Dissection Black Horizons and the great Guitar Tech Recovery

[Pedrito]

Didn't know that but very interesting. Surprising how such a talented guy could get involved in that but it hints at some deep underlying weakness of character. I used spend lots of time in Austria and every little town had some skinhead scumbag faction bar emblazoned with werewolves or pitbulls..real low life types inhabiting them. The ultra football types in Spain where I live are no better. All just fronts for acting like a knacker. No different back home I'm sure, though we don't seem to go in for the werewolf/pitbull iconography, maybe certain Celtic/Rangers style stuff. The whole thing is paradoxical to me because the music could be so beautiful, but he was obviously not your average punter, god knows what was goinv on inside his head.

[Weltenfeind]

Reading the Blood Fire Death book at the moment and the chapter on Jon describes him as quite a regular guy up until the point were he gets involved with that Vlad lad and the MLO/Werewolf legion. Seems more likely to me that his lifestyle and the misanthropic philosophy he espoused played a large part in his behaviour as opposed to Aspergers or whatever.
Anyway Dissection were outstanding with an almost flawless discography. Gig here is probably in my top ten, pretty sure i still have a Watain tshirt from it somewhere.

[Bigmac]

The Werewolf Legion did security at the Rebirth show.

You can see a few of them here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST__Wu9dhsY

[Cernunnos]

awh  if he only hadn't of grown up and became a Murderous thug 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPH6RdyGRQk

[Cernunnos]

Slightly off topic, im sure some of you know Cardinal Sin, if not it was a project composed by John Zwetsloot, who helped write a lot of the somberlian songs also  "Night's Blood and "Retribution ".

Excellent EP and very like Dissection. Never released anything after this as far as I know

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv_b3UCK5Sg

[Pentagrimes]

Didn't know that but very interesting. Surprising how such a talented guy could get involved in that but it hints at some deep underlying weakness of character. I used spend lots of time in Austria and every little town had some skinhead scumbag faction bar emblazoned with werewolves or pitbulls..real low life types inhabiting them. The ultra football types in Spain where I live are no better. All just fronts for acting like a knacker. No different back home I'm sure, though we don't seem to go in for the werewolf/pitbull iconography, maybe certain Celtic/Rangers style stuff. The whole thing is paradoxical to me because the music could be so beautiful, but he was obviously not your average punter, god knows what was goinv on inside his head.

I'll sound like a cunt here without actually meaning to, but whatever..have you a background in psychology or sciology? I've noticed a couple of your posts on here seem based around trying to work out why people (particularly in Black Metal) do what they do.

[Pedrito]

Haha good question. I work in education and I studied a lot of ideas around beahviour and psychology doing a masters in Education, so it always pops up, but my waffling on a metal forum should be taken only as that..pinch of salt etc. I suppose what I never got about black metal was that it took something we all love, namely metal, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead and 'corrupted' it. It became less about having a good time, expressing yourself, getting lost in music and music being an escape and became something far more serious, life and death as such.

I'm looking for a why to that I suppose, when there probably is no real 'why'. But then I look at where it came out of, Norway especially, all in one generation, lads killing eachother, church burnings, criminality all mixed in with this new form of music, lads literally taking this shit way too seriously, lack of any sense of humour and irony and the amateur detective in me wonders why. When Lemmy and Venom and all these bands were singing about Raising Hell, the English speaking world took it as a bit of craic..few pints, headbanging, getting the shift, but up in Scandanavia they're all sitting around listening to it like it's gospel. It's cultish thinking. Blah blah, I just think about shit like that, best to ignore me 

[Eoin McLove]

I think that a couple of factors come into it.  It was pre- internet. Everyone is now connected through social media or forums,  demystifying the culture almost entirely.  Back then you had occasional interview with bands that were mostly in zines with occasional glances into it from there mainstream media who fanned the flames with sensational articles.  That's all very flattering to the cause.  Young lads trying to keep up had no way to see these lads as projecting a certain exaggerated persona and were at a callow age anyway. Add a couple of charismatic leaders like Euronymous and Varg, who were sculpting this new scene and spouting very dark and hateful rhetoric.  Taken in conjunction with the music it's really cool and effective at creating a larger world around the scene.  Many,  or most,  of the crimes of the era were arson- burning churches that were built of timber,  in more remote parts of town (I am basing this on my trip to Fantoft so correct me if I'm mistaken) while the churches were empty.  Now,  it takes a certain amount of balls/ stupidity to go from wearing a t-shirt with a slogan that will annoy your community to burning down a building.  But it's a low enough risk crime that they would all have escaped convictions for if they didn't go on to boast about the acts.  But how then do you build the myth or cult? Catch 22. The number of murderers was quite low overall,  Euro's death (and Dead's suicide including the antics around that) and Faust's killing the guy in the park, Nodtveit's kill and subsequent suicide and the guys from Absurd killing a peer.  That's about it. I think it was a small number of influential psychopaths in a scene full of impressionable kids.

[Eoin McLove]

As a massive fan of black metal it's interesting to note that despite being able to rationalise it to a degree,  I am still able to allow the surrounding drama to add to the listening experience. You have to be able to look at it both ways,  I think.

[blessed1]

As a massive fan of black metal it's interesting to note that despite being able to rationalise it to a degree,  I am still able to allow the surrounding drama to add to the listening experience. You have to be able to look at it both ways,  I think.

i dont really see how murdering innocent people and just being pure scumbags adds to music tbh

[Pentagrimes]

As a massive fan of black metal it's interesting to note that despite being able to rationalise it to a degree,  I am still able to allow the surrounding drama to add to the listening experience. You have to be able to look at it both ways,  I think.

i dont really see how murdering innocent people and just being pure scumbags adds to music tbh

I'm gonna guess because if you're singing about being evil and then doing evil horrible shit, it adds a layer of horrible authenticity to it?

[Pedrito]

EoinMc: Think you hut the nail on the head there with the 'despite' sentence. Dissection were an amazing band and that added air of malevolence, while against everything I believe in, still adds something. It's an uncomfortable thought in many ways, and maybe I would need the degree in psychology to understand it. If it was something related to kids, I would have been picketing the gig, but how young he was when the killing happened, I rationalised he had done the time, moved on, and paid the price etc etc.

If that's true or not, who knows, but it's intetesting how a 'blind eye'can be turned when it comes to stuff you're somewhat emotionally involved in, like music. A totally exagerrated comparison, but the continued devotion to Michael Jackson, even when everything points to him having been a sick predator, by perfectly reasonable people, would lead me to guess that it's something people tend to do.

[blessed1]

I rationalised he had done the time, moved on, and paid the price etc etc.

he didnt though. he came across as completely unremorseful in any of the interviews i read with him when he was released.

and ya maybe this adds mystery to it when your like 13 or 14 yrs old not a bloody grown man.

[Eoin McLove]

As Jamie said,  they claimed to be evil,  their music was dark and praised evil and their actions backed it up.  I don't live my life that way or think that arson and murder is really cool,  but these acts in a way have become removed from reality and set into mythology.  For people who fundamentally think the music is shit then of course it's just dickheads playing dungeons and dragons and committing despicable acts. If you are interested in the phenomenon and love the music then the two go hand in hand.  I'm neither defending what happened nor trying to convince anyone to agree with my view of the thing,  but that's how it looks to me.

[Pedrito]

Blessed1: Fair nuf man, I said I rationalised it, and I'm actually agreeing with you that it doesn't make sense. Call it willful blindness or something like that. All that said, I hardly listen to BM outside of Dissection, Enslaved, Dawn and a few other bits and bobs, but I get why people do.