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Random metal thoughts


Dead1

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Motherfucking Wyoming...If watching paint dry was an actual state. It's about 95% flat nothing

 

5 minutes ago, markm said:

I will say my daughter who is pretty lite skinned often gests asked if she's Hispanic or asked "what are you"

My best friend is the same...plus he's a really big dude. I actually thought he might be Samoan the first time I met him

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My wife's younger sister looks like an Islander, tall, beefy woman that looks like she should have facial tatts and would rip you apart for looking at her the wrong way. While her older sister is dead set Chinese, small, petite and I can't pick her out in a crowd of people. Yet my wife looks only slightly Chinese and nothing like an Islander.

(I realise this has nothing to do with the movie subject but it kind of relates to Surges post so I'm running with it :P )

 

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12 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

 

In more contemporary modern day storytelling I welcome the diverse casting/script decisions.

 

What peeves me off is that very often "diversity" characters are still just Americans with American names (even surnames) and seldom have any of their own culture left.  You don't really see diversity in terms of culture, just skin tone and facial features.

As an immigrant from non-English speaking background, it irks me a lot. 

Actually Hollywood ignores even class and geographic cultural differences within the US itself (except Texans who get some lame stereotype assumed to them).  Everyone is nondescript and fits what are 1970-80s tropes.

I really enjoy shows like Kim's Convenience (about a Korean family who runs a convenience store in multicultural Toronto) which did actually show how different cultures affected people's lives and interactions.  

21 minutes ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

Here’s one, does anyone else get annoyed by the pervasive inclusion of metal core and post-metal on supposedly metal radio stations?

Are you referring to Triple J's The Racket?  The current presenter is lame and I don't bother with it.

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I object to the inclusion of post-metal on just about anything...

...but I do find my eyes rolling a bit anytime someone says they've really been getting into black metal recently, only to find out they're listening to a bunch of post-black, shoegaze nonsense. Not because I care what they listen to, but because they're trying to lay claim to something they're not really part of...

....there's nothing wrong with admitting you don't know something. It's better than pretending to be something you're not.

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2 hours ago, KillaKukumba said:

My wife's younger sister looks like an Islander

 

I spend too much time reading military stuff because I misread it as as Iskander as in 9K720 Iskander ballistic missile.

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Army2016demo-075.jpg/300px-Army2016demo-075.jpg

3 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

I object to the inclusion of post-metal on just about anything...

...but I do find my eyes rolling a bit anytime someone says they've really been getting into black metal recently, only to find out they're listening to a bunch of post-black, shoegaze nonsense. Not because I care what they listen to, but because they're trying to lay claim to something they're not really part of.

For some reason FB feeds me crap from Revolver and Metal Hammer magazines.  I am constantly correcting people on stuff - eg recently some guy called Power Trip a death metal band.

Also the true mainstream metal fans are really clueless as how the music industry works or that there is actually a big massive world of metal outside of Metallica, Slipknot, Korn and Machine Head.

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4 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

For some reason FB feeds me crap from Revolver and Metal Hammer magazines.  I am constantly correcting people on stuff - eg recently some guy called Power Trip a death metal band.

Also the true mainstream metal fans are really clueless as how the music industry works or that there is actually a big massive world of metal outside of Metallica, Slipknot, Korn and Machine Head.

My social media presence is pretty limited thankfully, because I constantly find that my knee-jerk reaction is to dive into conversations like this and correct people, and it's really only the fact that I'm not signed up to a lot of these sites that keeps me from getting into constant genre arguments

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The particular brand of metalcore that rose to prominence in the 2000's gave that genre an unfairly bad rap, if you ask me. I spent a good chunk of this past year digging into blackened hardcore and really liked a lot of what I found. Stuff like Young And In The Way, Sunlight's Bane and Pilori, to name a few. Nobody calls this stuff "metalcore" but really a black metal/hardcore fusion IS metalcore in the true sense of the word.

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33 minutes ago, zackflag said:

The particular brand of metalcore that rose to prominence in the 2000's gave that genre an unfairly bad rap, if you ask me. I spent a good chunk of this past year digging into blackened hardcore and really liked a lot of what I found. Stuff like Young And In The Way, Sunlight's Bane and Pilori, to name a few. Nobody calls this stuff "metalcore" but really a black metal/hardcore fusion IS metalcore in the true sense of the word.

