Metal F.A.Q.
WAR
Archive-name: heavy-metal
Posting-frequency: monthly
Last-Modified: 23-May-99
Heavy Metal FAQ:
Introduction to Metal Music and Culture
Archive name: Frequently Answered Questions (FAQ) about Metal
FAQ Name: Introduction to Metal
Author: Hessian Studies Center (HSC) task group
(http://www.anus.com/hsc/)
WWW: HSC/ANUS (http://www.anus.com/hsc/library/mfaq.html)
Version: 0.1
---
Newsgroups:
Core: Periodic posting
alt.rock-n-roll.metal, alt.rock-n-roll.metal.heavy,
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.death, alt.music.black-metal, alt.thrash,
alt.rock-n-roll.progressive, alt.fan.metal, alt.music.slayer,
alt.music.underground.metal.death, alt.music.underground.metal
Associated: Infrequest Posting
alt.fan.metal, alt.rock-n-roll.metal.black,
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.doom, alt.music.alternative,
alt.fan.metal.{burzum|graveland|suffocation|demilich}
Deprecated but occasional posting (intoxication)
alt.music.black-metal.nazi,alt.homosexuality.death-metal
Introduction: This periodically posted article is designed as an
introduction to metal music (heavy metal, death metal, speed metal,
black metal, thrash, grindcore, ambient metal) by way of an
examination of the subculture which has produced this very distinctive
music for three generations. It includes but is not limited to:
history of metal music, philosophies of metal, metal musicians, metal
newsgroups, events, CD and tshirts purchasing, Hessian experiences.
Summary: This FAQ explores the development of heavy metal as a musical
movement through theory and ideology, the primary influences on its
growth, which seeks to overcome the negative through an existential
nihilism that leads to self motivated philosophies, a transformation
rooted in the self-dependent mythos of the culture and its association
with occultist post-moral behavioral structures. Metal as a pattern
of thought is a rebellion within postmodern ideology from structured
cyclicism to structuralist dynamicism, effectively extending the
principles of modernism to a post-relativity universe through a focus
on transcendental kineticism, individual participation in postmoral
experience, and chaotic mass destruction; it could be called an
information systems theory approach. Similarly the revolution in
music theory from metal is the extension of harmony from cyclic
theatricism (wagnerianism) into melody for artistic, pure, complex
experimentation. Subcultural genres such as metal are one of the few
ways postmodern and existential thought enter mainstream
life, as a meta-theory to politics and sociology.
About this FAQ: This FAQ is designed to answer questions ranging from
the purely quantitative to the metaphysical, and as such is divided
into four sections, of which the first one (I) is a loosely organized
collection of known questions and answers, the II and III are
analysis, and IV represents some attempt to categorize the genre as it
exists in shared virtual spaces.
Authorship: The Hessian Studies Center task group is part of an
organization dedicated to exploring and documenting metal as a
subculture and ideology. They can be found online at:
Hessian Studies Center http://www.anus.com/hsc/
Dark Legions archive http://www.anus.com/metal/
KCUF Metal Radio http://www.kcuf.org/radio/shows/metal/
Evilmusic Mail Order http://www.evilmusic.com/
[ An up-to-date TEXT copy of this article may be found via http to
http://www.anus.com/hsc/hcl/mfaq.html. ]
A. Meta-Outline
I. Frequently Answered Questions
I. Procurement
II. Ideology
III. Music Making
IV. Scene Inbreeding
V. Overheard
VI. About this FAQ
II. Metal as concept
I. Music
II. Culture
III. Ideas
IV. Applicability
III. Metal as physical manifestation
I. Concerts
II. Recordings
III. Production
IV. Gear
IV. Metal as virtual community
I. Newsgroups
II. Email Lists
III. WWW
IV. People
V. AE's
B. Total Outline
I. Frequently Answered Questions (Granular)
1.1 Procurement
1.1.1 how to find?
1.1.2 distribution
1.1.3 trading
1.2 Ideology
1.2.1 black metal crimes
1.2.2 theology
1.2.3 fascism
1.2.4 christianity
1.2.5 suicide/slayer lyrics?
1.2.6 black metal disputes
1.2.7 Research list
1.3 Music making
1.3.1 technique
1.3.1.1 Blast Beats
1.3.1.2 Fast strum
1.3.1.3 Double bass
1.3.1.4 Harmonics
1.3.2 production
1.3.3 as cultural event
1.4 Scene inbreeding
1.4.1 closed minded
1.4.2 too serious
1.4.3 connection to music
1.5 Frequently Overheard Questions
1.5.1 general public
1.5.1.1 emperor/enslaved tracks
1.5.1.2 swedish distortion
1.5.1.3 blast beats
1.5.1.4 discographies
1.5.1.5 current prison totals
1.5.1.6 origin of name "heavy metal"
1.5.2 "intellectuals"
see section II.
1.5.3 totally granular
1.5.3.1 drinking blood
1.5.3.2 fire-breathing
1.5.3.3 sodomy
1.6 About this FAQ?
1.6.1 authorship
1.6.2 contributorship
1.6.3 design
1.6.4 affiliated sites
II. Metal as abstract concept
2.1 Music
2.1.1 Sound
2.1.1.1 Downtuned
2.1.1.2 Convergent rhythms
2.1.1.3 Tone centric
2.1.1.4 Abstract
2.1.1.5 Minimalist
2.1.2 Theory
2.1.2.1 Technique --> Structure
2.1.2.2 Melody --> Harmony
2.1.2.3 Tonality --> Dynamicism
2.1.2.4 Chaotic
2.1.2.4.1 Heisenbergian Chaos
2.1.2.4.3 Relativism --> Dynamicism
2.1.2.4.4 Absolutism --> Structure, Melody
2.1.3 Genre
2.1.3.1 Proto-metal
2.1.3.2 Heavy metal
2.1.3.2.1 "Black metal"
2.1.3.2.2 "Doom Metal"
2.1.3.2.3 "Power metal"
2.1.3.3 Speed metal
2.1.3.4 Thrash
2.1.3.5 Death metal
2.1.3.6 Black metal(2)
2.1.3.7 Grindcore
2.1.3.8 Ambient metal
2.1.3.9 Styles and crossovers
2.1.3.9.1 doom metal
2.1.3.9.2 industrial
2.1.3.9.3 black metal(1)
2.1.3.9.4 power metal
2.1.3.9.5 speed/death crossover
2.2 Culture
2.2.1 Meta-Rebellion
2.2.2 Practical Implementation of Metaphorical Complexity
2.2.2.1 Mythos
2.2.2.1.1 Culture Mythos
2.2.2.1.2 Subculture Mythos
2.2.2.3 Living after Midnight
2.2.2.1 Activities
2.2.2.2 Intoxicants
2.2.2.3 Events
2.2.2.4 Dialogues
2.2.2.4 Language
2.2.5.1 Relation to human animal
2.2.5.1.1 Gender pronouns
2.2.5.1.2 Self-reference
2.2.5.1.3 Abstract
2.3 Ideology
2.3.1 Ideals
2.3.1.1 Romanticist
2.3.1.2 Existentialist
2.3.1.3 Postmodernist
2.3.1.4 Mysticism
2.3.1.5 Shamanism
2.3.1.6 Nihilism
2.3.1.7 Organicism
2.3.1.8 Naturalism
2.3.1.9 Individualism
2.3.2 Influences
2.3.2.1 Ideologies
2.3.2.1 Rationalism
2.3.2.2 Autonomism
2.3.2.3 Existentialism
2.3.2.4 Buddhism
2.3.2.5 Classicism
2.3.2.6 Structuralism
2.3.2.7 Transcendentalist
2.3.2.2 Thinkers
2.3.3.2.2.1 Nietzsche
2.3.3.2.2.2 Kant
2.3.3.2.2.3 Deleuze
2.3.3.2.2.4 Morrison
2.3.3.2.2.5 Hitler
2.3.3.2.2.6 Burroughs
2.3.3.2.2.7 Blake
2.3.3.2.2.8 Poe
2.3.2.3 Counterculture
2.3.2.3.1 Hippie
2.3.3.1.5 Beat
2.3.3.3.3 Biker
2.3.3.1.6 Punk
2.3.3.1.7 Horror Films
2.3.3.1.8 Drugs
2.3.3.1.9 Fascism
2.3.2.4 History
2.3.2.5 Drugs
2.3.2.6 Natural Transcendentalism
2.3.4 Methods
2.3.4.1 Metaphor
2.3.4.1.1 metapatterning: comparing event to whole
2.3.4.1.2 subconscious communication
2.3.4.1.3 more complex than symbology of quantitative
2.3.4.2 Metacognitive thinking
2.3.4.2.1 Fantasies
2.3.4.2.2 Structure
2.3.4.2.3 Autonomism
2.3.4.2.4 Will
2.3.4.2.5 Inertia
2.3.4.3 Postmodernism
2.3.4.3.1 Aesthetic
2.3.4.3.2 Structure
2.3.4.3.3 Artistry
2.3.4.3.4 Philosophy
2.3.4.3.5 Presence
2.3.4.4 Cultural individualism
2.3.4.4.1 Identity
2.3.4.4.2 Ideology
2.3.4.4.3 Politics
2.3.4.4.4 Spiritualism
2.3.4.4.5 History
2.3.5 Events
2.3.5.1 Atomic bomb
2.3.5.2 Viet Nam
2.3.5.3 Reaganification
2.3.5.3 End of Cold War
2.3.5.4 Internet
2.3.5.5 Millenium
2.4 Applicability
2.4.1 Musically
2.4.1.1 Heavy music
2.4.1.2 Psychedelic/ambient
2.4.1.3 Experimental violent
2.4.1.4 Grunge
2.4.2 Aesthetically
2.4.1.1 Degraded
2.4.1.2 Stark
2.4.1.3 Structural
2.4.3 Philosophically
2.4.3.1 Hedonism
2.4.3.2 Nihilism
2.4.3.3 Romanticism
2.4.3.4 Politics
2.4.4 Decryptically
2.4.4.1 Experiential Conception of Art
2.4.4.2 Existential Gateway to Darkness
III. Metal as Physical Manifestation
3.1 Concerts
3.1.1 Information
3.1.1.1 List of tour date sites
3.1.1.2 Band homepage finder
3.1.1.3 Venues by city
3.1.2 Attendance
3.1.2.1 Ear protection
3.1.2.2 Social interaction
3.1.2.3 Rules of evidence
3.1.3 Merchandise
3.1.3.1 Shirts and prices
3.1.3.2 CD's
3.1.3.3 Royalties breakdown
3.2 Recordings
3.2.1 Audio
3.2.1.1 Live
3.2.1.1.1 Acquisition
3.2.1.1.2 Resources
3.2.1.2 Studio
3.2.1.2.1 Acquisition
3.2.1.2.2 Resources
3.2.2 Video
3.2.2.1 Live
3.2.2.2 Studio
3.3 Production
3.3.1 Techniques
3.3.1.1 Swedish distortion
3.3.1.2 Distortion mini-FAQ
3.3.1.3 Vocal effects
3.3.2 Studios
3.3.2.1 Morrisound
3.3.2.2 Grieghallen
3.3.2.3 Sunlight
3.3.3 Producers
3.3.3.1 Harris Johns
3.3.3.2 Tomas Skogsberg
3.3.3.3 Pytten
3.3.3.4 Tom Morris
3.3.3.5 Scott Burns
3.4 Objects
3.4.1 Gear
3.4.1.1 Clothing
3.4.1.2 Patches
3.4.1.3 Armor
3.4.1.4 Weapons
3.4.2 Distribution
3.4.2.1 labels
3.4.2.2 mail order
3.4.2.3 net sales
3.4.2.4 tape trading
3.4.2.5 used sales
3.5 Playing
3.5.1 Guitar
3.5.2 Drums
3.5.3 Bass
3.5.4 Vocals
IV. Metal as virtual community
4.1 Newsgroups
4.1.1 extant groups
4.1.2 history
4.1.3 suggested futures
4.1.4 etiquette/ethos
4.1.5 objective communication
4.2 Other net resources
4.2.1 WWW
4.2.2 IRC
4.2.3 ICQ
4.2.4 Email lists
4.3 People
4.3.1 Who listens to metal?
4.3.2 How to find metal fans?
4.4 Bands
4.4.1 Listings
4.4.2 Approaching
4.5 AE's
4.5.1 Metal AE
NOTE: Not responsible for reader _reactions_ to the contents or
implications of this FAQ.
================================================================
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Part I :: Frequently Answered Questions (Granular)
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I. Frequently Answered Questions (Granular)
The Frequently Answered Questions section provides granular
responses to identified questions and constitutes section I of
the FAQ, whereby all things which need to be addressed first
are, before section II, or the academic/philosophical section of
the FAQ.
1.1 Procurement
Metal (the music) is a creation of the spirit; metal (the
physical manifestation as recording) is a creation of a
pressing machine and mail-order distribution system like any
other object. Luckily, thanks to increased technology and
better marijuana, buying metal is in many ways at its easiest
point in history.
1.1.1 how to find?
There are a number of paths. You can choose a local
record store, try to find metal material in normal record
stores, or mail order. Recently the second option has
become more palatable with increased distribution of
underground music, but finding a metal specialty shop or
mail order is often still the only way to find everything
you need, and is usually $2-6 cheaper per CD.
1.1.2 distribution
See section IV, "Metal as virtual community," subsection
3.
1.1.3 trading
See section IV, "Metal as virtual community," subsection
3.
1.2 Ideology
Many questions come up about why metalheads act the way they
do, and quite often the answer has ideological origins.
1.2.1 black metal crimes
What were the crimes in Norway and other states related to
black metal and their extent?
"Beginning with a small, ineffectual fire at Storetveit
Church in the month preceding the Fantoft blaze, there
have since been a total of at least 45 to 60 church
fires, near-fires, and attempted arson attacks in Norway.
Roughly a third have a documented connection to the Black
Metal scene, according to Sjur Helseth, head of the
Technical Department of the Directorate for Cultural
Heritage."
- Lords of Chaos, p 79
1.2.2 theology
The theology of black metal involves a primary dualism in
which "good" is a weak force which seeks to be inert, and
"evil" is a dark and strong force which seeks destruction
and constant change, chaos.
- gOD = centralized force, guilt force, dependency on
life (= external) for not only physical need but also
for correlation to a "reality"
- society = slavery; it is the result of not having
spiritual insight and thus is a massive load of denial
which we force on each others as tokens of material
- satan = liberating force of individual chaos and
uniqueness of all corners of universe, "NON SERVIAM,"
and the freedom of darkness: a kind of nihilism in
which all things are mysterious for their potential and
not their actuality, and nothing ever is, only in the
process of being.
- "good" = obedient, oblivious, denial, "modern
reality" dogmatically silent denial existence system
- evil = free, feral, animalistic, instinctual, vital,
courageous, virtue, will, power, freedom, vice, sloth,
ambient fear.
"Other government operations and "experiments" have
also been verified beyond a shadow of a doubt. The
CIA's COINTELPRO activities against
domestic "agitators" in the 60s and 70s have been
verified by the government and by non-governmental
agencies. Also in the 50s there were several cities
selected, apparently completely randomly, for a
particularly heinous "experiment." These cities were
doused with nuclear radiation in order for the
government to determine its effects on the human body.
They wanted to figure out how the populace would be
affected by long-range fallout during a hypothetical
nuclear war with the Soviet Union. A couple of years
ago the government apologized for this "experiment" but
added the levels of radiation were relatively harmless
along with some other extremely lame excuses. And
people wonder why I'm paranoid."
- Zahhak, on the burzum listserv
1.2.3 fascism
The relationship between black metal and fascism is not a
necessary one, but a frequent correlation between the
extreme movements is observed circumstance. Naturally any
underground death-related movement will eventually find
some identification in the mystical reality transformation
surrounding Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist
movement in Germany during the early 1940s.
As it stands now, it is fair to say that a large
percentage of black metal's founders and practicioners
identify themselves as having National Socialist or
racialist leanings, and that most of those who innovated
the genre with death held such viewpoints. Simultaneously
however it is worthy to mention that these individuals
share an interpretation of the relationship between
Satanism, nihilism, fascism and Odhinism; they see the
fascist mentality as approaching the "warrior morality"
Nietzsche writes of or a spiritual coexistence with
nature.
Many also have identified, as a result of Satanist or
Odhinist spiritual leanings, with the rebellion against
Judeo-Christianity that claims Europe should be free from
the "Semitic" influences of Judaism, Jews, Christianity
and Christians. In one way or another, most black metal
fans have found something in fascism with which they
identify, even if they do not accept the whole.
Before the cry of un-P.C. terror goes up, let us not
forget that metal is a post-moral genre and so has no
qualms about the methods of the Nazis, only questions
about the ultimate effectiveness. There are also many who
appreciate the Nazis but as a scientific preference would
have used other methods for similar but not exact goals.
"And if we ask who was responsible for our misfortune,
then we must inquire who profited by our collapse. And the
answer to that question is the "Banks and Stock Exchanges
are more flourishing than ever before." We are not
fighting Jewish or Christian capitalism, we are fighting
every capitalism: we are making the people completely
free."
- Adolph Hitler, offergrup...@reichstag.de
1.2.4 christianity
Metal and Christianity are in direct opposition; metal is
the lawless, romantic, free and spiritually personal
existence that Christianity fights with a material God
ensconced in a symbol so absolute that any chaos or chance
can be attributed to him. Where metal expands,
Christianity collapses. And shall we not forget the
"occult" leanings that distinguished Black Sabbath from
the beginning as they were looking for alternatives to
Judeo-Christian commercialist society.
1.2.5 suicide/slayer lyrics?
This is forthcoming as soon as someone can show us a
definitive connection between lyrics/music and suicide; I
believe there is an incidental connection in that
teenagers especially use music to define "mood" that
resonates with their socioemotional representation of life
at that moment in time. Hence, sometimes the right
soundtrack must be chosen and Slayer is a reasonable bet.
However, it is useful to analyze the lyrics of Slayer to
examine this supposed "suicide-inducing Satanism" of which
media trumpets and social bores have made quite a
celebration of resentment. For this purpose, the nihilism
of Slayer's lyrics is reproduced here to demonstrate its
logicality and statement of critique of modern society:
Fear runs wild in the veins of the world
The hate turns the skies jet black
Death is assured in future plans
Why live if there's nothing there
Spectors of doom await the moment
The mallet is sure and precise
Cover the crypts of all makind
With cloven hoof begone
Chorus:
Sadistic Minds
Delay the Death
Of twisted life
Malicious world
The crippled youth try in dismay
To sabotage the carcass earth
All new life must perish below
Existence now is futile
...
Convulsions take the world in hand
Paralysis destroys
Nobody's out there to save us
Brutal seizure now we die.
Where a killing is an act, art is a pretend act, or an
articulation of the significance of that act - without the
act itself necessarily occurring. In an artistic view of
the world, all events and ideas have significance in some
part of a large and varied reality.
Slayer here express both an emotion and a diagnosis of
modern times, speaking ultimately fatalistic depression
and the social projection involved with the onset of
failure. "Nobody's out there to save us" is a directly
level criticism of the belief in a God who intervenes in
the world to prevent humans from experiencing the
consequence of their choices, as indicated by the previous
line, "Paralysis destroys."
The emotion of listless nihilism and a lack of hope
portrays the sickness illustrated by thinkers such as F.W.
Nietzsche, James Joyce, Bertrand Russell and Thomas
Pynchon (Pynchon also uses the term "epileptic" to refer
to the social neurosis which motivates social change
through fear).
The extrapolation of society from this work is quite
clear: "all of mankind", "crippled children", "the world",
and "humankind" are used synonymously for the human
endeavor on planet earth, unified by a belief in the
common logic referenced by the phrase "existence now is
futile," implying a previously less futile existence (from
the word "now" postmodifying the existential token) where
presumably the logical system now ruptured in "epileptic"
"seizure"s is dysfunctional. A similar view is taken in
the break from Modernism that so-called "Postmodernists"
employ: the direction of progress is no longer progress,
but regression, because we have failed to address our
inner needs.
1.2.6 black metal disputes
At this point in time, I am not aware of any ongoing
disputes in black metal except of course the constant
warfare against Christian and Jewish imitators of the
genre who preach their own sordid religion through their
propagandist songs.
1.2.7 Research list
For someone who wished to experience metal in depth
without a huge time investment, the following list of
useful albums might give them a chance to understand the
whole from a slice of its most influential.
1.2.7.1 - 1.2.7.3
See Section II, "Metal as abstract concept,"
subsection 2.1.4.
This list will be maintained at
http://www.evilmusic.com/ after July 1, 1999.
1.3 Music making
Creation of metal music is an important stage in Hessian
evolution, as it changes a deconstructor/appreciator into a
creator and thus completes the education necessary for
uebermensch process.
1.3.1 technique
Technique is the ideas for constructing events toward an
objectivized efficiency.
1.3.1.1 Blast Beats
Please see section II, subsection 2.1.5.1.
1.3.1.2 Fast strum
Please see section II, subsection 2.1.5.2.
1.3.1.3 Double bass
Please see section II, subsection 2.1.5.3.
1.3.1.4 Harmonics
Please see section II, subsection 2.1.5.4.
1.3.2 production
See our production techniques in Section III, "Metal as
physical manifestation."
1.3.3 as cultural event
Concerts as metal culture connect members of the culture
through bonding via violent but pacifistic dancing, drug
use, conversation, collective obstacle courses provided by
society, and appreciation of music and the distinctiveness
of each other. One learns more people-watching at a
Hessian event than anywhere else.
1.4 Scene inbreeding
No one is willing to declare a "sure" cause of scene
inbreeding, since it is a great argument as to why it occurs,
but one thing is for sure: after some time, scenes converge
on themselves if not kept fresh. This author blames "power"
and "monetary gain" as things which some people allow to
encourage them to hold down territory within a genre, instead
of advancing it; this disease of self-instability is usually
cured with drugs and Roky Erickson ballads.
1.4.1 closed minded
Some argue the "scene" is ruined by those who are
closed-minded and will not accept new ways of creating
music or thinking about ideas. Then again, those who are
calling themselves "open-minded" usually listen to bands
that are mostly the same old trash with a flute player,
female vocalist, and keyboardist added to blast out trendy
aesthetic touches. One thing is clear: too much
consistency in expectation can ruin a "scene."
