Music in a word

One of the things I have the strongest opinions about, is music. I come off strong, and its because I'm passionate about the music I have learned to love, because it has in fact changed my life. I sometimes come off a little too strong, because, if the truth be known, I want to convince you. There. I've said it. I don't really want to talk about your music, or your friend's music. (That sounds horrible, but I'm speaking of times when I want to express myself specifically about this music I speak of and help you connect with me.) The music I'm speaking of is of course, too huge to classify (as are most types of music), but it might be boiled down to three main genres: hardcore, metal, and deathmetal. (Sounds of vomiting from the back room.) "Dooood! Iron Maiden, right? Metallica? Megadeth? Hardcore refers to how heavy it is right? Brooootal man, yeah!" or "You mean devil music?" The answer is, uh, no. No to both. I could go on and on with the many varied and some stunningly uninformed responses I've heard after telling people I like heavy music. It makes me want laugh and want to cry at the same time. So I usually revert to telling people they've never heard it before (very often true) and wouldn't like it (also very true). But I've come to find that this is somewhat offensive to their intelligence. So this is an attempt to succinctly and without interruption explain what metalish music is to me, and why I love it.

First I suppose I should explain exactly how I came to discover metalish music. I was a wee lad of 12, who, having a good upbringing and a very careful mother had hitherto had exposure to the greats in LDS composition, Neil Diamond, Bread, Chicago, etc. Pretty much what was in our record collection or anything that had a picture of Jesus Christ on the cover (don't take offense, I'm speaking very literally and respectfully). Radio wasn't widely used in our house, except for the days when we'd sneak a bit of Star 102.7 and listen to some Matchbox 20, Creed, or Train. That was my first introduction to modern mainstream music. We had a cassette player Walkman with a radio included, which we took full advantage of to listen to contraband music whilst mowing the lawn etc. One day while twiddling the dial, I came across a station, 105.7, I can't remember the name, but at the time that particular station played heavy rock, and my blasted ears were treated to a song called Chop Suey by the band System of a Down. I was stunned. What in the world was this? I knew what rock was, I had heard it from passing cars etc., but this was different. It had an edge, a speed and ferocity of sound I had never heard before. And the singer was a weirdo that screamed (or so I thought) every sentence or so. I had just had my musical world deflated around my feet. Over the next few months I heard more and more bands, some good, some bad, all the while completely bewildered as to what made the sounds, guitars I knew, but what about the deep machine gun sounds that ran with the beat? Was it the bassist slapping his guitar? Ha ha, it sounds so pathetic. Shortly into my exploration, I heard a song called Wait and Bleed by a band named Slipknot. This band put System of a Down to shame. It was my first taste of what can be called metal, however diluted and commercialized, and I fell in love with it. It was so fast and powerful. The melody wasn't in the singing, it was carried by the guitars and drums, something I had only heard in jazz and classical. The lyrics weren't about love or a bad past childhood, they were political and aggressive, based off of strong emotions completely devoid of self pity. They also carried a very healthy dose of the F word, something my young teenage brain took delight in.

For a very long time, a year at least, Slipknot remained the furthest I went from mainstream music, and incidentally the farthest into the "screaming genre" I got into, seeing as the radio was my only inlet into this new world. All my new friends Andrew Heidt, Rye Jones, Michael Waldon listened to Slipknot and Korn etc., and it wasn't until a kid named CJ Donio came around and plunked Demon Hunter and Caliban into my lap and told me to listen to REAL metal. At first even my Slipknotized ears were completely lost as I tried to pick anything out of the chaos. Real screaming, real double bass drums, real breakdowns, real tremolo, real blast beats, all these were something I thought I knew about until now. I listened until my head hurt, I looked up bios and pictures on the band. And then I looked up the lyrics. Wow. I had never read anything like it. Poems. The lyrics were straight up personal poetry. They weren't flashy, no creative words, no complicated language, just what one person wanted to tell another. It was so real, so different and honest compared to gushy love songs written for divas by tired out 40 year olds behind a desk, no sex drugs and rock n roll, no busta caps, nothing but what a dude not too much older than me was feeling and thinking. So on it went to Chimaira, Shadows Fall, etc., on and on until the day I heard Forever by As I Lay Dying on Head Banger's Ball.

This brought about yet another musical revolution in my head. As I Lay Dying was a powerfully melodic band that utilized every instrument to literally throw the music forward. Tim Lambesis (the vocalist) had a throat wrenching scream that blasted his words and emotions into your head. The line, "Forever your eyes will hold the memory. I saw your heart as it overtook me. We tried so hard to understand and reason, but in that one moment, in that moment I gave my heart away. When I wake from this dream, will your smile still open my heart and leave me transparent? When I wake from this dream will your smile still open my heart?" was so powerfully connected to my own beliefs about God, yet so unspecific and therefore so wonderfully applicable, that I knew, despite what anyone said, this music was not evil on principle. Yes, there are many bad examples that are pushed to the forefront, and unfortunately the world being what it is has made the dark side glamorous.

I continued to evolve into more bands, starting to form personal preferences about genres etc. I was mostly partial to metalcore, a combination of punk-derived hardcore and the characteristics of metal (strong melodies and double bass). Genre classification has been scorned before, and people sniff at the hundreds of combinations, but down to the point, it helps the people I interact with know better what I am talking about and helps them recognize a certain type of sound a band may have. Its funny, I can describe a band to one of my friends as deathmetal hardcore with a touch of grind with out even batting an eye, yet to some people, I say only the word "deathmetal" and they snigger. Ha ha, I have to remind myself that common phrases to me are unheard of and silly to others. I have come to find, as I delve deeper into the even heavier and quite rewarding genres like grindcore, deathgrind, and deathcore, that the personal underground attitude becomes stronger. A quick and very incomplete definition of genres follows:

Metal: Directly evolved from Heavy Metal acts such as Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Kiss, etc. Features tremolo, strong melodies, leans toward singing, lots of fast double bass.