Yeah you're right, but we'll never get the term back it's been corrupted for too long now, or tainted, or however you want to put it. So there's no coming back. I'm ok calling the fusion of hardcore and black metal blackened hardcore or crust.  You've got me turning off my Vargsang with 2 tracks to go to play Pilori now. Be warned they are French, but I swear I'm not trying to use this as an excuse to push diversity on anyone. 

 

Pilori - À Nos Morts, France 2020

 

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40 minutes ago, zackflag said:

The particular brand of metalcore that rose to prominence in the 2000's gave that genre an unfairly bad rap, if you ask me. I spent a good chunk of this past year digging into blackened hardcore and really liked a lot of what I found. Stuff like Young And In The Way, Sunlight's Bane and Pilori, to name a few. Nobody calls this stuff "metalcore" but really a black metal/hardcore fusion IS metalcore in the true sense of the word.

 

I refer to the irritating stuff ala Parkway Drive or KSE as melodic metalcore to differentiate it from other (better) stuff.

On its own metalcore or metallic hardcore has spawned some great bands ala Vision of Disorder or Earthcrisis.

Shame the melodic metalcore took over.  And most melodic metalcore is just watered down melodic death metal.  You play stuff like Soilwork and Inflames circa Clayman and they're not that far removed from KSE, Trivium, Unearth etc. 

Early As I Lay Dying and Shadows Fall were totally melodic death metal.  I still like Shadows Fall Of One Blood and Art of Balance.  Of One Blood is melodic DM whereas Art of Balance is really a modern type of thrash ala similar era Death Angel.

 

15 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Yeah you're right, but we'll never get the term back it's been corrupted for too long now, or tainted, or however you want to put it. So there's no coming back. I'm ok calling the fusion of hardcore and black metal blackened hardcore or crust.  You've got me turning off my Vargsang with 2 tracks to go to play Pilori now. Be warned they are French, but I swear I'm not trying to use this as an excuse to push diversity on anyone. 

 

Totally agree the term's been too corrupted.  

 

That French band seems to run aground quickly into meandering post metal territory.  IMO hardcore's got to be constantly punching you in the face.  And the black stuff I like should also be slashing you with a switchblade!

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5 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Giving Oklahoma a bit of a pass there, aren't you?

Ok is very distinctly not ok, but while they are resting on their laurels, Florida is actively lowering the bar on civilization.

2 hours ago, Dead1 said:

except Texans who get some lame stereotype assumed to them

Some stereotypes are there for a reason. Everything said about Texas is true. One of not the most backwards ass states to ever exist where 99% of the people think they are god's gift. Cowboy hats, guns, boots, big trucks, bigger hair, mediocre bbq, and killer real deal Mexican food. All true.

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10 hours ago, Dead1 said:

I spend too much time reading military stuff because I misread it as as Iskander as in 9K720 Iskander ballistic missile.

 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2f/Army2016demo-075.jpg/300px-Army2016demo-075.jpg

 

I've totally lost the plot on the threads here, but this made me laugh! "My wife's younger sister really packs a punch!"

To circle waaay back to the thread about non-whites in metal. I know of the other examples mentioned, but my point that I obvisouly didn't get across, is that in the grand scheme of things I've always felt they were considered as outliers or a very small minority within the metal scene. Like the token black guy. Sure some nerd in a fanzine from buttfuck Sweden might praise Sarcofago or Impiety but just how well-known were they really? But who knows, I might be wrong, I wasn't in the scene in the 80-90's. Far as I'm concerened anything that happened after 2000 and the internet is like whole different universe.

Also, Kirk Hammet is black? Or hispanic? I had no idea!

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15 hours ago, markm said:

As far as the Disney thing goes, I'm not weighing in on that as I'm not a Disney person and generally dislike Disney corp. It's not political or anything, it's more the family oriented generic 1950's Norman Rockwell portrait of things is completely uninteresting to me. Yeah, I know they're more than that. But to me, Disney will always be the stuff that came out before 1980 or whatever-Bambi and Fantasia or Escape to Witch Mountain-basically stuff for kids. Plus, I'm not a big animation fan. 

Is Disney really a big thing with metal fans???? Come on, Satan. 

I recall a few years ago Cannibal Corpse getting banned from playing a venue in LA owned by Disney. It was against their "family values" or something. Probably at the time they didn't put gay characters in films because it was contrary to "family values" at least in the view of half your country. Now they own Star Wars and Marvel and make more violent content...and gays are everywhere.

Ultimately its a money making machine that gives the people what they want. 

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1 hour ago, Sheol said:

I've totally lost the plot on the threads here, but this made me laugh! "My wife's younger sister really packs a punch!"