Often overhead: "you're just closed minded, you won't
accept this new aesthetic variant"
1.4.2 too serious
Some argue that the music should not be taken too
seriously, and that it should just be in fun, and no one
should interpret anything more from the music than the
music itself. One must consider, however, the great
amount of privation and sacrifice undergone by many death
metal musicians to make and distribute their music, and
how seriously they make "artistic" and "ideological"
choices about their music, plus how many of them talk
about it in interviews. So as a scientist I would argue
that whatever can be inferred from just the music is
valid, and the rest is context - and if one truly listens
to metal, one can hear a fusion of the oldest philosophies
in history into a dark and nomadic nihilism for the
future.
Often overheard: "you're taking this too seriously... it's
just music"
1.4.3 connection to music
Art is an expression of the consciousness of an "author":
if same author values the ideological, there is a
connection in the consciousness between these theories,
leading to the idea that the art is indirectly influenced
but crucially related by the same idea that is behind the
author's connection to the ideology. For instance, a
fascist musician might have started both of his
explorations as an ecologist.
"Anyways it's not like all artists have completely
admirable qualities about them. If we were to nitpick
about everything we didn't like about artists, nobody
would be able to appreciate art of any kind."
- Philip Wang, mal...@timewarp.net
1.5 Frequently Overheard Questions
These are publically heard or sampled questions people have
been frequently asking about the general topic of metal, with
an emphasis on the recurring items. A random but healthy
measurement.
1.5.1.1 Recently heard Questions
Sampling data from three major sources, USENET postings,
conversation overheard at record stores, and world-wide
Hessian email measurement, a generality at best was
consolidated.
1.5.1.1.1 emperor/enslaved tracks
Q: Can someone refresh me as to what the deal is with
the Enslaved half of the "Hordanes Land" split? They
only have three tracks, but seven are listed. Were they
indexed incorrectly or are the last four just missing?
I've got the red Century Media version, if that makes a
difference.
5.Slaget I Skogen Bortenfor
6.Allfadr Odinn
7.Balfor
the rest is just a fucked up listing of the various
'parts' of the songs.
- S.J.He...@lr.tudelft.nl
N.B.: Both the Century Media version (red/black) and
the Candlelight version (black) of this album contain
the error.
1.5.1.1.2 swedish distortion
I have always loved the Sweed death metal guitar sound
above all. Maxing the highs and lows on an old BOSS
"Heavy Metal" gets that heavy Entombed "Left Hand Path"
sound. Put the Level and Distortion each at half, then
just adjust your EQ's in your amp accordingly. You are
more likely to find a BOSS "Heavy Metal" at a pawn shop
or something of that sort, seeing as how BOSS
discontinued them a couple years ago...
- Gary (Morgion)
i seem to remember somebody said they used a small
Marshal 50W combo for that album. Also, last i bought a
dist box, the recommended one was Boss distortion II (i
_think_, anyway it's the orange one).
But that could never beat a custom rebuilt marshal
(rewire the preamp to get one distorted and one clean
channel, need not be that expensive).
Guitar mics are important too, i still admire the
Duncan Seymore "Invader" mics that someone persuaded me
to buy (and with that cool a product name, how could
they go wrong). Now these are oldish wisdoms, but if
you go to the store and drop that kind of talk, they
might at least tell you something useful besides the
sales pitch...
Check out the Meshuggah paper at
http://www.notam.uio.no/~espenth/mesh/ under "Sound"
etc.
- Rasmus (Comecon)
1.5.1.1.3 blast beats
Please see Section II, subsection 2.1.5.
1.5.1.1.4 discographies
For the most detailed and up to date discography, you
probably want to visit the homepage of the band or the
label. The following are indexes to those which
through multiple reference points will get you what you
need.
Listings of bands and labels
The part of this FAQ which was once here is,
expanded, at the Dark Legions Archive.
Dark Legions Archive links
http://www.anus.com/metal/links.html
Release databases
http://www.cs.uit.no/Music/
Mind on Music contains tracklistings and reader
reviews of many Scandinavian metal bands.
http://acses.com/
ACSES.COM provides price comparisons by different
vendors.
http://www.ubl.org/
The Ultimate Band List has entries for many metal
bands.
http://huizen.dds.nl/~pax/releases.html
Lists current metal releases and upcoming output
by band and month.
1.5.1.1.5 current prison totals
At the time of this writing, here are the current jail
totals for metal musicians:
Varg Vikernes 21 years Bergen, NO
"Faust" 15 years Oslo, NO
1.5.1.1.6 origin of name "heavy metal"
But Joe said that the name Heavy Metal had been used by
Steppenwolf in the '60s in "Born to Be Wild":
I like smoke and lightning
Heavy Metal thunder
Racing with wind
And the feeling that I'm under
- from "A Heavy Metal FAQ,"
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Club/3376/metalfaq.ht
ml
email:gra...@geocities.com
The term "heavy metal" was used to describe mass
technological destruction to the point of biological
toxicity in William S Burrough's book "Nova Express,"
published in 1964. He may have also used it in "Naked
Lunch," 1959.
1.5.2 "intellectuals"
See section II, an abstract concept view of metal, for
more information.
"You may notice that various affiliations of some of the
bands are listed. This is because some people may think
that Nazis are nasty people and don't want to accidentally
buy their albums, or that Church of Satan members are
wimps, a disgrace to the scene, and should be brutally
sodomized."
- Thomas Wolmer, d90...@nada.kth.se
1.5.3 totally granular
These are questions from beyond the abyss of coordination,
organization or necessary coherence. In some strange way,
these random shots struck us as profoundly reflective of
the confusion the genre causes.
1.5.3.1 drinking blood
When drinking blood, be sure to have it chilled, or
else it will curdle (clump up and become nauseating).
It is recommended that you verify the blood is from
meat for human consumption (or, of course, DIY).
1.5.3.2 fire-breathing
The useful thing I can say here is that if you are
breathing fire by blowing a highly flammable liquid
over open flame, ready yourself NOT to inhale no matter
what happens - get away from the flame first.
Otherwise, you will fry your lungs and die in a brief
paroxysm of intense pain followed by helpless
suffocation.
1.5.3.3 sodomy
Sodomy is most commonly legally defined as any contact
between the genitals of one person, and the mouth or
anus of another. The word has its origins in Biblical
Christianity. It is sometimes used to mean sexual
deviation, though in legal contexts it is defined as
above. Throughout history, "sodomites," mostly male
homosexuals and bestialists, have been punished by a
largely theocratically controlled government, in hopes
of stamping out "ungodly practices" that might bring
divine retribution against Judeo-Christian society
- From www.gai.com
1.6 About this FAQ?
Brief authorship information about those who created this
FAQ, their origins, beliefs and other projects.
1.6.1 authorship
The staff of the Amerikan Nihilist Underground Society and
the Hessian Studies Center contributed extensively to this
FAQ. Most written by Spinoza Ray Prozak, formerly a DJ at
KSPC FM (88.7) in the eastern Los Angeles basin, and now a
free-lance metalurgist working for KCUF radio.
For contact, corrections or additions, please email
h...@anus.com.
1.6.2 contributorship
The position of contributor is shared with a constant
stream of references to USENET or email list postings from
talented individuals worldwide. If we use your text,
attribution will be given including your name and a cite
to the publishing of the original work.
1.6.3 design
Design and contents copyright 1994-1999 Spinoza Ray Prozak
and the Hessian Studies Center.
1.6.4 affiliated sites
The staff that produced this FAQ are involved with a
variety of sites:
http://www.anus.com/metal/
Master philosophical metal reviews, history, info,
pictures and sound.
http://www.evilmusic.com/
Quick reviews and often longer text about current
metal, hardcore, and noise/darkwave releases.
http://www.kcuf.org/
One of the last radio stations to play metal with
balls - now on the net!
http://www.blackplague.org/
To see the dark side of humanity.
-------
Part II :: Metal as concept
-------
Summary:
- Metal music arose from a fusion of jazz and rock with influences
from classical theory, producing a music which gradually evolved
into several complex postmodern styles which emphasizing an
existential but nihilistic view of reality, civilization, and the
"limits" of human consciousness.
- Metal culture is a process of distancing oneself from the basic
perceptual errors inherent to the thinking that has produced human
history and society, implementing self-reliance, a self-awareness,
and consciousness of the values of enjoyment and even hedonism as a
mode of expressing oneself in being.
- Metal formed from a basic idea of a straightforward disbelief in
inherent value to existence or society, and from there examined
taboos of thought throughout history as a method of exploring fear
and despair, leading to an adoption of nihilism as an intellectual
technique for clear perception, and from there creating an ability
to understand structure independent from its
circumstance/appearance which eventually developed into a method of
understanding the motion of information and chaos around us as a
method of understanding mysticism.
- The musical influence of metal, and the influence of metal
culture on aesthetics, are indicators of an injection of idea into
the mainstream of world culture at least on a subconscious level,
where the symbology, aesthetic and communicative nature of
structure as metaphor of metal as art take effect.
{ II. Metal as concept
I. Music
II. Culture
III. Ideas
IV. Applicability }
2.1 What is metal music?
Metal music comes from a world-wide subculture which values
nihilistic post-moral orders as a way for humans to approach
understanding our existence as independent thinking beings
constrained by reality. Metal as a collective system of thought
believes in the individual, the inherent worthlessness of material
things, the value and inspiration of fantasy and imagination, the
intensity of creation, the power of destruction, and the
soul-sickening descent of value that is sensuality and hedonism.
It is what one might call a dentological decision tree, in that all
motivations are driven by existential value to the experience in
the context of the existence, and so absolutes are generated on
several levels by shared intelligence.
Over three decades and four generations of world marketplace
culture metal music - from heavy metal to the intermediate states
of speed metal, early hardcore-deathmetal, and an early evolution
of heavy-metal-based blackmetal, to the moderns, such as the
abstract incarnations of death metal and black metal, ambient
metal, and progressive chromatic death metal alongside ambient
grindcore - metal music has held forth a philosophy of parallel
human interpretations of reality which involves no authority or
control for a variety of fundamental reasons:
1 authority does not carry interpretation or question (boring)
2 chaos is a sensible, perpetuative state for carrier of the
metal virus;
3 metal fosters creation and recreation in a world which will
always tend toward stagnation if direction is not taken;
4 it will free us from the barriers we rapidly create to
insulate ourselves from the fear of decision;
5 it demystifies decision into a logical system of understanding
and contributing to natural process and growth.
6 metal as a culture provides an understanding for many of the
existential questions, and an expression for romanticism in a
world afraid of it, which is beautiful for what it is: the quest
for beauty, sometimes the quest for purity. (SODOMIZE VIRGIN)
Metal is a genre of music which refuses to compromise the inherent
nihilism of life as it seeks more romanticist outpourings of
emotion and ideal. Coming from the underground the music is
closely joined to intensely alienated social values but translates
this dissent into a non-political yet unwaveringly steadfast
metaphorical resistance to mainstream thought process.
A form of music based in the theory of classical music and the
rhythm and format of blues-based rock, heavy metal emerged as a
form of popular music in 1969 and has undergone various changes
since, mutating as it evolves into what it always has been. With
its extremist minimalism supported by its aesthetic of violence and
destruction metal loses many popular music fans, which contributes
alternatively to its evolution in minimalist rawness and to its
progressive nature bringing forth more complex structures.
Metal culture, or Hessian culture, involves loud heavy metal music
made in the postmodern interpretation of classical music and rock n
roll arrangement, creating a disturbing noise and profound motion
in its practice and social implications. Author Kurt Vonnegut
likens the role of an artist to society as the role of the canaries
miners brought into the coal tunnels to warn for the presence of
gas: when the birdsong changes or stops, death is near. At the end
of the twentieth century, as we suffocate in the meaninglessness of
the social machine we have made, metal and punk music are striking
alarms of misery and fear hidden beneath the commercially-viable
good assurances which have more than once prompted the adage, "Talk
is cheap."
2.1.1 Sound of metal?
Metal music may utilize any collection of aspects including
but not limited to the selection below.
Downtuned - quite often, lower or more dissonant tunings and
fingerings are used for a physical presence to the music.
Convergent rhythms - metal bands tend to use rhythmic
structures which target themselves for reduction by
deconstruction of similar patterns to dominant themes.
Tone centric - as part of the directedness and rootedness
that makes music "heavy" in one school of the idea, a
coherent and direct identification of a root tone is present
in music that often refuses to change keys in the rock sense,
moving tones in a referentialism closer to
"classical" music than popular tunes.
Abstract - because its nature is tone-heavy its expression
is an extremist structuralism, where the relevance of a
sequence of melodies and polyrhythmic constructions defines
part of an inner structure with relevance to an external
meaning.
Minimalist - as the industrial age expanded itself into a
flattening, technological existence took over and prompted
a simplicity expressed in rock n roll which attempts to
remove paradox from the communication.
Reactions many people have: angry, scary, depressing,
violent, upsetting, disturbing, morbid, sadistic.
2.1.2 Theory
Music "theory" is a language of describing the shared
process of the communication that is art and how we as
individuals are able to speak to the whole of intelligent
beings by addressing the common interpretations we must
make, as thinking machines, to inference our own existence
in a chaotic world. In metal, there are numerous instances
of theory, many of which are expressions of an underlying
philosophical evolution.
Technique --> Structure
Technique, which normally serves to embellish, became
under metal the science of structure, with any number
of strumming and picking techniques developed by metal
musicians. Heavy metal worked through the austerity of
power chords and a jazzlike rhythm to a deeply chaotic and
abstract blues. Speed metal used muted-palm picking to
create a mechanical, grinding sound, where death metal
bands began to use a flutterstrum which would turn a chord
into a stream of undulating sound with a massive tremelo
effect, building a powerful tool for ambient melody.
Melody --> Harmony
Harmony in metal is used to unify a number of melodies
to a sequence of tone centers which represent the parts of
the idea being manipulated by the song. The riffs which
metal bands use are structuralistic in that they describe
rather than categorize, by the nature of their wandering
phrases which use structural similarity for coherence
rather than tonal unison. Where harmony serves to
preformat a range of emotions for rock bands, in metal,
melody drives harmony, letting the composer take the music
into whatever direction he/she desires by dynamically
associating tone centers with contrapuntal arrangements,
layering strips of reference to narrative and joining them
with harmonies.
Tonality --> Dynamicism
The major element of metal's evolution is a progression in
tonality from the blues-rock extrapolationist grab bag to
the chromatic, dark and almost mystically nihilistic tone
patterns of death and black metal. The ability to change
from a fixed-tonal system to a system which, like the
Doppler effect, is based on proximity and speed to
establish a current point of reference, provides for a
basis of composition which is more specialized for
systemic expression than for linear expression. This is
similar to the postmodern novels of James Joyce and
William S Burroughs, where a series of divergent threads
unified unspoken topics indicated by metaphorical
assonance with consensual reality experience.
Chaotic music
Many will say metal is "chaotic" meaning "there's a
lot of noise," but to others this indicates that its
composition involves specialized structures for what
the song is trying to express, instead of variants
on working general-purpose structures (Verse/Chorus).
Heisenbergian Chaos
The discoveries of Heisenberg indicated that
one could not observe a wave/particle
interaction without influencing its outcome
by presence as a chaotic attractor. This in
turn indicates a systemic awareness, in that
if moving elements closer together means they
reflect an attraction, the grouping of items
in life itself suggests a series of attractors
extending beyond the organism to its
environment. If there is a level at which
we are contrainfluential, as Heisenberg
suggests, then there is some level of
abstraction in which every particle is
connected to every other, and thus that the
thing that is life works as a whole, as a large
system of connected orders.
Relativism --> Dynamicism
In metal, relativism (or: the state of
assessing relevance of events based on
their current context and not an
absolute) is used as a method of
defining objectivism; it is a strategy
of finding local relevances to compare
in order to project a placement in a
larger, complete order. As this
translates into music it becomes a more
ordered use of chaotic composition, in
which notes are picked arbitrarily and
used as the foundations of specialized
melodic systems, custom-created to express
the significance of the whole in what is
only an example.
Objectivism --> Melodic structure
Where harmonic interplay is specific to
the juncture of notes, melody allows a
structuring first by leading the music
through tonal changes and second by
gesturing toward a larger structure that
unifies the disparate changes in melody
as narrative. Metal is more melodic in
overall structure than any mainstream
music, a tradition it inherited through
speed metal's covert obsession with 70's
prog rock bands and neoclassicism. In the
era of death and black metal, this allowed
bands to dynamically allocate needed
musical structures for integration into a
narrative suggested by a metacontextual
interpretation of melody, removing the
barriers for progressivism (romantic
rationalism) and minimalism (nihilistic
structuralism) to join.
2.1.3 Genre
2.1.3.1 Proto-metal
Heavy metal arose from loud simple blues and is defined by
its primary progenitors: Black Sabbath.
Taking the rhythm of blues and jazz and using it to
underlay minimalist epic power-chord riffs, Black
Sabbath took the blues to the next step of insidious
artful subversion and glorification of the
anarchistic freedom of demonic lust. Alongside hard
rock originators Led Zeppelin the blues raised its
twisted and morally dubious head again in mainstream
rock; where Led Zeppelin augmented rock's knowledge of
harmonic structure Black Sabbath reinvented it
altogether, being in the mind of one prominent
critic "the second most important rock band to the
Beatles."
2.1.3.2 heavy metal
Some will doubt this distinction and classify Led
Zeppelin and their family of blues-form hard rock as
similarly heavy metal, but this makes no sense given
the clear compositional direction within Black
Sabbath's music: 1) more ambient beat structures
focusing less on phrase than granular looping
repetition, 2) dissonant elemental riffs with abrupt
cycles, 3) bizarre song structures and experimental
elements.
During their reign Black Sabbath built the foundation
for the harmonic essence of grunge, created a rhythmic
synchronicity in punk and rock,
and opened experimentation in noise music, ambient
beat-music, and progressive minimalism. The period
from 1969-1977 bore the most influence of
their work, a morose conclusion to the hippie rock
of the middle sixties.
Other influential music from this period: The 13th
Floor Elevators, MC5, Jimi Hendrix, Blue Cheer, the
Doors, Dick Dale, The Rolling Stones.
It is worth noting that a primary influence on Black
Sabbath was the guitar work of Django Reinhart, a jazz
player in the 1930s, who like Black Sabbath guitarist
Toni Iommi had lost the practical use of several
fingers, compensating through a reductivist attitude
toward harmony.
Heavy metal continues to this day as an artform, in
practice by endlessly recombinant commercial bands and
a series of artists who spend their time
exploring new paths for a vitally organic, earthy
and yet tech-aware genre. There are two or three
major threads:
"Black Metal"(1)
Starting with British middle-fingered madmen
VENOM in the late 1970s, this style of heavy
metal used punk work ethic to make a simple but
surprisingly dark and expressive form of
anti-life art. At first humorous, it grew toward
illustrating the obsession with
negativity that is a hallmark of postmodern
consciousness, paranoia, and drone existence in
western nations.
"Doom metal"
Slow and painful, often gothic in its
suicidal "desires", mournful music, much of which
is based in the musicality of heavy metal, will
deliver a grinding and also almost ecclesiastical
experience of morbid anarchy.
"Power metal"
The marketing department came up with this
tasty term for hopped-up heavy metal that is at
musical essence a cross between speed metal and
funk or reggae, with bouncy rhythms and
jazz-inspired double-hit percussion. Pantera,
...can someone fill in these terrible bands. The
music of power metal is based in the work of
decent heavy metal musicians as well as
atmospheric speed metal bands like Prong or
Powermad.
2.1.3.3 speed metal
As the seventies waned metal faded into a sad repetition
of the image of its glory. Excess and a lack of musical
innovation lead metal to still waters, where it drifted
into either the hair-and-makeup wailing guitar tradition
of stadium metal or the rising punk movement.
Exceptions were Iron Maiden, who brought melody and
narrative tempos to heavy metal, and Motorhead, whose
proto-punk progressive metal grated against tradition
and sensibilities with its biker graffitti narrative of
nihilism in modern culture.
These acts brought to a close the fading image of
blues-oriented rock ("heavy metal") and the rise of the
inherent progressive anti-aesthetic minimalism in bands
such as Black Sabbath, spawning separate tendencies at
once.
In reciprocation to the decay, a furious tendency toward
hardcore punk use of strumming rhythm over driving
percussion simultaneously developed alongside the melodic
and progressive intentions of the more
advanced bands of previous generations. The
counterpoint of punk -- whose violent rhythms and
anti-consonant phrasing were vanguard of
the new deconstruction of pessimism -- was the
glitter-ladencomplexity of heavy metal, complete with
classical melodies and rock virtuosity; the fusion of
these two begat speed metal, racing tempo music using
the muffled strum to form hard-edged and precision riffs
with embedded melody, emphasing _structure_ where
traditional heavy metal used shorter phrasing to
emphasize _placement_ and _tone_.
Of these rising acts Metallica (1982), sister act
Megadeth (1984), and northern cousins Exodus (1984) were
the primary disseminators of groundbreaking material.
Metallica, of special note for their use of open chords,
complex harmonics and melodic composition, began their
career in emulation of faster versions of older metal
bands. Soon acquiring musical skills and theoretical
counseling in the dual virtuoso team of Kirk Hammet (lead
guitar) and Cliff Burton (bass), Metallica grew in renown
and peaked in musical development with _Master of
Puppets_, combining the complex composition of 1970s
progressive rock bands with the thundering domination of
violent hardcore.
Burton died soon after in a tour bus accident and the band
never recovered, but soon they had spawned 1) groups of
emulators and innovators in the style of muffled-strum
epileptic-tempo speed metal and 2) other groups interested
in the possibilities of metal/hardcore fusion, so that by
1987 when they retired the metal scene had become more
extreme and more erudite almost overnight.
2.1.3.4 thrash
Before the peak of speed metal had even begun Alief, TX,
hardcore crossover band Dirty Rotten Imbeciles were busy
inventing the Sabbathified hyper-punk fusion that would
project their extreme views and emotions upon a fragile
audience.
Deliberately low-fi and abrasive, DRI's first two albums
featured an unheard of brevity (18-25 second songs) and
trenchant criticisms of modern society. This earned them
fame in both metal and hardcore scenes as they injected
needed energy into both genres.
Also of note were micro-riffing shredthrashers Corrosion
of Conformity, who blasted out several albums of curt
songs destroying social control with metaphorically
divisive structural deconstruction in a musical
inheritance from hardcore and early death metal.
