False Metal: The Financial and Farcical Return of Heavy Metal

[Occam's Razor]

Wattie hates metal and is strongly into gabba-techno, no shit!

Don't be so harsh with black metal kids though: there are people for whom true metal has started with Hammerfall, and goth metal with Nightwish.

 

[Some Bastard]

I am a metal purist in the sense that I think that there are boundaries, definitions and folkways that have been imparted to the genre by people who create and play the music. If you read around, you will find that there are numerous people who have made sacrifices, overcome adversity, weathered life-crushing events in order to keep playing a form of music with little or no chance for financial or popular success. These people are dedicated to their art and believe in what they do and think that metal is is something special--not just a form of music interchangable with any other in the marketplace. To call this juvenile, childish and immature is an insult and a slap in the face to metal musicians who have decided that metal is an artform worth perserving and passing on to future genereations as a vibrant but traditional mode of expression.

The charge of being stuck in a teenage mindset is also a standard charge that would be leveled by someone who regards metal as nothing special and merely a phase to be passed through on the way to a more mature state of being--which is bullshit. I've seen similar charges countless times in the course of the research I've conducted and time and time again people who care and committed to metal are derided as immature while people who view at as a big joke and ridiculous are mature. I believe, however, that it is the other way around. Many music journalists are so shallow, superficial and not mature enough to take responsibility for their thoughts and ideas that they hide behind a screen of sarcasm and detachment which allows them to appear above it all and not invest themselves in any one thing or form a concrete identity beyond its all music and nothing else--remaining a child without a clear moral or intellectual compass.

Charges? Puh-leeze!! Again, I think you're taking things too seriously.

Yes, there are boundaries, definitions and folkways but they keep changing. Metal with flutes, keyboards and violins would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. Likewise a modern Black Metal band that incorporated a blues break in their music would be considered traitors. Still Venom did it in "Teacher's Pet"

I already spilled my thoughts on Metal musicians. Guess that got lost in the shuffle too

And so what if 'serious' music journalists or some Sonic Youth art dweeb make fun of Metal? What the fuck do they know? I'm not out to offend anyone but I think Metal has the right to be made fun of! And what's not funny about Manowar, Fintroll or Immortal playing an open air festival and Abbath going: "This sun is killing me!!" That doesn't take away any of its artistic merit!! Let them have their Coldplay and their Kaiser Chiefs and their Franz Ferdinand. Those names will probably all be forgotten in 10 years, Metal will still be alive and kicking and Metal festivals like Wacken (Germany) and Graspop (Belgium) will still be sold out!

In short, I don't doubt your good intentions and you do make some good points but overall I think you're making too much of it.

 

[DBB]

....

Industry or not, when Metal goes through one of its slumps (something that happens to every kind of music - not neccesarily because of 'the industry' but also a lack of creativity) I turn my attention somewhere else.

This is ground I have covered elsewhere:

Others, modern-day sophisticates such as Terrorizer's Paul Schwarz, look back on the metal being churned out during those days with disdain and hail grunge as "a movement which revealed how many of the most accessible and popular bands of the '80s had become drained of all vitality by rock star excess and attendant creative laziness."4 To Schwarz, the struggle to make metallic ends meet in the evolving environment was a healthy and cleansing case of survival of the fittest, where only bands that refused to remain mired in the moronic muck of the past were able to make it through the nineties. As is often the case with what passes for journalism in the metal press, concrete examples are absent, and a cursory survey of the available evidence paints a different portrait than the one hastily sketched by would-be philosophers. Taste in music is always open to debate and cannot be measured in any objective fashion, but the quality metal being produced by numerous bands during the early nineties was undeniable when compared to past efforts. Thrash was being pushed in new progressive directions by Believer and Sacrifice, and some Bay Area bands like Heathen were pointing the way towards a melodic and technical hybrid of the genre that tapped into newfound reservoirs of abrasiveness. More traditional metal was also far from a stagnant cesspit devoid of ideas, since Manowar combined the epic and everyday aspects of heavy metal on The Triumph of Steel to deliver one of the best albums of their career, Motörhead unleashed one of their finest hours on Bastards and Accept made a stunning return to form with Objection Overruled.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Yes, there are boundaries, definitions and folkways but they keep changing. Metal with flutes, keyboards and violins would have been unthinkable 20 years ago.

