I had the second part of the Sligo Whiplash podcast on this morning and one thing that was said really struck a chord. One of the lads mentioned Black Betty getting played in the mosh set at their local disco back in the day and I laughed as that was a fixture of the mosh set at the Celbridge Club na nÓg disco when I was going from 94 to 98 or 99. The sheer scrapings of anything that resembled heavy music would be jumped on by our teenage ears and we would just take what was on offer.
Of course being a seasoned gig goer by then, as me and my friends were, we were holding forth in the pit and thinking we were old hands. Our moshing was a cut above! It's all so innocent, childish and ludicrous in one way, but in another it was important to us as we defined ourselves from the rest of our peers. There was, and for me at least, there still is a sense of pride and honour in wearing metal t-shirts and keeping the tradition alive in my own way.
Hearing them talk about all of that, buying magazines and hanging up posters and getting cool t-shirts, rings a bell with me. I am sure many or most here can relate to that youthful enthusiasm. For all of us on this forum it clearly hasn't gone away so as young lads we were laying a strong foundation for who we would grow up to be.
I often wonder what I would have turned out like if I hadn't become obsessed with metal at a young age. If I had been more focused on school and had a career path in mind rather than spending my teenage years daydreaming and trying to get the lads to jam. Being in a band and writing music was all I wanted to do, everything else was a bit of an afterthought, and for all of that I have so many great memories.
From Büürgermeister in the Simple Pleasures thread:
"Being a musician has changed, the whole scene is so different. You used to be someone who played in shit bands to no-one and gradually worked your way up to decent bands who could draw a crowd. You encounteresd all kinds of shit and surreality which helped you evolve as a player and a human being. Now, there's a generation of people who are "paying their dues" by performing covers in front of a ring-shaped light in their bedroom. It's mental to me. They dress up, give it socks to a camera by themselves and this is where the next generation of players are learning their craft. No life experience, just a strange ring-shaped light which they shake their thing in front of. Fucking mental."
This is relevant to my above post. Some of the first gigs I played in the 90s were so fucking retarded but at the time we didn't care, we were getting to play gigs!
One of my first bands, Crawlspace (name robbed from Brutal Truth but the music was sadly nowhere near that level of extremity*), played three notable gigs and I can't remember exactly which order they occurred. One was a Christmas party for the Grove House which was a home for elderly mental patients. All these old doddery dementia ridden crusties sitting around with party hats while me and my pals were roaring and shouting at the front of the hall, and 20 or 30 "fans" were kicking the shite out of each other :laugh:
Another highlight of our career was doing an acoustic set (of Metal songs!) for the local road sweeper's retirement. All these local old people watching a bunch of teenage muppets making a racket with a few pals there as support.
One gig we did that was actually cool, but thanks be to fuck there were no phones to record things back then so we can retain the positive memory without any reality having to creep in to blemish our glory. We played at the Club na nÓg disco in front of several hundred people! We also got an interview in the local newspaper, The Liffey Champion! Heady heights indeed. :laugh:
Ah, so much innocence, so many high hopes, so much enthusiasm and cluelessness. Good times. Reading Büürgermeister's post saddens me. Kids might never get these opportunities to learn the ropes away from the cynical scrutiny of YouTube. We were all young and thought we were deadly, and our 'fans' were the exact same. A gig was a gig was a fuckin gig!
* I still kick myself for not trying to push the lads to play something more wild and extreme when we were young. We all listened to bits of death metal and black and doom but never attempted to write that stuff until The State Pathologist... which grew out of one of our earlier, crappier alt-metal efforts.
I think if you were a youngster in a small town here in the 80's or 90's, and you had any sort of imagination, becoming a metal fan was a great thing to get into.
And also, becuase there were so few of us "weirdos" that all of the heads - at least where I grew up - tended to stick together, so we had the classic hard rock and trad metal lads, the thrashers and death metal fans, and even a few who were heavily into the whole glam thing hanging out together, along with the goths, Cureheads, punks, bikers, skinheads, even a few of the rockabilly lads, and people into anything that was considered beyond the norm at that stage, from Frank Zappa, to Nick Cave, to the Butthole Surfers. Like a gang that embraced all of the subcultures around at the time.
We were all of a similar background then too - Largely working class, some of us were related, or our parents were friends, many of us were close neighbours from the same part of the town etc.
But yeah, as far as metal itself goes, finding heavier and more way out stuff, getting excited at anything metal related, even the odd video on telly, or song on the radio, and even putting up with all of the shite music and lads wanting to kick off to get to the rock set at the local nighclub, growing your hair and wearing your leather jacket to school (and I remember being allowed to bring 'And Justice For All' into school to discuss the lyrics, and even playing some of the songs in class,one of my few fond memories of that shithole) getting your first obscure or extreme metal shirts and parading around town, and occasionally being lucky enough to meet a lass who was into that stuff, going to your first real gigs, travelling to Dublin to go to Sound Cellar, joining and forming bands and travelling around the country, sometimes playing to empty places, sometimes getting a great reception and making friends in other bands, drinking cheap booze and getting off your face. Brilliant fucking times.
For me it is also tied up with friends that I lost along the way. A couple of the older metal lads that accepted me when I was 12 or so (they weren't massively older, but a few years seem like a lifetime at that age) were killed in bike crashes, and another killed himself. Also, I was in a car crash at 17, and one of my best mates died, and the fallout after destroyed our friend group.
So even though I have made other friends into metal since, a lot of my passion, aside from loving the music itself, and finding a style that fed into all my other interests - Fantasy, horror, history etc - and lot of my attachment is about carrying on the spirit of the lads we lost in a positive way, keeping the spirit of Independence, remembering that you have your mates, your music and the craic even when things turn to shit, rather than just becoming miserable and cynical.
Bands from Sabbath, Maiden and Accept, to Nuclear Assault, Dead Kennedys, Exploited, Carcass, all tied to great memories.
Some might call that nostalgia, but for me, it is something more. I still go to gigs when I can, still buy as many albums as I can, still get excited when I discover something great I never heard before, still thankfully in touch, or back in touch with a lot of the lads from back then, as well as making new friends along the way, travelling for festivals etc. And still nerding out over it, hence being on here.
And also, I have to say, as someone who has had mental health issues since I was a kid, the music and the lifestyle/subculture has been a lifesaver too.
I've mostly had a love/hate relationship with it. I used to love the sense of belonging in my teens the 80's, wearing the uniform, the t-shirt, white boot-runners, bullet belt and bet into the tightest jeans imaginable, getting followed around shops by security all the time and the likes, really part of an underground culture, an us against them vibe. Looked down upon. Back then youth culture really said a lot by the clothes worn, you knew so much about someone just by the t-shirt they wore.
I first shaved off the long hair late 94. I had given up wearing black all the time long before then. The music was moving away from what I loved and I still loved the old stuff, but I couldn't relate to what being a full-on Metaller was turning into in the mid-90's. Black metal said as little to me as nu-metal. I'm very sorry, lads, I hope yiz were sitting down for that. Same with the bands I was playing in, just what Metal was mostly evolving into from the mid 90's said nothing to me.
