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Pantera - Cowboys From Hell ...why it all of a sudden became urgent that I put this on, I have no idea, but here I am nevertheless.

This is a thread for people who remember a world before youtube, facebook and google, where there was a great mystery around metal. I'm interested in hearing how people accessed metal and metal related things prior to the internet. Some of my fondest musical memories are from that romantic era in the late 80s to mid 90s. I grew up in a small town where we didn't even have a music store, so trips to the larger town nearby would be focused around heading to one of the two record stores. There was a small but ok metal section, and I would trawl through the tapes (at first), then CDs (once they became more prevalent). Most of the time I would end up buying something (if my parents were kind enough to shell out) that I had never heard of but really liked the cover. If there was a band that I had heard of before and really wanted, like My Dying Bride, Anathema, Paradise Lost etc the store would order the CD in and it would often take a month before it arrived at mega prices. I'd be lucky to get a new tape maybe once every two months. News and information about bands was also minimal and clouded by mystery. Metal magazines were mostly from the UK and US, so were often months old by the time they reached my friends and I in Australia. My walls were covered in posters of metal bands. Do kids still do that these days? I remember reading about the rise of the second wave of black metal and Euronymous' murder in a magazine and just being amazed at the whole black metal thing in general. This would have been early 1994 I think. I hadn't even heard a black metal song before, but ordered Satyricon's 'The Shadowthrone'. Can you imagine the first time I put it on after the 4 weeks it took to come in to the store, and heard the intro to 'Hvite Krists Dod'? Everything was shrouded in mystery when it came to figuring out who was in various bands, what they looked like, even what their discographies included. It was a real jigsaw puzzle of information from here and there. A lot of word of mouth too from kids at school. I remember being amazed when I first discovered the name My Dying Bride, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. Talk about a mystery band back in the mid 90s. I first heard them on a metal radio show and taped the track 'Like Gods of the Sun' onto a blank tape. I had heaps of blank tapes full of tracks from that metal show. You had to be really quick when the song started, and if you discovered you were recording a dud you would stop the tape and rewind, ready to go again when the next track started. We also swapped a lot of tapes at school with the few other metal fans back in the 90s. I discovered Ozzy, Maiden and even early Metallica this way. Nowadays I google any band's discography immediately, with a plethora of band photos etc. Metal Archives contains all the information about band members past and present, and youtube has almost every album you can think of, ready to be heard. It's a totally different world. While it's handy being able to listen to every single band anyone ever mentions, there is also an element of sadness in instant gratification. Never again will I wait for weeks for an album to come into the store, then get to the next town to get my hands on it, gaze at it, amazed, before putting it in the tape player and discover what they actually sound like! Sure there were some misses amongst the hits, but the magic of the newfound hits remains with me to this day. And because music was so damn scarce, the classics were revered and worshipped with unprecedented obsessiveness. Every lyric learnt, every speck of artwork digested and understood. I'm sad to say that rarely happens now, even though I still buy a lot of stuff. Anyone else got any memories/stories they would like to tell about the old days? EDIT: Can someone please move this to Deep and Meaningful? I think it fits that forum better.

@Requiem I'm curious, what's your particular interest in New England? Is it the Lovecraft thing? @GorboGorboze Do you mention the Farnsworth because FA is an artist, or do you particularly dig it yourself? I think I've been there. The really cool museum in the general area IMO is the Owl's Head Transportation Museum. My brother and his wife took lessons there to drive a Model T.

Morbid Angel - Blessed Are The Sick

I don’t know why the forum wanted to publish The above again, and I don’t know why I allowed it. anyway here is Gorbo’s top five regrettable things about FA’s vacation, with apologies for criticisms about a family vacation which I hope the Alabasters enjoyed immensely... 1) They were, as per usual, surrounded by Massholes. 2) They couldn’t go to the Farnsworth museum, that’s in Rockport ME. 3) they couldn’t reenact scenes from the movie “In the Bedroom” on location. 4) The couldn’t go to Cafe Zoot for coffee drinks, Zoot is in nearby Camden ME and is a fully exceptional world class coffee shop. 5) They didn’t get to hang out with Gorbo, who works in Rockport Me area.

The eternal problem of the hospitality business. They need customers, but customers ruin their stuff. It's a complex paradox that has yet to be resolved by the global hotel consortiums. Your holidays sounds pretty cool though, I have to admit. Requiem's Top 5 Elements of FA's Holiday 5. Ice cream 4. Walks on beaches 3. Swimming 2. Seafood 1. New England

I broke and listened to the song. Yep, very much like 'Exercises'. It might just be the youtube sound, but the cymbals and high-hats were so damn loud in the mix, they were a bit distracting. I hope it doesn't feel that way on the CD. Loved the riffs and melodies though.

Boy do I miss this place. Still not in a great place but I'm trying not to let my shitty situation get me down.

Marduk 'Panzer Division Marduk' Marduk 'Nightwing'

Must have been amazing being a teenager in the 70s and 80s. What else took place?