Just nitpicking here, but Blackkout (!) from Florida released an album in 1989 (Ignorance of Man) with lots of flute in a thrash/power metal context. They later became The Last Things.

Metal will still be alive and kicking and Metal festivals like Wacken (Germany) and Graspop (Belgium) will still be sold out!

Ever been to any of them?

 

[Some Bastard]

Just nitpicking here, but Blackkout (!) from Florida released an album in 1989 (Ignorance of Man) with lots of flute in a thrash/power metal context. They later became The Last Things.



Ever been to any of them?

Yeah, sure and I could also mention Nocturnus and the early Gathering demos but they were still exceptions, don't you think?

And yes, I've been to Graspop and Dynamo lots of times. Not to Wacken. Yet. Why?

 

[DBB]

Just nitpicking here, but Blackkout (!) from Florida released an album in 1989 (Ignorance of Man) with lots of flute in a thrash/power metal context. They later became The Last Things.

I really dig the flutes on Forest of Equilibrium as well. They are crushing. I also think that there is plenty of room for mirth and humor in metal. But the constant deriding and sarcastic tone that does nothing but denigrate and deride is prevelant and something that grates on me.

In short, I don't doubt your good intentions and you do make some good points but overall I think you're making too much of it.

Fair enough. I know that there is no way in hell that everyone is going to agree with everything that I have to say and if you found somethings of merit in the article that is much more than some are willing to admit. Thank you for that and thank you for taking the time to read and comment--it really is appreciated. I do take everything into consideration and "false metal" was decisively shaped by the long and drawn out war of words over "impure metal."

As for making too much of it, that is something that cannot be predicted since I think that matters are heading a certain direction, but have not quite gotten there yet. So the jury is still out on that in a sense.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Wacken has become a total cash-in with miserable conditions for fans. I've been there from 97 to 2002 and will never go there again. Also, the bands are ripped off and blackmailed in case they should complain about anything. The festival makers have become very rich people and seem to be more concerned about crappy concensus music (often only marginally metal), and the small yet interesting bands on the bill are purely cosmetic nowadays. It's all about the big money...attracting more and more people every year is the maxim. At last, the whole machinery of merchandising is suspect to me. These people have a hand as well in record labels (Armageddon Music and other agencies, distributers and promoters.

 

[Occam's Razor]

I really dig the flutes on Forest of Equilibrium as well. They are crushing. I also think that there is plenty of room for mirth and humor in metal. But the constant deriding and sarcastic tone that does nothing but denigrate and deride is prevelant and something that grates on me.

The element of humor in metal is something that most people are not aware of at all - even many listeners themselves. SO much is misunderstood on these terms. In Germany, if you want to entertain, you are comedy and not serious music - a reproach Tankard have to struggle with all the time...ridiculous, considering some of their lyrics, clumsy as they may be.

 

[DBB]

In Germany, if you want to entertain, you are comedy and not serious music - a reproach Tankard have to struggle with all the time...ridiculous, considering some of their lyrics, clumsy as they may be.

Interesting…a philosophical discussion using the lyrics of “Endless Pleasure” as a springboard to discuss metal, decadence, hedonism and the Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979 at Comiskey Park in Chicago made its way onto the cutting room floor during the process of writing the article. Tankard is actually a thrash band that some younger acts could look to as an excellent example of how to mix the humorous and serious for a well-needed lesson in managing the two impulses.

 

[Zealotry]

Off-topic, but I googled 'false metal' and this was one of the first pages to come up

 

[Occam's Razor]

Interesting…a philosophical discussion using the lyrics of “Endless Pleasure” as a springboard to discuss metal, decadence, hedonism and the Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979 at Comiskey Park in Chicago made its way onto the cutting room floor during the process of writing the article. Tankard is actually a thrash band that some younger acts could look to as an excellent example of how to mix the humorous and serious for a well-needed lesson in managing the two impulses.