I grew my hair again, though, and definitely came back more into the overall world of Metal once the miserable 90's ended. I still stay involved with the music, write music, go to gigs, but less so the rest of it.
I went to Keep It True Rising last October. I really enjoyed it but it was also a little weird. So many people rigidly sticking to the uniform. I think I was the only lad not wearing a black t-shirt both nights. I felt quite out of place, visually. It just seemed like an odd thing to try, being almost 50, to look like I did when I was 14. It also felt odd seeing so many kids dressing like a generation from long before theirs. When I was that age we never would have done that. Metal was ours, it was fresh and new. The thought of dressing the same as someone's grandad would have been unthinkable. I struggle with that aspect of the current scene. The music means as much to me as it ever did but I've long since given up trying to look the part. It just isn't me. I take solace in that I've been an awkward cunt since my teens, happy to go my own way, if it didn't feel right to go with the crowd. At the same time, part of me was delighted to be in a room with people for whom the music still meant so much they would travel abroad just to attend a gig, just like I had. I remember the line from Join The Army, "it's the size of your heart, not the length of your hair" and that'll do for me. The music will always be huge a part of my life but, as much as I love metal culture, I've spent a lot of time outside looking in, in many ways.
Semi-false, I think the term is :abbath:
Quote from: Bürggermeister on April 02, 2024, 12:10:35 AMI first shaved off the long hair late 94.
...It just seemed like an odd thing to try, being almost 50, to look like I did when I was 14.
Semi-false, I think the term is :abbath:
I don't dress exactly like I did back then either. Still wear the shirts and hoodies etc, but I dress more comfortably now, and I have had a skinhead since the 90's, although that was as much about having terrible skin and being too lazy to look after long hair as becoming "mature".
Ultimately, I think the music is the main thing, but even though I'm more sober now (both literally, and in terms of how I look) I'm happy that the lifestyle and subculture still exist, even if there is music I don't get, or as you say, find it weird when I see kids who weren't even born in the 80's or early 90's dressed the same. Although more so when I see them dress exactly the same as some speed metal band from 85, with Japanese flag shirts and spandex. Seeing someone with the aul sleeveless denim jacket with a Maiden patch still makes me smile.
I was too kvlt for discos lol. Maybe not, just too socially akward. A trait I carry to this day. I do remember thinking I was the dogs bollocks having little more than a couple of AC/DC cassettes and a Biohazard album, which I loudly proclaimed was the heaviest thing on the planet.
The thought had crossed my mind before as to what life would have been like if I hadn't gotten into metal. I'm pretty sure I'd have stuck with pro wrestling like my friend across the street did. I only really have one other hobby and that's infosec/Linux. The only thing I can be certain of is that any undiscovered hobbies would have been repulsive to the average human female.
Almost all of my day wear is metal shirts and hoodies. Not part of a plan or anything, just clothing stores and sites don't appeal to me. My only clothing purchases by default are band merch. Hundreds of shirts, hoodies and the like but only four pairs of jeans and three pairs of shoes.
I think I was about 23 before I started talking to other attendees at gigs. If it wasn't for a friend of mine (and alcohol) who has since disappeared from the scene I may never have had. Sometimes I miss when Dublin seemed like a world away. When I pine for the good old days I generally think of sitting alone with a cassette deck and really getting into an album. I've gotten so much stuff over the years now that I rarely remember song titles, never mind lyrics.
I wouldn't have ever travelled internationally had there not been the allure of do many bands at festivals that would not have come here. I'll stop typing so there is still something left for my autobiography lol.
I'll throw in some two cents here regarding generational changes.
I would say I'm likely on the younger end here, being born in the late 90s. Of course when I was 12 there wasn't social media like it was now. There were elements of 'clout' but most of the young bands I knew still wanted to play gigs.
One of the first bands I was in was a blues/hard rock band. We did covers and originals, busked every Saturday (we made good money for our age) and gigged a lot. We were all under 17 (15 youngest) and gigged in pubs all over the country, generally getting crowds. We even played a wedding at one point. All 4 of us liked different things from Rory, Lizzy or Rush. We'd always try and take the piss playing 12 bar blues by changing things up constantly and challenging ourselves. We even used to self run all age gigs monthly, backline at the expense of our parents giving us lifts.
Reason I'm even relaying this is because these are core memories I have of experience. We didn't see it as cutting our teeth at the time because in a way we were actually doing it all. Yeah there was phones and facebook but it still wasnt to the same extent. Im talking about ten years ago, less. The above post about teenagers in their rooms in front of ring lights doesn't even come close to what we were doing. But as I said, this was not that long ago, so something has definitely changed. Lockdown, tech acceleration, popular music whatever it is. A guitar means something else now. Horseshit music like Polyphia doesn't help either. Young lads now don't want to even be in a band and just progress. The same goes with consuming video games and film. Fiction books are non existent too. (From what I've noticed as I teach secondary school).
Bottom line I find, the majority of young people would rather be quiet and blend in than take the chance. When it comes to metal, often the big names have some skill so entry level can be shit to start off with but you do it anyways.
Anyways, bit of a ramble.
One thing me and my mates missed out on was having an older mentor. I think by the early 90s all of the 80s metallers, at least in Celbridge, had moved on to other things. We were left to fend for ourselves among the modern 90s stuff and except for a few of the more obvious 80s choices, metal from that era was really passé to us. It took a bit of age and experience to find our way back to that stuff and realise its greatness.
I had a next door neighbor who was around ten years older than me who was a metal head. I hung out with his younger brother and we used to go into his room and marvel at his amazing artwork- he was big into D&D and all that stuff, and would meticulously copy those images. I thought he was a genius at the time. He had a few tapes in his room and the two that stuck in my head purely based on the imagery was Cold Lake and Dreamweaver. Took me a long time to get around to CF and Sabbat, but he was too old to hang out with us and push that stuff on us. We were around 8 years old and our world was GNR and Metallica! Their sister actually recorded Master of Puppets for me back then.
A friend I got to know a few years later had an older brother who was a metaller in the 80s and had posters all over his wall. I particularly remember a painting he had done of Obsessed by Cruelty! Took me many years to get around to Sodom. But he was totally over metal by the time I got to know his bro, but we kind of inherited his Deicide any Obituary tapes so it wasn't a compete loss.
It seemed that by around 92 most people had moved on to rave, hip hop or alternative stuff like Beck and then Oasis etc. It left us younger heads in the lurch a bit.
Of the lads I hung around with at the time, one of them had a brother who fulfilled that older mentor role. He was great to start off with, introducing us to this huge musical world which existed outside of what we had previously known but, as we latched onto thrash and quickly started devouring every band and bit of info we could uncover, he quickly started to seem like an old man as he listened to his fucking Pretty Maids tapes or whoever. He was only three or four years older :laugh:
Thrash was happening in front of us and it was ours, the spandex thing was his generation. Even with those lads I hung around with, once I heard Death, I was instantly drawn that way and when the other Florida stuff started happening, I drifted away from the original gang as it was too heavy for them, whereas I couldn't get enough. I went to quite a few gigs by myself at that time because I wanted to see bands my old mates found too heavy. Since then, most of my friends generally haven't been Metallers at all. I still have mates from old bands who still listen to Metal but I haven't been surrounded by people who live Metal since I was a teenager.
