Why some people like (,or dislike) Nu metal?

[GoatmasterGeneral]

4 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Aww come on man. I can't lose my aarp card. I need that for food.😄

Honestly, though, I've never actually checked which years of birth precisely classify as millennial. I just assumed they were younger than me, since whenever I'm handling promotional material that specifically mentions stats and marketing to millennials there's always some stock photo of a flock of teenagers trying desperately to make their smiles look sincere. And I'm rapidly approaching forty though (two and a half years from now). I'm sure not stepping into any mosh pits again. Those days are gone. Also I've really only met a few metalheads my age, not counting veteran touring band members.

I'll assume there are no living metalheads born before 1928, at least not who post on this forum. So all the metalheads should fall into one of these 5 generations listed below, as most kids under 8 years old haven't gotten too deep into metal yet. As far as being "long in the tooth" I guess it depends on your species. The phrase was originally used to describe horses which typically live to be 25 or 30. So a 28 year old horse would be considered "long in the tooth" but a 28 year old man is considered relatively young. I would say to claim long in the tooth status you'd need to be 50 or at least close to it. But a lot depends on the company you're in. If a 28 year old man were to go and sit his ass down at a desk in a high school classrooom the kids would wonder what the old guy was doing there. If the same 28 year old man walked into the old folks assisted living home and sat his ass down at a dinner table, the old farts would wonder whose kid or grandkid the young dude was. So perception of youth is relative to the age of those around you.

 

Silent Generation born 1928 - 1945, ages 78 to 95

Baby "Boomers" born 1946 - 1964, ages 59 to 77

Gen-X  born 1965 - 1980, ages 43 to 58

Millennials born 1981 - 1996, ages 27 to 42

Gen-Z "Zoomers" born 1997 - 2015, ages 8 - 26

 

On this particular forum it seems the majority of the regulars fall into the Gen-X category, i.e. dudes in their 40's. Deadly who's 43 (or soon to be 43) just makes it into Gen-X on the low end, born in 1979. And even old man MarkM who's 58 (or soon to be 58) born in 1965 just makes the cutoff for Gen-X on the high side. The Orca, Doc and myself are Boomers born before 1964. We have a few millennials here too, dudes in their 30's like Blivvie, Jimmy T and Zach (if he ever comes back) and I'm sure there are some other millennials I'm forgetting at the moment as well. We even get the odd Zoomer who'll sign up and make a few posts, but typically they don't stick around more than a month or two once they realize we're mostly a bunch of old dudes here. 

So clearly people's attitudes toward, and their perceptions of different kinds of music will vary significantly depending on what generation they're from. Last night you said Disturbed's Down With the Sickness was a junior high favorite of yours, meaning you must have been 12 - 14. I was 38 when that album came out in March 2000 and my oldest was coming up on her 10th birthday, about two and a half years away from entering junior high school. Nu-metal was a trend I was barely even aware of at the time because it wasn't being marketed to older guys like me, it was aimed at young people in their 20's and teenagers. Which made sense because young people were the ones buying the most music.

Junior high for me was 1973 - 1976. Zeppelin, Sabbath, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Lynyrd Skynyrd. Genres we now take for granted like heavy metal and rap music didn't even exist yet back then. Even a few years later in high school we had rock, we had disco, and we had punk rock by then (as far as I knew I was the only one in my school of 1,500 kids who was into punk) but that was about it. I have no idea how 15 year old me might have felt about nu-metal if it would have been an option in 1976, but we'll never know because it was still 20 years away.

Just listened to the first half of "The Sickness" for the very first time while typing this, and fuck me if this isn't some egregiously horrendous horseshit.

[JonoBlade]

5 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I'll assume there are no living metalheads born before 1928, at least not who post on this forum.

That's the best line I've heard today. I wonder if there actually are any over 95 (the near centennials) "metalheads."

My grandma born in 1918 used a computer into her late nineties, making her eligible for the forum, but she weren't no metalhead.

Was there a 43 year old at the Black Sabbath album release party? From time to time you meet super immature old people (I point no fingers) that might get into music designed for younger generations, but it is pretty rare for someone who has lived a life to make an abrupt change in their 40s to specialise in a new form of music. 

Old Man Blade Snr is 78 and perhaps now accepts heavy metal as a legitimate form of musical expression given his son's persistence in not "growing out of it" and as enthralled to its devilry as ever. But he ain't no metalhead. Shame, as it would give us a topic of conversation other than knee replacements.

