{"id":332,"date":"2006-07-31T02:42:11","date_gmt":"2006-07-30T16:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=332"},"modified":"2006-07-31T02:42:11","modified_gmt":"2006-07-30T16:42:11","slug":"metal-militia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=332","title":{"rendered":"Metal Militia!"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align = \"center\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/64\/201827529_7a497e5860_m.jpg\"><\/div>\n<p>&#8216;Inspired&#8217; by the forthcoming release of a documentary film about heavy metal, from the <strong>Department of Extremely-Late-Breaking-News<\/strong> comes the following:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/n\/a\/2006\/07\/29\/entertainment\/e110308D10.DTL\">Heavy metal adopts political, social messages in new millennium<\/a><br \/>\nJustin M. Norton<br \/>\n[Associated Press]<\/p>\n<p>SAN FRANCISCO &#8211; Heavy metal singer Chris Barnes didn&#8217;t know what people would think of the anti-war song &#8220;Amerika the Brutal&#8221; he wrote after his cousin deployed to Iraq in 2003.<\/p>\n<p>He heard a number of complaints &#8211; but also received supportive e-mails from American troops in the war zone.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It kind of sent a shiver up my spine because those are the guys I didn&#8217;t want to offend by sounding anti-war,&#8221; said Barnes, vocalist for the death metal band <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfu420.com\">Six Feet Under<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Other metal bands are finding similar inspiration.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lamb-of-god.com\">Lamb of God<\/a><\/strong>&#8216;s albums criticize American foreign policy. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cattledecapitation.com\">Cattle Decapitation<\/a><\/strong> are ardent vegetarians who use explicit album covers and songs like &#8220;Veal and the Cult of Torture&#8221; to condemn the meat industry. Serj Tankian of <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.systemofadown.com\/\">System of a Down<\/a><\/strong> is co-founder of a nonprofit organization that works on social issues.<\/p>\n<p>More than three decades after <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.black-sabbath.com\/index.shtml\">Black Sabbath<\/a><\/strong> conjured images of the dark arts, heavy metal is growing up. The genre is increasingly incorporating social and political messages into its dense power chords.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In reality, this is nothing new. In fact, &#8216;grown-up&#8217; (self-consciously &#8216;political&#8217;) heavy metal has been around for at least two decades. Summarising Deena Weinstein&#8217;s book (&#8220;the first real academic book on metal&#8221;), <em>Heavy Metal: A Cultural Sociology<\/em> (1991), A.S. Van Dorston <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastnbulbous.com\/metal.htm\">writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>[Weinstein] codes heavy metal history into a dialogic process, an ongoing historical conversation stratified into five eras. It erupts <em>from 1969 to 1972<\/em>, begins to crystallize <em>from 1973 to 1975<\/em>, reaching a golden age of full crystallization <em>from 1976 to 1979<\/em>. Then <em>from 1979 to 1983<\/em> it undergoes a surge of growth, increasing in complexity and expanding its boundaries. <em>After 1983<\/em> it fragments into subgenres&#8230; When metal fragmented into subgenres in 1983, the differences in lyrical themes were identifiable. For instance, lite\/pop\/hair metal introduced more common themes of love and lust, while underground thrash metal avoided sex and drugs (other than occasional anti-drug songs), <strong>and focused on forms of protest songs addressing politics, the environment and animal rights<\/strong>.<\/ul>\n<p>But enough history. Let&#8217;s talk <a href=\"http:\/\/skepdic.com\/cattle.html\">cattle decapitation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Cattle Decapitation vocalist Travis Ryan said his San Diego band&#8217;s mix of charging guitars and an animal rights message is drawing a diverse crowd that includes activists as well as traditional metal fans.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve always had a lot of crazy crossover going on,&#8221; he says before a recent show at Pound SF, a club in an industrial section of San Francisco. &#8220;It&#8217;s a pretty diverse crowd we have. I&#8217;ve never known what to make of it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Twenty artists recently displayed art inspired by the band&#8217;s last album <em>Humanure<\/em>, in an online exhibit. Proceeds from sales of the art will be donated to animal rights causes.<\/p>\n<p>Metal bands are also branching out into literature and mythology.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Oddly enough, this is also nothing new. In fact, it&#8217;s been a staple of the genre since its inception.