This thread has arrived just as I've been scanning all my old stuff into Discogs and being drawn into memories of those times and more recent times up to now. I can chart my life by the music I bought at the time :laugh:
Quote"paying their dues" by performing covers in front of a ring-shaped light in their bedroom. It's mental to me. They dress up, give it socks to a camera by themselves and this is where the next generation of players are learning their craft. No life experience, just a strange ring-shaped light which they shake their thing in front of. Fucking mental
Equally as baffling to me. There's no connection, or maybe the it comes in the form of likes and comments but for me it'll never be a substitute for the vibe of the rehearsal room. I'll sound like a cranky old'fella but the videos are a complete cop out, perfect tone, lighting and play away until you get a take you like. Not the same as being bundled onto the stage in Slattery's with no soundcheck and no PA. I do think those crazy live scenarios push you to be a better musician - you develop to a point where you can sound reasonably good no matter what shit is thrown at you.
Or more importantly
QuoteBeing a musician has changed, the whole scene is so different. You used to be someone who played in shit bands to no-one and gradually worked your way up to decent bands who could draw a crowd.
Work is the key word. Every aspect of it was work, whether it was prepping for a physical release or promoting a show, handing out flyers for gigs or putting up posters around the town. You don't have to leave the house now. I can't compare really but are the lifelong connections we made happening now?
Ah fuck, I didn't see the other post was put in here too while me and Wretch were writing our life stories. Now it makes sense :laugh:
Yeah, just had a moment of clarity while reading the metal news sites yesterday. Yer one, who is now Merciful Fate's bassist, playing along to a couple of their songs in her bedroom passes for news these days. She dresses up, choreographs her moves, and then records a performance of someone else's bassline while alone in her room to the ring light and a camera as if she was rocking the Top Hat back in the day. It's all so fucking empty. Not having a go a her, specifically, it just seems to be a thing for the kids now where performing someone else's music is how you be a musician? It's all so fucking hollow. It's just Stars in Your Eyes on a global level. What have these people got to offer of themselves, what have they been through in life which would make you want to listen to them? What are they learning of themselves pretending to be somebody else?
Like probably most people here, I was in all kinds of shite when I was younger, but I learned so much from it all and improved as a result. Being fucking terrified to stand in front of a room full of strangers but still finding it in you to go out and play, you grow from doing these things. Had humblings from better bands, proper on-stage fist fights, complete audience apathy, bad trips, even had the singer walk off stage and leave the band halfway through a headline gig. All this shit helps you as a human being, though, how to handle the real world, dealing with the sound heads and mad bastards you met along the way. What do you learn pretending to be fucking Rob Trujillo or whoever in your bedroom in front of a ring light?
Edit: doubled
Great thread that I'll have to come back to because my eyes and mind still aren't working right after the weekend but I could probably describe my own life growing up as a metaller by simply quoting various bits of what's already been said here. I'm getting nostalgic reading how it went for all the rest of you here. Reminds me of this
(Yt mobile links still not the thing here but the laptop is at least 6 feet away)
Anyhow looking forward to reading more of it
Edit: it appears the links on mobile do work now fair play Hambeast if that's fixed
Quote from: Bürggermeister on April 02, 2024, 12:10:35 AMI went to Keep It True Rising last October. I really enjoyed it but it was also a little weird. So many people rigidly sticking to the uniform. I think I was the only lad not wearing a black t-shirt both nights. I felt quite out of place, visually. It just seemed like an odd thing to try, being almost 50, to look like I did when I was 14. It also felt odd seeing so many kids dressing like a generation from long before theirs. When I was that age we never would have done that. Metal was ours, it was fresh and new. The thought of dressing the same as someone's grandad would have been unthinkable. I struggle with that aspect of the current scene. The music means as much to me as it ever did but I've long since given up trying to look the part. It just isn't me. I take solace in that I've been an awkward cunt since my teens, happy to go my own way, if it didn't feel right to go with the crowd. At the same time, part of me was delighted to be in a room with people for whom the music still meant so much they would travel abroad just to attend a gig, just like I had. I remember the line from Join The Army, "it's the size of your heart, not the length of your hair" and that'll do for me. The music will always be huge a part of my life but, as much as I love metal culture, I've spent a lot of time outside looking in, in many ways.
This just about nails it; Keep It True etc. is great and I really enjoyed it. The roomful of young lads dressed in spandex and bootrunners etc. does feel like what I imagine the Teddy Boy revivalists in the 60s were like.
On the other hand, times have changed and metal isn't new. Maybe these kids are the exception to the rule, who actually feel that being part of a real movement is worthwhile as opposed to being nothing more than an online personality. Just a thought.
You're bang on. The kids were wearing the mullets and taches on weekdays, too. They live it, no doubt about it. It was cool to experience but it just felt odd. It was like looking at a past I was a part of, or an attempt to re-live an interpretation of that past. These kind of scenes are almost denying the future, there's a start date and and end date which they are trying to exist between, and that goes for the bands too. There are borders they choose to live within.
But back then, the future was open and you were excited about what was to come next. That part is missing. Not saying it's wrong, it's just the bit that's really missing for me. After all the old bands and intentionally retro young bands, Watchtower came on and I remember, during their set, thinking they still belong to the future. Despite being from back then, they still existed at a point in time the rest of us haven't caught up to yet. Mind you, the rum was cheap and plentiful too :laugh: :abbath:
Those days were great in fairness, you put in the work in terms of discovering bands, taking a punt based on an album's cover or label (remember when blind buying an Earache album was usually a safe bet?), copying tapes from/for your mates and all that.
With me it was an older cousin who was into hard rock and some metal, he gave me a few tapes when I asked him what it sounded like - Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy, and the one that made it stick: Iron Maiden. I never looked back from there.
I was very lucky in sourcing tapes too. I live in a small town in the wesht of Ireland but we had a market on Saturdays, which featured a tape seller. Legit, not the shoddy copies you usually get at such things. Anyway, he had all of the Maiden albums and I bought one every couple of weeks 'til I was up to date (Piece Of Mind's backward cover was a revelation! (pun intended)). He'd get in stuff if requested and also had a nice line in T-shirts, badges and patches. Most of my Metallica, Megadeth and W.A.S.P. tapes came from there.
On top of that, the local grocery shop had a fantastic metal selection in their music corner, complete with a massive Death poster (Spiritual Healing). I got a great education in thrash and death metal from just picking through the shelves there - I also got my Metal Hammer, Kerrang and Metal Forces magazines in the same gaff.
There weren't many of us who were into rock and metal then, my best mate and I had a big interest in Guns N' Roses (it was always huge when one of us picked up a new bootleg on a trip to O'Connell bridge) but he went in the Bon Jovi, Poison etc. direction while I got into the heavier stuff.
Another lad went headfirst down the rabbithole and is still a mad collector, tour follower etc. I remember his graffiti for Naplam Death, Megadeath and Morbid Angle. A few lads in school broadened my horizons a bit, an older lad brought me to my first gig at 14 (Maiden 1990).