To circle waaay back to the thread about non-whites in metal. I know of the other examples mentioned, but my point that I obvisouly didn't get across, is that in the grand scheme of things I've always felt they were considered as outliers or a very small minority within the metal scene. Like the token black guy. Sure some nerd in a fanzine from buttfuck Sweden might praise Sarcofago or Impiety but just how well-known were they really? But who knows, I might be wrong, I wasn't in the scene in the 80-90's. Far as I'm concerened anything that happened after 2000 and the internet is like whole different universe.

Also, Kirk Hammet is black? Or Hispanic? I had no idea!

Kirk is Filipino. As are all the members of Death Angel. As we know the Philippenes are located in Asia, but they were a Spanish colony for 333 years at one time so there was a fair bit of interbreeding of native Filipinos with their Spanish colonizers during that time. Subsequently they were an American colony for 48 years, during which time the Yanks tried their best to undo the Hispanization of the islands and sought instead to Americanize them, because that's what we do. 

Johan, metal was 'born' in the UK forty some odd years ago and quickly gained popularity in both Europe and America, which as we know are all predominantly populated by white people. It could be argued by some that people from certain of the southern and eastern European countires aren't strictly speaking 'white' they're what some might call 'olive-skinned.' But as far as I'm concerned, and at least here in the States (in my lifetime anyway) the people from these countries like Italy, Greece, Albania and Turkey are generally considered by most of us to be white. (they definitely weren't considered to be white back when they started getting on boats and emigrating over here over 100 years ago) But metal was a lot more popular at first in the northern and western parts of Europe where all the white people originally come from. So it stands to reason that historically, the majority of heavy metallers have always been white people. Just like you'd expect most of the musicians who play Gugak to be Korean. Since the early 80's when heavy metal first got started there have been quite a good many metal scenes that have sprung up and established a good foothold in a lot of non-white countries all around the world, especially in South America and Asia. But they sure have a lot of catching up to do if they think they're ever gonna be more than just a small minority in the world's metal scene. I'm not really sure just how well known some of these these 'foreign' bands were when they first formed and started releasing records, but by roughly the mid to late 80's I'd say most metalheads were becoming aware of metal bands hailing from non-white parts of the world, i.e. not from Europe or North America.

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1 hour ago, KillaKukumba said:

Got invited to my nieces school awards last night, she was up for a few awards which we were all proud of but the highlight of the night for me was the musical interludes. I'll give the first kid credit, I'm not an Ed Sheeran fan but the kid singing gave it her all and it sounded okay. The second song was some other pop song I didn't know. But the third song just before the end of the night was brilliant.

The lights went down and in the shadows we could see a 15-16 year old kid with long hair stepping up to the mic, 3 other musos with their instruments behind him. Into the mic the young guy mildly says, "This one's for Chuck, gone too soon". I read earlier in the day that the previous day was the anniversary of Chuck Schuldiner's death, but I really didn't think much of the kid's comments. The the lights came up covering the stage in a blood red colour, the kid put up the horns and the band broke into Pull The Plug.

The kids did a darn good job but the look on some of the parents and carers faces in the audience not expecting some loud death metal song from school concert was absolutely fucking priceless. Kudos to the teachers for letting the kids express themselves with the music they wanted, but I'll still never forget the look on some peoples faces.

Haha that's absolutely brilliant, good on them, and their teachers for having an open mind.

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7 minutes ago, navybsn said:

Just going to leave this here. The expressions are priceless.

Beherit live 1990

 

Priceless indeed. But yet surprisingly most of them didn't walk away. But the video was only 2 minutes long so maybe they walked away soon after it ends. Weird seeing the evil Beherit as just a bunch of skinny teenage punks when they got started because that doesn't jibe with the mental image I've created for them over the years. I think that bass weighs as much than the kid playing it.

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15 hours ago, Sheol said:

I've totally lost the plot on the threads here, but this made me laugh! "My wife's younger sister really packs a punch!"

To circle waaay back to the thread about non-whites in metal. I know of the other examples mentioned, but my point that I obvisouly didn't get across, is that in the grand scheme of things I've always felt they were considered as outliers or a very small minority within the metal scene. Like the token black guy. Sure some nerd in a fanzine from buttfuck Sweden might praise Sarcofago or Impiety but just how well-known were they really? But who knows, I might be wrong, I wasn't in the scene in the 80-90's. Far as I'm concerened anything that happened after 2000 and the internet is like whole different universe.

