crabathoth on vocals
Crabbadon hitting things
Crabbath on guitar
The Nameless Crustacean on bass
The Nipper on another guitar
The logo was influenced by the works of Away from Voivod, combined with the shape of a crab and the "C" and "U" looking quite pincer shaped. I sketched it out in pencil, then finished it with black ink via a wooden kebab skewer. It was screen printed onto T-shirts and patches for the gig.
The DVD of their performance was completed in December 2011 and is limited to 50 copies. The sleeves are printed and then cut, folded and glued by hand. The discs are surfaced with red sticky-back plastic and numbered underneath, near the centre hole. Here it is, alongside a patch:
DVDs, patches and shirts are currently available in the Inverted Grim-Mill Recordings shop.