Nowadays it's all there on the internet and the effort and subsequent reward is gone. It seems a shame.
Quote from: Bürggermeister on April 02, 2024, 10:47:33 AMYou're bang on. The kids were wearing the mullets and taches on weekdays, too. They live it, no doubt about it. It was cool to experience but it just felt odd. It was like looking at a past I was a part of, or an attempt to re-live an interpretation of that past. These kind of scenes are almost denying the future, there's a start date and and end date which they are trying to exist between, and that goes for the bands too. There are borders they choose to live within.
But back then, the future was open and you were excited about what was to come next. That part is missing. Not saying it's wrong, it's just the bit that's really missing for me. After all the old bands and intentionally retro young bands, Watchtower came on and I remember, during their set, thinking they still belong to the future. Despite being from back then, they still existed at a point in time the rest of us haven't caught up to yet. Mind you, the rum was cheap and plentiful too :laugh: :abbath:
Yep, that is an interesting observation and entirely true. I think you find with these retro kids, their interest shifts over time, but if their foot is in the door and they are putting bands together then we are laughing. There'll be the ones pushing things forward too.
I was the only metaller in the village, and I loved every day of it!
Quote from: The Heretic on April 02, 2024, 12:01:23 PMI was the only metaller in the village, and I loved every day of it!
:laugh:
So was I, and still am. Around here its as if metal doesn't exist.
Was the only clown with long hair up to a few years ago too.
Quote from: The Heretic on April 02, 2024, 12:01:23 PMI was the only metaller in the village, and I loved every day of it!
Still am. Although I fucking know there's a few of the locals that maybe be sitting on a bunch of classic 70s/80s metal records & tapes!🤣
I always thought it was great to see all the young lads getting so enthused so young. I don't think the kids and their intentions, abilities and attitudes changed that much over the years, just media and the world around them did. I think every generation drops a few into the underground and leaves them there. There won't be concerts in a few years if you were waiting on lazy old bastards like myself to attend.
Being a metaller from my generation (born 1983, initiated around 1995) is great nowadays. Thanks to the internet, one has access to limitless number of rabbit holes and a single lifetime isn't enough to explore them all, even when it comes to the eighties alone.
There wasn't a better time to be a metalhead in the history of metalheadery. Records from around the world are are at our fingertips, the gigs are aplenty and as for the ,,metal comradery" its exactly the same, as it used to be: some people are in this for the love of music, some are for the love of their self-image.
Alongside metal I was always into music that was dead and gone and similarly alternated between dressing like a metaller and dressing 70s style. Speaking of which, and tying back to the original post, when I was 20 and Blow came out, I thought the scene where Depp is strutting through the airport to the sound of Black Betty was the coolest thing ever :laugh: Either way, as a result it doesn't surprise me at all to see young lads dressed up like it's the 80s or 90s, since in the 00s and even 10s I was often dressed like it was the 70s.
Didn't know anyone who was a full-on metaller growing up; you'd be more likely to see a punk or a hippy than a metaller round my way. Had a few friends who were into the music and we'd go into town sometimes and trawl SoundCellar, but we were never drawn to or socially assertive enough had we been to get talking to the heads around Central Bank. First experience with a crowd of metallers was Cannibal Corpse in the Mean Fiddler, think I was 16 and we all had to queue up outside. The three of us 16-17 yr olds simultaneously felt and felt we obviously looked by far the youngest there. But nothing about that experience made me want to be more of a metaller. There was a lad wearing a Strapping Young Lad shirt which provoked a heated discussion in another group of heads, absolute eejits, about whether they should beat him up for being in a SYL shirt. Then there was another lad in an Impaled Nazarene shirt with a huge backprint of JESUS IS THE CRUCIFIED WHORE. I was still deeply enmeshed in fundamental christianity at the time, but already beyond taking offense (I was at a Cannibal Corpse show, after all). Just seemed as childish as the parts of church life I was beginning to tire of. Gig itself was deadly, Krabathor and CC both blew me away, but between what struck me as childishness in the queue and then the lad during the concert with the foolscap page of CC song names that he was shouting out for in between every song for laughs (and it was funny), there was no appealing "aura" of dark metalness to the event. In retrospect, CC was prob the wrong gig to be expecting that at :laugh: I was well into my 20s before "being a metaller" started to become a fixed idea in my head, but even then I regularly had difficulty with the cliquishness of it, certainly also related to the profound mistrust of in-group behavior I'd developed in breaking away from the church. The irony :laugh: :abbath:
Anyway, metal is the most important musical genre to me, the one that in a sense I hear all other music "through", and I do love that. What were we talking about again? :-X
Quote from: koper on April 02, 2024, 07:26:37 PMBeing a metaller from my generation (born 1983, initiated around 1995) is great nowadays. Thanks to the internet, one has access to limitless number of rabbit holes and a single lifetime isn't enough to explore them all, even when it comes to the eighties alone.
There wasn't a better time to be a metalhead in the history of metalheadery. Records from around the world are are at our fingertips, the gigs are aplenty and as for the ,,metal comradery" its exactly the same, as it used to be: some people are in this for the love of music, some are for the love of their self-image.
Well put
I think that both things can be true at the same time. Love of the music is what gets you in the door and, presumably, keeps you there. Presenting a self image around metal is cool too, and a way to keep old traditions alive if that's what you want to do. I don't really see that as being any more or less ridiculous* than dressing "age appropriately". If you dress down as you get older that could equally be interpreted as presenting a self image to impress the public. It really just boils down to whatever you are comfortable doing.
*unless you're wearing New Rocks at 40. Then it's straight you jail, do not pass Go, do not collect €200.
Absolute shite talk incoming - Born in 86 - my initial experience of heavy music was mainly through my brother who was into GNR, grunge, Metallica. Early teens in the 2000 onwards there was the CKY/jackass skater type scene that lasted about 3 years, the "goths" at central bank and of course nu-metal which was still rampant towards the end of the MTV era. I thought the likes of Marilyn Manson / NIN / Korn were the cool/anti-mainstream types judging from da telly and I lapped it all up :laugh: I remember feeling stupid buying a bootleg of a Deftones gig from some store in town thinking it was going to be a proper recording. Wearing the black hoody in school (ah ya rocker!!) felt like having a proper identity that stood out from the "sheep" so to speak and I always had that mentality, not to blindly follow, not to go with the crowd etc. I remember have a proper hatred for all things pop and manufactured boy/girl bands, what wasted energy :laugh: Fond memories of swapping albums in class, getting copies of mix CDs and doing the same for others, trying to convert whoever I could - remember a friend saying about a Korn mix CD "Eh this is wayyy too heavy/extreme for me." Hearing Eyesclosed on Phantom fm when it was still a pirate radio station made me realise that there is actually a local metal scene. Secondary school let us put bands together to play and I remember getting a black ibanez and playing it through a terrible phillips 2 tape cassette radio. In between songs I would play 'Whenever I May Roam' or the 'Sad but true' guitar riff to see if anyone would nod/recognise it.