Tankard is also a good example of integrity when it comes to thrash. For a negative example, look at Destruction's Schmier who popped up after years of silence and blared about as if he invented metal - or Kreator, rediscovering thrash for blatant commercial reasons...for the kids, but rather for the kidding....

 

[Jim LotFP]

Interesting…a philosophical discussion using the lyrics of “Endless Pleasure” as a springboard to discuss metal, decadence, hedonism and the Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979 at Comiskey Park in Chicago made its way onto the cutting room floor during the process of writing the article. Tankard is actually a thrash band that some younger acts could look to as an excellent example of how to mix the humorous and serious for a well-needed lesson in managing the two impulses.

Such things should not be left on the cutting room floor.

 

[Jim LotFP]

Industry or not, when Metal goes through one of its slumps (something that happens to every kind of music - not neccesarily because of 'the industry' but also a lack of creativity) I turn my attention somewhere else. When Slayer, Sepultura, Fear Factory and that overrated shite band Machine Head release mediocre or even downright crappy records should I still stick with 'em just to show how 'metal' I am? I think not!

You are absolutely correct. When bands start releasing garbage, abandon them.

But just because heavy metal goes through a slump does not mean there is a lack of creativity. You're reading articles about heavy metal and posting on an internet message board about heavy metal, so you know this already. Many of my favorite metal albums were released between 1994-1998, surely a time of a heavy slump for the most visible of metal bands. Metal was not shit during that time, even if the "leading" bands were, even if the overall audience for it was a fraction of what it is now.

Yes, there are boundaries, definitions and folkways but they keep changing. Metal with flutes, keyboards and violins would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. Likewise a modern Black Metal band that incorporated a blues break in their music would be considered traitors. Still Venom did it in "Teacher's Pet"

I think writing for Into the Pandemonium was underway twenty years ago? Metal is old. I think a lot of the problems with these changing boundaries have to do with being ignorant of what came before combined with the underrated power of marketing that pretends that the new stuff is always better. I think that heavy metal, for it to have any meaning at all, needs to have a concrete definition, and it would have to encompass everything already done, and everything that will be done. Heavy metal has a meaning, the fact that people are still going on and on about it over twenty-five years after it beame an identifiable thing means heavy metal does mean something. The definition exists.

The problem is articulating it without falling back to an "I know it when I hear it" non-definition.

Working on it.

I really dig the flutes on Forest of Equilibrium as well. They are crushing.

Yes, they are. Reaching Happiness, Touching Pain is one of the most devastating songs I have ever heard.

 

[DBB]

Such things should not be left on the cutting room floor.

I never actually wrote anything--just read a handful of articles and some newspaper coverage. It is something that I do want to go back and look at in more depth at some point. I have a very strong hunch that the Disco Demolition Night is a significant event in the history of heavy metal that needs to be adressed, can't comment on the connections at length at this point, but it doesn't take much thought to realize that it was part of the environment that accounted for metal's rise in prominance in the early '80s. It also just a wild-ass incident and worth knowing about to astound and amaze your friends.

Relevant quote from Tim "Ripper" Owens in a tacky and half-assed Mike G[reenblatt] interview where Greenblatt spends most of his time dwelling on Rock Star and Owens' tenure in Priest:

Sure, it's a great story, but the movie could've been better had it [stuck to the facts]. They had to make it into a funny Spinal Tap-type '80s thing.

Metal Maniacs Sept. 2006

 

[Some Bastard]

If that were only true. This Is Spinal Tap is a great movie. Rock Star is like the musical equivalent of Top Gun, with guitars instead of planes. And they had to use crappy hair metal instead of the real thing. Bleh.

 

[Zealotry]

Actually, it's the musical equivalent of Caddyshack - "a real Cinderella story".

