The problem with talking about heavy metal in a mainstream publication is that metal appeals to people who are not necessarily a part of the conversation. Metal heads are losers. dorks. Probably on drugs. Lowlifes. Long haired weirdos who dress funny. Big scary dudes with tattoos. The guys who hang out in shop class because they have no future and are not going to go to college. The type of people you build gated communities to keep away from. The guys like me that found metal back in the day and the hardcore metalheads are not welcome to have a conversation in the WSJ. People talk about metal fans, but never with them in articles like this. Everything I needed to know about metal I learned in my first mosh pit. It was at a Slayer concert. It was chaotic, insane, crazy, over the top, completely off the rails. People were slamming into each other, giant guys in boots and no shirts where grabbing people and throwing them into the center of the maelstrom. And yet, there were no true assholes. Someone goes down, 2-3 others grabbed them and shoved them to the side so they didn't get trampled. Mosh pits are amazing, and no video, no description does them justice. Here is a big circle pit NSFW audio. Watch the guys running into the circles. Here is a poor video of a good time the best of the quick search for a smaller pit and yea the audio on all these is not that great so you want to turn it down or mute, sorry about that. It is hard to describe the why looking at video like that. It is even harder to describe what it is like to have 2000-3000 sweaty drunken bastards flailing around on the floor of a concert venue while music so loud it hurts in your lungs is blared at you. One of the best pits I think I was ever at was at Primus during the Tour de Formage where they played the whole Sailing the seas of Cheese album. The room they were in was some warehouse, and they sold some 5K tickets and every one of those jerks was in the general admission area. They played 'Johnny was a Racecar Driver" and the combined movement of that mass of humanity sent shudders through the floor that you could feel like an earthquake. The screaming drowned out the band. And I was somewhere about 50 or so people from the stage doing everything my old ass could to stay standing up. It was glorious. Metal, and mosh pits by extension are popular, at least in my mind because of the people they attract. Maybe the people that are attracted to these events make them? Sort of a chicken-egg problem isn't it. In the pit you are not the weird looking burnout, the dorky ass nerd, the dork who is too smart for his own good, the loser, the outsider. Nope, in the pit you are family with a few hundred strangers drawn together to vent and release pent up energy from dealing with the other people in your life. If you've never been in a venue like this, I'm not sure I can explain it. But trust me, it's an amazing experience. And before you think I'm taking a crap on the article, I'm not. This is the same thing I've seen a few times here and there in the press. But the guy has an interesting taste in music and some of the bands he is writing about are not bad (from what I can tell). I just with he had more conversation with the fans. And holy shit Babymetal is going to tour the US this year! One of the true regrets I have is that here in the Ohio Valley we get nothing concert wise except shitty Portland "indie" bands and country acts. In the last few years I have managed to drive a few hours to see Fintroll, Amon Amarth, Apocalyptica, Primus, and Suicidal Tendencies but that is it. I miss the Metal scene in California.
LOVE this post. BAM! Preach it. Your view of the metal scene from the mosh pit is fundamentally different than mine... yet oddly the same. I remember when the punk tradition of moshing crossed over to metal, and it destroyed metal shows for me. It was at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco, at a Primus show for their second album... probably 1990. People started a mosh pit, and Les stopped the show. "What the fuck are you doing?! Stop it man. This ain't no punk show..." and counted the song back in, and they began playing again. But that was the year that you stopped being able to get anywhere near the stage, and had to turn the room over to the pit. Despite that change, metal was still metal, and seeing someone else wearing a metal shirt, or with hair down to their shoulder blades resulted in eye contact, and that chin-up head nod. "Yo." The closest thing to a "metal" show I have been to in the last five years was Blue Oyster Cult at a fucking casino, man. But I have spent my time in a tent at an outdoor festival with Napalm Death, seen Rammstein in Slovakia, hung out with Eluveitie the one time they came to Seattle, and wished like hell I'd gone to the Anthrax/Public Enemy show that I missed. And everything in your post - including the mosh pit - still fills that metal part of my heart with happiness. There is just something universal about metal. \m/ People talk about metal fans, but never with them in articles like this.
AHAHAHAHAHH I was at that concert! It was late 1989 after the Loma Prieta Earthquake during the World Series. We got a check to pay for damages to our stuff inside the house, and as young people should do, we spent the money on parties and concerts. Primus was right after Christmas and my family was pissed that I was going back to San Fran because there was work up there. If you remember the rowdy crowd of angry, mean looking punk jerks in green Ireland shirts who kept starting the pit back up, that was us.I remember when the punk tradition of moshing crossed over to metal, and it destroyed metal shows for me. It was at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco, at a Primus show for their second album... probably 1990. People started a mosh pit, and Les stopped the show. "What the fuck are you doing?! Stop it man. This ain't no punk show..."
WOOHOO!! Amazingly small world, innit? Yeah, I was up a level in back, off the floor. So wasn't in the pit. For a couple years I'd been watching Primus play for free every Wednesday night at the I-Beam on Haight Street, with about 15 other people. So I went to the Warfield show mostly out of solidarity for the band. Not because I was going to see anything different or unusual. But then the moshing started, and ... well, I guess I saw something new! :-)
It's funny how different your experience was. Primus getting cranky over moshing because Primus ain't punk. By way of comparison when I saw the Sundays in Santa Fe in 1992, Harriet was horrified that people were moshing because holy shit people this is upbeat dreampop! But... you know... us outsider nerds didn't really know how to go to a concert and not mosh. It's all we knew. Seven years in Los Angeles cured me of seeing any and all shows (although I mixed a couple songs for Eagles of Death Metal). LA has got to be the least metal metropolis in all the world. I will say that I was one of the many people old enough to know better the last time Ministry came to town.
I felt a little strange posting a WSJ article on metal, but I really love hearing about metalheads (and goths, and punks, and noise dudes, and ...) around the world because it's like there's a unity among malcontents everywhere, and I'm not going to post every blog and forum post I come across because Hubski is a low-traffic site and easy to flood. Odd publication or no, it was nice to have a survey to post. I loves me some Agalloch, and I am not ashamed.One of the true regrets I have is that here in the Ohio Valley we get nothing concert wise except shitty Portland "indie" bands and country acts.
Nor should you be ashamed. Agalloch is awesome, but they don't really fit into a box that makes marketing the band and finding a bigger audience easy. I did not realize that 1. they are from Portland and 2. they have been around for 20 freaking years. I'm sort of sad that Epica did not catch on with my circle of friends. I'm also not ashamed to say that I like Sigur Ros which gets lumped into the "metal" category. And yea, I found a few neat metal bands from of all the possible places the Wall Street Fucking Journal. Great find, great link, thanks man.I loves me some Agalloch, and I am not ashamed.
Epica is great, but I can see writing them off. There were a lot of bands doing the Theatre of Tragedy soprano and growls vocal thing popping up at the same time they did, and most of them were not as good as Theatre of Tragedy.