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mastodonrocks.com\/\">Mastodon<\/a><\/strong>, which is headlining a summer tour with metal stalwart <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slayer.net\/\">Slayer<\/a><\/strong>, patterned the concept album <em>Leviathan<\/em> around the story of Moby Dick. Death metal band <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nile-catacombs.net\/\">Nile<\/a><\/strong> bases its songs and image around Egyptian mythology and iconography.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Metal is expanding and evolving and becoming more diverse,&#8221; said Canadian anthropologist and filmmaker Sam Dunn, who directed <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.metalhistory.com\">Metal: A Headbanger&#8217;s Journey<\/a><\/em>, released on DVD this summer. &#8220;It&#8217;s at a much more vibrant state than it was even five or 10 years ago.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Dunn is working on a sequel to the film with the working title <em>Global Metal<\/em> which will trace the popularity of metal overseas, especially in developing countries like Brazil, Columbia and Indonesia.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s becoming global and it&#8217;s becoming a tool for social and political commentary,&#8221; Dunn said. &#8220;It takes on a greater meaning in countries where people have had to struggle to survive. It takes on a much stronger political tone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Metal artists &#8220;have responded to the culture and politics of the day,&#8221; said <a href=\"http:\/\/www.donnagaines.com\/\">Donna Gaines<\/a>, a sociologist and author of <em>Teenage Wasteland<\/em>, a study of working class New Jersey metalheads.<\/p>\n<p>Metal music in the 1980s was often homophobic and &#8220;very white,&#8221; she said, but current bands tend to be socially conscious and suspicious of political power. There&#8217;s also more women in the audience &#8211; and fronting the bands.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is another generation rising,&#8221; Gaines said.<\/p>\n<p>Heavy metal has always touched on social and political issues. Metal grandfathers Black Sabbath criticized the Vietnam War in songs like &#8220;War Pigs&#8221; and &#8220;Children of the Grave.&#8221; <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ironmaiden.com\/\">Iron Maiden<\/a><\/strong>&#8216;s &#8220;Run to the Hills&#8221; was an angry denunciation of the displacement of Native Americans.<\/p>\n<p>But much of the criticism was blunted by dark imagery that panicked parents and led to the now ubiquitous &#8220;Parental Advisory&#8221; labels. Metal&#8217;s punk brethren were seen as having a more learned world view.<\/p>\n<p>That began to change when hardcore punk and metal fused in the late 1980s with bands like <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dirtyrottenimbeciles.com\/\">Dirty Rotten Imbeciles<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nuclearassault.us\/\">Nuclear Assault<\/a><\/strong>. But metal was still primarily known for the excessive lifestyles and racy videos of glam bands.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Punk and metal began to &#8216;crossover&#8217; from at least the early 1980s; DRI and Nuclear Assault are just as often described as &#8216;speed&#8217; or &#8216;thrash metal&#8217; (not to be confused with grindcore, doom metal, stoner metal, sludge metal, alternative metal, nu metal, industrial metal, rap metal, neo-classical metal, progressive metal, goth metal, hardcore [punk] metal, symphonic black metal, or power metal&#8230;). Further, notwithstanding the fact that many of the early punk bands that survived to the mid-80s began to struggle with their sound &#8212; one that had devolved into bad metal with punk trappings, or &#8220;bad rock &#8216;n&#8217; roll chivvied up a bit&#8221; &#8212; a much more important influence was Stoke-On-Trent&#8217;s finest <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.discharge.co.uk\/\">Discharge<\/a><\/strong>. (<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.suicidaltendencies.com\/\">Suicidal Tendencies<\/a><\/strong> also predate both DRI and Nuclear Assault.) In summary, it was obvious to anyone who cared to look that, by the mid-80s, the days of poodle rock&#8217;s domination over heavy metal would soon be over&#8230; ish.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The popular view of metalheads as mentally deficient goons was memorialized with the MTV cartoon <em>Beavis and Butthead<\/em>, about two teen metalheads who terrorize their pudgy neighbor Stewart, who wears a T-shirt of the glam rock band <strong>Winger<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>More meaningful music was coming from the underground as popular culture embraced grunge and metal lost favor.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.enemyofthemusicbusiness.com\">Napalm Death<\/a><\/strong> was a product of Britain&#8217;s &#8220;Crass&#8221; [sic] movement, which fused anarchism and punk in the late 1980s. Vocalist <a href=\"http:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=36\">Mark &#8220;Barney&#8221; Greenway<\/a>, a vegetarian and peace advocate, is often pulled aside by fans who want to know more about his progressive views.