 

[Some Bastard]

I showed the article to a friend of mine, which prompted him to coin the term 'metal McCarthy hearings'

Well, it was fun residing with the puritans but from now on I'll just stick to sites like peacedogman.com. They're just as knowledgeable (if not more) about rock and metal, but fortunately they're not as tightassed about it

Happy witch-hunting & keep der metal pure

 

[DBB]

I showed the article to a friend of mine, which prompted him to coin the term 'metal McCarthy hearings'

Happy witch-hunting & keep der metal pure

Unsurprising...you read what you wanted in the part dealing with Van Horn, absolutely missed the implications of Owens' brief statement about the film based on his life and made me out to be much more myopic than I am. This is another in a line of serious misreadings that distort the intent and content of the article. Albert Mudrian was a bit closer but not quite there yet when he accused me of being the "Michael Moore of Metal."

I am well aware of the fact that people are not going to agree with everything I have to say based on the copious amount of evidence I present (not the wild and drunken charges McCarthy made for no other reason than to make himself a celebrity), but there is much more to the article beyond what is metal and what is not--it is something that anyone concerned about organic and authentic communities in a day and age where people want to manufacture demographic niches to exploit for profit should be able to see. It is sad that you cannot comprehend this, but name-calling and reverse red-baiting is a shabby way to go about covering this fact up.

If it is reactionary and conservative to believe in a form of art that is shaped and defined by a community instead of executives, corporations and those who ask no questions about how power is wielded in the marketplace of metal or complicit in making music over into nothing more than a commodity, then I guess I am guilty as charged.

Go have fun and play around at the site you posted a link to, but be sure to come back in a few months and check out the next short (extremely short compared to the previous two) article that is in the works. I can assure you that McCarthy will not be a name that is brought to mind by it.

Interesting to be slandered in such a way after having a conversation with some Bolivian metalheads (a welcome surprise that brightened my day) that began to drift towards the relationship betwen metal and some guises of conservatism, but was unable to finish and may be a story for another day perhaps.

 

[Some Bastard]

Oh man...

Unsurprising...you read what you wanted in the part dealing with Van Horn, absolutely missed the implications of Owens' brief statement about the film based on his life and made me out to be much more myopic than I am. This is another in a line of serious misreadings that distort the intent and content of the article. Albert Mudrian was a bit closer but not quite there yet when he accused me of being the "Michael Moore of Metal."

If there is an actual line of serious misreadings, maybe they could also be miswritings. Instead of blaming your readers maybe it would be wise to take a critical look at your own writings. Myopic? That's an understatement! Michael Moore you're definitely not

And what implications? It's just a crappy movie!! IGNORE IT!!

I am well aware of the fact that people are not going to agree with everything I have to say based on the copious amount of evidence I present (not the wild and drunken charges McCarthy made for no other reason than to make himself a celebrity), but there is much more to the article beyond what is metal and what is not--it is something that anyone concerned about organic and authentic communities in a day and age where people want to manufacture demographic niches to exploit for profit should be able to see. It is sad that you cannot comprehend this, but name-calling and reverse red-baiting is a shabby way to go about covering this fact up.

I presented a copious amount of counter-evidence as well, but you've chosen to ignore most of that. It is sad that you cannot comprehend that Metal is not, nor has it ever been, a musical ghetto, standing 'apart' from the rest of the music world. In order to develop all styles and genres had to take big chunks out of each other, and Metal is no different. Back when Metallica started to get big there were other purists slagging them off for having punk influences, ergo being not Metal enough. Now their first three albums define the term. Life is about change, and so is music. Presenting your personal, narrow-minded concerns as 'facts' is a shabby way of discussing music. Like I said, Michael Moore you're not. Far from it

If it is reactionary and conservative to believe in a form of art that is shaped and defined by a community instead of executives, corporations and those who ask no questions about how power is wielded in the marketplace of metal or complicit in making music over into nothing more than a commodity, then I guess I am guilty as charged.

It is reactionary, conservative and not a little narrow-minded to think that this situation is exclusive to Metal. You could just as easily replace Metal with Hardcore/Punk, Techno, (Dub-)Reggae or Hip Hop. Just like Metal these genres have communities keeping it 'real', and a commercial branch dominated by executives, corporations and those who ask no questions about how power is wielded in the marketplace of music in general or complicit in making said music over into nothing more than a commodity. It's up to the discriminating listener to decide which is which. It's as simple as that and it always has been. So fuck movies like Rock Star, fuck Avenged Sevenfold and their ilk and fuck corporate rock magazines! There! Simple, huh? No need to write a complete essay on that. I know that and so eventually will the youngster who is truly interested in Metal.