It was only hitting 17 onwards did I start to hear more metal and identity with that more and realise it was a different thing entirely not just heavy music, hearing about Iced Earth from people that came into my 5th year class after skipping transition year, thinking the chugging riffs were the fastest thing ever. Dantes Inferno song blew my mind. Internet coming into full swing with the likes of Napster, first song I downloaded was 'The Trooper'...hearing Misery Path by Amorphis and thinking now THIS is different, realising there's such a treasure trove of metal to explore. Heading into town after a weeks pay from a summers job, using my money to buy random albums based on the artwork and the song titles, some working out really well (My dying bride) and some not so much (Iron Maiden – Virtual XI). There was no one to guide me - just trying to figure it out myself up until joining a band.
The thoughts of actually being in a band was great, I remember seeing A Distant Sun in the voodoo lounge and thinking it was so cool to see/hear keyboards along with metal. Playing in my friends shed in Palmerstown talking about what new stuff we've heard and the end goals 'wouldn't it be great to support the likes of Old Season?!' Must have played 'The Claw' off their myspace page a few times during rehearsals. We were lucky enough that our first gig happened to be Mass Extinctions EP 'Creation's Undoing' and we were very green but some experience I'll never forget and was overwhelming considering it was my first proper step into the local scene. Some great years of gigging, to the full shows to the no show gigs playing to 2 aul lads at the bar giving you the pity clap :laugh: or cringing at the thoughts of our complete drunken skunk of a guitarist trying to explain to lads in Mael Mordha on the bus home after a long day about the debut album lyrical concept for one of them to go "but sure that's just Dantes Inferno" which completely bewildered the chap and stopped him in his tracks :laugh:
We got the taste of the pre-internet world and can compare/contrast our experiences but I'd agree with the other poster saying things changed from 2012 onwards (proper smart phone usage + social media) to the new generations coming up, they probably feel that they aren't missing out at all and what we are saying about real life experiences doesn't bother them in the slightest. Gaming has taken a large chunk of the audience, back in the day on my silo'd non-internet PC I'd be playing Quake/Doom type games but I'd be blasting metal along with it and fit so so well. Now you are connected with friends chatting away - no need for music, you are listening out for every movement in the game, being hit with dopamine every 2 seconds, who needs music when you've got this level of attention grabbing? Some games with Hollywood level story telling and sometimes, even better than that. Youtube/social media has paved the way to new ways of achieving "something", this is the new experience they are wrapped in. Likes/comments/view counts are way more powerful than the anxiety of playing terribly with others in a room and trying to get songs/gigs sorted. Why waste time/money/effort playing to no one in some shitty pub when you can gain an online audience by shitting out guitar riff videos sent on to Ola Englund? Or perfect note by note covers or jumping on board some on trend memes? Makes me wonder how long does metal have left? 20 years still in the tank?
Quote from: koper on April 02, 2024, 07:26:37 PMBeing a metaller from my generation (born 1983, initiated around 1995) is great nowadays. Thanks to the internet, one has access to limitless number of rabbit holes and a single lifetime isn't enough to explore them all, even when it comes to the eighties alone.
There wasn't a better time to be a metalhead in the history of metalheadery. Records from around the world are are at our fingertips, the gigs are aplenty and as for the ,,metal comradery" its exactly the same, as it used to be: some people are in this for the love of music, some are for the love of their self-image.
Completely agree - it's weird Metal is completely vanished from the mainstream but it's never felt as healthy to me. Every album you ever wanted is at your finger tips, Dublin is probably having it's best year of metal gigs ever this year, and we are clearly in some sort of golden age as regards great metal festivals in Europe. It's all good!
I got into metal in 2002 at the age of 16. I was certainly aware of bands like Limp Bizkit, Korn and Linkin Park but I regarded those as pop acts as they were fixtures in the charts at the time. It was a mate playing me Sabbath that made me realise what the big deal was. He also introduced me to AC/DC, Motorhead and Guns n Roses so that set me on a certain path until I discovered the underground (specifically, Jesu and Municipal Waste) and then I was set for life, meeting likeminded types and hearing lie changing music.
I've seen a lot of people drift in and out of "the scene" for nearly 20 years now and, in Belfast at least, it always seems to be in a state of becoming. A shame as there have been some excellent bands who deserved more
It was 80s and early 90s for me, seeing a massive 'Seventh Son of Seventh Son' poster in the local record shop, seeing 'Can I play with madness' on TV, HOOKED. Going to school and seeing the older lads with longer hair (older to us) come in every morning with their canvass army bags covered in meticulously drawn band logos. Morbid Angel, Kreator, Sepultura.. et al, it was an education. Going to the Sound Cellar and gawking at the walls, maybe buying something if we had money. There was a place in Dun Laoghaire that sold second hand albums (forget the name), you could get tapes cheap. Going to Record Collector and buying bootleg gig recordings (in day glo yellow sleeves), because you couldn't go to the gig. Being in an a schoolmate's house and sneaking into his older brother's room where there was a massive Bolt Thrower 'War Master' poster ( what is that I thought) and where I made copies of his tapes on hi speed dub while he was out, better when he was out of the house. Getting Kerrang! and Metal Hammer issues and lending them/ getting a lend of them. Going to friend's gaffs and watching recordings of headbanger's ball on video. I miss some of my mates that I don't see anymore. All of it seems like yesterday. Time flies-
Quote from: Eoin McLove on April 02, 2024, 09:07:39 PMI think that both things can be true at the same time. Love of the music is what gets you in the door and, presumably, keeps you there. Presenting a self image around metal is cool too, and a way to keep old traditions alive if that's what you want to do. I don't really see that as being any more or less ridiculous* than dressing "age appropriately". If you dress down as you get older that could equally be interpreted as presenting a self image to impress the public. It really just boils down to whatever you are comfortable doing.
*unless you're wearing New Rocks at 40. Then it's straight you jail, do not pass Go, do not collect €200.
Absolutely, there is nothing wrong with following ,,the dress code". The point I was trying to make is that from my experience, presenting oneself as a metalhead was still ,,cool" lets say, 25 years ago amongst youth. Now, not so much, but it doesn't matter in the end.
I wonder if it was cool in general, or just cool to those of us who thought it was cool. Might be the same today- if you're into it, it's cool. If you don't like it then it's not. When I see cool hip fashionable people I think they must have something wrong with them, but I'm sure they think they look terrific :laugh:
Most of us on here are over 35. We'll look naff no matter what we do. Might as well enjoy bring naff.
Remember Naff jackets that were cool in around 93? That was when the tide was turning around me. Metallers dropping like flies.
Xworx jeans killed metal.
:laugh: they fuckin did!
Quote from: Vlad III on April 03, 2024, 09:52:17 AMXworx jeans killed metal.
With the absolute lathering of brylcreem
(https://frinkiac.com/meme/S04E17/1014346.jpg?b64lines=U28gSSB1c2VkIHRvIGhhbmcgYSBjaGFpbiAKb24gbXkgYmVsdCwgV0hJQ0ggd2FzIAp0aGUgc3R5bGUgYXQgdGhlIHRpbWUu)
Quote from: Eoin McLove on April 03, 2024, 09:37:26 AMRemember Naff jackets that were cool in around 93? That was when the tide was turning around me. Metallers dropping like flies.