[markm]

5 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Aww come on man. I can't lose my aarp card. I need that for food.😄

Honestly, though, I've never actually checked which years of birth precisely classify as millennial. I just assumed they were younger than me, since whenever I'm handling promotional material that specifically mentions stats and marketing to millennials there's always some stock photo of a flock of teenagers trying desperately to make their smiles look sincere. And I'm rapidly approaching forty though (two and a half years from now). I'm sure not stepping into any mosh pits again. Those days are gone. Also I've really only met a few metalheads my age, not counting veteran touring band members.

At, gulp 57, almost 58, the way you look at age changes quite a bit. I remember feeling old when i was like, 28 and then ten years later approaching 40 and then 40-that's it, you're middle aged. Now, I look at guys I know who turn 40 as just out of their 30's and not old at all-haha. 37 is a great age and you're still pretty young. 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

3 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

That's the best line I've heard today. I wonder if there actually are any over 95 (the near centennials) "metalheads."

My grandma born in 1918 used a computer into her late nineties, making her eligible for the forum, but she weren't no metalhead.

Was there a 43 year old at the Black Sabbath album release party? From time to time you meet super immature old people (I point no fingers) that might get into music designed for younger generations, but it is pretty rare for someone who has lived a life to make an abrupt change in their 40s to specialise in a new form of music. 

Old Man Blade Snr is 78 and perhaps now accepts heavy metal as a legitimate form of musical expression given his son's persistence in not "growing out of it" and as enthralled to its devilry as ever. But he ain't no metalhead. Shame, as it would give us a topic of conversation other than knee replacements.

Haha yeah I know which super immature old man your finger would be pointed at if you were inclined to point it. Say no more say no more.

I made an abrupt change in my 40's to specialize in a new form of music. At least if you consider black and death metal different enough from clean vocalled 80's heavy metal to qualify as a "new form." It wasn't easy transitioning at first, but jumping ship to switch musical generations wasn't even something I intentionally set out to do. I really just woke up one day and wanted some new music to listen to because I hadn't been to the record store in quite some time, several years I guess. This was 2004 I was 43. I already considered myself a metalhead, my existing record collection was mostly 80's metal, speed metal and thrash with some grunge and a little hard rock and some punk. And of course my Jersey boys Monster Magnet, and Brooklyn bad boys Type O Negative. But I had never actually heard any extreme metal before that day.

And I was totally unprepared for what I found when I took the shrink wrap off those CD's when I got home from the record store with my big haul that day. I had literally spent half the day in that store and I'd spent hours standing by the magazine rack reading all these album reviews and taking notes about which new bands I thought I might like to try. But I had no idea that basically all the new metal bands had stopped singing and had switched over to some type of harsh growling by 2004. I was on the verge of tears after I'd had a brief listen to most of the 12 or 15 CD's I'd bought that day, as there wasn't any 'singing' on any of them, not even one. That really took me by surprise and I was so angry that I'd been duped into wasting a couple hundred of my hard earned dollars. But I really liked the super heavy music so I kept trying, and litte by little I got used to the harsh vocals. Then I came to like them. Now I don't often feel the urge to go back and listen to anything with clean vocals. I get annoyed when black or death metal bands slip in some clean vocals on their albums.

That's why almost all my friends who I talk metal with are 10 to 15 years younger than me. Guys like you who were born in the 70's. I just dropped back one musical generation because the extreme black and death metal speaks to me much more clearly than the traditional 80's metal or thrash, not to mention the 70's rock most of my "peers" probably still listen to. So I guess one could reasonably make a case that extreme metal might be "designed for younger generations" but now that even most of you 'younger' dudes who listen to the same kind of stuff I'm listening to are pushing 50, I don't feel so much like a fish out of water anymore being a bit older than everyone around me. That first MDF I attended back in May 2010 when I was 48 and all those forum dudes I was meeting up with in person for the first time were all in their 30's was a little weird for me. I was thinking wtf am I doing here? But now I'm well past those kinds of anxieties, I really don't give a fuck if I'm the only octogenarian in the room.

[markm]

Plus guys of our vintage are around the same age as the first guys that played extreme metal in the late 80's/early 90's.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

2 hours ago, markm said:

Plus guys of our vintage are around the same age as the first guys that played extreme metal in the late 80's/early 90's.

