Decibel contributors get academic on your ass
We are legion.
Shameless self-promotion: NPR and The New York Times were just the beginning. Now, two Decibel contributors are taking their metal expertise all multimedia. First up, Jeanne Fury appears in “…And This Is Why We Headbang” a student documentary on metal that covers subgenres, metalhead stereotypes, DIY shows, Satanism and much more in its ten minutes. “…And This Is Why We Headbang” is viewable in two parts on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5-Xl_gLBYU. Then Decibeler Scott Seward has contributed a paper to the Experience Music Project’s annual Pop Conference with the fairly amazing title “Of Wolves & Vibrancy: A Brief Exploration of the Marriage Made In Hell Between Folk Music, Dead Cultures, Myth, and Highly Technical Modern Extreme Metal.” Information on the Experience Music Project and the Pop Conference is online at www.emplive.org, and a short portion of Seward’s paper is reproduced below to tide you over until the whole thing ends up online.
“There is such an emphasis in so many camps of folk-metal on the pre-everything world. Pre-Christian, Pre-Roman, the supposed anarchic wonderland of ice and snow before the invaders showed up. Metal has always been a great place for people who don’t feel they belong in the world. And metal artists go to great lengths to create a home, a place, a life, a philosophy, a religion, out of the tools of their art. Or they go out of their way to trumpet the merits of their own small patch of soil.(Again with the rap comparisons. Speaking of which, you have no idea how members of the California Latino-American thrash metal revival movement feel about the wrong people wearing high-top Reeboks. It ain’t pretty.)
I can dig the sentiment. In the 80’s, I was a big admirer of British peace punks like Crass and Flux Of Pink Indians, and the idea that some of these groups had punk rock communes seemed so cool to me. In the states there was Dischord house and the Better Youth Organization. Punk boy scouts, really. I would have looked for a like-minded place or cult myself at the time, but I have never been fond of gardening. Other than on an aesthetic basis, I can’t say that I’m all that interested in Germanic neopaganism, Odinism, heathenry, mysticism, Satanism, Celtic neo-druidism, Celtic reconstructionist paganism, animism, shamanism, or ritual-based Asatru worship practices, but I admire their practitioner’s pep and hand-crafted leather-ware. And their music, of course.
To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of the real deal ancient folke consorts that dot the landscapes of music festivals and renaissance faires. Too often they lack the fierceness and meatiness of music born from blood and fire and plague. Metal bagpipe players too often trump the noticeable timidity of historical accuracy found within traditional music camps. One listen to Finland’s Korpiklaani – who rage like The Pogues after several years of weight-training – sends me instantly back to a time when trolls ruled the woods in a way that all the well-meaning progressive Brittany flute toodlers in the world couldn’t muster.”