Cryptic Slaughter and MDC (an acronym of varying
significances) followed with even more acerbic anthems
of distrust and anarchy; Cryptic Slaughter are
especially interesting for their basic death metal on
the latter side of 1985's _Convicted_.
Despite innovation in both genres, speed metal was
destined to collide with corporate megaculture and
thrash was to burn out its intensity as audiences
moved away from the extreme to the more commercial in both
hardcore and metal genres.
The fomenting anger of the metal scene, as well as the
increasing destruction of the planet and world
superpower fascism, prompted retaliation with the
negation of speed metal's "heavy metal" vocabulary of
consonance through the most nihilistic form of musical
expression to date: DEATH METAL.
2.1.3.5 death metal
When society seemed even more hopelessly fallen into
acceptance and worship of its own collapse, the
conventional tonality and "save the world" messages of
speed metal and its ancestor, heavy metal, became too
trite and ridiculous for the newest generations of
alienated youth.
Discarding harmony and nihilistically embracing the
chromatic scale as law, early death metal bands espoused
beliefs in the evil and orderless, the chaotic and the
painful. Their rhythmic violence and insistence upon
wildly-constructed and atonal guitar solos made them an
instant target of both critique and shameless ripoff.
The first wave of this technique, from Slayer (1982),
had its roots in the old-style metal of Judas Priest
evolved to become faster, ripping-strum styled
metal that shifted with muscle over rigid, ambient
repetitive beats.
However the second wave -- Possessed (1985), Morbid Angel
(1986), Deathstrike (1985), Rigor Mortis (1988) -- were
more obscurely and bizarrely formed from raw innovation
and chromatic scales. (It is worthy to note that Slayer's
"Reign in Blood," of 1987, is an impressive musical
definition of death metal that is often overlooked for its
lack of "growly" vocals.)
As the decade waned and humanity seemed further flung
into the pit of materialism, death metal reached toward
the progressive and explored the extremes of melody (At
the Gates), ambience (Obituary), percussion
(Suffocation), atonality (Deicide), and microtonal music
(Atheist). Simultaneously however the bulk of death metal
shifted toward a more percussive and chromatic style,
composing their material visually from power chord forms
along the bottom three strings of the guitar.
By 1992 the peak had been reached, and afterwards
soundalikeness pervaded all but the most
individually-conceived bands. The overuse of death
metal's nihilistic inventions -- chromatic open phrasing
and chaotic soloing -- had made that genre, like hardcore
punk a decade before, the anti-commercial musical
breakdown that in the end made it easier for ripoffs to
dress up rock n roll in new production values to create a
new product flow to meet a genre-identified need.
In addition, a horrible trendy underground had developed
around the idea of righteousness and moral good;
consequently, they bankrupted death metal's ideals by
conforming to mainstream expectations, and their music led
itself back toward the dogmatic, tendentious, and most of
all judgmental system of scales and harmonies.
Back into the blues, there was suddenly a clear peak --
significance and value -- arbitrarily imposed by scale
structures that truncated the value of the music and made
its ability for chaos limited to aesthetics only. A
fatalism had invaded metal, once again; that which plays
with the aesthetic of power must serve its time in the
hell of that paradox.
2.1.3.6 black metal(2)
As if to rectify this stagnation another form of metal
arising through the same channels of heritage began to
spread its wings and develop its raw essence --
ambience, melody, and stark nihilistic structuralism -- as
it came closer to underground consciousness. The first of
these bands were Hellhammer (1984) and Bathory (1985),
with the former playing slower sensually rhythmic
material while the latter banged
out mutating riffs over strict simplistic ambient
drum-machine percussion.
Where death metal went for logical appeals black metal
presupposed the end of the world and celebrated
decadence, destruction, agony and morbid emotion as a
means of exploiting the social climate to its own
revelation. The melodramatic, overstaged and ludicrous
"evil" presence of these figures drew attention to their
mythological interpretation of the coming -- or perhaps
ongoing -- apocalypse.
2.1.3.7 grindcore
An important genetic component of death metal, grindcore
arose from the ashes of hardcore and thrash as the
alienated punk-rockers and sociopathic metalheads of the
world sought something more extreme, more evocative of the
discompatibility they felt as a process of soul.
With the rise of Napalm Death (1985) and Carcass (1987) in
England the genre was well-founded as an
alternatingly slower or faster version of punk, with bar
chords colliding at high speed outside of the blasting
furnace of rhythm. Deliberately dissynchronized timing,
detuned instruments and guttural distorted howls of vocal
brought this genre to the attention of death metal heads
who appropriated vocal and tuning habits, and to
the innovative mind of Napalm Death-founder Justin
Broadrick who made "industrial grindcore" with 1988's
_Streetcleaner_ and immediately created a detour
for angry metalheads and industrialites and punkers to
make crossover music that was as unfriendly as
industrial sounds like it should be.
In 1994, Napalm Death's "Fear, Emptiness, Despair"
sounded almost the last note for grindcore as its course
of innovation started to veer from the minimalistic to
abrasively coarse and simple, death metal-like music with
complex jazz-y rhythms.
Grindcore, like hardcore, thrash, speed metal and early
forms of death metal, continues to this day, but most
innovation remains at the aesthetic level and the
original thrust has been lost.
2.1.3.8 ambient metal
2.1.3.8.1 question of existence
The question with ambient metal whether it is a
style or a subgenre rests in the conclusion to the
query: does the music employ a new form of composition?
Technique is not entirely new, but in new places,
and the new way of writing music is so desolate and
empty yet beautiful for that same ultimate potential
that one is inspired to say: yes, it is a
differentiation of the form of art.
2.1.3.8.2 members of genre
There is overlap with other genres but suggested
acts to check out are: Gorguts, Burzum, Graveland,
Immortal, Demilich, Slayer, Behemoth, Hellhammer,
Darkthrone and Cadaver for an understanding of how
this tradition manifests itself in metal.
2.1.3.8.3 related genres
Noise - K.K. Null, Merzbow
Hardcore - EyeHateGod, Discharge
Psychedelia - 13th Floor Elevators - Pink Floyd
Prog - Yes, King Crimson, Camel, Genesis
"Classical" - Stravinsky, Bach
Jazz - Django Rheinart, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra
2.1.3.9 styles and crossovers
2.1.3.9.1 doom
"Doom metal" does not merit a separate genre because it
is one of two things: 1) very slow heavy metal or 2)
very slow death metal. Although its ideology is more
gothic and its aesthetic morbid, no significant changes
have been wrought from inventors Black Sabbath (1969)
and the doom work on Morbid Angel's _Blessed Are the
Sick_ 1991.
Of note: St. Vitus, Winter, Cianide, Skepticism, early
Cathedral.
2.1.3.9.2 industrial
"Industrial" as used in the record industry denotes a
reliance on electronic beat equipment and often digital
sounds. However, it does not govern the music
underneath, which is almost always rock or heavy metal
in essence.
The exception being Godflesh, whose innovation prompted
mainstream acts Ministry (1989) and Nine Inch Nails
(1991) toward their more commercial rock-industrial
terror dance music.
2.1.3.9.3 black metal (1)
"Black metal" as a term was invented by Venom, who with
simpler but more violent and "evil" melodramatic
versions of the heavy metal radio hits they heard,
crafted an image which would be filled in the next
generation with bands like Hellhammer, Bathory, Celtic
Frost and Sepultura.
2.1.3.9.4 power metal
Heavy metal stadium rock dramatic extravagance coupled
with the bouncier, violent rhythms of speed metal and
especially speed/funk hybrids Suicidal Tendencies and
the Infectious Grooves, together with a more
testosterone attitude, makes a commercially viable
genre: power metal. The Pantera variant described
above is the main divergence from the pure hybrid,
which is
often in the form of technically-powerful and
rhythmically precise heavy metal, in a style opened up
perhaps by Helstar or Psychotic Waltz or Mekong Delta
while most other bands were getting into the
deconstructed aesthetic of death metal.
2.1.3.9.5 speed/death crossover
After the appearance in 1985 of Slayer's "Hell Awaits,"
Possessed's "Seven Churches," Sepultura's "Morbid
Visions," Deathstrike's "Fuckin' Death" and the second
round of Morbid Angel demos, death metal had
established itself as the next most extreme translation
of the metal idea.
Simultaneously in Germany, a movement to combine
speed metal ideals with a more abstract and logical,
dark sequence of tones took hold in the form of bands
such as Kreator and Destruction, who put together
deathy speed metal, or intense hardcore-inspired
extremists like Sodom who built three-chord high-speed
songs to accustom an audience to enjoying a fast and
violent melody.
2.1.4 Research List
The following lists present a perpetually incomplete listing
of important metal, added as we become aware of it.
Suggestions always welcome, but it's only fair to warn you
that our mailer filters from our secret list, "The Most Banal
Pointless Metal Music To Outsell Everything Else By Year."
2.1.4.1 historically important albums
Heavy metal
Black Sabbath - Vol. IV
Judas Priest - Sad Wings of Destiny
Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind
Helstar - Nosferatu
Heavy metal/punk hybrid
Motorhead - Orgasmatron
Speed Metal
Metallica - Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets
Megadeth - Rust in Peace, Peace Sells...But Who's
Buying?
Testament - The Legacy, The New Order
Exodus - Bonded by Blood
Prong - Beg to Differ
Thrash
Dirty Rotten Imbeciles - Dirty Rotten LP/CD, Dealing
With It
Cryptic Slaughter - Money Talks, Convicted
Corrosion of Conformity - Eye for an Eye
Suicidal Tendencies - Suicidal Tendencies
Death Metal
Slayer - Hell Awaits, Reign in Blood
Possessed - Seven Churches
Master - Master, Deathstrike
Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness, Blessed Are the
Sick, Covenant
Death - Scream Bloody Gore, Human
Suffocation - Effigy of the Forgotten
Cryptic Slaughter - Convicted
Sepultura - Morbid Visions/Bestial Devastation
Black Metal
Hellhammer - Apocalyptic Raids
Bathory - The Return
Sarcofago - I.N.R.I. (spec "The Black Vomit")
Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
Burzum - Feeble Screams, Det Som Engang Var
Immortal - Diabolical Full Moon Mysticism, Pure
Holocaust
Darkthrone - Under a Funeral Moon
Varathron - His Majesty in the Swamp
Gorgoroth - Pentagram, AntiChrist
Havohej - Dethrone the Son of God
Impaled Nazarene - Ugra-Karma
Sacramentum - Far Away From the Sun
Emperor - Wrath of the Tyrant (not CM version)
Summoning - Minas Morgul
Grindcore
Carcass - Symphonies of Sickness, Reek of
Putrefaction
Repulsion - Horrified
Carbonized - For the Security
Napalm Death - Scum
Extreme Noise Terror - Peel Sessions
This list will be mainted at http://www.anus.com/metal/
after July 1, 1999.
This information will be published with the A.N.U.S. site
update of July 1, 1999.
2.1.4.2 essential picks
This is the stuff that absolutely rocks, in addition to
the list above. Do not miss, folks.
Heavy Metal
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
St. Vitus - Mournful Cries
Judas Priest - Painkiller
"Doom metal"
St. Vitus - Mournful Cries (best old school)
Winter - Into Darkness (best death/doom)
Cathedral - Soul Sacrifice, Forest of Equilibrium
Speed Metal
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Prong - Beg to Differ
Testament - The New Order
Nuclear Assault - Game Over
"Speed/Death Crossover"
Rigor Mortis - Freaks
Kreator - Endless Pain, Pleasure to Kill
Destruction - Infernal Overkill, Eternal Devastation
Sepultura - Beneath the Remains
Death Metal
Morbid Angel - Blessed Are the Sick
Atheist - Unquestionable Presence
Entombed - Left Hand Path
Suffocation - Pierced From Within
Therion - Beyond Sanctorum
Death - Human
Dismember - Like an Ever-Flowing Stream...
Unleashed - Shadows in the Deep
Black Metal
Celtic Frost - To Mega Therion
Emperor - In the Nightside Eclipse
Graveland - The Celtic Winter
Burzum - Hvis Lyset Tar Oss
Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
Gorgoroth's Antichrist
Varathron - His Majesty at the Swamp
Immortal - Battles in the North
Sacramentum - Finis Malorum
Emperor - Wrath of the Tyrant, Emperor
Enslaved - Frost, "Hordanes Land"
Ambient
Ildjarn - Forest Poetry
Immortal - Pure Holocaust
Burzum - Filosofem, Hlidskjalf
This list will be mainted at http://www.anus.com/metal/
after July 1, 1999.
This information will be published with the A.N.U.S. site
update of July 1, 1999.
2.1.4.3 author's picks
Heavy Metal
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Iron Maiden - Killers
Speed Metal
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Megadeth - Rust in Peace
Prong - Beg to Differ
Thrash
Dirty Rotten Imbeciles - Dealing With It
Cryptic Slaughter - Money Talks
Corrosion of Conforminty - Eye for An Eye
DBC - Universe
dead horse - HORSECORE: AN UNRELATED STORY THAT'S
TIME CONSUMING
Death Metal
Master - Master
Morbid Angel - Blessed Are the Sick
Suffocation - Pierced From Within
Atheist - Unquestionable Presence
Demilich - Nespithe
Amorphis - The Karelian Isthmus
Dismember - Like an Ever-Flowing Stream
Unleashed - Where No Life Dwells
Slayer - Reign In Blood
Pestilence - Spheres
Seance - Saltrubbed Eyes
At the Gates - The Red in the Sky is Ours
Monstrosity - Imperial Doom
Sepultura - Morbid Visions/Bestial Devastation
Pestilence - Spheres
Cynic - Focus
Death - Human, Scream Bloody Gore, Leprosy
Monstrosity - Imperial Doom, In Dark Purity
Dismember - Like an Ever-Flowing Stream...
Unleashed - Shadows in the Deep
Therion - Beyond Sanctorum
Unanimated - In The Forest of the Dreaming Dead
Black Metal
Hellhammer - Apocalyptic Raids
Darkthrone - Under a Funeral Moon
Bathory - Blood, Fire, Death
Blasphemy - Gods of War
Immortal - Pure Holocaust
Belial - Wisdom of Darkness
Beherit - Drawing Down the Moon
Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
Havohej - Dethrone the Son of God
Burzum - Det Som Engang Var, Daudi Baldrs
Gorgoroth - Pentagram
Emperor/Enslaved - Hordanes Land
Enslaved - Vikinglr Veldi
Varathron/Necromantia split
Rotting Christ - Thy Mighty Contract
Ancient - Svartlvheim
Sacramentum - Far Away From the Sun
Dissection - The Somberlain
Ambient metal
Burzum - Hvis Lyset Tar Oss/Filosofem
Immortal - Pure Holocaust
Darkthrone - Transylvanian Hunger
This list will be mainted at http://www.anus.com/metal/
after July 1, 1999.
This information will be published with the A.N.U.S. site
update of July 1, 1999.
2.1.5 Technique
2.1.5.1 Blast Beats
Blast beats are the torrents of alternating snare and
bass which increase the speed of death metal at the
point of retribution. Some words on blast beats:
Most drummers play blast beats as bass/snare/bass/snare
etc. really fast, while hitting a hi-hat or a ride on the
bass drum. From a blast beat "purist asshole" point of
view it should be done with one foot. If your right foot
isn't fast enough then keep practicing. Double bass should
only be used when the bass is supposed to go twice as fast
as the snare. If you are just alternating bass/snare
bass/snare it should be with one foot. If you can master
it with one foot it sounds way more brutal than with
double bass (I don't know why, but it does). It's
analogous to the way alternate-picking a 'chug' riff
sounds way weaker than all-downstrokes. That's just the
way metal is.
- jma...@zoomtel.com/m_c...@geocities.com
The snare usually came down on 2 and 4 or on all the
offbeats. I've read (I can't tell, it just feels
different) Pete Sandoval sometimes blasts leading with the
bass drum, but when he does it, the snare hits twice every
beat.
It's like this:
B = Bass
S = Snare
Dave:
1 2 3 4
BBSBBBSBBBSBBBSB
Pete (I think he does this):
1 2 3 4
BSBSBSBSBSBSBSBS
im pretty sure it's like this:
1 2 3 4
S S S S S S S S
BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB
Right. Most drummers blast on the downbeat. But sometimes
it sounds like Pete Sandoval leads with the bass.
- Lord Vic, m_c...@geocities.com
2.1.5.2 Fast Strum
This technique involving whipping your pick lightly across
the bottom three strings of the guitar (mostly) for power
chord tremelo action that, with the influence of the
distortion, creates enough tremelo for an
atmospheric/melodic effect.
Fast strumming was a technique innovated first by Slayer
and then perfected by Morbid Angel and others who made a
sizzling tremelo technique out of what once was just
playing faster. After a couple generations in the genre,
the style is advanced enough that it can be used to
carefully encode polyrhythmic data within a dominant
rhythm, and is often used as foreshadowing by metal
guitarists. Some ideas for how to do it:
- use the wrist, and not the forearm
- allow sparse motion in a whipping rhythm
- dip the pick lightly against strings
- move pick in circles for single-note strumming
"Everything just kind of flows along. Sure, they used a
lot of asymmetric time signatures (5/4, 7/4 etc.) but the
note values don't vary so you can have 20 seconds of
tremelo picked quarter- and half-notes at times."
- RWTodd, rwt...@aol.com
2.1.5.3 Double Bass
Death metal percussionists often add a strict machinism to
their work with the alternating full bass hits of
oppositional kick drums, creating an undulating wall of
sound that conditions listeners to act out the diabolical
bidding of the bands and their master, Satan.
"actually louie bellson is credited with being the first
drummer to put 2 basses togetther,his solo stuff is
awesome but his stuff with big band and jazz artists is
lame. and what I mean by that is him playing by himself no
other instrument. ginger baker from cream also used dbl
bass nick mason from pink floyd uses dbl bass lots of old
psychadelic bands used it. it's been around for quite a
while"
- Steven PATRICK
2.1.5.4 Harmonics
Pitch harmonics - playing a note that is one of the
integral harmonic properties of the string - create an
eerie unfinished yet definitive sound, producing a
disturbing morbidity to their use in death metal (see
Immolation, Morbid Angel, Incantation, Gorguts).
2.2 Culture
Metal culture is what keeps the music from becoming like
everything else that's in the consumer market - products.
Products want to do something so visibly, it is entirely
distinctive, while not doing anything beyond the norm so there
are no objections to purchase.
Culture keeps spirit alive by serving as an interpretive
landmark of existential questions, delivering to the interpreter
a sense of combining the metaphor of the art with the catalogue
of past experiences in life that might be relevant.
In metal, our culture is not to make music for people who want
entertainment; our culture is to make epic and powerful things
out of the forces and remnants of destruction. There's a reason
for everything we do.
2.2.1 Meaningful Post-Rebellion
One function of metal culture is to provide some sense to
post-rebellion use of consciousness as an interpretive
guide to reality. To get into what we do, they must fall
- from the Heaven of oblivious iconistic belief - and
accept what will come next, which is the transition to
nihilism.
Crossing the void occurs not just in a philosophical
sense, but in a proto-adulthood state also, where it is
the question of what to do after the shaped existence of
childhood is replaced with the patterned survival of an
adult, all while the clock of mortality races through its
orbit. In this sense, metal is a mirror of what the self
faces and observes the self reacting to in a modern
existence after the twilight of the kingpin of
idols/ikons, "God."
"That depends on how you see Utopia. In a sense, an ideal
society would be a static society, and any such society is
an evolutionary dead end. Happiness is a byproduct of
function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness
for itself seek victory without war." - William S
Burroughs
2.2.1.1 Culture has caught up with rebellion
Mainstream culture long ago appropriated rebellion as
its source of "cool", by replacing the values of the
previous generation with a new lessening of
restriction.
From James Dean to Jeff Spicoli, our heroes went from
being people of action to coalescing into ultimate
introverts who issue a complaint and then reject it
all, but with no idea, fluster and collapse into the
same morass of pessimistic conservatism which hides the
fears of the rest of the herd.
Metal is about a rebellion which comes from a
disagreement, less of a complaint than a challenge and
a rebuke, as it was when the metaphorical Satan looked
toward God and rejected Heaven's law for a freedom he
could not explain, but felt a thirst toward - an escape
from the fixed behavior of holiness to the random and
dynamic possibilities of an unformed land - Hell!
"In his book-length essay The Conquest of Cool,
Thomas Frank explores the ways in which Madison
Avenue co-opted the language of youthful '60s
rebellion. It is "the story," Frank writes, "of the
bohemian cultural style's trajectory from
adversarial to hegemonic; the story of hip's
mutation from native language of the alienated to
that of advertising." This appropriation had
wide-ranging consequences that deeply transformed
our culture--consequences that linger in the form of
'90s "hip consumerism." (Think of Nike using the
song "Revolution" to sell sneakers, or Coca-Cola
using replicas of Ken Kesey's bus to peddle
Fruitopia.) "
- book review on amazon.com of Thomas Frank's
"The Conquest of Cool : Business Culture,
Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism"
Metal does not wish to fall into the pit of becoming
another "fad" which is hyped-up, sold out, and then
worn into the ground as it is rehashed and overhyped.
This is the way of the transient. Metal is about
finding lasting value in nothingness and one's own
creativity together - not in fads, meaningless
indulgences, mindless "entertainment" or other forms of
life-denial.
2.2.1.2 Inversion of values in media hipness
Media hippies are public-identity characters that are
composed from statistical reasoning to reach the
broadest band of people who could project their
insecurities into an avatar of that character and in
that identification, become loyal consumers following
the instructions in the ads that came with that show.
Marilyn Manson, Korn, Pantera, "new" Metallica, Motley
Crue, Ani DiFranco, Rage Against the Machine, Cannibal
Corpse, Dimmu Borgir, Cradle of Filth, Dark Funeral and
Marduk provide this same function - these are "sold
out" bands who move their music not with an internal
drive to express but with a desire for the material
reward they
get in exchange for experience, including the
experience itself.
Metal believes in an inversion of the inversion of
values which constitutes the media hipness, meaning
that values had to be taken to a greater complexity of
abstraction, as they are in lyrics such as Slayer,
Morbid Angel, Burzum, Gorguts or Death.
2.2.1.3 Metal rebels against the reason why there are
things to rebel against
Many genres feature bands which find something to rebel
against and fight it, hard. Metal rebels against the
need to rebel by taking a metaphorical look at the
process of power, in a method similar to William S
Burroughs' "Naked Lunch."