Well actually for me being 4 years older than you, the guys who are closest to my age were the ones who started thrash metal in the early 80's. All the founding fathers of all the well known 80's thrash bands are within two or three years of me either way. Dave Megastaine, DD Verni, Tom Araya, Chuck Billy these guys were all born in 1961 like me. Bobby Blitz was 1959. Cliff Burton, Kirk Hammett and Charlie Benante 1962. Scott Ian, Hetfield and Ulrich were 1963. Tom G Warrior, Tom Angelripper, Leif Edling from Candlemass and Cronos from Venom were all '63. Kerry King, Jeff Hanneman, Eric Peterson, Gary Holt and Steve Souza all '64. Dave Lombardo '65. Quothorn '66. Schmier from Destruction '66, Millie from Kreator '67.

Most of the dudes who started the well known OG death metal bands in the late 80's are a good 6-10 years younger than me, born in the late 60's so they're closer to your age. The 2nd wave Norwegian black metal dudes are mostly 10-14 years younger than me. Fenriz and Nocturno Culto 1971. Abbath and Varg 1973. Ihshan and Satyr 1975. Euronymous and Necrobutcher from Mayhem were born 1968 but they're about the oldest ones from that scene.

[FatherAlabaster]

At 43, I find I miss my mid 30s quite a bit. It'll sound like a joke to Mark - what's the difference FA, haha, get some seasoning - but things feel different. I get more tired more easily, have a harder time staying in shape, etc etc. I suppose it could be laid at the feet of circumstance; my mid 30s were also a more hopeful time. I felt like I was part of a community, I had more personal freedom, band stuff was happening, the pandemic hadn't torpedoed most of what I liked to do IRL.

I'm right at the young end of Gen X. I first heard the term "Millennial" as applied to a generation of youths when I was in college, and it was always kids a bit younger than me. But I was right at the old end of the target demo for nu-metal when it started coming out, and I tried it for a little while. I still have a little fondness for a few bands that are at least somewhat related - Deftones, SOAD, Fear Factory. Don't really play them but don't mind if they come on. By and large, the style was garbage - uninspired paint-by-numbers songwriting, mediocre musicianship, fake aggression, dumb lyrics, and unforgiveably lame live shows from some of the big names. Just really nothing redeeming about most of it. It mostly sounded and felt like a cash grab followed by a bunch of bandwagon-jumpers.

Looking back at the last three sentences, I guess you could apply that to a lot of developments in popular music. Oh well.

[MacabreEternal]

At nearly 47 I am already a miserable old achy bastard.  Still desperately trying to stay in shape doing as little exercise as humanly possible and fasting and drinking less alcohol.  Don't have any particular fondness for lost youth as life is much better now, much more stable in my personal life, finances and job than I ever was in my 20s or even my 30s for the most part. The only thing I miss really was not needing glasses to do increasingly fucking everything at close distance like I do now.

Nu-metal was a part of my life briefly in the late 90s even though I accepted it wasn't anything like the healthy dose of death and thrash metal I had jumped into earlier in the decade.  Saw Linkin Park live once and they absolutely fucking tore Manchester Apollo apart that night, although they did have Dislocated Styles opening who were some rap group who just ensured I got a couple of beers under my belt at the bar whilst waiting for the main event.  Although I think I enjoyed American Head Charge supporting Rammestein at the same venue around the same time, much more.  At one point I recall catching Raging Speedhorn as a support act who were more of a sludgey/groove band I thought for one of the above two gigs.

Nowadays, I will throw on a "White Pony", "Break the Cycle" or "Follow the Leader" if the mood takes me which is very rarely but I don't consider this a guilty pleasure just as I don't with any other non-metal music that I listen to.  Quality wise I openly acknowledge it was fucking awful as a sub-genre in the main but at least bands like Deftones tried to immerse it in something decidedly non-metal in a conscious way and I kind of admired them for that.  They always had that more alternative edge anyway and I still dig some of that whiny alternative metal slant on bands such as Chevelle or the clean gruffness of Helmet for instance.

Being a civilised Brit we don't technically recognise your Americanisms to describe generations, we are too busy wearing top hats and clicking our canes on the pavement as we walk down the cobbled streets to go and play cribbage to care.

[FatherAlabaster]

So that was your monocle I found wedged in between the pavers!