But I also say fuck Metal-centrism (in the end apartheid didn't work you know) and fuck the silly victim-role you're putting Metal into. I like Sunn0))) yet I don't think they're Metal, but so what if someone does? You yourself called Motorhead Metal, but to me they're not (and Lemmy doesn't think so either). I've said it before, let the music do the talking. As long as the music's good it really shouldn't matter what it's called.

 

[DBB]

I thought you were done with the narrow-minded puritans. But I knew that was just an attention-grabbing device.

I am more than willing to have let you have the last word and confident enough in what I have written to let people read your criticisms and make up their own minds. These interminable message board debates where someone thinks that they have won because they have the last response can go on forever, but I have some things to attend to that do not involve sitting in front of a computer.

However, I am going to address a couple of points here.

It is reactionary, conservative and not a little narrow-minded to think that this situation is exclusive to Metal. You could just as easily replace Metal with Hardcore/Punk, Techno, (Dub-)Reggae or Hip Hop. Just like Metal these genres have communities keeping it 'real', and a commercial branch dominated by executives, corporations and those who ask no questions about how power is wielded in the marketplace of music in general or complicit in making said music over into nothing more than a commodity.

I make the claim nowhere in the article that this is the case. Not to beat a dead horse, but the treatment of Red Flag’s machinations in Salt Lake City and the section dealing with SLUG magazine (which focuses primarily on punk, hardcore and indie yet covers the entire spectrum of music) should be a clear indication that I think that these developments have implications beyond the borders of heavy metal.

I listen primarily (not exclusively, despite what you might think) to metal and this is an article focusing on metal--not a comprehensive treatment of music--you fail to recognize this and lash out at me for not including matters that I am not attempting to deal with.

And yes these things have happened before and are currently happening in other genres of music. That is why I intimated that this heavy metal case study has a wider relevance. In fact, this kind of bullshit has been going on since the inception of the modern music industry. Back in the 1960s when rock exploded in San Francisco and major labels descended on the city to sign everything and anything tangentially related MGM missed the boat. So the record company shifted its attention to Boston and picked a handful of bands and sunk copious amounts of money and promotional energies into creating the “Bosstown Sound” which was held up as the East Coast manifestation of what was going on out West. It was fake, fabricated and a corporate assembled movement which was artificial and premature and did not take (a scathing article appeared in Rolling Stone outing the machinations), but it cast a dark cloud over the Boston scene since legitimate, underground rock was being twisted into prefabricated forms in the city.

I think the relevant echoes of these profiting-at-any-cost plans are more than clear in my article.

And before someone out there makes the statement, I will address it myself. That these types of things have been going on for a very long time is not an argument against acting and does not make them right now.

It's up to the discriminating listener to decide which is which. It's as simple as that and it always has been. So fuck movies like Rock Star, fuck Avenged Sevenfold and their ilk and fuck corporate rock magazines! There! Simple, huh? No need to write a complete essay on that. I know that and so eventually will the youngster who is truly interested in Metal.

This is the crux of the matter and why we will never be able to see eye to eye. You just want there to be some pure and rarified music out there that is completely separate from cultural, social, economic and political forces. You can bury your head in the sand and pretend all the above does not exist, but I cannot and wrote this piece. There are scads of journalists, publicists, executives and companies shaping metal and for me to sit back and say that I am above it all and don’t give a fuck became an option I could no longer exercise.

As I have said elsewhere, I root my articles in the actions and words of people playing heavy metal who care about the genre and then go from there. Inevitably I move past them a bit because I have my own personality, buy this article is not just some random thoughts and ideas I pulled out of thin air, Mr. Bastard.

in the end apartheid didn't work you know

Another tasteless and baseless attempt to make me appear to be an evil, destructive reactionary. Come on now….insinuations of this nature are just as shabby as the McCarthy charges above.

IGNORE IT!!

It seems that this is your fallback answer for everything. Maybe you should do the same with the article I have written.