The metaphors of killing, death, destruction, sodomy,
infection, possession, suicide, hate, violence, and
necrophagia/coprophagia found in the songs and imagery
of metal music are not meant as literal objects but
implications that they are everyday objects - denied
objects - which confronts the listener with a more
morbid fate than nightmare, reality as a neutralized
dream.
2.2.1.4 And by understanding destruction, is aware of
creation
Destruction is the force that clears the way for
creation, or opens opportunity, at least. A world that
is cluttered, murmured the author, describes our world.
There is too much: other people, requirements to
society, debt to commerce (rent/health), excess
information, marketing information, terrifying news.
We wish to kill the waste and clear away the irrelevant
- hence the enticing motifs of forest fire, battle,
winter, genocide, and apocalypse.
2.2.2 Meta-Rebellion
The rebellion against the parameters of power doesn't stop
at the next generation of rebellion. As this facet of metal
ideology is assembled of the roots of romanticism, it is best
to see it as a celebration of the uniqueness of the
individual.
2.2.2.1 objectless desire to be unconstrained
Metal expresses a desire for mental clarity and a
limitless power for self-motion. The impulse is to have
nothing interfering in motion so that there is no
constant obsession with material intrusion.
2.2.2.2 to derive thought independently
Individualism and its trademark, independent thought,
are highly valued in metal culture and lyrics.
2.2.2.3 to exist in organic harmony with death and life
A recognition of death and the forces of decay in metal
prompts a revelation of its philosophy of integration, an
embrace of the impermanent in life by recognizing the time
to life for all things in a larger, naturalistic
development.
2.2.3 Mythos
Mythos is the science of placing together a sequence of
metaphors in order to build a living structure, a story which
is always in the process of evolution while maintaining its
integral character. This mythos is the key of
self-identification within a subculture, in that it allows
one the space in which to create a character matching its own
ideals.
2.2.3.1 Introduction
In a subculture, beliefs have to work alongside a
sequence of tenets which run contrary to the subcultural
beliefs. Hence most mythos from this area focus on the
individual, and how to develop that to freedom.
2.2.3.1.1 Mythos a method of expressing character
A personality mythos carries with it the character
of warrior or journeyman ethos: to be free, to work
when that's needed and to play/pillage otherwise.
The hedonistic modern Hessian descends from Vikings and
Vandals of ages past.
2.2.3.1.2 Personal decisions political choices
In the modern age, we realize that personal
decisions imply a political value system, or at
least filtering system. The Hessian cultural
movement reaches out to network personal choices by
knowledge rather than force.
2.2.3.1.3 Mythos defines a public personal ideal
When one is able to speak the metaphorical language of
a personal mythology, one is able to express a subtle
but powerful reminder of who one is and why. There is
not scorn in "We who are not as others" but a hope
brought by enlightened choice.
2.2.3.1.4 Ubermensch
The idea of overcoming, or surpassing fear and
transcending limitation, to become a personal god or
omnipowerful human being is rooted deeply in metal, a
genre of people who work hard under adverse
circumstances to do very complex things.
2.2.3.2 Metal Mythos
The value of Hessian mythos can be seen in what it
manifests: a gentle ideology based in a placement of
self instead of a self image, a hopefulness for
environment and humans alike. However, such a
progressive view greatly clashes with contemporary
social values.
2.2.3.2.5 Mythos of Job
Job is the patient servant who waits dully for a
task that will free him from worrying about his
choice for another few hours. That is why in the
Bible, when Job is tortured in a battle between
"God" and Satan for Job's soul, his faith is so firm to
him - he wishes to know nothing but to what he can
adapt, since he has ascribed all his choice to divine
power. Hessians dislike Jobs and avoid them at all
costs.
2.3.2.1.2 Mythos of selling many albums
Similarly selling many albums is recognized as
mythically important, at best. Most people consume
without ever thinking about even the contents that they
are able to digest and repeat. So selling more albums
could even mean reaching fewer people, if society is a
sliding scale from awareness to oblivion.
2.3.2.1.3 Mythos of sexual appeal
Newer metals (speed and newer) do not use
gender-related words, as they work toward the
abstract. Once leather-clad metal warriors were
sexual powerhouses. Now they are powerhouse
warriors because they are almost asexual in their
abstraction (yet earthy in their behavior).
2.3.2.1.4 Anti-convention
Conventions are the calcification of a working
process. The independent yeoman information farmer of
the new frontier steers away from the known once it
becomes obvious how redundant it is.
2.3.2.1.5 Anti-tonesome
The self is envisioned as out of place, dissonant,
by the nature of its recomposition and so nothing is
whole, or perfect, ever; this is the essence of
tonal degradation.
2.3.2.1.6 Subculture
Participation in a subculture frees the ego and
subconscious from explanation, or justification, in the
same way drug addiction frees a madman from his dark
and morbid destiny.
2.3.2.1.7 Lasting ethos of ideology
Ideology is the essence of what is communicated as
mythos: a series of abstractions based on character
value which create a sense of uniqueness, or
differentiation, for the Hessian population. As such,
they hold to their ideology fiercely, as it is
essential for both self-image and self-placement in a
time where information filtering is the first line of
defense.
2.2.4 Living after Midnight
Hessians are both abstract thinkers and Hedonists. The
latter means a fair amount of partying, e.g. social behavior
involving the forbidden fruits of intoxication and/or
sexuality, even while thinking (and vice versa).
2.2.2.1 Activities
Hessians are known to smoke a lot of pot, drink beers,
take ephedra, play loud music, form unlistenably
distorted bands, destroy religious icons, play video
games, watch horror movies, go to concerts and smoke a
lot of pot as commonly accepted social interactions,
while Hessians as individuals and more informal groups
engage in wide varieties of probably weird and lurid
behavior.
2.2.2.2 Intoxicants
Hessians favor a wide range of intoxicants for differing
reasons.
The most common Hessian intoxicant is THC
(tetrahydrocannabinol, the major active ingredient in
marijuana, hashish, bhang and kif) for the following
reasons:
- Ease of availability
- Mild or no long term effects
- Ease of consumption
- Hallucinatory/Psychedelic properties
- Non-capitalist distribution system
- Social activity
- Not an artificial "happy" reality
Some Hessians drink, but recently more have been
rejecting it in favor of a less corporate existence, as
have many smokers. Many Hessians used to take speed, or
methamphetamine, but more are taking the less-harmful
ephedrine.
Blood of illegitimate children of priests is also
intoxicating and delicious.
2.2.2.3 Events
Major events in the Hessian community include: concerts,
radio shows, drug parties, demolitions, fires.
2.2.2.4 Dialogues
One of the most important activities as a Hessian is
communicating. Hessians as part of an intense
structuralist desire articulate many different things, and
are more than willing to share information, guaranteeing
another at least temporary connection in the matrix of the
subculture.
2.2.5 Language
Hessian language is an abstract but organic rendition of
English (or other native language) into an abstract and
psychedelic descriptive field of structural importance.
Hessians are often highly technical, and their language
follows this model.
2.2.5.1 Relation to human animal
One very postmodern trend in metal is to declare the
dependence on a "human animal" and to speak of that
duality, between abstract mind and human flesh, with
familiarity. Its major function in the ideology of
metal is to make individuals aware of their
distinctiveness, or what they gave up when they let it
go.
2.2.5.1.1 Gender pronouns
Metal uses few gender pronouns, at least in recent
genres, as a way of distancing from the flesh and
the entire question of physicality of avatar.
2.2.5.1.2 Self-reference
There is little self-reference in metal for the
ostensible purposes of identification, but quite a
bit in the description of personal experience (as
in, of decay) or observations of physical occurrence
to the self.
2.2.5.1.3 Abstract
The most important aspect of metal's language is its
reliance upon abstract, Latinate and Germanic
structures as a method of describing something for
recognition as if by antigen. From the dooming
blast of old Slayer with its mythological lyrics to
bands like Morbid Angel with their philosophical guide
to post-Babylonian religion, death metal integrated a
fundamental change to the way we view language in
metal.
2.3 Ideology
Although not a vital component of the music itself, the
ideology that propels metal reflects the range of spirit
which enables one to create music that is both free and
structural. An evolving history of ideas is presented
briefly here.
2.3.1 Ideals
As all of us are, metallions are children of history who
look to the past to explain the thinking behind the
present. Here is a brief sampling of the identifiable
movements metal's got into.
2.3.1.1 Romanticist
As a philosophical movement romanticism predates
existentialism in its desire to explain life to the
individual, as if entertaining the theodicy of
Milton as a Protestant necessity for personal
self-actualization. It was about breaking free of
social confinement and finding the transcendent self
which could see the beauty in all things, an
extension of the egalitarianism of the Deists who
founded commercial America. Much of its focus
included a dialogue with death, a morbidity, an
insouciant desire to experience life as it occurs, a
hedonism, a fascination with the ancient, a querying
of self in vast universe, and a desire to achieve
that which is unique for its precision expression of
self. This movement empowered emotion to lead the
human on wild adventures, while setting logic free
in a world of its own to dream. Some say this is
the last time people in Western society reported
significant experience.
A fragment from the OED defines romanticism as "tending
towards or characterized by romance as a stylistic basis
or principle of literature, art or music; designating to a
movement or style during the late 18th and early 19th
centuries in Europe marked by an emphasis on feeling,
individuality and _passion_ rather than classical form and
order, and preferring grandeur or picturesqueness to
finish and proportion." This snippet defines both the
style and content of romanticist works, at least as
commonly known; investigating metal reveals their
inspiration.
The distinguishing characteristic of metal throughout
its history has been its youth-culture rejection of the
established world (youth reject their world for they can
afford to; once they are educated to lose hope they find
themselves in an easier existence) and declarations of
autonomy from the surrounding world and its disease of
bourgeouis commercialism, sexual elitism, intellectual
denial or spiritual cowardice, depending on what
generation of metal is expounding. In this metal has
affirmed the rejection of proportion/symmetry and the
overthrow of external
principles which would control such as morals and
aesthetics (finish); the root of this tendency is the
dependence on passion that takes over when one has
accepted science (see Nihilism, 3.1).
The romantic movement of literature in Europe
(predominantly England and France) inspired poetry and
existential literature such as Mary Shelley's
_Frankenstein_, the story of a creature brought to life
finding his essence unfolding as he grows, only to realize
the conditions of his life doom him to obscurity and
isolation. These works are the
ancestors of the seminal modernists James Joyce, William
Faulkner, and W.S. Burroughs, as well as the genesis of
genres such as science fiction, fantasy, and horror.
The fascination with the eldritch and morbid, the
biological and the destructive, as well as the unfolding
question of humanity's place in a technological world, are
hallmarks of this movement leading a clear trail through
history to today's metal movements, especially black metal
in which all logic is rejected in favor of total emotional
hatred and nihilistic passion for the abstract.
These lyrics explain best:
Mayhem, 1993, "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas"
Life Eternal
A dream of another existence
you wish to die
a dream of another world
you pray for death to release the soul.
One must die to find peace inside, you must get eternal
I am a mortal but am I human ?
How beautiful life is now when my time has come
A human destiny but nothing human inside
What will be left of me when I'm dead, there was
nothing when I lived
"What you found was eternal death
no one will ever miss you"
2.3.1.2 Existentialist
Existentialism is the science of the evolving
individual, and how to understand human development
from a psychological, sociological and metaphysical
view. "Existence before essence," as it has been
summed in the past, depicts existentialism as the
concept that without any inherent purpose, we "wake
up" when we are born here and then must find some
way to explain value into our lives. As we grow we
become more of what we are, or wander in a
personalityless materialism.
2.3.1.3 Postmodernist
The inversion of value so that its inside might be
seen, postmodernism is about mirrors. A mirror of
the self, so that it can be seen as the subjective
in a world of objectives that it is; a mirror of the
world and a mirror of that mirror, to keep
consistent projections (time).
What makes postmodernism most distinctive is its
absorption of intensely "chaotic" theories such as quantum
physics or non-linear mathematics, by virtue of its
foundation in technology and looking past
superstition, but also peering beyond the intellectual
process of illusion to see how the universe functions as
organism, with universal principles of growth.
Founders such as James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, William S
Burroughs, and Emperor make this movement valuable for
what it is: a violent fist against the aesthetic remainder
of rationalism, where an illusion of public good and
intent is manipulated to justify vast thefts.
Afflicted with knowledge, postmodernism tends to
emphasize the "subtext" of each situation, where
there is an acknowledged reality and an underlying
larger picture which often has nothing to do with
the material props at hand. As such, dreams of
death and great journeys past the land of the dead
are complex and intriguing material.
"The people in power will not disappear voluntarily,
giving flowers to the cops just isn't going to work. This
thinking is fostered by the establishment; they like
nothing better than love and nonviolence. The only way I
like to see cops given flowers is in a flower pot thrown
from a a high window."
-William S Burroughs
2.3.1.4 Mysticism
The basic belief of a mystic is that events and objects
are interconnected in a structure that is larger than
immediate material parameters and as such can be accessed
if one is open to transcendence, or letting go of the
visible for the abstract. The mystic finds significant
experience in interpretation of everyday events.
2.3.1.5 Shamanism
A shaman is a tribe's seer sent forth into the
wilderness of his own personality in order to dig
forth the answer to the question everyone is blinded
from asking. A master of finding the obvious behind
a whole structure of reality designed to hide it.
2.3.1.6 Nihilism
Nihilism leaves a complex etymology in the Oxford English
Dictionary: "Total rejection of current religious beliefs
or moral principles, often involving a general sense of
despair and the belief that life is devoid of meaning."
This gives a historical sense of the word as something
anti-religious, anti-moral, and anti-meaing, but does not
explain the root of that: a belief in the lack of
arbitrary values except the immanent and contextlessness
function-value. Nihilism rejects conventional valuations
and replaces them with the pragmatic assessments of
science and atheism, allowing freedom of movement before
considering precedent and normativity.
In modern times nihilism is a dual entity, composed of
emotional nihilism or the breakdown of all values or
caring (closer to apathy) as well as the nihilism
described above, which is merely a removal of arbitrary
illusion as imposed by social conditioning. Metal has
always espoused some form of nihilism, from its roots in
god-rejection and social cynicism to its over-glorious
heavy metal days when no excess was enough. Death metal
took nihilism to new extremes of rational description of
human irrationality, fragility, and doom, but black metal
takes nihilism a step further and assumes it as a weapon
against conventional moral and spiritual restrictions.
"My name is Varg Vikernes and I play in Burzum. Burzum
means either darkness or light, depending on how you see
it really. If you're a Christian it probably means
darkness."
- Varg Vikernes, va...@burzum.com
2.3.1.7 Organicism
The tendency of mathematical systems to go from the
linear, or vector measurement, to chaotic multidirectional
entities is a measure of its organicism, or the point at
which it moves from chartable projections to the zone
decided only by theory. Organicism is a philosophy of
information science which holds that in order for
something to articulate itself independently, it must be
of an unmeasurable state of chaotic motion.
It's as if in escaping Heisenberg one becomes integrated
into a system in which all measurements are variable in
chaotic patterns, e.g. without linearly predictable jumps
(a pattern with linear jumps suggests the order is evident
within that pattern, where a pattern with chaotic jumps
suggests an order behind the evident pattern) and
therefore a science of fuzzy logic and organic decisions
is needed.
The sheer relentlessness of the fact that the human mind
still so far outperforms our computers a comparison is
ludicrous indicates that a more powerful and efficient
logic than our stacks of decimal calculations will be
needed. Hence an emergent organicism in many things,
including metal, which approach problems in which binary
solutions (those composed of yes or no, off or on, right
or "wrong") lead to illusion, since the binary nature is a
projection of the intelligences observing the situation
and not emergent from the properties and methods of the
system itself.
2.3.1.8 Naturalism
A belief in or intense study of nature, Naturalism is a
fundamental component of metal's fascination with the
natural and the dual appearance of natural order. In
order to appreciate the beauty of a system including its
most brutal and predatory moments, one must understand it
as a whole to see the function which this tendency plays,
and for what conceptual development to reality. The
inexorable but chaotic order is studied through musical
emulation and lyrical hyperbole in a genre partially
dedicated to transcendence of natural boundaries, with an
appreciation for the strength and continuity of nature.
2.3.1.9 Individualism
Strongly in favor of the independent evolution of
individuals so to allow them space to grow without the
persistent damage of scar tissue formed to avoid
intervention by the arbitrary appearances of demands by
others, the individualist genre metal has developed a
subculture with focus on the development of the individual
as a force of chaos and change in the otherwise patterned
material/causal world.
The reasons for individualist thought usually center
around the idea that those who know what they want for
personal fulfillment will not project that on to others
for purposes of control. Individualism is a property of
art and any other discipline which demands independence
and focus; systemic and/or chaos thinkers understand it as
a form of parallelism.
2.3.2 Influences
In addition to having core tenets of belief, metal also has a
long heritage of influences whose ideas or responses to the
same have provided foundational, contextual material
regarding the time and space of the genre's evolution
(background).
2.3.2.1 Ideologies
Ideologies are united by a belief in the human ability to
better its existence, and an understated logicality in
which some form of rationalism is needed for coherence
with the collective.
2.3.2.1 Rationalism
Can be summed up easily with the idea that a systematic
process of logical thought will provide the germinal
material for a practical solution or creative
contribution even in a lawless and chaotic natural
context. Looming out of the advancements in theory of
Europe after the Renaissance, Rationalism was a
restatement of a historically consistent theme in human
thought which underscored the Scientific Method, which
had recently be used by the same European empires to
provide the basis for an industrial revolution.
2.3.2.2 Autonomism
Anarchy, or the political state in which there is no
leadership and the ideological state in which no
leadership is wanted, decayed from its own politicism
and the inherent materialist, power-control structure
to politics. Fading at the same time as punk rock,
anarchist culture produced believers in autonomism, a
philosophy in which the independence of all beings is
the highest goal, and each being is seeking a way out
of a natural state of confusion into a
self-definitional state after which comes greater
freedom of intellect.
2.3.2.3 Existentialism
A very alcoholic writer once summed up Existentialism
with the simple switch, "Existence before Essence";
however, this provides a great place to start a context
comparison between Existentialism and the prevailing
flavor of Utilitarian logic prevailing at the time.
Christianity and its forefather Judaism believed in an
inherent and inexorable logic to a world controlled
from another system of logic by an omnipotent "god", a
situation in which one's moral "essence" would be
connected to one's creation off-camera by an
omnipresence. Existentialism freed the human to admit
a developing consciousness, and thus to self-refine
according to where one found joy. Existentialism was
heavily influenced by transcendentalists who in turn
had been inspired by the Romanticists before them, and
carried with it the revolution of philosophy in the age
of the twilit gods: a further science of spiritual
insight so that a wide range of individuals could
perceive and think dissimilarly but remain unified by
abstract logical agreements.
2.3.2.4 Buddhism
The evolution of eastern religion from a caste system
into a peaceful, self-empowering religion, Buddhism is
an example of intense "spiritual technology" from which
participants find an increasing clarity in perception
and valuation. Among its many core concepts are the
ideas of meditative calm, enhanced perception,
ego-reduction, self-abstraction and parallel views of
reality.
2.3.2.5 Classicism
Classicism is a study and belief in the older
civilizations in the western world such as the Romans,
Greeks, Scandinavians, Sumerians and Egyptians, all of
whom had legal systems, some technology, learning, and
a lack of morality in their belief structures. Their
gods were personalities who represented recombinant
elements in nature, combining in stories which
displayed a patterning of the troubled souls of ancient
peoples. These societies perished, some might say,
from their own success: they got large without the
ability to control that largeness, and so relapsed into
anarchy and death.
2.3.2.6 Structuralism
Structuralist philosophies have existed for some time
but a recent resurgence came after the logical
rejection in Dada and other collagist philosophies
which sought to eliminate a meaning not inherent in
life through a randomness calibrated to defeat
intellectual analysis. Structuralism is an evolution
of Rationalism to the next level, in a technological
age where any problem is a design issue, to be solved
by changing the structure of the object(s) or
process(es) based on logical deductions and
corresponding creative outpouring.
2.3.2.7 Transcendentalist
Transcendentalist thought has been part of many
philosophies and will hopefully never go away, because
it's a positive and universal view of life. Such
scientific mystics as Emerson who found a deeply
personal connection to nature and a complex beauty in
the larger system of life established Transcendentalism
as an idea in art and philosophy, but transcendentalist
ideals are also common to Buddhism, Romanticism and
Existential thought.
2.3.2.2 Thinkers
As influential as ideologies were and are, they often
consist of choices made in thoughtful response to the
ideas presented by any number of writers or thinkers or
performers. Hence this listing.
2.3.3.2.2.1 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Born into a religious family, young Nietzsche showed a
gift for scholarship and became successful enough that,
by his early twenties, he held a professorship at a
prestigious university teaching philology, or the study
of the evolution of meaning through language, and
ancient Greek tragedic theatre. Over the course of the
next thirty years he bashed out multiple treatises on
philosophy which were innovative, forceful, articulate,
artistic and honest, granting them eventual approval
with a worldwide audience.
Nietzsche's philosophies centered around existential
valuation, objectivism, and freedom from the mental
weakness of morality as expressed in Judaism and
Christianity. His works as a result promoted the
predator over the prey, rejected pity and guilt, and
affirmed a physical existential experience as a
fundamental anchor of the self to world. To this day
he is not widely understood, and his works are known
for having inaugurated in the postmodern era, a
humanity after facing the stark naked empty reality of
its existence.
2.3.3.2.2.2 Immanuel Kant
A strict and diligent philosopher, Kant was nonetheless
marked by the inconsistency and often evasion of his
thought; led by the developing ideas he had toward
certain conclusions, he would equivocate where they
conflicted with fundamental ideals of his Christianity,
leading to some "hypothetical" conclusions used to wrap
up the whole of his philosophy. That aside, Kant laid
down the first epistemological view of modern
philosophy and build a core structure of philosophical
concepts and the boundaries of knowledge which remains
useful today. His work in technical philosophy,
especially moral philosophy, enabled him to clearly
define the lines which would become battlefields in the
future of 20th century philosophy. His importance to
metal musicians comes mostly through his identification
of the "perceptual filter," or a mask of association
through memory which we as thinking beings use to
reduce the complexity of external reality through
tokenization. As metal journeys further into the
postmodern, the model of strict consciousness which
Kant developed becomes more and more useful in
deconstructing reaction to limitless chaos.