Hardcore: Directly derived from Punk Rock, fast strumming coupled with an off beat on drums, even faster or thrashier tempos than metal, and my favorite part.... breakdowns (where the melody breaks down and pure rhythm takes over and carries the song).

Deathmetal: Usually includes a full time scream or growl coupled with high screeches, down tuned guitars and tremelo up the wazoo. Blast beats and strong double bass drums. And my favorite... chugs. Da... Da... Da... Dum Dum.

The mixture of these and others can lead to some surprisingly unique results.

But the whole point of this blog, is to explain how I feel about this music. I believe that the bands I admire, and the band I perform in carry an integrity that is wholly absent from the mainstream music community. I think that music is something that comes from the inside, from the depths of what makes us human, our heart I guess. Its a universal language, aside from facial and body language, it is the most recognizable connection to another being. More than a smile or frown, music has the ability to touch deeper and more completely. To have this ability and blessing commercialized and capitalized makes me very angry. A faceless corporation with sales in mind can hardly care about anything but costs, recording time, promotion, marketability, and star names. How can they stop to feel the people they are selling this music to? Does it matter that putting a skimpy 20 year old on stage to be idolized can undermine the natural image of female beauty? Or just simply the worth of the individual? Does it not matter that what she says holds no weight? She did not write or even care about the lyrics. Some old dude in an office wrote about losing love, or buying a purse, or getting bling, things he has no experience in, something that has no emotional or intellectual value. How can the music reach someone's heart or mind if there is nothing behind it?

Now, there are a lot of popular types of music out there that is written and performed by the same person, but rarely does it carry and real life meaning. There are too many people writing about things they HAVE NO EXPERIENCE IN. Snazzy beats and tinkly keyboard parts coupled with blandly stated verse (I can't stand this certain voice I've heard several times in rap, some big dude who has the most boring monotone voice saying stuff like, "Yeah baby, thaz what I'm sayin," and "bounce it like that b***h") isn't music and it can't connect because it didn't come from the heart.

There are many types of music that are beautifully written, both lyrically and musically, specifically classical and choral (including Broadway, some indie soloists, etc. here). I have nothing but respect for the geniuses that can move an audience with hundreds of instruments, that can write pieces so complicated you get dizzy looking at the sheet music. Unattainable. That what that sort of talent is to me. So lets put all this aside from now on. All kudos to them.

I have a huge problem with rock bands.

These douche bags are the ones who leach off of fake emotions, who proliferate life styles that would get you killed a hundred years ago, the ones who tell youth to live fast and die young, drugs and alcohol are In, and sex is just a laugh, go ahead. Interestingly enough, when I say that I listen to metal, people most often picture one of these bands. Usually composed of a few nearly back up musicians and a front man who takes all the credit (and receives the most bras) and writes all the garbage lyrics and tired out melodies. For one person to become idolized for something he could not do onstage by himself is a tragedy. What about those dudes in the back? Are they just decoration? Have they no worth? What would happen if they were to come forward and put a part of themselves into the music?

I believe that metal and its surrounding genres are fundamentally based on human relationships. It is created by collaboration of people who care deeply about what they are doing, the combined talents and inspiration in writing makes a unique sound. The music isn't about bling, sex, popularity, trendy clothes, or major record deals, its about the people just like the artists that listen and appreciate what is created. No one takes the spotlight. The music is composed of equally important parts, the drummer and bassist no longer take the back seat. In fact, they are some of the key elements of the sound, especially the drums. And as anyone who has recorded knows, without the bass tracks, the music sounds crappy since the bass joins the music together to create flow and the heavy quality. I have met and made more friends through being involved in a band than ever before. These are good people who care about music, family, friends, and a local mentality. When I got into my car accident, literally 5 minutes after the police left I was receiving calls up the wazoo asking if I was okay and if i needed a ride. I don't even know how they found out. These weren't bosom buddies, these were casual acquaintances I am friendly with, who gave a crap about another human being. This is a quality that I haven't experienced anywhere else, with any type of people or organization.

I want to talk a little about a genre called posi-core. Ha ha, yes amusing name. Its a relatively new type, closely related to hardcore, but less set aside from the original punk hardcore. Although a very defined genre, it's basic characteristics are very present in most of the bands I listen to. As you can probably guess, its defining feature is a very positive outlook on life in general. Many of the bands are christian or straightedge but not all. The music is faster, a bit more basic in technique, and the the vocals are more of a shout typically, but screaming is still used. The whole point of the music is to show people that "life is always worth living" as Comeback Kid puts it.

Its filled with very plain admonitions to live better, to pick yourself up and fix your problems. A band called Looking Forward has a wonderful line, "You're a beautiful creation no matter who you are! Born in the image of a living and loving God!" Its very simple, very plain, no flowery imagery, just good old humanity. Its something that you can't hear on the radio or in a symphony. No where can you listen without embarrassment to another human being lifting you up, and saying that you and they are both God's creation and you must make the most of it. Stick To Your Guns says, "Rest assured, we'll be victorious and not let our hate get the best of us." These people understand that the combination of powerfully simple words and crushing music and beats that get stuck in your head can be a very potent tool. And while we're on the subject, I have a few things to say to you...