 

A few points:

1.  The underground scene in 1980s was tiny.  Eg Norwegian black metal scene in 1990 was about 50 people.  It was mainly an international scene based around letter writing and tape trading.  

Your average metalhead in that period listened to Motley Crue, Quiet Riot, Ratt etc.  Then you had smaller concentric circles of more and more extreme stuff.

2. In Slayer magazine, quite a few bands name obscure stuff like Sarcofago, Repulsion and Razor as influences.  Indeed Sarcofago's INRI was Dead's favourite album.  

3. Non whites weren't prominent in metal in Europe because at the time Europe was still mainly white.  Even US was 83% white in 1980 (12% black, 5% everyone else).  Given metal only appeals to very small % of population, it is unlikely that many say in Sweden you'd find many metalheads amongst the tiny Somali population of a maybe a couple of hundred people in 1980.  Now there's 70,000 Somali born in Sweden so more likely some of them would get into metal (again small as 70,000 is not a lot of people).

4. Cultural differences.  Different cultures have adopted metal differently.  Eg France never really developed a large metal scene but Germany did.  Metal doesn't seem to appeal to different cultures to different degrees.

5. In USA 1970-1980s hard rock and metal were more for middle class types who tended to primarily white.  African Americans developed their own musical subcultures ala hip hop/rap. 

6. But as mentioned metal there was still quite a few non-white metal musicians in 1980s.  And there's been more and more since.

 

So some guy in 2022 claiming how he's a black guy in rock music and that that is something noteworthy is bullshit - he's just looking for an angle. 

 

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I know this is a pretty well-worn conversation path, but as I'm reading people's comments to the year end lists over at No Clean Singing, I'm still shocked at the number of people saying how they need to check out so many of these bands.

I get that people have a limited amount of time in any given day, but at the same time, it's not like they're covering the deepest depths of the underground over there, either. I mean, make at least a token effort, right?

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9 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

I know this is a pretty well-worn conversation path, but as I'm reading people's comments to the year end lists over at No Clean Singing, I'm still shocked at the number of people saying how they need to check out so many of these bands.

I get that people have a limited amount of time in any given day, but at the same time, it's not like they're covering the deepest depths of the underground over there, either. I mean, make at least a token effort, right?

Yeah, they're getting close to jumping the shark. It's the only blog I still occasionally read, but lately they've really expanded the number and types of bands they cover. The costs of success I guess, but it severely limits the quality of the output. I checked the lists out today and didn't see any bands I was unfamiliar with and only a few that I've not heard their latest, and I am seriously limited on time these days. And it's not my business or passion project. I'm sure there's plenty of challenges we don't know, but does seem that the last big blog left that's worth a shit is on the decline.

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Priceless indeed. But yet surprisingly most of them didn't walk away. But the video was only 2 minutes long so maybe they walked away soon after it ends. Weird seeing the evil Beherit as just a bunch of skinny teenage punks when they got started because that doesn't jibe with the mental image I've created for them over the years. I think that bass weighs as much than the kid playing it.

There's a better video out there of G.I.S.M. playing a public gig in the middle of a Japanese city in like 89 that is piss on yourself funny, but I can't find it at the moment.

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19 minutes ago, SurgicalBrute said:

I know this is a pretty well-worn conversation path, but as I'm reading people's comments to the year end lists over at No Clean Singing, I'm still shocked at the number of people saying how they need to check out so many of these bands.

I get that people have a limited amount of time in any given day, but at the same time, it's not like they're covering the deepest depths of the underground over there, either. I mean, make at least a token effort, right?

I don't generally like No Clean Singing - the writing style is bland, presentation is meh and it's too black/cavernous death for me.  I also think Andy Synn's is too lenient and just praises everything.  There is nothing to be gleaned from his writings.

I just looked at their lists and to be honest I saw stuff that is either of no interest to me (pure black, sludge stuff, cavernous death metal) or stuff I just can't be fucked with save two songs to confirm the band is still stuck doing the same boring shit because they are artistically bankrupt (eg Lamb of God, Witchery, Immolation, Kreator, Darkane etc).

 

I also think a lot of the metal community is stuck in a rut.  I was speaking to mates at the King Parrot gig and nearly all of them are completely out of the loop when it comes to modern metal.  Indeed the Pantera reunion was the main talking point with several people.

The magazine FB pages ala Decibel or Zero Tolerance only get comments and lots of likes for old bands.  Decibel churns out lots of new stuff on FB but most of it doesn't get any kind of response. 

 

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