2.3.3.2.2.3 J.R.R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was a professor of the
English language at Oxford during the first half of the
twentieth century, infusing his fascination with
Germanic themes of honor and ancient mythology into a
fantasy series involving a "middle earth" where magic
and science were one. His works, which emphasized the
journey over the end result, and a sense of personal
integrity over external morality, are the third most
popular cause of Hessianism, after Dungeons & Dragons
and marijuana.
2.3.3.2.2.4 Jim Morrison
James Douglas Morrison was born to a father who was an
Admiral in the U.S. Navy, served under a classicist
society of the 1950s, and came into his own at film
school in the early to middle 1960s in Los Angeles,
California. His subsequent project, the Doors, became
the first truly dark rock n roll/pop band and laid down
many thematic and musical paradigms metal bands would
later reference in their innovation.
2.3.3.2.2.5 Adolf Hitler
Like this man needs a biographical sketch - everyone
knows the name "Hitler" and most are heavily
indoctrinated to fear it, although few - even his
celebrators - understand much of his philosophy. As an
articulate and intelligent youth in Austria of the late
1800s, Hitler declared his will to become an artist and
set forth to become such, surviving rejection from
various schools and eventually, from the monetary
machine that was society. Lingering in the city where
he had found himself first on that path, Hitler as an
offshoot of his learning process became involved in
politics, in which he cofounded the most extreme party
ever to be popular in a European nation: the National
Socialist Democractic Worker's Party, or NSDAP. His
philosophies rested on a concept of fulfillment of
will, finding meaning beyond nothingness, and an
absolute sense of love for environment, history, and
self. Even after the long-fought and bloody defeat of
the German nation and Hitler's subsequent suicide and
cremation, his legend lives on in several thousand
National Socialist movements active worldwide, as well
as in recent metal bands.
Metal bands paying tribute (but not necessarily
allegiance) to Hitler through use of symbols, lyrics
and/or public statements:
Motorhead
Slayer
Bathory
Burzum
Darkthrone
Metal bands identifying themselves as National
Socialist:1
Graveland
Legion of Doom
Veles
2.3.3.2.2.6 William S. Burroughs
The infamous writer of "Naked Lunch," William S.
Burroughs, is known as much for his heroin addiction as
for his contributions to literature, including what
might be called the first truly postmodern novel in
"Naked Lunch." However, his contributions were vast,
starting with his "cut up" style of literature which
would weave a complexity of connections between
granular sections of text randomly recontextualized in
a chronological narrative. The philosophies of
individual freedom, control, darkness and politics
contained within "Naked Lunch" and subsequent works
("The Nova Express","The Ticket that Exploded","Cities
of the Red Night") provided an unfathomably
universalist basis to metallion rejection of authority,
conformity, and materialist aesthetics.
2.3.3.2.2.7 William Blake
One of the first transcendental poets to articulate his
ideas in a structured metaphorology designed to
transcend the calcification of Christianity, Blake
spoke of sensual and intellectual excess as salvation
for the soul and invented a form of morality based in
joy which used its romanticism as a basis for its
respect and fascination with life. Blake's detailed
exposures of human reason and fear at its most primal
and yet most symbolologic delivered a scientific
mysticism to those who came after him (including Jim
Morrison and William S Burroughs!) a shadow in which
motion was possible, a darkness which mostly concealed
a limitless beauty of freedom.
2.3.3.2.2.8 Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft
Writer of horror and other imaginative tales, the lurid
and detail-oriented Poe captured complete control of
the attention of his readers through shaped,
articulated and very controlled words. Similarly,
Lovecraft developed mythologies from simple brutality
and built a spiritual structure of a phenomenology of
evil from the myths of Ancient Sumeria combined with
his perceptions of pre-religious darkness and fear.
Together these writers contributed much of the basis of
gore and horror and adventure in fantasy that pervades
metal in the current time.
2.3.3.2.2.9 Ralph Waldo Emerson
An American thinker and writer, R.W. Emerson remains
most famous for his philosophies surrounding
transcendentalism, or the belief that one can overcome
limitations and error in life through enlightened,
spiritual, meta-conscious thinking. He asserted that
redemption could be found only in one's own soul and
intuition, and encouraged those who were inspired by
his words to turn back toward nature and introspection
instead of relying on an increasingly externalized
society.
2.3.3.2.2.A John Milton
An English minister and poet, John Milton conceived and
wrote the epic poem, "Paradise Lost," in which Satan is
portrayed as a beautiful angel who rejects servitude in
heaven and is exiled in flame, only to learn how to
love the barren but self-decisional realm of Hell.
2.3.3.2.2.B Metal
Historical list of bands important to ideological
development of the genre as a whole, and why they were
important.
- Black Sabbath
- Iron Maiden
- Judas Priest
- Motorhead
- Metallica
- Hellhammer
- Bathory
- Slayer
- Morbid Angel
- Suffocation
- Entombed
- Darkthrone
- Burzum
2.3.2.3 Counterculture
Starting in the late 40s American society slowly began to
fragment after the pragmatism of focus on supremacy that
had been the war effort which made the country a
superpower had worn itself down in the contradiction of
positivity and planning for nuclear warfare. Partially
because of the intense political polarization along lines
of materialistic duality (capitalist/communist) the social
structure had become fascist and so dissenters were
alienated, dropout characters who had to write their own
book of survival.
2.3.2.3.1 Hippie
As Black Sabbath grew into what it would be the hippie
movement was carrying through the aftermotions of
flowering in order to fully sell out, having peaked at
perhaps a 1967-68 frame in which it expressed its
ideology and desires. Hippies were hedonistic,
semi-naturalist, anti-material-value, open to dynamic
or chaotic action and peaceful/stoned as a collective
character trait.
2.3.3.1.5 Beat
In the late 50s and early 60s as American culture
ground itself further into commercial uniformity and
categorical boundariededness another subculture grew up
which addressed the existential loss of American
culture with am embrace of the impermanent, the
powerless, the divinely mundane, in an effort to spread
the word of value in life. Their fascination with the
distorted, macabre and placeless, drifting existence
which metaphorizes the modern lack of groundedness
expressed a subconscious fear of the times which would
precipitate coming social unrest.
2.3.3.3.3 Biker
As far as everyone can tell a universal culture, bikers
are the Gypsys of the industrial age with a nomadic
existence outside of economic planning and therefore
responsibility and reactivity. The party keeps rolling
and the nihilism of the road is welcomed as it keeps
all things from having meaning and a debt associated
with their maintenance.
2.3.3.1.6 Punk
Punk culture rebelled against the status quo with a
total rejection of value and a nihilistic embrace of
all that is worthless or destructive. It rejected
materialism with a pragmatism of homelessness. A sense
of romanticism founded a wandering nihilism, a violent
pointlessness and a refusal to accept anything at face
value. Since it had been taken to such extremes, it
had become a characterizable appearance and sound which
was soon cloned, promoted, budgeted, destroyed.
2.3.3.1.7 Horror Films
The genre of horror films, despite on its commercial
end having some of the stupidest material ever produced
on celluloid calling it home, also communicates deeply
with the unconscious mind through imagery of possession
and entrapment by an unidentifiable but pervasive evil.
Its description of evil, and its portrayal of human
panic in reaction to it, won the horror film genre a
place in the hearts of many Hessians.
2.3.3.1.8 Drugs
No study of counterculture is complete without drug
culture, which by its absence of any fundamental
ideology guarantees its perpetuation through
generations of thought and flesh, to illustrate how
power and authority move through a simple model of
supply and demand. We can blame W.S. Burroughs and
Aldous Huxley for this. Once again, however, a
metaphorology of connections between the physical and
the mental.
2.3.3.1.9 Fascism
Extreme thought of all kinds has left an impression on
metal intellectuals, but none have had quite the
enduring effect or effective symbology of fascism,
especially the subset emerging in the emerging
German-Austrian blood nation of the early 1940s. Its
dedication to ideology, its naturalism, but most of all
- its design sensibilities, structural fluency, and
extreme goals - appeal to the sentiment which arises
from seeing freedom possible in a world of people who
would rather be trapped; from this anger arises. The
predominant icon of self-entrapment would be
Judeo-Christianity, the materialist philosophy behind
western morality and law that many blame for recurring
problems with social honesty and self-articulation.
The average person is degenerated by the same
Judeo-Christianity leaving him incapable of reasoning
on a higher level at all. If anybody talks bad about
the Jews, our world's prejudiced sub-humanity
automatically stamp him as the "Nazi-scum" or a
"prejudiced-fuck" and a "racist." The average person
does not even realize what the Jews are up to. Simply
read the bible (2 Mos 19:5, 5 Mos 6:10-19; 1-3,
16-24;20:10-17) and see for yourselves. What is more
racial than to claim to be "God's chosen people"? So
who is the real racists? - Varg Vikernes,
va...@burzum.com
2.3.4 Methods
What differentiates art from most normal forms of
communication is that art is not a referential causality
structure but a disconnected, purely abstract form of
expression in which reality is left as interpretation and
knowledge of the reader. It is a form of immortality not for
the author but for the experiential language with which it
expresses its time, place, and transcendence thereof. Some
argue that art can possibly be dogmatic, but for that to
occur, art loses its elegance as a metaphor and becomes a
command, which inevitably boils it down to someone telling
someone else "to be" something. Control. Art is
anti-control. Throughout the ages it has led the evolution
of society with visions of new ideas that appeal more to the
subconscious mind than the constant flow of ideas from the
articulative/conscious mind, allowing it to transcend time
and place and circumstance to communicate an ideal. Pure
aesthetics leads to almost instant boredom in that it has no
placement beyond the immediacy and thus creates a void in
time in which amusement was achieved, rather than a transfer
of data; this is solipsistic to both parties and results in
an expectation of null communication, a broken connection
rather than some new idea/creation.
How do you account for the vision of the man possessed on
stage, and the man sitting before me?
We are quite the opposite to what is personified on stage.
Every band has it's own way of dealing with shit and if
they play this kind of music, or even just any extreme
music, maybe they are like that full time, maybe not. Like
we always say, people like Rick Astley are probably the
biggest wankers in the world.
They probably come off stage, and wanna kill kids. With
us, its the contrary, on stage we are executing the whole
other persona, in regular social conditions we are pretty
straight forward.
- Lemmy Kilmister, Motorhead
As much as any other form of expression has a purpose, art
does: to communicate that which is out of range for other
forms of known interaction. In art the surreal can be real
and the unstated the visually unavoidable, so there is a
tendency to explore our minds with a rendering engine of
mnetal projection. Metal uses this projection to communicate
a bond to existence outside of social conditioning and
materialism, creating an ideology of freedom and chaotic
possibility which by accepting death instills more hope than
those who deny darkness.
After the industrial age, we in the information age look to
the next age, when we've as a species had some time to play
with our new toys. In the information age, the
highly-trained are valued; in the post-information age, the
highly intuitive and powerfully analytic at an organic level
are intensely valued. When machines have handled the
mundane, pure thought will reign, if humanity does not
suicide first.
2.3.4.1 Metaphor
Metaphor is the primary expression of abstract
communication, by demanding that the user inference a
commonality between two events and by that, to understand
the "device" of the metaphor: how it functions as a truth
for a wide variety of input or context, and can take on an
ironic meaning the closer one comes to a full expression
of understanding its "truths": where its implication of
correspondence between two objects events methods is an
abstract match and there is information created by
knowledge of the similar workings of both entities.
2.3.4.1.1 metapatterning: comparing event to whole
Metaphor expands a mundane thing into a much larger
one, in many usages. Such a thing happens in metal,
where some of the most mundane activities on earth -
partying, mass slaughter - stand as metaphor for
existential doubt and resurrection overside the void.
These metaphors work both ways and so often in metal an
ancient legend is a form of diagnosis for the current
context of a work's reception. (Artists live two
lives; before they are discovered, they are able to
create and project, and, when they are known: when they
address a waiting audience with an evolving concept of
worldview and intellectual language.)
2.3.4.1.2 subconscious communication
Metaphor often "feels" right to individuals because
what it expresses is beneath the level visible by their
articulative mind, thus can be more complex than what
ordinary language, visual information or sound can
possess. The metaphorology of journeys, death, decay,
apocalypse, winter, death, war, and genocide in metal
are subconscious manipulations of our sense of reality
and the future it holds.
2.3.4.1.3 Post-quantitative Symbology
The Judeo-Christian revolution in western thought
brought with it great power because its theology and
worldview/theodicy supported the idea of quantitative
symbology, which worked around ages-old prohibitions on
division of existence. However, the tradition of
morality and character from which Judeo-Christianity
descended is fundamentally material, and so it is no
surprise that this foundational religious theory of
western thought after its invasion in 1100 AD has
supported the largest expansion in material wealth and
mechanical structure in history. As anything ages
however it approaches the time in which its
foundational principles need expansion and as such this
age is approaching for material aesthetics (morality)
as a philosophical doctrine, with whatever replaces it
facing a need for coherence in chaos and post-dystopic
society. Metaphor provides an insight to this kind of
thinking by associating a matrix of ideas with a
central narrative as a method of explaining options and
situational function to anyone willing to accept an
idea and manipulate it.
2.3.4.2 Metacognitive thinking
The ideology and metaphorology of metal stresses a
larger view of existence than the immediate and as such
produces thinking about the nature of thinking as a
means of interpreting the highly abstract.
2.3.4.2.1 Fantasies
Romanticism in metal stresses fantasies not of the
sexual but mythological or mystical nature, an emphasis
on creativity through a journey whose structure is
known. A greater metaphor is seen for existence in
which creativity and adventurousness are the traits
which survive the filtering of reality's demands.
2.3.4.2.2 Structure
Fundamentally based in melody rather than harmony as
most rock music is and interpreting that idea through
multiple metacognitive
worldviews/metaphysics/generations allows metal to
express structure
2.3.4.2.3 Autonomism
Since a metaphor is abstract, it must be interpreted
personally and in context, a case in which it will
apply objectively as it always has through a
translation of one's application of the idea to
circumstance. GIGO.
2.3.4.2.4 Will
To explore a metaphor, one must will to do so. It is
not an accidental process. There are more metalbands
with complex mythologies than one might expect; some
highlights: Morbid Angel, Immortal, Darkthrone.
2.3.4.2.5 Inertia
A martial art is the study of converting energy from an
intended percussive move to a continuous kinetic move,
deflecting violence while tiring the opponent while
ready to strike.
2.3.4.3 Postmodernism
A movement of reflection for society as it entered its
twentieth century development phase of technological
industrialism, a method of analysis known as postmodernism
arose as a new style of modernism which reaffirmed
traditional goals of rationalism, structuralism, and
transcendental metaphysics but to this added the
realizations of new interpretations in philosophy and
physics (Nietzsche and Einstein) as a means of explaining
the seeming isolation of being human when one is caught in
a matrix of powerful information which is dead to the
artificial arbitrary network of values society imposes for
the sake of control. Postmodernism emphasizes an
intergration of many different ideas into one,
articulation of the subjective persona behind authorship,
an aesthetic which in order to keep itself pure inverts
itself into the unmanageable, and an emphasis on structure
behind events rather than events themselves. Metal
manifests this to an absurd degree with its paranoid
obsession with the occult and the fundamental alignment of
different personalities of power.
2.3.4.3.1 Aesthetic
The constant distortion, grittiness, and organic
structures of death metal and black metal would appeal
to many postmodernists, as would the comedic antics of
exaggeratedly "evil" black metallers who are reflected
back to their audience a mockery of evil to illustrate
how the dichotomy is false, that there is only thought
and chaos. Taming chaos is a mystical science, so
mysticism is portrayed through minimalistic structures
which shift dynamically to demonstrate a nihilistic yet
existential worldview of exploration and growth (as
patterns in the music modulate into structures of great
spaciousness).
Bands that are evidently postmodern: Morbid Angel,
Darkthrone, Suffocation, Slayer, Demilich, Entombed,
Hellhammer, Burzum.
Bands that are evidently modern: Metallica, Testament,
Exodus, DRI, COC.
Bands that are romantics: Therion, Celtic Frost,
Cemetary, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden.
2.3.4.3.2 Structure
Structural emphasis in metal reflects a design that is
aware of chaos and how to channel it, indicating a
larger awareness than categorical or fixed data
structures which deliberately finds ways to articulate
musical ideas at more abstract, nihilistic, and
minimalistic levels. It removes metal from the
recombinant world of rock, based around the scale of
fixed intervals, and allows chromatic experimentation
for true pantonality.
2.3.4.3.3 Artistry
Usage of the techniques of art to new dimensions of
nihilistic exploration, even addressing the
relationship of art to viewer/hearer, postmodern works
often experiment with gritty production values, strange
or surreal tones, absurdist and extremist
structuralism. All of these apply to metal from Slayer
onwards; black metal and death metal owe their origin
to this idea break, which moved metal from its
classicist hearbroken nihilist motivations to a more
scientific and abstract, dissonant response to the
decay of human society into suicide.
2.3.4.3.4 Philosophy
A pervasive doubt and feeling of human helplessness
against the limits of perception permeated the
atmosphere that birthed postmodernism, in which a
morbid fascination with the conventionalized
implications of Nietzsche had the bean-counting sheep
of society in terror.
He removed a structure they found reasonable, and as a
result, the trauma resulted in much dramatics before
postmodernists explained the more positive side of
Nietzsche: if one understands him as a whole, not much
has changed in his view of existence from the status
quo, but a method of perceiving truth - a clearer one.
His innovations, like those of the Buddhists, were
primarily used to invent a spiritual technology for
perceiving the nihilistic roots of a chaotic nature,
avoiding superstition and seeking a mysticism rooted in
the logic of existential value.
Second-level interpretations of Nietzschean morality
analysis, power ethics and the resulting desire for
existential meaning can be found in such works as
"Naked Lunch" by William S. Burroughs, Ulysses by James
Joyce (who is arguably a modern), The Sound and the
Fury from William Faulkner and "Hell Awaits" by Slayer
- and all metal afterwards.
2.3.4.3.5 Presence
In much the same way as its invocation of the author
removes a barrier imposed by a media society,
postmodernism's presence as dogma (post-dogma?
meta-dogma?) in the active lives of its adherents
contributes to a trickle-down effect not only through
the politics and personal choices of that individual,
but through the lives of others who look up to that
individual if that individual "succeeds" in some
appreciable way.
2.3.4.4 Cultural individualism
One theory of self-identity suggests that one's self
identity should be relegated to those things literally
which are pleasures of the earth and her diversity itself,
but this leads to an unsettling suggestion of wholesome
values unless you couple it with intense drug use.
Especially in the last decade, intense culturalism has
permeated metal, some of it celebrating the cultures now
scorned for previous decades of nationalist activity.
2.3.4.4.1 Identity
In a Hessian ideological state, identity is relegated
to a simple statement of function that is unconnected
to being. Most normals will say, "I am a fry cook," or
whatever the occurrence of employment might be, but a
Hessian would probably say, "I'm here... I was
somewhere else, but now I'm here, and I'm thinking
about..." in an encounter that might likely end up
involving drug use.
2.3.4.4.2 Ideology
The concept of ideology as a product of individual
differentiation, e.g. according to most psychological
models as a level of development of personality and
intellect, is taken for granted in the Hessian
community. Where in mainstream society to have
political values other than "don't rock the boat" is as
it has been through all of history taboo, Hessians
carry a variety of extremisms, but any Hessian who has
been thinking about the music for a while and letting
it get into his/her blood will see the presence of
ideological values in the discipline, compassion and
personal relevance of such music. It's interpretive
artistic spirituality as culture.
2.3.4.4.3 Politics
Politics are the physical incarnation of one's
metaphysical and/or ideological structure. So one acts
out what one feels. Extremist politics in the
postmodern society reject society, conventional values,
morality, and ideas of punitivism, control, authority
and hierarchy. Most Hessian are anti-capital, but most
are also anti-communistic. They are pro-"A really new
way of doing things" in a world that promises new
innovation and delivers it under the same old terms.
2.3.4.4.4 Spiritualism
Through its metaphorical and systemic qualities, metal
is mystically inclined as much as it is by its romantic
qualities, if not more. The connection is a pragmatic
attitude to life as something that is beautiful not
through mystery but experience, the evolving construct
of information that is one's life. Such a metaphysical
view often requires an address of spiritualism to
explain its back-end significance, e.g. why such a
discipline was conceived. In the age of the end of
history, however, any source of hope is viewed
suspiciously as spiritual, since spiritualism remains
one of the few unquantified and hence vastly oversold
commodities on the planet.
2.3.4.4.5 History
With Black Sabbath, a postmodernist inversion was
reified as the subtle contextual morbidity and paranoid
fear of an increasingly technological society. The
bomb - and then, computers - 1984? Terror in the minds
of the people at this, as transmuted through music,
became a powerful method of channeling alienation. The
morbidity within was expressed without, allowing the
within to leave what was external there and to move on
its own, creating a space of inner peace in which
ambition could foment. Henceforth there have been
plenty of morbid metal bands, from Hellhammer to Morbid
Angel to Darkthrone to Ildjarn.
2.3.5 Events
2.3.5.1 Atomic bomb
2.3.5.1 In 1945, two atomic weapons were detonated over
large Japanese cities, ending WWII in the pacific, setting
the stage for the evolution of human power structures
after the war ended. The next forty-five years were a
precarious balance between two warriors nations who fought
only through proxy, never quite willing to invoke their
main means of defense, the nuclear weapon. True paranoia
sunk into a populace too patriotic to admit it, giving the
1950s a quaint appearance to us now.
2.3.5.2 Viet Nam
When Black Sabbath laid down the foundations for metal in
1969, not only was the world still at nuclear standoff but
also, the war in Viet Nam was going badly for the
Amerikans. Instability was present but not discussed as
to do so was to undermine the war effort which had never
ended. For some, the corporate thematics to the execution
and bureaucratic nature of the war in Viet Nam raised the
disturbing notion that underneath the "reasons why" for
the war which people acknowledged at a surface level of
social interaction, there was an insidious, materialistic
truth. In 1972, Thomas Pynchon wrote a book called
"Gravity's Rainbow" centered around this idea.
2.3.5.3 Reaganification
A return to the righteousness of the 1950s, in which a
justification of threat had been replaced by
ultrasimplification of politics in which material ethics
prevailed over ideology which was by its nature perverse,
since it did not accept the bounty of material as its
ideological goal. This was probably the most destructive
period in American history: when she highjacked her own
standards to push brutally forward in a political struggle
with no clear outcome. However, the social changes
brought about in this era were, like everything else in
the 1980s, a trend and so they flitted through the
viewfinder of history for several seconds before being
replaced by the newest morph.