Naff Naff Co. 54. Christ I hated them. Mainly because the cunts who wore them would shout shit like "Irun Maid-un" and "Muhtullicuh" at me as I walked along in t-shirt and jeans.
None of my friends were into metal or even rock really. The thing about the local disco really struck with me because I would wait all night for the one Metallica or GNR song and then get my pals to mosh until they got self-conscious.
I had a buddy whose older brother was the light on the path. He gave me loads of tapes, a few hand-me-down t-shirts, showed me my first chords and riffs. "Enter Sandman" hit the airwaves that summer and he taught me the intro and main riff (which I would play incessantly and upside down because I'm a lefty on a very expensive Fender Strat in Crowley's guitar shop). I sort of idolised that lad because I didn't have any older siblings. He smoked, he drank, he told his old man to fuck off, he got in a fist-fight with his old man after telling him to fuck off and, crucially, he bought that very expensive candy apple red Fender Strat from Crowley's one day and I was there to see it.
Not long after he got into dance music, started going to Sir Henry's, taking pills and lost all interest in metal. Sold the Strat for half nothing to go a rave in England.
I never had very long hair because I didn't want the head yanked off me during a hurling match. Ended up with a Steve McManaman circa 1994 type of haircut - I still remember bringing the photo from Shoot! magazine into the local barbers. The barber (male) told me that I'd have to wait for Una - the ladies hairdresser who worked in the same shop - because and I quote "I do the normal things, biy - flat top, up and under, short back and sides. Una is better at the quare sorta stuff".
I then had to show Una my Shoot! magazine before she clipped my do and said "My Jesus, you're handsome now! Isn't he, girls?" The girls - average age: 67 - all agreed that I was. My mam has photos of me from this period - I look like a middled-aged poetry professor (non-tenured) who found a vial of youth serum.
I suppose it was a bit of a lonely existence but something in me refused to go with the crowd. I really didn't find like-minded folks until I was in college and even then there weren't many - this was the time of Oasis/Blur and Eminem was not far off being about to go large. Usually ended up going to gigs etc. on my own. I was working a boring job at night during college and there was a lad there who approached me and asked if I went to a certain school (I did) and he asked if I used to have longer hair (no comment). Turned out that he was two years above me in school, lived around the corner and into all the shit that I was. He asked if I drank in Fred Zeppelins, I said that I was barely 17 - he scoffed and said "That won't matter!" (Disclaimer: this was in the 1990s - I'm sure it's different now).
That weekend I went with him, his girlfriend and a few of their buddies. This was my Saul on the road to Damascus moment. Except Saul was me, the road to Damascus was Fredz, the donkey was... I dunno... cider and the blinding light was DJ Steve or Barry Bats on the decks or Denis behind the bar blaring out the tunes.
I made a lot of friends very quickly and the next few years were some serious craic. We talked for hours about bands, movies & books and went to seek out those bands etc. listening to records in houses/flats/bedsits. Music discovery as a shared experience. I rarely see any of those people nowadays but we still flash the devil horns at each other if we cross paths.
These days - I have one or two friends who either listen to metal (though death etc. is a step too far) or who will just go along to a gig just to see what's up. As someone pointed out in this thread - with the internet now you can listen new bands daily (or catch up on older stuff that you may have missed) but the thrill of the record hunt is gone.
I still wear the t-shirts/hoodies and jeans - sometimes even to work. Not in a two fingers to the man way or anything - they're just my clothes.
Metallers are the maddest, soundest, funniest bunch of people on the planet.
Wait. What was the question?
As I shared a room with my older brother I had to listen to what he listened to - Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, Def Leppard and the Beach Boys. Cassettes of course.
He went to America one summer with exchange students my mother has taken in.
Off the at point but at one stage we had Spanish, French, American and German students. Our house was small and we were all squashed in.
Amyway said brother came back with Appetite For Destruction. Landmark moment.
My friends also were into it but if felt like everyone was at that time.
The brother of a fella that lives in my street got me to listen to AJfA. I'd say One made me shit myself. He had Maiden tapes as well but they didn't do anything for me.
My sisters friend gave me a copy of The Real Thing, Puppets and Dirt. More head melting moments.
There was no real metal community in my small town growing up in Mayo, it was a case of a couple of people you would sort of know that were into it.
They few older heads were far too intimidating for me to approach.
In 4th year I was given copies of Covenant, Arise, Individual Thought Patterns and Cause Of Death. Another game changing moment.
Didn't find a metal community it Dublin as I was working all the time but when I moved to Cork I made friends that were into metal and most of them still are. I discovered Black Metal and Hardcore in Cork and was blown away by everything about it.
Fredz was great for meeting like minded people.
I'm on the wrong side of 45 and whilst I'm still metal through and through I no longer wear black exclusively. My new rocks are a thing of the past and my darling wife likes to remind me of my age when I wear one of my band shirts.
My young fella loves going through my collection of tapes and CDs deciphering logos etc. I live close to a secondary school and I see a fair few Metallica shirts. Part of me wants to approach the young pups and tell them listen to/ have you heard but I imagine I'd be pepper sprayed of the equivalent.
I won't claim that metal has gotten me through dark times or the likes but it has helped keep me on an even keel, it has a calming effect.
I said in a previous thread that my old band are back rehearsing and are knew laying down drums for another ep. That's more for ourselves rather than another crack at world domination.
A rambling post but overall metal still is a way of life for me albeit not in a headband mosh 24/7 type of way.
Quote from: Vlad III on April 03, 2024, 09:52:17 AMXworx jeans killed metal.
I'm so glad I missed that fad. Jaysus they were everywhere.
I remember reading Metal Hammer each month throughout the 90s and seeing the penpal pages at the back. It always looked to me like some kind of lonely hearts club for social invalids who couldn't make real friends. The 90s Facebook? If I hadn't been so cool and all knowing at 15 I might have started writing to some of those sad fucks and found out about tape trading and the actual underground! Sherlukkit, I wasn't bright but at least I was a stunner.
Quote from: The Butcher on April 03, 2024, 10:12:56 AM(https://frinkiac.com/meme/S04E17/1014346.jpg?b64lines=U28gSSB1c2VkIHRvIGhhbmcgYSBjaGFpbiAKb24gbXkgYmVsdCwgV0hJQ0ggd2FzIAp0aGUgc3R5bGUgYXQgdGhlIHRpbWUu)
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
My two oldest and closet friends are guys I played in bands with as a teenager (lots of Lamb of God and Arch Enemy covers despite me constantly wanting to cover Emperor 😂) currently starting a sludge band with em so craic should be 90. I own a leather jacket which I live in, plenty of band t-shirts, hairs usually long, usually have a beard. Most people are aware I'm into the heavier end of metal, but I also love Tori Amos and Thievery Corporation. It's more part of my identity than the whole thing. The big thing about metal for me was as a shy introverted young fella who had no friends, I made lots of friends who I still talk to. The t-shirts I think help as conversation starters, like I've run over to strangers here because they had a converge tee on 😂 I've made a lot of friends through the art scene as well but I'd much rather talk about Funeral Mist than the arts council being a shower of cunts 😂. If I hadn't become obsessed with music, I'd be a much better artist, all those years on guitar would have been better spent learning to network (lick arse) wouldn't change it for the world though.