[Nasty_Cabbage]

1 hour ago, FatherAlabaster said:

At 43, I find I miss my mid 30s quite a bit. It'll sound like a joke to Mark - what's the difference FA, haha, get some seasoning - but things feel different. I get more tired more easily, have a harder time staying in shape, etc etc. I suppose it could be laid at the feet of circumstance; my mid 30s were also a more hopeful time. I felt like I was part of a community, I had more personal freedom, band stuff was happening, the pandemic hadn't torpedoed most of what I liked to do IRL.

Yeah. The once tireless flesh machine we pilot through this world not quite running at full speed is a big sign that father time is pulling one of those "I'll be there in five minutes" when he's actually more like thirty minutes away... Or maybe I'm just bitter since it irritates me when people do that. My thirties have been sorta rough on me health-wise mostly by virtue of my own actions without getting too much into it so that might be why I felt so comfortable claiming "long in the tooth" status.

 

Oh, by the way all, I'm not going to write a huge elaborately structured post quoting everybody for this, but I really appreciate everyone's welcoming tone and level-headed demeanor responding to me in this and other threads. I've got thick skin and I can absorb plenty of shots without making it personal, but that doesn't mean I'm not incredibly grateful to participate in actual even handed discourse with you all. It's a rare commodity these days, especially online. Only been here a few days, but you lot seem like an awesome bunch.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Goatmaster, dude, you did not need to put yourself through the first half of The Sickness even if it was just for context. Good Lord, there are enough musical manifestations of pure torture out there without seeking them out. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

 

As far as the generational thing goes for me personally, I should note that I took a particularly strange path through my music to arrive where I am. Being into some nu-metal when everybody else was into it was probably about the most "normal" phase I went through. It doesn't take a degree in sociology to look at people's musical development and realize that rebellion, offensiveness, and a generally iconoclastic attitude toward the music of the directly prior generation often comes into play. Thing is, though, my parents weren't ever all that concerned with the music I listened to. Before the nu-metal thing hit I could have opined more on Jerry and the Peacemakers, The Beach Boys (It will never stop being funny to me that they swing back into fashion every now and again), Little Richard, and all the fifties doo-wa rock and/or roll than Helmet or Statc-X. If you'd have mentioned Fear Factory to me I would have asked if that's the lab where they clone Joe Rogans.

What really killed all that for me was moving to Des Moines right as the whole Slipknot thing was rapidly gaining traction. I don't know if it's still there, but there used to be a nasty little hole in the wall bar in that town that would do a few all-ages shows every so often, and I went to as many of them as I could, quickly disillusioning myself of the idea that Slipknot was popular for anything but their marketing, and meeting a few of those absolute fucking assholes in the process. I pretty much decided that I was going to have to dig a little deeper to find good music. Negative personal associations with your audience, it turns out, are a pretty pivotal thing when you have no talent at all. God I hated those guys. Joey Jordensen is a decent enough dude, but the rest of them can go suck Cheez-Wiz from Angela Lansbury's asshole.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

My mental image of you Mr Macabre has always been sort of a mashup of Rob Halford and Winston Churchill. We've all seen your pics so we know what you look like, the bald dome and white beard is why I say Rob Halford. But I mean your voice, personality and mannerisms are all still complete unknowns. So my brain has filled in the blanks with Sir Winston. Specifically Gary Oldman's portrayal of the old boy in that film I saw last year which I found quite enjoyable but whose name escapes me at the moment. 

It's unfortunate that the 5 hour time difference means that you're generally sleeping (or maybe giving Mrs Macabre the Jolly Roger) during my evening and late night hours when I'm most likely to be here posting. And in turn I'm sleeping during your mornings and the first half of your work day. And then I'm often busy during the arvo when you might be finished working and done with dinner and possibly looking at the forum. So that leaves me to chill with these Aussies who all seem to be morning people and will often start posting at ungodly hours of between 6 and 9 am their time and then they generally disappear around their dinnertime which is when I'm going to bed. 

I'm only here all day today because of all the smoke from the Quebec wildfires 1,000 km away which is fucking up our atmosphere. There's an orange glow in the sky I can see through all the curtains, it's quite dark like a line of thunderstorms is bearing down on us, and when you step outside it smells like a campfire, you can see the smoke particulates swirling around in the air. Makes me wonder what the Aussies must have gone through when it seemed like all of Australia was on fire for months on end several years ago. 