2.3.5.3 End of Cold War
After the cold war ended, a great relief permeated the
period of instability following the interruption of the
balance of hegemony while inside itself, the politicized
portion of western thought forgot about most foreign
policy decisions. The warfront excess flooded society and
soon social control turned inward during an inreasing war
on drugs and a paranoid age of technological integration
of citizenship information. However, the main delineation
for this period is the vast apathy. There is nothing left
to prove, or do. We're out of the hot water but we're
still insane. So the greatest tension here is the entropy
of humanity slowing down for death.
2.3.5.4 Internet
When the Internet connected the world, what we saw was
that technology was making our lives remarkably similar in
different parts of the world. The unification of
information also gave one a greater view of the human
behavioral spectrum as a whole, revealing some of the
greatest insanity. Also, the Internet is living proof of
hte postmodern theory of subtext, since the faceplate
always talks about customer service but the reality is
that everyone wants to download porn discretely.
2.3.5.5 Millenium
The coming of hte millenial change has forced neurosis
into apathy, creating a tension of unreality as the date
hovers near. Mass destruction fear is our public terror,
but our private fear is that it will not occur - thus
dooming us to the same apathetic existence we have known
in the presence of technology, where all basic problems
are solved and the consequent need for further space has
us feeding on ourselves. This illusionary cycle weighs
heavily on our minds as the guilt of our lack of
achievement weighs heavily at the second millenium marker.
2.4 Applicability
"And so what the hell does any of this have to do with
anything?" Well I'll tell ya. Subculture is important, because
originally it was the resistance to a dominant attitude that
determined reality through the expectancy in the human factors
at all levels, and because as Amerikan advertising agencies have
increasing pitched the hipness of the subculture, subculture
itself has moved away because of its ideological separation from
the main culture. In the age of ideas, we're seeing a
philosophical split and in the case of metal, a consistent one,
which makes it worth observing.
2.4.1 Musically
The influence of metal mainly spread to rock music, where its
techniques and tones are being practiced in other packaging.
2.4.1.1 Heavy music
The principles of detuning and using low E power chords
have made it into maistream music, a Black Sabbath
innovation worn into mainstream culture by countless doom
and speed metal bands.
2.4.1.2 Psychedelic/ambient
The sense of melody, and the breakdown of melody into
technologically specialized pieces, is something shared
between metal music and ambient/electronica, and
psychedelic music shares with metal its epic structures
and demanding melodic regimen.
2.4.1.3 Experimental violent
The rhythms and power chord geometries of metal have
fascinated many experimental musicians who have used them
to create extreme influences in varying genres.
2.4.1.4 Grunge
The basic model patterns of grunge are based on the work
of Black Sabbath in re-arranging the pentatonic scale for
their own usage.
2.4.2 Aesthetically
In the abstract, aesthetics have as a whole been
influenced by the ideas in metal: distortion, dirt,
ambiguity, nihilism. Other systems of people were at work
on similar ideas as well, but this area is where metal,
through its network of fans from whom the intelligent are
often successful, distributed valuable information and
ideas.
2.4.2.1 Degraded
The abraded or washed-out textures of jeans in the 80s
were a precursor to the higher-grade graphics of the next
generation, where worn-out or grainy, gritty surfaces were
part of the aesthetic that inverted the conditions of its
own slick, context-less appearance.
2.4.2.2 Stark
The dynamicism inherent in the presence of metal, and its
structural coherence, demonstrate a stark or shocking
aesthetic which also is at work with current designers of
visual media.
2.4.2.3 Structural
When an aesthetic seeks to outdo itself, it goes to the
next level: intense structuralism, which such as the kind
used in metal can be used to create a vaster depth of
emotional connection through its literality and
universality. Metal's structuralism has influenced radio
rock in the 90s more than any other attribute of any other
genre.
2.4.3 Philosophically
Philosophically metal has been the only major underground
movement to tackle a technical philosophy of existence and
spirituality, and has contributed through its public image
an association with hedonism and spirited off-the-cuff
living.
2.4.3.1 Hedonism
The excesses of metal players and fans are well known,
spreading the virus of divisiveness between drug takers
and others.
2.4.3.2 Nihilism
The cold-eyed stare with which metal reduces the
negative or ambiguous in life to null or little value
gives it the same epic power as the raw literality of
its characters during a journey.
2.4.3.3 Romanticism
The daring Romeo and Juliet style rapiership with the
darkness of reality and its intensity gives metal a
powerful Romantic background.
2.4.3.4 Politics
Politically more people are electing to follow metal
lifestyles, meaning that fewer moral and more logical
decisions are going into politics.
2.4.3.5 evil mysticism
As the public forefront of popular culture's
fascination with evil, metal music is almost an ikon
for Satan himself.
People often ask why metal is fascinated with evil and
has been since its inception in Black Sabbath, who were
formed partially to enable their occult beliefs a
forum. The answers perhaps lie in the definitions of
romanticism and nihilism coming together for a dark but
empowering worldwide: as if inspired by Dionysius, the
crafty god of wine of the Greek era, or by Fenris, the
wolf of apocalypse of the Norse, metal bands have
rejected order in favor of chaos and hedonism. The
hedonism is explainable to the materialistic
parametrics of nihilism combined with the passion and
life-seeking sensuality of romanticism, and the chaos
is the midnight tempest which buffets away the weak and
encourages autonomy and independent direction in those
who would survive. Humanity's path toward apocalypse
has made even more trenchant these views, and
consequently varying interpretations of evil exist in
metal today.
Some have even taken this farther, to associate the
Bacchus/Dionysius spirit of mind with its Nietzschean
metaphor of the brave, independent, and analytical yet
impassioned artist struggling in a world of sleepers.
I have said too much and will leave it there.
"Watch as flowers decay
On cryptic life that died
The wisdom of the wizards
Is only a neurtured lie
Black knights of Hell's domain
Walk upon the dead
Satanas sits upon
The blood on which he feeds"
- Slayer, "Die by the Sword"
2.4.3.5.1 Satanism
To discuss the topic as briefly as possible,
several popular types of satanists and their
beliefs include:
- LaVey satanists: They use The_Satanic_Bible
as an inspiration or basis for their belief system,
which is closely related to humanism. They do not
necessarily believe in the existance of
supernatural figures, including god and satan, and
believe that worshipping these imaginary figures
does no good and is degrading.
A good reference on this Satanism is
The_Satanic_Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey.
- "Hollywood" Satanists: This group uses a
combination of the name Satan, Satanic worship,
Satanic rituals, and Satanic references to shock
and offend those who buy into the "Satan is evil"
that mainstream groups/cults have propagated. They
often are poorly educated in the occult and more
well studied occultists will reveal errors and lack
of knowledge in their statements on Satanism.
- Devil-worshippers: There are few, if any, of
these groups in Satanism. Christians and Jews
would like you to believe otherwise. You are
advised to not take statements from their religious
opposition as truth, when it is far more likely to
be a "straw man" argument, where a biased mockup of
your beliefs is created and then skewered for its
artificial extremity.
- Gnostic/Transcendental Satanists: These apply the
principles of "evil" in a very distributed and
analytical, abstract method, coming up with a
peaceful but nihilistic philosophy that is
terrifying to normal people but highly sensible.
"It's a concept album about what once was before the
light took us and we rode into the castle of the
dream. Into emptiness. It's something like; beware
the Christian light, it will take you away into
degeneracy and nothingness. What others call light
I call darkness. Seek the darkness and hell and you
will find nothing but evolution."
- Varg Vikernes, va...@burzum.com
"Cursed
Black magic night
We've been struck down
Down in this Hell
Spells surround me day and night
Stricken by the force of evil light
The force of evil light"
- Slayer, "Black Magic"
2.4.4 Decryptically
Metal, like most Postmodern art, is an experience and not
a medium. Hence there are several layers which must be
removed from their compacted form, "decrypted" and served
up to the reader by some part of the inner brain. This
enables the music to survive longer before being
aesthetically ripped off.
2.4.4.1 Experiential Conception of Art
The lyrics, culture and music of heavy metal warriors
is heavily encrypted within experiential reference and
heavily technological language, but like many other
genres from this period it does provide a literal
level, and a meta-level, to all three facets of its
art.
2.4.4.2 Existential Gateway to Darkness
To decrypt it is to understand it and be open to virus
Metal's virus comes wrapped in the appearance of
death, meaning that where there is a weakness to
death, it equalizes and penetrates. The morbidity,
paranoia, passion and politics of metal over the
years has shown a passage by which one accepts
death, and the nihilistic chaos of material reality,
and in doing so lays down the foundation for
transcending it.
To do that is to become a gleeful nihilist; a
postmodern nihilist is a "post-nihilist"
One would transcend material with nihilism, and then
transcend nihilism with its natural self-reduction:
a "post-nihilist" would be one who could
nihilistically view human existence and see within
it a space for creativity, joyful in the emptiness
and impermanence of reality. Metal, by introducing
structure and spirituality and Romanticist
individualism and nihilism, issues to its listeners
a challenge to explore it deeper and bond with what
causes it to be, rather than what it "is."
"Falsified Spirits Farther They Fall
Soon They Will Join Us In Hell
See The Sky Burning The Gates Are Ablaze
Satan Waits Eager To Merge."
- Slayer
III. Metal as Physical Manifestation
3.1 Concerts
Concerts can be a rewarding experience of metallic
sub-culture observation, if the experience is conducted
properly. Beware the haphazard, as those are the fools who
are full of excuses when someone gets stabbed or hurt.
3.1.1 Information
Index of guides to tour and concert information:
3.1.1.1 List of tour date sites
http://www.tourdates.com/
Tour dates from the ASCAP machine.
http://www.pollstar.com/
An easy way to track who's on tour
http://www.moshking.com/
Southern California metal shows
3.1.1.2 Band homepage finder
http://www.metal-links.com/
A giant metal links forest.
http://www.anus.com/metal/links.html
The FAQ maintainer's maintained links list.
http://www.iki.fi/~mega/
A massive metal page with tons of links.
3.1.1.3 Venues by city
Los Angeles
Whisky A Go Go
(310) 652-4202
8901 W Sunset Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90069
Al's Bar
305 S. Hewitt St.
Downtown L.A., CA
(213)687-3558
Gabah's (Formerly the Anti-Club):
4658 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90029
(213) 661-3913
San Fernando Valley:
The Cobalt
22047 Sherman Way
Canoga Park, CA
(818)348-3789
East and West Los Angeles:
The Showcase Theatre
683 S. Main St.
Corona, CA
(909)340-0988
Pasadena:
Pleasures
3570 E Foothill Blvd
Pasadena, CA 91107
(626) 795-1259
San Bernardino (#1!):
Masterdome
137 S. G St.
San Bernandino, CA
(909)276-7770
Detroit
Harpos
(313) 824-1700
14238 Harper
I-Rock Nightclub
46350 Harper
(313) 881-7625
The Old Miami
3930 Cass Ave.
Detroit, MI 48201
(313)831-3830
3.1.2 Attendance
With some attential to logic, concert attendance is
graceful and enjoyable.
3.1.2.1 Ear protection
Amplified systems within clubs sometimes go over 120 dB
in terms of effect on the listener, so it is wise to
purchase intelligent ear plugs (either the silicon
blobs or the compressible sponge probes). Anyone who
scorns you for doing this is probably deaf already, so
don't bother replying.
3.1.2.2 Social interaction
If you walk with respect for self, others, and world,
and do not interfere with the needs and spaces of
others, you will almost universally be fine. You may
witness violent cultures such as skinheads, cholos, or
deranged Hessians on speed and the best way to handle
it is gently. Provocative behavior usually will result
in violence.
Should your intelligence save you from destruction, you
will wish to display prominently the t-shirt obtained
by wearing it:
(Preferred) As your sole garment except black pants
all day on the following day.
(Acceptable) Underneath your uniform of slavery the
next working or school day, hopefully wearing some
mark of violence/evil as well.
(Degraded) As your sole garment all day for the next
three days.
3.1.2.3 Rules of evidence
It is wisest to keep all "evidence" (things that are
likely to be confiscated) on one's person in soft
objects, rather than cases. One is often frisked at
the door and all strange hard objects explored to see
if they are weapons; keeping the stuff on one's self
reduces the task of one's car being impounded and sold
by the cops.
Moving joints into concerts has always been easy for
me; I avoid socks, as they often frisk there, and
prefer to either sling the baggie under the scrotum or
in the wallet, where although it is flat, it will
rarely be disturbed (but be careful whipping out your
wallet!). Smoking joints is easy; you want no flame to
be visible near the scent of marijuana, so you curl
your hand around the joint and cup it to your mouth
like you are holding your chin. Always pass it to
partners below the line of sight, e.g. waist level, and
blow smoke toward the floor.
As far as I can tell, the only way to smuggle alcohol
in to a show is to have a woman with you, as often they
don't frisk those.
3.1.3 Merchandise
3.1.3.1 Shirts and prices
T-shirts are usually sold in XL and other sizes and are
$20 for short sleeves, $25 for longer sleeves, with the
bigger shows charging even more.
3.1.3.2 CD's
Usually bands will sell their CD's for $12-15 at
concerts or clubs. Quite often more of the profit goes
to the band instead of the distributor and possibly
more than the label, so this author enjoys buying CD's
before the encore.
3.1.3.3 Royalties breakdown
When buying t-shirts and CD's from the bands themselves
at this venue, one is directing a much larger chunk of
profit toward the band than thru a record store or mail
order from the label. Forget not that record stores
buy major releases for $7, and then sell for $12-17;
that extra money in the CD cost goes somewhere and when
there's no store, label, or venue involved, it's the
band. Order of preference for buying objects:
1) Band
2) Band at show
3) Label
4) Underground Mail Order
5) Specialty record stores
6) Chain record stores
3.2 Recordings
Purchasing metal recordings can be very sensible and
efficient if you know what you're looking for.
3.2.1 Audio
Audio is any recorded sound, whether live (bootleg or live
album) or studio (recorded with intent for release).
3.2.1.1 Live
Live sound is either a live album released by one of
the band's labels, or a bootleg recording which is
released by a fan or scammer.
3.2.1.1.1 Acquisition
Please visit the metal links page at
http://www.anus.com/metal/links.html
3.2.1.1.2 Resources
Please visit the metal links page at
http://www.anus.com/metal/links.html
3.2.1.2 Studio
Studio music is produced by agreement between band and
label as pushed as the regular "product" containing the
music of the band.
3.2.1.2.1 Acquisition
Please visit the metal links page at
http://www.anus.com/metal/links.html
3.2.1.2.2 Resources
Please visit the metal links page at
http://www.anus.com/metal/links.html
3.2.2 Video
Video is any recorded motion picture imagery, whether live
(bootleg or official concert performance) or studio
(recorded with intent for release as a separate
production).
3.2.2.1 Live
Please visit the metal links page at
http://www.anus.com/metal/links.html
3.2.2.2 Studio
Please visit the metal links page at
http://www.anus.com/metal/links.html
3.3 Production
Production is how technology is used to make something sound
like the artist wishes it to, and includes a number of
acoustic and electrical disciplines.
3.3.1 Techniques
Methods of production that produce a consistent effect, as
requested.
3.3.1.1 Swedish distortion
See section I, subsection 1.5.1.
3.3.1.2 Distortion mini-FAQ
This section to be completed in the future.
3.3.1.3 Vocal effects
This section to be completed in the future.
3.3.2 Studios
Some classic studio names are mentioned often in the
annals of metal history and so are worth knowing, for that
bored day when you're wondering what the difference
between Tampa Gutteral American Death Metal production and
Norsk Arisk Frozen Tempest production.
3.3.2.1 Morrisound
http://www.morrisound.com/
Home to many famous productions, mostly from the
Florida scene of Amerikan metal: Death, Malevolent
Creation, Monstrosity, Deicide, Resurrection.
3.3.2.2 Grieghallen
Home to many famous productions from the Norse scene,
including Immortal, Enslaved, Burzum, and Gorgoroth.
3.3.2.3 Sunlight
sunligh...@telia.com
Home to many famous productions from the Swedish death
metal scene, including Carnage, Entombed, Dismember,
Seance.
3.3.3 Producers
These people are known for their various styles, some of
which empowered musical advancements in metal to be heard
by the masses.
3.3.3.1 Harris Johns
Producer who engineered records for Kreator, Voi Vod,
Coroner, Tankard and other bands during the middle to
late 1980s, was a madman.
3.3.3.2 Tomas Skogsberg
When the first school of Swedish death metal appeared,
it utilized a new form of blisteringly destruction
distortion, requiring a producer who could tame that
sound into coherence. Sunlight Studios and Thomas
Skogsberg forever will be remembered for that
utilization.
3.3.3.3 Pytten
Produces most of the Scandinavian school of blackmetal
at Grieghallen. First name Eirik, unknown if he is
related to the person by that name who played bass on
the first Immortal LP.
3.3.3.4 Tom Morris
The "Morrisound sound" can be either a curse or
blessing, depending on your intended audience.
Although it is mocked often for its consistency, the
Morrisound folks were the first to figure out how to
consistently preserve bass AND tone in metal music.
Some say toward the end of the American death metal
period, Morrisound was producing almost
mechanical-sounding boosted recordings that destroyed
the texture of sound.
3.3.3.5 Scott Burns
Known mainly for being the guy in the "NO MOSH - NO
CORE - NO FUN - NO TRENDS" circle on old mayhem
records, Scott Burns cranked out an amazing number of
death metal albums as producer and engineer. Some say
his work sucks, and at least a lot of it sucks, but
he's done some reasonably adept productions as well.
Also, metal bands/grindcore bands are rarely working
with matched sets of current equipment. Of late has
worked predominantly out of Morrisound Studios.
3.4 Objects
The various assorted physical objects one can get in addition
to recordings can contribute to a sense of groundedness in
the genre, but could also be a waste of time. Tshirts
however serve the useful social function of spreading
information; the band name and logo are shouted at every
occasion by intense visuals.
3.4.1 Gear
The soft goods of the metal scene.
3.4.1.1 Clothing
T-shirts: should be $15 for short sleeves, $20-25 for
longsleeves
Hooded sweats: should be $25
3.4.1.2 Patches
Generally $1-$5, these are band logos in (manly)
embroidered patches.
3.4.1.3 Armor
Many Hessians choose to make their own armor. However,
many mailorder places will sell Armor and Weapons.
3.4.1.4 Weapons
Many Hessians choose to make their own weapons, but
these too are sold through the mail. Mostly this
involves midevalism and other forms of classicism, but
often there are Hessians making nuclear weapons for
Satanic annihilation of life in the most normal
neighborhoods.
3.4.2 Distribution
Metal uses an internal network of underground
distributors, activists, and content architects in order
to ensure the distribution of ideas. It is a remarkably
efficient chaotic machine.
3.4.2.1 labels
For an updated list, see the Dark Legions archive
labels database at:
http://www.anus.com/metal/labels.html
3.4.2.2 mail order
For an updated list, see Dark Legions archive mailorder
list at:
http://www.anus.com/metal/labels.html
3.4.2.3 net sales
Net sales are common as they allow the seller to
receive $6-12 for a CD otherwise returning $2-4 at a
record store or $0.50-2 at a corporate music outlet.
Most transactions occur through a posted ad in USENET
and an email agreement, then check or cash or money
order transfer followed by shipping.
Yes, this runs on the honor system, but what doesn't?
If you get ripped off by a merchant, you _could_ sue --
if you had ten thousand dollars and several years to
wait.
Remember that how you treat others influences the
likelihood of how you will be treated.
When selling, post a list of CD's, prices, and terms
and conditions (postage, quality of merchandise, time
required) with a Subject: line beginning with CDSALE:
and you will get the most response by convention. When
buying, ask conditions and consider asking for a bulk
discount if purchasing many items.
Always keep contact information for the seller, because
if the package doesn't arrive, you want to ask before
slinging accusations. However, if something goes wrong
and the person with whom you're dealing does nothing
for a couple of months, post a message to the metal
groups explaining your experience and asking for
advice.
Usually the seller will either wake up and give you
straight answers or the underground will boycott the
person who has so dishonored themselves.
At the Dark Legions Archive, there is a list of links
to current cautions/"bad" trader list:
3.4.2.4 tape trading
Some consider tape trading "illegal" and "immoral," but
such things make no difference to a busy metalhead,
especially when tape trading is the background of
diversity in metal.
Finding new bands is difficult, especially with catalog
descriptions like "Necro-fuck carnal excretory metal"
and "Trollish folkloric sado-metal," so often people
will spend time and effort making custom sampler tapes
for friends in exchange for a similar offering. This
allows metalheads worldwide to hear a much broader
range of music than if they were confined to hearing
only what they could afford, and spreads different
kinds of music to the different groups of people who
appreciate each kind.
Not only does it benefit the fans and the bands, but by
extension the labels, who in exchange for hosting the
capital that funds each new release take most of the
profits for their own satiation. For this reason, it
is the opinion of this writer that it is best to keep
tape trading as a metal institution.
On the newsgroups or via IRC or via personal web pages
you can make contact with other individuals wishing to
tape trade, and then arrange for the trade in email or
by phone.
Most IRC clients will allow you to have a DCC file
server from which you can dish out your "for
sale/trade" list, as you can post it to USENET or other
open forums.
Spread everything you can, especially demo bands, who
self produce their tapes and sell them through local or
metal-specialty record stores.
"Unauthorized duplication of this release is not only
permitted but encouraged, make a tape of the shit and
give it to a friend. This is the underground, support
it. If we were in it for the money we would have quit
long ago." - Skinless
3.4.2.5 used sales
Record stores often make more money on used CD's - for
which they pay $2-$5 and sell for $6-$10 - than
shrink-wrapped brand new versions. Hence most of them
now have some form of used music display.
Netwise buyers sell mostly used merchandise at often
better prices, if you're chary enough to buy bulk, and
transfer more of the money taken in toward buying more
metal, on the whole. Support yourself and the
underground with a person to person transaction.
A newer breed of record stores exist which specialize
in bulk resale, e.g. they have a ton of stock in a
warehouse environment. These often will sell you two
decades of metal for $25 or thereabouts.