Delete... Double post
Triple post... Fuck sake. 😂
Helped my young fella (14) cut up a Metallica "Ride The Lighting" t-shirt that he grew out of to re-purpose as a back patch.
Proper DIY metal fashion shtyle
Looks pretty feckin' decent, too. :laugh:
Can't make it out from the pic, but the cut/folds are in a wide coffin shape, too.
(https://irishmetalarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/IMG_20240403_093031-scaled.jpg)
That's just good parenting.
I never had a patch jacket, I fail.
Her can't fail with that jacket 8)
Quote from: Circlepit on April 03, 2024, 06:47:15 PMI never had a patch jacket, I fail.
Me neither, although I started picking up a patch or two at gigs because I like to get something as a memento and support the bands, but the cost of shirts is getting too much. I've probably got about 30 or so now just stashed in a drawer so figure I may as well get the denim jacket and throw them on. Just need to learn how to sew first! :laugh:
Right so, my turn at the reminiscing..
Was sort of lucky myself in that I had the older brother who first introduced me to Appetite For Destruction at the age of about seven (88/89ish) and through a combination of having to like it because he did and actually liking it, I gave the next couple of years listening to nothing else other than that and the two UYIs. At the time AFD seemed to suddenly be everywhere and plenty of pals in primary school were on the same buzz and we would go around the school yard singing the songs, even though we hadn't a clue what they meant. Funny thinking about little fellas like that singing the likes of My Michelle (I used to wonder where Porno was and why her daddy working there was a thing :laugh: ) but having a big gang of us like that all into it was probably pretty formative.
Next thing, Nirvana came along and we were all over that like a rash straight away and it came to be a real obsession while others were more interested in the likes of East 17 or the likes but we got a real little clique going around then and I'd naturally gravitate towards the lads who looked like they might listen to that type of thing rather than the xworx lads.
Of course time went on and more and more people began to separate into little groups based mainly on the music they were into. Some went from Nirvana to Oasis while others went to the likes of Metallica and heavier things again but there was always plenty of lads in the area into the rock and metal and it pretty much became our teenage identities, wearing those type of clothes and growing our hair long and whatnot. And we even used to find girls like that, so we didn't even have to drop it to get the shift thank god.
I remember the secondary school ritual of a Sunday night when we'd all go home to listen to The Metal Show no matter what we were doing and talk about what was on it on a Monday morning. I was lucky as well in that I had the younger brother and the older brother both into the same stuff and other pals would make the pilgrimage to the Soundcellar here and there and we'd give each other blank tapes to record albums and mixes of stuff that other lads didn't have and sit around the local park sharing pairs of earphones to hear the latest stuff as soon as someone would have it.
Jaysus the excitement of getting a listen to something we'd only been able to imagine through reading Metal Hammer or Kerrang or Terrorizer, or finally hearing the full albums after getting the taster through Headbangers Ball or MTV2 or Superrock. Every week was like a ritual going down the newsagent to stand around reading the Kerrang on a Thursday to see what was new.
That was pretty much the way of it for years really, all the friends connected by music and of course I went through a couple of goes of not listening to metal at times but would still be with the same lads, only trying to convince them of whatever I was liking at the time.
Nowadays I still listen to metal of some sort pretty much every day and luckily enough I still have the two brothers to talk about it with and listen to stuff with so there's still an element of that old buzz going but outside of that there's really just this place. I still dress in much the same things as I did ie jeans hoodies and t-shirts and the only thing I really can't do anymore is the back prints and I'm sort of rambling and frothing with nostalgia writing all this out but I guess it's safe to say that for better or worse my life would have turned out a lot different without the whole being a metaller thing.
Quote from: Circlepit on April 03, 2024, 06:47:15 PMI never had a patch jacket, I fail.
Never really got into the whole patch jacket thing either. I had one when I was about 12-13, but as soon as I grew out of it I never bothered with another.
Same for hoodies. Never had one.
No tattoos, piercings, etc.
Purely jeans and t-shirts.
I was never really one to follow fashion. 🤣
It seemed most of us outside of Dublin held The Sound Cellar on a pedestal.
When the top ten would come on in the second hour of The Metal Show I didn't know what to make of it. Some of it was so intense.
Yep, trips to the Soundcellar were as important as gigs if you were from the country. One key trip for me was in the wake of the Kerrang! Black Metal sensationalism whereupon I returned with a shitload of albums and merch and resulted in me introducing Monaghan to the De Mysteriis longsleeve. The Top Ten on a Sunday night was an exercise in fingers hovering over the play and record buttons on the stereo.
The Metal Show came along after my time, it seems. I have memories of hearing it on the bus to Dublin when I would have been in my early to mid-twenties but I never bothered with it. It was word of mouth, magazines and later Headbangers Ball/Raw Power that I got recommendations from - my jaw dropped when I saw the Ill Neglect video on Headbangers Ball, straight to Dublin and Sound Cellar the following weekend.
I started secondary school in 95, a budding metaller into Metallica, GNR etc. Initially there seemed to be lots of older lads to look up to. But like other posters have alluded to they started dropping like flies. It was weird seeing and talking to those lads who were coming in on Monday morning hair gone, new jacket, all about pills and dance music. Just changed with the wind. That went on for a few years. By 97/98 there were little to no metallers left in my school. I was into the heaviest stuff by far (only pantera, seps, FF etc). Isn't it mad how so many from the 80s/90s explosion were only into it superficially, despite having the cool look and many of the great albums? They weren't fucking in to it at all ever! I remember feeling a bit of bewilderment bordering on disdain for those people. My cousin who introduced me to the genre was one though he went in a Beatles direction. Strange.
I grew up with few mates into the same thing as me and none with the same passion for heavier stuff. However i drifted in and out of the metal scene over the years. But I suppose I was a lifer from the start when I look back at all those ship jumpers in the 90s and how it made no sense to me to be following the crowd like that.
These days my hair is short again through oncoming baldness and I'm just as likely to be wearing a football top than a metal shirt. I live in the country, farm, do regular Dad things like gaelic training u8s etc so I don't cut about in Burzum shirts all the time or anything 😅. But if we have kids and parents over they will invariably sit in our 'middle room' which is stacked high on three sides with cds, tapes, vinyls and lots of cool records on display. Its not like i hide who i am. The black metal listening is still going most nights. Gigs are rare. The recent Emperor one was a reminder of how much I enjoyed that scene, out drinking and meeting like minded lads you don't get down the local GAA park or the mart :laugh:
Black metal is fucking great for pills. Burzum, WITTR and Drudkh in particular.
Just a small one but when everyone went off on the yokes and rave there were still a good few of the lads I knew who would happily sit there listening to metal while buzzing, including myself so that didn't even finish off as many as seems to have for a lot of lads here. I remember listening to SYL - City with a few lads one night like that and the cousin who didn't like metal was there with us and he got right fuckin into it. I remember him looking at me with his big square jaw saying how it just kept getting better and better for him and no wonder the rest of us are into metal :laugh: :abbath:
Quote from: Skott Furys jizz rag on April 03, 2024, 11:48:40 PMBlack metal is fucking great for pills. Burzum, WITTR and Drudkh in particular.