[markm]

3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Well actually for me being 4 years older than you, the guys who are closest to my age were the ones who started thrash metal in the early 80's. All the founding fathers of all the well known 80's thrash bands are within two or three years of me either way. Dave Megastaine, DD Verni, Tom Araya, Chuck Billy these guys were all born in 1961 like me. Bobby Blitz was 1959. Cliff Burton, Kirk Hammett and Charlie Benante 1962. Scott Ian, Hetfield and Ulrich were 1963. Tom G Warrior, Tom Angelripper, Leif Edling from Candlemass and Cronos from Venom were all '63. Kerry King, Jeff Hanneman, Eric Peterson, Gary Holt and Steve Souza all '64. Dave Lombardo '65. Quothorn '66. Schmier from Destruction '66, Millie from Kreator '67.

Most of the dudes who started the well known OG death metal bands in the late 80's are a good 6-10 years younger than me, born in the late 60's so they're closer to your age. The 2nd wave Norwegian black metal dudes are mostly 10-14 years younger than me. Fenriz and Nocturno Culto 1971. Abbath and Varg 1973. Ihshan and Satyr 1975. Euronymous and Necrobutcher from Mayhem were born 1968 but they're about the oldest ones from that scene.

Nobody can say you are not well sourced!

[AlSymerz]

31 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

 

I'm only here all day today because of all the smoke from the Quebec wildfires 1,000 km away which is fucking up our atmosphere. There's an orange glow in the sky I can see through all the curtains, it's quite dark like a line of thunderstorms is bearing down on us, and when you step outside it smells like a campfire, you can see the smoke particulates swirling around in the air. Makes me wonder what the Aussies must have gone through when it seemed like all of Australia was on fire for months on end several years ago. 

Fark, shows how good my geography is. I've got a bunch of guys I talk to every few days up in the thick of things in Quebec but I thought you were a lot further away from the fires than that. One day I'll look at a map and see where the fuck America actually is.

That orange glow is a mind fuck the first time. I remember standing on my veranda at 2pm and the entire undercover area (about 14m long) was orange and everything beyond it was black. By night time when it was supposed to be black there was nothing but orange.

[SurgicalBrute]

15 hours ago, Dead1 said:

Pretty sure I said it wasn't metal.

And I'll stand by it - a lot of it is alternative rock or rap rock.  Simple riffs, simple drumming (often hiphop influenced), whiney vocals mixed with rap. 

Very few nu-metal bands played anything resembling metal.  Many such as Korn and Linkin Park deny they were ever metal bands and I totally agree.

Nu-metal was basically a heavier version of Faith No More.  And sure FNM had odd metal bit but they were mainly alternative rock (and dabbled in other stuff - prog rock, pop,hip hop, lounge, polka, punk and anything else you could point a stick at) .  I say that as a FNM fan too.

Just using this as a jumping off point for my own comment, but what I find interesting is the absolute insistence that Nu-metal MUST be part of the metal genre. What I mean is, despite all the various influences that go into these bands, like Hip-Hop or Industrial, you never see anyone insisting Limp Bizkit is a hip-hop band or that Slipknot is an industrial band. Nu-metal is the bastard child of a thousand different influences, and even in its heyday the metal label never fit especially well, yet there are people who will die on the hill that it's a legitimate part of the metal family.

6 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

That first MDF I attended back in May 2010 when I was 48 and all those forum dudes I was meeting up with in person for the first time were all in their 30's was a little weird for me. I was thinking wtf am I doing here? But now I'm well past those kinds of anxieties,

That's because the rest of us are old now, too 😁

[markm]

Well, damn at nearly 58, you late 30-40 somethings are some miserable old haggardly sons of bitches! JK of course. Something about mid to late 50's has given me a give no fucks upswing in mood. like at this point, who gives a shit? I'm reasonably healthy. My dick still gets hard. Give me some good tunes, put me on the river. Give me a nice cold one.   The older guy with the secret of the hangman, the smile on his lips-one of my favorite metal quotes. 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

 

We're over 1,000 km away from the fires in northern Quebec and Nove Scotia. I personally live right under the e in New York on this map.

 

 

 

 

[AlSymerz]

5 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

 

 

 

 

I haven't got pics from my house in 2009 on this computer but here's a couple of pics from our favourite fishing spot during the 2019 fires.