3.5 Playing
Part of the Hessian experience is to get involved in music
making, which instigates a respect for the beauty things
create in one's mind even when the things themselves are
fully deconstructed. The "aesthetic barrier" is what
restricts most people from understanding music; they
understand it as a whole, usually based on its production
values or choices of coloring within the pieces. To be a
musician is to transcend the aesthetic barrier or to forever
be a slave to the translation factor of pushing music through
one's instrument.
3.5.1 Guitar
http://www.pst.informatik.uni-muenchen.de/~dranidis/Music/
Learning Guitar through Music Theory is an excellent
resource.
For a "metal" sound, it is recommended that you get a
guitar with deep tone and if possible double humbucker
pickups for extra crunch. Of all the picks commercially
available, the "Tortex" last the longest compared to
normal planned obselence plastic erases. Many metal
musicians swear by thicker-than-normal strings, also.
Most of the fast strumming techniques seem to be centered
around holding the guitar at a radical angle nearly over
the shoulder, and cutting diagonally across the bottom
three strings often in a circular wrist motion.
3.5.2 Drums
I have found some tricks that will allow great speed with
minimal effort. On Monday I saw a recent edition of Modern
Drummer has published a technical section by Virgil Donati
who I consider to be the master of double bass drumming.
I only got a quick glance but I know it goes through his
concepts of playing doubles on each foot. This generally
allows you greater speed and endurance than if you were
just to play singles all the time.
I used to listen to Virgil practice in a room just next to
me as I was waiting for my drum lessons and the stuff he
can do with his feet are amazing.
Unfortunately, it takes a long time to develop the
strength and accuracy of doubles on the left foot so that
it matches the right foot.
As I have continued to work on my left foot doubles, I
have found that I can utilise the speed of my right foot
to get to faster tempos without worrying the left foot too
much.
Instead of doing straight singles or doubles, I use a
mixture of the two. Doubles on my right foot and singles
on my left. This means I have groups of three notes
happening on my feet faster than I can play them with
normal singles.
The way to practice this is simply to play them as
triplets.
Left-right-right-left-right-right- etc. With the
quarter-notes in capitals it looks like this:
L r r L r r L r r L r r L r r L r r L r r L r r
Once you get to the stage where all notes sound even you
can then make this stream of notes into anything. To play
them as sixteenth notes your feet do this:
L r r l R r l r R l r r L r r l R r l r R l r r
This can feel a little weird at first because the pattern
your feet are playing resolves after 1.5 or 3 bars but
most music is in four bar phrasing so it sometimes can
seem strange to get in and out of.
Trust me though, once you practice this for a couple of
days you should be gaining in speed immediately.
I like to use this technique a bit but it is only a
passing thing until I get to using doubles on both feet.
-- Richard Beechey, richard...@hotmail.com
Well, I started out as a death metal drummer so heres my
.308
1.Don't sit low(preferably so that when you sit on your
drum throne your arse is higher than your knees) .I find
it a lot easier to play doubles faster and for much longer
periods of time when I sit a little higher
2.Buy a metronome,and a book with the basic drum rudiments
3.Practise the above with legs,feet,both starting out slow
and gradually increasing speed when you feel comfortable
with the slower tempos.
Also practise playing triplets,quads,quintuplets etc. to a
steady 4/4 rock beat and "four on the floor" 8th,16th and
32nd note rolls with hands,feet,combined,slowly at first
and also learn the associated rests ie. This is all about
learning to walk before learning to run.
4.I normally play a set with the snare and ride at more or
less the same height(sitting down,a little lower than
elbow height) the hihat a little higher.Toms placed a
little higher than the snare at a small angle.Crashes and
china at about shoulder height and the splashes halfway
between the tom rims and crashes.This makes it easier to
play fast and otherwise because the movement needed is
basically minimal.
5.Listen and play along to Gene Hoglan,Sean Reinert,Tomas
Haake,Tim Alexander,Pete Sandoval,Dean Castronovo,Vinnie
Paul,Arcturus and Mayhem :)
6.Try your pedals at medium tension and the drumhead a
little tighter. More rebound and a quicker response
7.Use ankle weights and practise rudiments with big ass
drumsticks.
...A little help I suppose
8.when practising don´t tense up,when you feel like your
arms are starting to tense up, slow down to a comfortable
speed.
9.Stretch out before you start to play, pay attention to
the hands.
Warm up a little.Ignoring points 8 and 9 can lead to
serious problems in the future ( I know).Stretch out after
you finish playing.
A little help I hope
-Pyry, kaisa.luk...@inet.fi
3.5.3 Bass
I use a lot of chords in my playing. I mostly play metal
genres though which is a different situation than you are
in. I think my use of chords (2,3, and 4 note) stems from
my days playing in one-guitar groups where the need to
fill things in during solo sections drove me to cover for
the lack of a rhythm guitar. Now I play in a 5-piece with
two guitars so there's not as much room but I still find
places to let loose some excessive bass frequencies.
- Brian (Ion Vein)
For metal playing generally, look for a low action - a
little fret buzz is okay - and a basic sound that has
plenty of top and bottom. That it's generally a good bass
with a good setup, that you're comfortable playing, is
more important than the particular brand.
- David Hodges
3.5.4 Vocals
When performing death metal, grindcore, or black metal
vocals, it is important to remember that believe it or
not, one is still singing. The harsh sounds in the throat
are produced by the aggravated resonance of the vocal
cords, but the cords themselves will be damaged unless
given amplification by a whole lot of wind from below.
This brings in the diaphragm, a beltlike muscle around the
base of the lungs which allows for external pressure to
work the dual sacs as a billows. Contracting that muscle
is as easy as deep breathing; once you've memorized that
feeling enough to reproduce it, you can control this
muscle to shove more air across your vocal cords and thus
to pre-amplify your sound.
"Gorgoroth is heavy, but not the heaviest. They play a lot
in mid-tempo, and my main point of critisism is the
vocals. The singer sounds like a duck being castrated."
- Sybren, S.J.He...@lr.tudelft.nl
IV. Metal as virtual community
Though some may laugh at the idea of this biting, hissing,
spitting, kicking, shitting and screaming mass of boiling animal
hatred as a community, it really is a place in which people
live, exchange ideas, form bonds and enemities.
I find "shape" a word that only applies to three dimensions...
Again, we need a new vocabulary. And some pot.
- Annatar Gorthaur, maar...@lx.student.wau.nl
4.1 Newsgroups
USENET provides the easiest access to most metalheads;
however, it is also the most annoying, given the high
prevalence of noise to signal from personality disorders
rendered into text.
4.1.1 extant groups
Metal groups at the time of this writing:
alt.rock-n-roll.metal - commercial metal
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.heavy - commercial metal/grunge
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.death - death metal
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.black - black metal
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.metallica - fan group
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.ironmaiden - fan group
alt.music.black-metal - black metal
alt.music.black-metal.nazi - nazi black metal
alt.music.slayer - fan group
alt.fan.metal - metal fan social group
alt.fan.metal.burzum - fan group
alt.fan.metal.suffocation - fan group
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.progressive - prog heavy metal
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.doom - doom/commercial metal
alt.thrash - thrash music
alt.music.grindcore - grindcore music
alt.music.underground.metal - underground metal/crossover
alt.music.underground.metal.death - underground death
metal
4.1.2 history
One of USENET's earliest hierarchies was the
alt.rock-n-roll hierarchy, started to complement .sex and
.drugs in the middle eighties. By the next decade, a
.metal had been added and by the early nineties a new
group, .metal.heavy was added to accomodate "heavier"
metal, not knowing that "heavy metal" is a keyword for
more commercial, rock-based offerings.
Somewhere in this time alt.thrash was created for
skateboarders and taken over by crossover music fans.
In order to advance this hierarchy to a contemporary
state of metal knowledge, in 1993 I created the newsgroup
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.death, which was followed by
.progressive, .doom, and the newer hierarchy of
alt.music.black-metal in the middle 1990s.
"I've been around since the dawn of time when we created
the death metal newsgroup, and all that I can tell is
endless flamewars, Christians falling in fire and battle,
and conquest of various other territories with forward
logic and relentless aggression."
- feca...@yahoo.com
4.1.3 suggested futures
Metal newsgroups should function to empower the most
possible users both as reference and interactive medium.
Thus the best way to split their identities is to divide
them according to musical genre tree and history, as that
is how they are marketed and how people will know to find
them:
alt.rock-n-roll.metal - general commercial metal
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.heavy - "heavy metal"
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.doom - doom metal
alt.music.grindcore - grindcore
alt.music.metal.death - death metal
alt.music.metal.black - black metal
alt.music.thrash - thrash music
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.lifestyle - metal lifestyle
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.commercial - product ads
4.1.4 etiquette/ethos
Unlike most of the rest of the net, the metal zones are
not based on morality or material aesthetics; therefore,
nothing is taboo and anything not expressly permitted is
completely legal. People fire flame and fist across text
that is in the end to all of us completely meaningless,
and so Hessians do not worry about rules, only keeping the
content meaningful.
Metalheads are naturally anarchistic, and so there is no
need for rules. A few good ideas:
1 - Look to see if someone has asked/answered your
questions by scanning the Subject: lines of your news
messages, and then by using http://www.dejanews.com/ or
http://www.reference.com/ or http://www.talkway.com/ to
find older messages on that topic.
2 - Avoid taking USENET seriously; it is a playground
for minds and personalities, and much of what goes on is
not "serious" in that it is not "real," but is serious in
that someone is attempting to communicate something, even
quite possibly something of which they are not yet fully
aware.
3 - To avoid getting unwanted commercial email from bulk
marketers gathering lists out of USENET databases, enter
your
From: line as shown below:
From: pres...@whitehouse.gov,re...@email.here
(Name)
4.1.5 Objective Communication
This paragraph is written in a persona as interpretation
of the metal subcultural ethos, in order to establish the
strong polarity which is felt by most of those making the
metal that matters, if not by all the imitators and
clueless fans.
Hence, while this inclination might seem ultra-subjective,
one must consider that in an objective data reading from a
physical system, what an individual will tell you
subjectively may constitute in the abstract form a part of
a heuristic tree of knowledge that provides for the
differentiation of belief, .: beliefs originate in
different methods of approaching a situation/object, and
in differentiation open themselves to evolution, or
selection of the superior strains of idea while allowing
the weaker to lapse.
4.1.5.1 Scientific method
Scientific method - the formation of hypotheses in
response to testing as a means of testing accepted
hypotheses as well as new, in an ever changing system of
cross-indexed knowledge - is the basis of any kind of
deconstruction, backward engineering, or analysis of how
something previously unknown works.
This is also the basis of communication, where as in
digital protocols there is a handshaking phase of
equalization of symbolic (quantitative) tokens, and where
interpretation uses logical constraints to narrow a search
to a reasonable set of answer data. When analyzing music,
a similar set of requirements exists: that one use
rigorously objectivist means of finding
publically-referentiable data.
So when objective terms are used to describe music or
musical movements, it is structurally necessary for
coherence that objective experiments and scientific theory
underly such language. As it is, here, we attempt to
document much of this from a thinking Hessian's view.
Many people believe objectivism, or the science of a
shared space which really is consistent despite our varied
perceptions of it, is something a few of us would rather
call subjectivism, or solipsism: the belief that the world
is formed of one's perceptions.
Objectivism however is the study of consistency. Of
constantly verifying one's worldview with experiments in
every possible area, to find consistencies in behavior and
to use abstract principle to deduct structure from a
number of these consistencies.
It's science. The core of it. How we inference our way
to technology as intelligent apes.
It does not assert that all things are the same, or that
we are controlled by an external force. No: only that
there is an external reality which is consistent, and
provable as such with repeated demonstration from any
number of angles.
This is how we have come from clothing ourselves with mud
and boar carcass to having intercontinental ballistic
missiles. Repeated provability = cornerstone of theory.
What we in the outside-the-box school of objective
analysis call, "the back end."
The back end is what gives certainty of placement to any
thought - a known truth at which to begin decoding the
interaction of the unknown with the known. It's like
plugging known data into weird math equations to try to
figure out what's going on in the equation by how the
numbers change.
Inference, or inductive reasoning based on abstract
similarity ("resonance") of patterns, without a back end
to begin with is a form of "deep" or "mystic" inference,
in that it rests upon a collection of basic principles
interpreted in the deep abstract with tokens of the same
in such a way that none of it is _provable_, only
sensible.
An example of such a theory would be Christianity: one is
asked to presuppose a god-being, and take it on faith that
it exists and is omnipotent and wants you to do what you
are told through its book. Buddhism, as it claims to be,
is not: all things are verifiable through its only "true"
method, meditation. All else is "untrue" and therefore
has no necessary logical value.
Engine
Some kind of work producer channeled through an
output.
Machine
An object or idea which converts energy.
Language
A structure of tokens to have adaptive description
as a function of their recombinant structure, so
that they favor encapsulation in levels of
abstraction.
4.1.5.2 Artistic relevance
One asks, what is art?, because art seems different
from other forms of media, or works of communication.
It does not tell you what it is telling you to think;
it tells you what it is thinking, and requires you meet
it half way. It is the high abstract, and functions by
metaphor: jarring as if through drunkenness windows of
physical confinement to reveal similarity in event,
object, and ideal.
Understanding the related nature of structure brings an
understanding of the function of nature, and in doing
so, can address the pain and suffering and more
importantly, the fear thereof that cripples before the
disease hits, and bring a calm and peace to human
existence.
The varied reactions people have to art confirms this.
Despite a storm of protest, the only coherent comments
are usually those who originate from the people who
have identified with the art - who find ideas in the
art or metaphorically similar ideas in the art that are
constructive to their own.
Don't get us wrong - the tools of art are always
abused. Advertising, as an industry of convincing
people to give up their own free will, uses artistry to
convey simple messages. Political propaganda does the
same, wrapping a bundle of thoughts around a single
spindle and firing them off wildly in an emotional
reaction. But art does not stoop this low.
And what is amazing? Metal fans at least can tell the
difference. Consistently the albums that are pure
cheese are popular for a few years, and fade, where the
creations of the distinctive and bold and intelligent
stand forth as classics for years. The ones that fade
have a material significance: at that time they were
new, and fulfilled a need for music with something
plausible.
And so the fan base with the widest variance, who are
always looking for something new and different-looking
to stand out from the rest, seize it as a commodity:
something with consistent effect and function toward
improvement of physical being. Others look back on a
definition of a time through a cultural, metaphorical,
metaphysical interpretation of how it was lived, and
reference an oft-quoted list of "classics" with reasons
why ranging from articulate philosophical appreciation
to intoxicated nostalgia.
Products work toward consistency; art works toward
opening spaces. New ideas build space not by being
"new," or previously unseen, but by developing an
unknown method of executing the current objective
through a development of its concept. A postmodernist
might argue that "all history is but a struggle for a
point of view to share," but quite often, the
postmodernist might "be" right.
Art functions by introducing new ideas for the listener
to appreciate. It anticipates their... how does it do
this? Through using the scientific method: the artist
decodes world, and interpreting the universalism of its
methods, builds a simple virus to speak its own
contents. A language of characters which put together
resemble views of the experience; a series of slices of
crystal ball.
Art is the science of understanding what it is to be
intelligent, and in manipulating its symbology,
expressing its relevance and structure as spiritual
events rather than physical confrontations. The path
of intelligent abstract reasoning has so far led
humanity away from chaos and destruction into
organization and reasonable living; is it possible that
now it is in the hands of chaos again?
Yes - in that with art we have a back-end inference, in
that we are comparing its pieces as those who see them
and have no knowledge of the background of their
production. But based on the common intellectual
properties of artist and viewer, the art is created to
put into sight some very abstract and often emotional
ideas; the viewer will then interpret these, especially
as relevant to his or her own life.
In short, art is different from "normal" communication
in that it doesn't hope for change in the physical
world, e.g. buy this tampon/car. It is about the
transaction of ideas in a scientific sense: passing on
the abstract so that others may test their own theories
against it, and emerge with their own placement of its
value. Call it client-server psychology.
4.1.5.3 What Does Art Address
The amazing thing about art is its universality. The
artist will make it; many will comment. The artist
will speak. Usually many are disappointed, as their
interpretations were insane, but quite a few are
pleased in that their view is ratified by the artist's
words. This is where human psychology comes into
interpretation: "art" is both "subjective" and
"objective":
objective
A rehash from above: art manipulates life to
speak an idea in the abstract so humans can place
it, based on a reality we both can sense and test
with the scientific method.
subjective
Different people have different responses, but
this doesn't mean that they're all "right".
If I play a Darkthrone record to a random audience, and
the Priest says, "it's the work of the devil," the
Buddhist monk says "it seems to express the simplicity
and loneliness of structure", the prescient junior high
math whiz says it reminds him of matrices, the
politician says he hears loose morals in the "dissonant
chords and malevolent pauses", a limbless retarded
midget quadraplegic leper might call it "drool pain
sound car crash foofth gurshs", but the first is insane
but correct, the second sane and correct on levels of
both abstraction and literality (making him the only
sane analyst of art here), the junior high math whiz is
sane and correct in a way that even he can't yet
understand, the politician does not care about his
answer only the votes it generates so why do we listen,
and the midget is only there for late night sexual
abuse, is insane, and incorrect.
Concepts on art:
- Art has no teleological objective, or physical and
conclusive end, but expresses an idea in a non-literal
way. Why would it be non-literal?
- Art is interpretive, and never forces itself upon the
reader. Does this mean it has no effect? No - on the
contrary, the reader comes back for more because it has
an effect upon him or her.
- Language, despite being quantitative, can cover
almost any range of situations with its capability for
fuzzy logic allowing abstract similarities between
concepts to stand for physical scenarios. For example,
we call a certain kind of grenade a "potato masher"
because that is what the grenade resembles in shape.
Art arranges quantitative elements in a way that they
imply and manipulate a greater structure; therefore it
is in the range of the metaphysical: the abstract
interpretation of existence and the metaphysical.
- "Art states what is invisible." In any everyday
situation there are many truths evident in that people
share a belief and therefore act in accordance and
expectation of its fulfillment. Hence, art sometimes
wakes people up about commonsense ideas.
- Aesthetic or material valuation, the process of
assigning value to objects in a subjective sense based
on appearance or physical value, end thought processes
when an action is complete, but art seems to deal with
the moments before an action, or understanding that
action later.
- Art does not confuse value with relevance. Art
manipulates its objects unkindly often, and does not
hesitate to create imaginary worlds where doom may
prevail. But these characters and objects, while
imaginary, do have life: they are similar intelligences
to human, and therefore can be identified with by the
audience.
- Art is beyond politics. Politics uses linear power
structures; x = value and y = value and if x is good
and y is bad then y is to blame for the continuing
failure of human interaction. Art, by being
interpretive, is meta-democractic: those who can
understand can use these ideas and implement them, but
those who can't can only see a confusing appearance.
Art is self-filtering for the kind of symbolism that
becomes dogmatism in Christianity, or National
Socialism.
Music, by those people who enjoy it enough that they wish
to understand it after dissecting it musically and
conceptually, is analyzed as art, and as art an expression
of a level of some universality through its
conceptualization of awareness. There are other stages of
its appreciation, including:
--- tangible I. Aesthetic Fascination
II. Sentimental Self-Identification
III. Technical Appreciation
IV. Heuristic Comparison/Academicism
---- logical V. Abstract Analysis
---- mystical VI. Artistic Conception
VII. Spiritual Immersion
The three stages expressed on the left are also stages of
the development of a human child; it first appreciates
objects it can hold, and then learns to render/model them
in its own head, so that it can compare situations and
learn to interpret and react to its world. Eventually it
becomes self-aware, and from that shock goes on to seek a
meaning in existence, a study which leads one beyond the
directly scientific to the mystical, a deep-end
interpretation of tendencies in the universe as
metaphysical suggestions toward the structure of its
non-visible, abstract structural and original elements.
What Separates Art from Non-Art?
Art is interpretive. Anything that tells you what to do,
or demonstrates something with obvious symbols of
emotional manipulation, is probably propaganda and not
art. Hint: One rarely finds metal bands singing "KILL FOR
SATAN" but many metal bands use Satanic imagery. Is this
the face of metaphor?
Art is not accepted on faith. If it doesn't work for you,
you abandon it. Propaganda only wishes your assent,
however you justify it. Art allows you to develop for
yourself, using art and other forms of perception as
reference materials.
Art has no material objective. It is about abstract
communication and nothing more. Propaganda is always
directing different interests in a linear path to a
physical world accomplishment.
Art is not entertainment or propaganda; both are
neutralizers of the perceptive and inference faculties, as
both aim at consistency and stability over-riding
existential value in the unfolding paradox of being.
Art is a science self-refining enough to tackle the
spiritual realm, where strict discipline is necessary for
the lack of direct back-end inferential centers to not
prevent discovery.
Where most political or religious endeavors require a
"leap of faith" employing what to a highly-ordered thinker
is meta-logical but in the average interpretation is a
"blind" but dogmatically-justified inference, art is
self-interpretive by the user and is only a continuing
process as long as it is interactive. Art requires user
interpretation constantly and, since it often builds
layers of ideas on top of basic concepts, requires
"correct" interpretation of the general idea of what the
artist is addressing and trying to convey. "Correct" is
however made loose by the layers of initial meaning,
repetition, and other factors designed to let the user
misinterpret most of the message but still understand on
some level the ideas of art.
Levels of Communication
I. Aesthetic
- What it "sounds like" or "looks like" tells you
the mood and object of the piece.
II. Structural
- How it puts itself together musically posits
and emotional and academic meaning.
III. Meta-Structural
- What type of theory for music as a whole via
the interpretation of a "next generation" mind is
suggested by the work.
IV. Inferential
- Deep interpretation of the presentation of
ideas reveals a spiritual or philological
interpretation of the ideas addressed, or a
statement of ambiguity revealing the confusion of
art or user.
We are lucky that art generally does not have a
material objective, except when it's sold out, of
course (Yes, argue with me all day - to your loss.
Metallica's first three albums have a quality what came
after did _not_ in common observation: a passion from
an emergent conception of existence and a fluidity of
acceptance of its darkness).
Art, functioning on the highly abstract level, can only
utilize highly abstract concepts of learning and
through that, initiate a heuristic tree of learning
where similar ideas are filed, allowing the user to
"understand" the material first and then to appreciate
an internal decision on how to analyze it for relevance
without the preaching of a dogmatic teleology to the
work shadowing any interpretation with a disbelief in
individual interpretation itself.