I would have no bother on the yokes listening to basically any metal tbf
My ex and I would get off our faces and listen to metal all night. Nothing too heavy - Carcass, Paradise Lost & Lamb Of God were her favourite bands - but it went down well enough between the gurns.
Quote from: Grim Reality on April 03, 2024, 11:27:55 PMI started secondary school in 95, a budding metaller into Metallica, GNR etc. Initially there seemed to be lots of older lads to look up to. But like other posters have alluded to they started dropping like flies. It was weird seeing and talking to those lads who were coming in on Monday morning hair gone, new jacket, all about pills and dance music. Just changed with the wind. That went on for a few years. By 97/98 there were little to no metallers left in my school. I was into the heaviest stuff by far (only pantera, seps, FF etc). Isn't it mad how so many from the 80s/90s explosion were only into it superficially, despite having the cool look and many of the great albums? They weren't fucking in to it at all ever! I remember feeling a bit of bewilderment bordering on disdain for those people. My cousin who introduced me to the genre was one though he went in a Beatles direction. Strange.
I grew up with few mates into the same thing as me and none with the same passion for heavier stuff. However i drifted in and out of the metal scene over the years. But I suppose I was a lifer from the start when I look back at all those ship jumpers in the 90s and how it made no sense to me to be following the crowd like that.
These days my hair is short again through oncoming baldness and I'm just as likely to be wearing a football top than a metal shirt. I live in the country, farm, do regular Dad things like gaelic training u8s etc so I don't cut about in Burzum shirts all the time or anything 😅. But if we have kids and parents over they will invariably sit in our 'middle room' which is stacked high on three sides with cds, tapes, vinyls and lots of cool records on display. Its not like i hide who i am. The black metal listening is still going most nights. Gigs are rare. The recent Emperor one was a reminder of how much I enjoyed that scene, out drinking and meeting like minded lads you don't get down the local GAA park or the mart :laugh:
Ah good man Grim, a fellow farmer, I was beginning to think I must be the only one.
This auld forum is great for lads who have nobody to talk about metal with, as you point out, there aren't many Mayhem fans at the mart.
All the lads around me are mad into dance music for some reason, I despise it with a passion.
I had never turned on a computer in my life until the dept. went all online a few years ago and forced me to get one, Its been a game changer in regard to access to music (Bandcamp and the like) and hearing about new music (this forum and the like) since all the good mags are gone.
Still think the dept.s decision to go all online is unforgivable though.
Not to derail the thread but have always felt my rural background was a factor in my attraction to black metal. The best of the genre be it Norwegian, Russian, Polish scenes etc has this natural outdoors feel. Sky, wind, fields, trees, the elements....
Not to mention the physical side of things, blood, stench of death, muck, shite, soil, pain, injury, new life, sun, cycle of the year, transcendence, spiritual awakening.... everything really
Quote from: Grim Reality on April 04, 2024, 12:18:40 AMNot to derail the thread but have always felt my rural background was a factor in my attraction to black metal. The best of the genre be it Norwegian, Russian, Polish scenes etc has this natural outdoors feel. Sky, wind, fields, trees, the elements....
Not to mention the physical side of things, blood, stench of death, muck, shite, soil, pain, injury, new life, sun, cycle of the year, transcendence, spiritual awakening.... everything really
I'd ascribe to that, I grew up and currently live next to the mountains and the coast so lots of walks with the dog with some decent tunes on and serious fucking scenery. Back when we still had the farm it was the same, hanging out in the fields with the cows smoking joints listening to Black Sabbath 😂
Quote from: Grim Reality on April 04, 2024, 12:18:40 AMNot to derail the thread but have always felt my rural background was a factor in my attraction to black metal. The best of the genre be it Norwegian, Russian, Polish scenes etc has this natural outdoors feel. Sky, wind, fields, trees, the elements....
Not to mention the physical side of things, blood, stench of death, muck, shite, soil, pain, injury, new life, sun, cycle of the year, transcendence, spiritual awakening.... everything really
The kebab in the back pocket while dancing must be a country thing too? :P
We are a practical sort maximising our resources in any given situation :-X
Nowadays I get a lot of you don't look like a Metaller, which I don't, and to be fair I'm the wrong side of 50 and haven't "looked like a Metaller" for 20+ years now, what the fuck should a 50+ yr old Metaller look like without looking ridiculous?
Quote from: The Heretic on April 04, 2024, 12:33:43 PMwhat the fuck should a 50+ yr old Metaller look like without looking ridiculous?
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/64/37/47/643747dfb6390224cbe66c7d39253f14.jpg)
(Okay, he wasn't quite 50 here, but closer to it than I am now! :laugh: )
Quote from: Black Shepherd Carnage on April 04, 2024, 01:44:27 PMQuote from: The Heretic on April 04, 2024, 12:33:43 PMwhat the fuck should a 50+ yr old Metaller look like without looking ridiculous?
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/64/37/47/643747dfb6390224cbe66c7d39253f14.jpg)
(Okay, he wasn't quite 50 here, but closer to it than I am now! :laugh: )
Knowing how fucking difficult it is to take a regular t-shirt soaked in sweat when you come off stage, I'm really interested in how many people are required to help one remove a latex tshirt :laugh:
Fuck it must be like a Turkish bath in there
Blessed are the slick
Quote from: Thorn on April 03, 2024, 10:14:24 PMYep, trips to the Soundcellar were as important as gigs if you were from the country. One key trip for me was in the wake of the Kerrang! Black Metal sensationalism whereupon I returned with a shitload of albums and merch and resulted in me introducing Monaghan to the De Mysteriis longsleeve. The Top Ten on a Sunday night was an exercise in fingers hovering over the play and record buttons on the stereo.
Remember when we found out the guy who owned Stax was the Roadrunner distributor? 😁
Yeah, Stax-A-Trax in Monaghan was a daily visit after school, I'm pretty sure he had the Nuclear Blast catalogue at his disposal too, I'm still listening to tapes that came from that place!
Quote from: Black Shepherd Carnage on April 04, 2024, 01:44:27 PMQuote from: The Heretic on April 04, 2024, 12:33:43 PMwhat the fuck should a 50+ yr old Metaller look like without looking ridiculous?
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/64/37/47/643747dfb6390224cbe66c7d39253f14.jpg)
(Okay, he wasn't quite 50 here, but closer to it than I am now! :laugh: )
You never go full Radikult!
Quote from: Thorn on April 04, 2024, 04:07:29 PMYeah, Stax-A-Trax in Monaghan was a daily visit after school, I'm pretty sure he had the Nuclear Blast catalogue at his disposal too, I'm still listening to tapes that came from that place!
I remember that day. Everyone ringing each other, "Stax have loads of records from Nuclear Blass!" Picked up Like an Overflowing Stream then, and then going through the little catalogue in the sleeve to order more stuff. And then he started getting the NB shirts in, in addition to the usual stuff.
I remember plaguing them in the summer of 88 for Keeper Pt II, was delayed for ages because there was a UK postal strike. "Is it in yet? Is it in yet?" 😁