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

17 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

Just using this as a jumping off point for my own comment, but what I find interesting is the absolute insistence that Nu-metal MUST be part of the metal genre. What I mean is, despite all the various influences that go into these bands, like Hip-Hop or Industrial, you never see anyone insisting Limp Bizkit is a hip-hop band or that Slipknot is an industrial band. Nu-metal is the bastard child of a thousand different influences, and even in its heyday the metal label never fit especially, yet there are people who will die on the hill that it's a legitimate part of the metal family.

Clearly a lot of people just can't get past the fact that the word 'metal' is contained within the term 'nu-metal.' Their logic being simply, why would they call it nu-metal if it wasn't metal? I've seen it written so many times, "Of course it's metal, why do you think they call it nu-metal?"

More sophisticated and erudite metalheads such as ourselves will be more likely to understand the differences, but we both know that most mainstream metalheads just like most non-metalheads don't really understand what defines metal to begin with, so how would they know what is and isn't 'trve' metal? To most laymen anything "heavy" with guitars is metal.

I remember having a friendly internet argument with a Canadian girl over 20 years ago in a chat room who just could not accept that Nickleback isn't a metal band. She insisted they were heavy metal and that it was indiputable and obvious to anyone with half a brain. To a lot of casuals hard rock and heavy metal are essentially interchangable terms. Electric guitars = metal end of story. 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

28 minutes ago, markm said:

Well, damn at nearly 58, you late 30-40 somethings are some miserable old haggardly sons of bitches! JK of course. Something about mid to late 50's has given me a give no fucks upswing in mood. like at this point, who gives a shit? I'm reasonably healthy. My dick still gets hard. Give me some good tunes, put me on the river. Give me a nice cold one.  The older guy with the secret of the hangman, the smile on his lips-one of my favorite metal quotes. 

I think what happens to a lot of us is you notice yourself aging in your early 40's when you feel that you have some new aches and pains you never had to deal with before, you can't quite physically keeep pace with the 25 year olds anymore and the grey hairs start coming. Then your metabolism slows down and here comes the spare tire. What a bummer. But then you realize you're gonna have to live another 40 years like that so you might as well just suck it up and get over it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and put it out of your mind. You can't dwell on all the little the downsides of the aging process or it'll depress the shit out of you. That was my experience anyway. I feel better now at 61 than I felt at 45. You're as young as you feel. My knees will betray me sometimes, but only if I've done an unusual amount of walking and stair climbing.

[Thatguy]

Thatguy's awake.

Nu-metal - not metal. My son liked Korn for 5 minutes when he was a young teenager and that was my only exposure.

I am not usually the oldest bastard at gigs - not that there have been many in the last few years - and I will be at Hymns to the Dead in Hobart next week and I won't really know if I'm the oldest bastard because it will be dark. And I don't care.

The fires...bad memories from those pictures. We fled Canberra in the most recent conflagration and were smoke refugees staying with my mate at Coledale. Before that there were the fires that burnt into the west of the city. We were packed and ready to bolt with the police in our street but the wind changed and we were spared. It's a cliche but it really was like the middle of the night in the middle of the day. My poor wife had the same experience when she was a child and Hobart burned...

[GoatmasterGeneral]

1 minute ago, Thatguy said:

Thatguy's awake.

Mornin' Doc!

Why do you get up so damn early if you're retired now? Orca I can understand, he has a reason to get up at 4am before the ass-crack of dawn, he has cows and hay and fences and shit to deal with. But you're a man of leisure now Doc. Your first post here today was before 7:30am. What time did your feet hit the floor when you first jumped up out of bed? I'm just getting into my first REM sleep cycle at 7:30. Even on school days when I have to get the kid out the door to catch the bus at 8:30 my phone's alarm goes off at 7:50 and I hit the snooze a few times before I'm finally ready to stand upright on my own two feet and have a good piss at 8:15. On the weekends I usually go to sleep when I see the glow of the sun's first rays shining through the curtains, and I'll sleep in til probably 9:30 on the early side and noon on the later side.

[RelentlessOblivion]

2 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

My mental image of you Mr Macabre has always been sort of a mashup of Rob Halford and Winston Churchill. We've all seen your pics so we know what you look like, the bald dome and white beard is why I say Rob Halford. But I mean your voice, personality and mannerisms are all still complete unknowns. So my brain has filled in the blanks with Sir Winston. Specifically Gary Oldman's portrayal of the old boy in that film I saw last year which I found quite enjoyable but whose name escapes me at the moment. 