As often happens, we resort to metaphor when talking
about art itself. We could call it the science of
metaphorical epistemology, e.g. how to give lyrical
significance to a world by symbolizing interpretation
on top of mundane description, but more likely we could
simply borrow Count Grishnack's phrase, "to stimulate
the fantasy of mortals."
Role of the Postmodern in Art of the late 20th Century
It's a ludicrous thing to attempt to communicate using
a word as charged as "Postmodernism," since most of
what that did mean, or could have meant, or might have
meant, is enmeshed in the entropic chaos emerging from
the polemic of the new freedom to do what looks like
stripping all structure from reality.
To explore postmodernism as an idea, it is best to
return to its origins. After the rise of industry and
the philosophy of Nietzsche, the world was a nihilistic
place caught in the quandary of that philosopher's most
famous statement "God is dead - and we have killed
him." Aware of its lack of values but unable to
divorce itself from a commercial path, the world was
settling into a lifestyle of emptiness and commercial
vapidity yet to come. And awaiting two world wars.
Writers such as James Joyce and William Faulkner
demonstrated a new method of thinking in their
contorted and highly technical novels, showing the
underlying human consciousness unexpressed in the
socialized self-justifying "self" used to survive a
brutal and often bitter world.
With its intense power of analysis and metaphorical
connection, postmodernist writers also tackled history,
reinterpreting it as a study for worldview, as Joyce
did in "Ulysses" with a technical re-articulation of
language through the ages and its evolving meaning.
Similarly Nietzsche, a renowned philologist (one who
studies the interpretation of history through
linguistic analysis), used words carefully to trace and
revive meaning in otherwise placeless events or
traditions, interpretations.
Postmodernism's basically positive outlook carried an
underlying shriek born of understanding the
metaprinciples of several sciences: to murder the
organic cycles of life by imposing an artificial and
simplistic "order" of material consumption is an error
indicating our refusal to accept the weight of making
decisions in an increasingly overwhelmingly complex
world. Joyce likened the everyday man to a great and
mythologically complex hero Odysseus, whose ten year
journey from a distant moronic war (an early Viet Nam
style "police action" no doubt) back home is marked at
every step by a cretinous evil opposing a natural ally
through mutual respect.
In a Joycean interpretation of the mundane, the
external world has significance in its symbology of
where we place our lives and expectations as a global
organism, and if our communication decays from language
into granular symbology (ikons) decisions will no
longer carry any differentiating value to their varied
outcomes, leading to an aimless nihilism and spiritual
darkness. Further writers such as William S Burroughs,
Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLilo confirmed a growing
horizon of massed uncertainty: the age of information
overload resulting in meaninglessness.
It's as if Dada, in its "reaction" to Modernism, had
created the babble that interpreted an unawareness of
the same babble, and this was integrated into a logical
system such as the structuralist nihilism and systemic
analysis of the Postmoderns. Postmodernism is not an
"answer" to modernism; it is a meta-modernism: an
interpretation of modernist principles in a data
structure spanning the highest abstract to the most
granular, earthy detail.
So now we consider the value that Postmodernism would
have to progressive industrial rock, aka heavy metal
and associated movements, in the time after hope? We
can see in metal movements a mirror of the history of
humanity, from the strict romanticism of Black Sabbath,
to the modernist righteousness of a moral authority
Metallica, to the darkness and existential nihilism of
a fiery fury of hatred Slayer, and from this
progression we can interpret the history of humanity
"as we know it" as a global maturation of the human
consciousness for artificial information and the need
for abstract comprehension and most of all, coherent
order, that comes with the communicative complexity of
a modern age.
Now in the spirit of both the Modern and the
Postmodern, let us interpret the history of human
philosophical systems until the present time as the
struggle for worldview that they have been, and then
project a series of futures and how metal music, as an
evolving philosophy, addresses them.
Classic history is all we've got so far that can give
us a start, but the facts being in it's reasonable to
say most of this stuff comes from a more innocent age
and is mostly not forged - something we can rarely say
about data from the twentieth century, when politicized
media portrayals have functioned powerfully to bias our
perception. In this view of social evolution, the
first written legal code addressing societal issues was
written by a king in the decayed remains of Sumeria
after the Akkadians (Semites from the Arabian/Israeli
area) invaded and absorbed what culture they did not
destroy.
Hammurabbi's code was a material interpretation of law.
If you killed another man's wife by accident, you could
"recompense" him by paying him a certain part of your
income. If another injured you, you were "owed" an
amount of money to justify the intrusion. The later
evolution of "an eye for an eye" truisms was based in
this idea, as, eventually, was the Christian protestant
concept of divine grace, where those who did as the
will of God was were rewarded materially.
During the millenium following the age of Hammurabbi,
Judaism became the primary religion of the Middle East
to oppose the more Western thoughts of the Roman and
Greek empires, as well as the evolving Indo-European
civilization stretching from Scandinavia to
Afghanistan. Its insistence upon divine
"righteousness" or correctness to behavior made it a
natural philosophical system for understanding the
material tokens of a technological realm: money.
In this age, money was at a low stage of evolution and
so there were none of the resources for making and
losing imaginary fortunes that there are today. And
for most, it was a mundane concept - money was only
useful to have things to live. But newer thinkers saw
that putting together resources allowed technology to
propagate, and, in doing so, generated its own consumer
base. Various societies enduring varying periods of
adaptation to this idea.
When the peak of Judaism's influence rose, a
counter-movement rose from its orthodoxy, in which a
liberal interpretation might be taken at an abstract
level in order to escape adaptations to the past.
Jesus Christ, as a reasonably intelligent Hebrew
prophet, sought to liberate the soul of his religion
from form and in doing so, hoped to translate
spirituality to an articulation not found in symbols
but personal connection to the absolute.
Interestingly, the extremity and quantitative nature of
the conception behind what becomes a very organic
proposition is based in the logical systems of the
Roman and the conquered Greeks whose knowledge was
absorbed, some through Macedonian and Arabian
connections whose portrayal of Sumerian _gnostics_
brought ideas from the Quabbalah and other pagan
spiritual technology into the mixture.
Christianity, as the fusion of Greco-Roman culture and
Judaism, has an interesting abstraction behind all of
its technology, where the duality of mind and body is
portrayed in a denial of self in favor of symbologic
victory "for the next life." This removes the more
organic reality of the Jews, whose pragmatic belief was
for action in the current life, but whose abstract
basis of comprehension still rested in an absolute God
whose favor determined success or failure,
Darwinistically.
We imagine the past happened in black and white, or
cave paintings. But more likely it was as flavorful as
time is now, with humans with a similar if not
comparable intelligence, trapped in the impotence of a
pretechnological age but also free from the rigors of
human neurosis in an age when symbols dominate. As
scientistis discover ancient cave paintings of great
complexity (32,000 years ago) and American land
dwellers of multiracial complexity (8,000-12,000 years
ago), it becomes apparent that ages before our own
existed in greatness and health.
Indeed, in the western hemisphere we are used to this:
the great Aztec, Maya (Toltec, Olmec), Inca, Cherokee,
Sioux, Comanche and Apache once walked our shores.
Most perished for the material value of their religious
idols; it seems most of these societies banished
personal materialism with a religion glorifying
sacrifice of the absolute but meaningless to abstract
gods. But these changes helped "finance" the discovery
of a new world for resource exploitation as the
religion behind its impetus justified it.
Industry moved toward social domination during a time
when poverty struck many parts of Europe, and so worker
domination was not unheard of. Karl Marx (1818-1883)
reflected on this a generation later, but the peak
occurred as the last of the idle wealthy as a social
class reflected in romantic poetry upon the beauty and
potential of life. In the moralistic public conscience
of Christian politics, the spreading of this wealth to
all was the idea, and to do so in any way possible was
the only path to righteousness.
It was seen as following justice, mercy and compassion
to be democratic, and to enforce equality where not
possessive. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) addressed
this tendency in his _The Genealogy of Morals_, which
suggested that the quest for character and morality to
life was an avoidance of the question as individuals of
how we want to spent our time, and, behind that
question, what it is that we value. Nietzsche's work
suggested the most of social justification and stronger
was, quite frankly, a scam which covered up the real
agenda, or subtext, of profit-making and power-dealing
as ways of denying mortality and doubt.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) stated his case in _On the
Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection_, in
which what was first interpreted as a rebuke to
Christian theology but later assimilated as its
pseudoscientific justification, an articulation of the
process of evolution, made the backbone of a scientific
description of the world's occurrence.
After the hysteria, Christians and Jews alike began to
accept the ideas - could these not be the meachanisms
of an all-powerful deity? Indeed: if one
backward-interprets Darwinian logic from the present
time, any of one's successes or failures are judged to
be "decisions" in an evolutionary tree of a perfected
world. If reward for being one of God's allies comes
in material form, would it not be fair to say that
material favor constitutes success - _evolutionary_
success as part of the plan of God?
With this morality entered its final stage of
development where, with its basis in an actual process
of "God" rendered incoherent, faith became an
interpretation based in the evolutionary process as a
perfection. Interpreted in a social pattern, as it was
as soon as 95% of the working population were
accustomed to hourly wages and an hour-value for their
time, social Darwinism became an explanation for
success or failure as external to human control: divine
choice through earthly method.
This assaulted the older ideal of Platonic separation
between abstract and real, claiming that the abstract
existed only in the significance of the real, where not
totally inapplicable. Morality was inherent in what
the result was, and not the intent or significance of
the action. Hence even reprehensible criminality
became accepted in a commercial society. This theory
was in its nascent formation at the time of Nietzsche,
and growing toward a dogma during the nihilistic shock
of the age of Joyce and Faulkner.
Since the time of these thinkers, society has become
more technologically-empowered than ever before, and
Judeo-Christianity remains the dominant philosophical
justification behind the great empires of North
America, Europe, and the Middle East. However, in
America, the rate of dissenters has risen dramatically
since the focused public intent reacting to the
monolithic violence of imminent WWII.
Our counterculture, or "sub-culture", reacted
powerfully against the rising of an empire whose goals
betrayed their justification. The degradation of the
beatnik 1950s and the instability of a peacenik late
1960s are testimonies to the demographic influence of
rebellion, but the question has always been, where to?
A successful rebellion is not possible without either
solving or finding an adaptation to the conditions
suggesting impulse to rebel, and so far social
rebellions have most commonly remained part of the same
thought process of the mainstream society: a
morality-based, modernist politicism based in the
materialism of Judeo-Christianity as interpreted
through socially accepted science. Many movements have
decayed in their age into a parody of their former
selves; having lost passion, their only option is the
same materialism they once rebuked.
Generation X, a maturing crop of technologically- savvy
children, found the inversion of values in their
parents to be a sickening symbol of the death of hope.
Their parents, who were around in the late 1960s,
survived the same instability that prompted a
hyper-activism on the part of music: Black Sabbath
invented a spiritual approach toward complex modern
issues, and cloaked it in the machine-like sounds of
logical structures shaped from basic chords and
classically-influenced melody. Heavy metal was born
from that fusion of future and past, expressing a new
interpretation of an older order through the coming
darkness of the current order's technology.
Several generations later, metal remains strong, mostly
through a rigorous ideology which dictates what is
"true" and what is not; that which is "true" has a
consistent belief structurally evident that the
principles of nihilism, existentialism, and
anarchism/Satanism are reconciliable with ancient
concepts of honor and value, a tradition leading
through both Judeo-Christianity and pagan
(Asatru/Greco-Roman) interpretations of the Sumerian
gnostic ideal. (Nietzsche's "Thus Spake Zarathustra"
addresses the dualistic ideology of Zoroastrianism, a
religion based on the material abstractions from
Sumerian mythology, an the origin of the good/evil
polarity as found in Judeo-Christian mythos.)
We can "sort of" understand the current cultural abyss
as "modern culture": it too has been subverted to feed
the dominant paradigm of dogma, and as such holds only
utilitarian and moral tokens, all of which can be seen
in its products: mercy and compassion over all, with a
strong underpinning of guilt and fear of natural
environment, and a happiness that results from material
value and "pleased" responses from others. The
symbology of modern times is a holdover from the last
renaissance mixed with a Darwinistic morality: there is
a way out of the darkness through learning, science and
technology, as long as it is used with _virtue_. Our
virtue has, after the vast corruptions of the cold war
unfurled, that no ideology had virtue and that inert
and harmless behavior was therefore the only virtue.
This kind of conditioning has been with us through the
ages, and so far has assimilated every system of
philosophy or ideology into some form of "product": a
symbolic existence whose entire purpose has been
subverted to reduction of individual will so that it
may serve a "collective goal" of continuing power for
an elite (there have been some exceptions, and many
argue that Hitler was one). One removes the coat of
choice and replaces it with morality, which could be
interpreted to read "I'm with the good guys." Because
God rewards the powerful, the good guys are _always_
the guys in control.
Examining metal as a postmodern culture, we find great
evidence of that ideological presence where logically
coherent with the other beliefs of the genre. A
gritty, distorted voice and constantly distorted
instruments break the clarity of symbology; lyrics with
metaphor of fantasy, journey, violence and might
reinforce both an awareness of mortality and a desire
to explore beyond it (what Nietzsche would call
crossing the "abyss," or the spiritual darkness created
by the doubt arising from the implications of external
control in awareness of death). It is death-shaman
music, like Jim Morrison's Doors were: bringing back
hope from the world beyond death.
Around us we see the usual decay of human ideals into a
pragmatic obedience to doubt, the "might be" which
conveys terror and coincidence of deadly action. It
is, as many "ideals" have been through history, a call
to throw down the difficult process of making decisions
in exchange for obedience to a cult of power which
rewards its disciples with tangible "idealizations" to
substitute for the ambiguous, metaphysical reality
behind the power of symbology and metaphor.
Generation X-Y-Z-0 find themselves facing the difficult
choice of producing an ideology to handle their world,
if possible to improve it, and on the fly because
although technology evolves toward a post-scarcity
social system, there is a deficit in the damage done to
the environment, and the corruption of our society to
the point where they shoot each other in high schools.
Postmodern thinking and its seeming nemesis, F.W.
Nietzsche, together speak a language of avoidance of
the "void" or "abyss" through creativity, an ethics
rather than a moral standard, and intoxication.
In this there is a place for metal: by embracing the
taboo, that being the triad of hedonism, nihilism, and
structuralist mysticism, metal becomes the foremost
vanguard of a new form of existence which hopes to
transcend the crisis of modern consciousness at an
abstract level and thus, to free us from war with and
sadistic torment of ourselves.
4.1.5.4 Language of Art
Art speaks a consciousness of the world beyond the
visible through a complex set of structures deployed as
metaphor: the visual and intellectual familiarity of
ideas overlaid to create a structural vision of overall
similarity, cloaked in an aesthetic vision which unites
its significance to the living being and its intricate
emotional intelligence.
Metaphor
The use of extended simile - comparison of two
objects, ideas, or entities - to create a
comparison of worlds as a mirror of the
encircling aspect of reality to a single
consciousness, kept in contrast with a spiritual
component of metaphor that constantly hints at an
larger interconnection of consciousness itself.
Subconscious
Postmodern thought targets the subconscious mind
with its often grandiloquent collages of
juxtaposition of imagery and abstract; the
belief, arising from the work of Sigmund Freud
(based on the work of Nietzsche) and C.G. Jung,
that the subconscious is the seat of the real
interplay which decides our conscious decisions
was assimilated early into artistic thought,
which knew it easily as the language of dreams.
Metachange
Artistic intent does not involve direct change in
a specific material situation but aims for an
overall evolution of intellectual and emotional
capacities of the human population as a whole,
through those who appreciate art and those who
create it. Art defines the cycle as the current
method of survival, our "world view"; art defines
the meta-cycle as the concept or change that will
increase the complexity of the cycle by a level
in order to allow its own transcendence: a
recognition of its meaninglessness in the face of
broader opportunity offered by change.
Chaos
In pre-Modern times, Chaos was the sign of a
midieval daemon of mythological power: a
regression to atavism and savagery. Modernism
made it a raw force of no potential which could
be trapped and destroyed by technology, which
asserted a much more rigid and simplified order.
Writers such as Thomas Pynchon and William S
Burroughs suggest, along with Nietzsche, that a
reduction in _natural_ complexity will lead to a
failure of our will to live in, as Pynchon would
call it, "entropy" of decisional capability.
4.1.5.5 Methods of Worldview
To understand the modern time, it is useful to
traverse these brief points about varying belief
systems.
Zoroastrianism (0.9B)
Dualistic system in which adaptations of
Sumerian gods fight out good and evil in drama
for the future of what would become the
beginning.
Judaism (1.0)
Pseudo-dualistic system which preached genetic
identity as a method of identifying with
righteousness, as an extension of the might of
God.
Christianity (2.0)
A material morality based on mercy in the name
of the ancient god of Judaism, who had become
humbled and all-caring as a way of
neutralizing strong and natural emotion
through passive aggression.
Islam (2.4)
Extends Christian ideal toward an absolute
abstract and hints at transcendence of self.
Hinduism (2.6)
A similar extension of projection to a logical
objectivist reduction of systemics to an
exploration of being.
Scientology (2.8)
The bicameral mind exhalted to the stage of a
self-reductionism and discipline, a
self-identity-denial religion that provides a
useful model for high functionality.
Buddhism (3.0)
A religion based on denial of the physical
self as a means to spiritual release and
acceptance of the world as whole.
"Strife is evolution, peace is degeneration."
- Varg Vikernes, va...@burzum.com
4.2 Other net resources
Having a framework of reference resources allows the consumer
to make more informed decisions, thus strengthening the genre
with his/her choices instead of working to tear it down as is
the current marketing model. Information spreading is vital
to the survival of metal culture.
4.2.1 WWW
This author cannot speak comprehensively for the Net,
and so issues general pointers to starting points for Net
metal exploration:
- http://www.anus.com/metal/: The Dark Legions
archive has reviews by this author as well as
information and analysis of death metal, black metal,
speed metal, heavy metal and grindcore bands; it is
unique for its philosophical and sociological analysis
of metal.
- http://www.student.nada.kth.se/~d90-two/music/:
Thomas Wolmer's massive site of meta lists and genre
trees, worth visiting for its high content of
underground information.
- http://www.iki.fi/~mega/music.html: Mega has
assembled one of the larger sites of discographic
information and metal news.
- http://www.kcuf.org/radio/shows/metal/: All of the
new, the old, the excellent and the scary in metal
during this radio show for hardcore Hessians.
- http://www.anus.com/hsc/: The Hessian Studies
Center is a political action group for metalheads
worldwide.
There is a "link forest" maintained on ANUS.COM for the
Dark Legions Archive which will be more current than
the above:
http://www.anus.com/metal/links.html
4.2.2 IRC
Internet Relay Chat, while being a bastion of the petty
and authoritarian, has some useful contributions in the
form of active worldwide metalhead chat. Check out these
channels for metal discussion:
#metal
#death_metal
#black_metal
#blackmetal
#blackplague
#deathmetal
#blackdeathmetal
#666
#hessian
#slayer
#burzum
#metal_rulez
#sodomy
4.2.3 ICQ
Deja.com (a USENET retrieval reference) tracks ICQ numbers
posted in a common format. A search in the groups
alt.rock-n-roll.metal.death and alt.music.black-metal will
utilize our informal method for locating ICQ addresses.
4.2.4 Email lists
- The Evil Music Mailing list
Visit http://www.evilmusic.com/ and sign onto a mailing
list for metal updates.
- [blackdeathmetal]
mailto:blackdeathme...@ONElist.com for a list
of general metal-related topics.
- Burzum Mailing List
Send an email to bur...@evilmusic.com with the subject:
header "Subscribe" for an email discussion about Varg
Vikernes, his works, ideas, and good looks.
4.3 People
One way humans understand other cultures is to explore the
personalities inside.
4.3.1 Who listens to metal?
Many people ask, do "normal people" listen to metal, or do
we all come from beyond the pits of hell? The answer is
gratifyingly and surprisingly mundane: one of the greatest
benefits of metal's lack of grounding in any automatic
tradition is that those who become Hessians choose this
culture and determine their own principles within it, so
they are essentially normal people who have by choice
elevated their consciousness to a metal method. So
although we are "normal" on the outside, it takes
something pretty rare to want to become a Hessian.
"Generally, metal fans are human beings who have grown up
in similar environments to most people in their areas of
origin, with worldwide presence in a Poisson
distribution."
- go...@anus.com
Metallians, Headbangers, Metal People, etc.
In Albania they're called Metalist or Metalari
In Argentina Metalero
In Belgium hard-rockeurs or Metal Heads
In Brasil Metaleiros
In Canada freaks or dirties
In Chile Metaleros, Metalicos, rockeros
In Colombia los metaleros
In Finland Metallisti
In Greece Metallades or, in early '80s Heavymetallades
In Hungary Metalosok pronounced "metaaloshock"
In Italy Metallari or Metalloni
In Nova Scotia, Canada freaks
In Poland Metallista
In Portugal Metalicos
In Puerto Rico Metallicos
In Romania Metalisti
In Russia Metalist
In Slovenia Metalci
In Spain Heavies
In Sweden Hårdrockare (those who listen "Hårdrock", the
Swedish word for both heavy rock and Heavy Metal)
In Ukraine Metalist
In USA Metal Heads
In Venezuela Rockeros
In Yugoslavia (and also Croatia) Metalaci pronounced
"metaalatzi"
- excerpt from "A Heavy Metal FAQ,"
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Club/3376/metalfaq.ht
ml
4.3.2 How to find metal fans?
Unsurprisingly, our best suggestion is to go to metal
events, metal (virtual) communities or your local
metalhead with a fat joint in your hand. Metalheads
congregate around what they know as metal when they're
thinking metal, and otherwise are normal people, except
for long hair, tshirts and some fundamental belief
differences.
4.4 Bands
It seems exaggerated the amount of confusing regarding bands
and the treatment thereof that permeates certain sectors of
the community, so this section addresses the subject with
some quick pointers for the otherwise unalerted.
4.4.1 Listings
Bands are listed in local newspapers, usually
entertainment specific papers like the "L.A. Weekly" or
"Alternative Press" or "Metropolitan Times."
4.4.2 Approaching
When approaching bands, walk with respect. Remember that
no matter how "normal" these guys seem, they've taken big
chunks of their life and time and put it into the project
of their music, so on some level they are serious creators
and deserve respect and compassion in understanding.
Also, many of them smoke marijuana or drink beer, so
bringing those is always a touching way to make a
karmic-deductible donation to the cause of human futures.
4.5 AE's
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