SXSW 2012: 8 Million Bands

New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ RoadRunner Records) Slipknot mastermind/percussionist M. Shawn "Clown" Crahan will be appearing at this year's South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas next week, premiering his photo book Apocalyptic Nightmare Journey with a press party and Q&A session on Thursday, March 15.

Earlier that afternoon, he'll be participating in a panel discussion, "Seeing Red: Aesthetics & Visuals of Metal," with Al Jourgensen of Ministry and Mike Williams of Eyehategod. That will be held in room 11AB of the Austin Convention Center from 2:45 to 3:45 PM. Then, at 7 PM, he'll be at The Jr (formerly Emo's Jr) at 603 Red River Street for the press party and Q&A session.

Apocalyptic Nightmare Journey, which will be published by MTV Books in June, is a collection of explorations in darkness and light from Shawn's experimental photography, his second and equally powerful artistic outlet which he has honed for over a decade. Weird, wired, paranoid, endlessly imaginative and cancerously prolific, he's created thousands of dangerous representations of reality through eye-gouging Polaroids in numerous styles in this hand-picked collection.

The foreword to Apocalyptic Nightmare Journey was written by Metallica's Lars Ulrich; it reads in part, "Throw yourself into clown's world, throw yourself into clown's book, throw yourself into clown's images, throw yourself into the whole fucking thing. Let go of the bungee cord, do away with the safety net. Just go for it, and let the journey take you wherever the journey's going to take you. And as you're going on that trip through this book, occasionally imagine clown next to you. Imagine hearing his voice in your head talking about what these images and experiences have meant to him and where he was going with it. And you will end up on one fuck of a ride, that I can guarantee you will be unique, spellbinding, and potentially life altering. This book is everything that art should be."