It's unfortunate that the 5 hour time difference means that you're generally sleeping (or maybe giving Mrs Macabre the Jolly Roger) during my evening and late night hours when I'm most likely to be here posting. And in turn I'm sleeping during your mornings and the first half of your work day. And then I'm often busy during the arvo when you might be finished working and done with dinner and possibly looking at the forum. So that leaves me to chill with these Aussies who all seem to be morning people and will often start posting at ungodly hours of between 6 and 9 am their time and then they generally disappear around their dinnertime which is when I'm going to bed. 

I'm only here all day today because of all the smoke from the Quebec wildfires 1,000 km away which is fucking up our atmosphere. There's an orange glow in the sky I can see through all the curtains, it's quite dark like a line of thunderstorms is bearing down on us, and when you step outside it smells like a campfire, you can see the smoke particulates swirling around in the air. Makes me wonder what the Aussies must have gone through when it seemed like all of Australia was on fire for months on end several years ago. 

Exactly that, I remember seeing smoke for weeks, and you couldn’t open a window lest that room smell like a campfire. It was worse a couple years prior, we were about 10mins away from the fire sweeping through our suburb before the wind changed direction.

 

re age at 33 I don’t feel all that different from 25. Sure, I can’t get away with overindulging on the alcohol like I used to, and my left shoulder gives me a bit of grief every now and then, but that’s about it. Always get a good laugh at cricket, when one of the teenagers talks about how they will feel so old when they hit 20. 

[Thatguy]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Mornin' Doc!

I can't stay in bed past 7am and I'm usually up by 6.30 -6.45

Habit of a lifetime that I'm not inclined to try to break. Also I like an early morning run especially in summer before it gets hot. Not this morning though because it's raining.

[Dead1]

2 hours ago, SurgicalBrute said:

Just using this as a jumping off point for my own comment, but what I find interesting is the absolute insistence that Nu-metal MUST be part of the metal genre. What I mean is, despite all the various influences that go into these bands, like Hip-Hop or Industrial, you never see anyone insisting Limp Bizkit is a hip-hop band or that Slipknot is an industrial band. Nu-metal is the bastard child of a thousand different influences, and even in its heyday the metal label never fit especially, yet there are people who will die on the hill that it's a legitimate part of the metal family.

Totally agree.  

I think it stems from the mainstream media's complete lack of knowledge about heavy music so anything with distorted guitars is metal.  Your average LA Times/Guardian/daily newspaper type doesn't know anything about heavy music.   

And your average Metal Hammer/Kerrang/Rolling Stone editor doesn't either.

Hence when FNM's Real Thing comes out and did well, LA Times called them kings of "neo-metal" despite that album having one bonafide metal song (Surprise, You're Dead) and covering Black Sabbath's Warpigs.

By the same token Red Hot Chilli Peppers were "funk metal" and Primus and Janes Addiction were "alternative metal."

Thus by same logic Korn gets called metal and so forth.  I've even seen people and media alike call early Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age metal.  And then in the 1970s Van Halen and Aerosmith being labelled as metal.

In reality those bands were stylistically avant garde rock, alternative rock, funk rock, hard rock etc etc.

None of them had those key ingredients of metal - focus on heavily distorted guitar riffs.  And none of the other elements are there either or at least not to any great degree- the aggression, deemphasising vocal melodies, more complex militaristic drums etc.

 

And I'm not bagging non-metal music out.  I love Guns N Roses and Faith No More and enjoy early RHCP, QOTSA, Van Halen etc.  Primus' Jerry Was A Race Car Driver and Winona's Big Brown Beaver are two of my favourite tracks of all time. 

I own and love SOAD's first album (great avante garde punk/hardcore album) and RATM's first album (also more of an avant garde rap/hardcore crossover).

I also love Fear Factory's Obsolete and Sepultura's Roots.  These I'd sooner lump into groove metal as they are closer to say Pantera and early Machine Head than Korn and Limp Bizkit (despite Roots having some influences from Korn)

 

---

 

I think the major labels are happy to exploit media's lack of knowledge.  If Metallica is big and they're a metal band, well then let's call this new heavier rock band "something" metal and it will appeal to that market.

[AlSymerz]

37 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

 Not this morning though because it's raining.

Ya not fucking kidding. Thank fuck I'm south of the ranges and missing the really bad weather. Perth breaking 35 year old records would have been interesting, some of those people would have forgotten what rain looked like.