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well, kinda&#8230; but not really.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1<\/strong>) <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.southern.com\/southern\/band\/CRASS\/\">Crass<\/a><\/strong> were a band, not a movement.<br \/>\n<strong>2<\/strong>) The movement they inspired was anarcho-punk, not grindcore.<br \/>\n<strong>3<\/strong>) They formed in 1977 and split in 1984.<br \/>\n<strong>4<\/strong>) Napalm Death&#8217;s association with Crass stems from their appearance on one of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.southern.com\/southern\/label\/CRC\/disc.html\">Crass record label<\/a>&#8216;s compilations: <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.southern.com\/southern\/label\/CRC\/07030.html\">Bullshit Detector<\/a><\/em>, Volume 3 (1984). (&#8220;The Crucifixion of Possessions&#8221; doesn&#8217;t sound much like &#8216;metal&#8217; either.)<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>One recent song, &#8220;The Code is Red, Long Live the Code,&#8221; takes aim at the spate of terror alerts in America with lyrics like: &#8220;Switched on to subdue when the masses switch off.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s really, really difficult sometimes to break through the cloud of apathy, so it&#8217;s great when someone comes and asks why you are coming from your perspective,&#8221; Greenway said during a recent tour stop in California.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you come into a country like America, when you challenge thinking, it&#8217;s a great affront to some people,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The lyrics on <strong>Lamb of God<\/strong>&#8216;s two most recent albums have been expressly political, and the politics lean heavily to the left.<\/p>\n<p>After President Bush was re-elected in 2004, frontman Randy Blythe says he joked to a friend: &#8220;Well, there still may be some good music made. What&#8217;s bad for civilization is good for punk rock and metal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Napalm Death&#8217;s Greenway is considering work as a political activist when his metal days are over, but he doesn&#8217;t think metal will ever completely stray from hedonistic and supernatural themes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I appreciate that not everything has to be awareness raising or political,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Music is also a form of entertainment and it should remain that way. Variety is the spice of life. Escapism is a good thing if it doesn&#8217;t cloud your vision.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div align = \"center\" ><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/static.flickr.com\/71\/201828940_d0dd617ed8_m.jpg\"><\/div>\n<p>Finally, a know-nothing has written an article for &#8212; believe it or not &#8212; the <em>IPA Review<\/em> called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ipa.org.au\/files\/81_1_KEMP.pdf\">&#8216;Liberalism, individualism and heavy metal&#8217;<\/a> (April 2006). In it, Dave Mustaine is quoted in defence of his property; <em>Rock Against Bush<\/em> is cited (as heavy metal!); the multi-millionaire <a href=\"http:\/\/archive.salon.com\/tech\/log\/2000\/07\/12\/napster_hearings\/index.html\">Lars Ulrich<\/a> is quoted (<em>Some Kind of Monster<\/em> is worth watching for the inspired <a href=\"http:\/\/www.campchaos.com\/blog-archives\/old_cartoons\/napster_bad\/\">animation<\/a> of a greedy, grasping, whining Ulrich alone); and the article is rounded off with references to <strong>Rush<\/strong>, <strong>Twisted Sister<\/strong>, <strong>Stryper<\/strong>, <strong>Iron Maiden<\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/forum.cygnus-study.com\/archive\/index.php\/t-3072.html\">Corporate Avenger<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Not exactly cutting-edge stuff.<\/p>\n<p>Still, to the <a href=\"http:\/\/workers.labor.net.au\/features\/200408\/b_tradeunion_neocons.html\">&#8220;small elite&#8221;<\/a> what occasionally reads &#8212; but most often ignores &#8212; the <em>Review<\/em>, it probably sounds like the author knows what he&#8217;s talking about; the main point, in any case, being simply to confirm their ignorance, prejudice and stupidity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8216;Inspired&#8217; by the forthcoming release of a documentary film about heavy metal, from the Department of Extremely-Late-Breaking-News comes the following: Heavy metal adopts political, social messages in new millennium Justin M. Norton [Associated Press] SAN FRANCISCO &#8211; Heavy metal singer &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/?p=332\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6AyE-5m","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slackbastard.anarchobase.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}