May 30
85130242
From The Editor’s Desk….....
Responding to the challenge, Andrew has gone on a wee tear with his writing; enough so that it, too, must be split for posting, otherwise it would take up too much length and leave no room for other good material.
Andrew Ian Dodge
Part 1 of 2
I had promised to write more on the subject of sex, drugs and rock & roll. I even made this promise to the Prof himself. I am going to go live these ideals this weekend as I head off to the “GODS” of AORgig in Bradford. The mini-festival will last from noon to 2am starting on Sunday. There will be lots of long hair, tight leather, and denim to behold.
This leads me to pointing out a few misconceptions about the world of hard rock and heavy metal. First of all, it is necessary to end the perception that all metal-heads (of whatever variety) are knuckle-dragging morons with only a basic ability for speech and the IQ of a newt. Metal heads come in all levels of intelligence, although “average” seems to be relatively under-represented. In my experience most of us are either above average intelligence or significantly below. The subject has come up several times with my fellow travelers in the world of hard rock, and much of the time there is concensus on this conclusion. I know at least one geneticist who used to splice genes listening to AC/DC. The man who could potentially create new forms of life was a metal-head. It is highly amusing to note he was also an Indian Hindu and not the whitebread cliche so often associated with the genre. I know of many highly successful, driven individuals who are into this sort of music. In some cases the more driven they are the more extreme the music; for instance a certain character who has a blog called Samizdata is into darkwave and goth metal.
It is possible that the perception of stupidity comes from contact with a few metalheads who might be bright but are so stoned out of their gourd to appear to be idiots. Much like at sporting events, intelligent men or women in a group can turn into a mob of morons with the right encouragment. Being amused or even aroused by a singer simulating sex with the stage (part of Bret Michaels of Poison’s repetoire) is a sure sign of the mob mentality, surely? Intensely lame “sing-alongs” or worse, crowd cheering contests, makes one wonder if all in the venue left their brains with their coats in the cloak-room.
There is also the problem that many of the purveyors of the music are not exactly that intelligent. They may be amazing musicians, but like athletes, they can be amazingly stupid off-stage. I have interviewed some absolute morons (Dizzy Dean Davidson of Britney Fox take a bow), incapable of speaking in even the slightest of coherent manner. This, of course, varies a great deal depending on the sub-genre; symphonic metal/progresssive musicians tend to be well-educated and highly intelligent men and women while some death metal & hard rock bands considerably less so. How bright do you have to be to write songs about having sex, getting drunk, and partying?
With the increase in sub-genres of the overall genre, there seems to be a sorting of those who like the music. There are certain types of gigs where you can expect the preponderance of the fans to be young, male and fairly thick, for instance. There are also regional variations. I find the caliber of people at death/doom metal gigs in the UK is higher than it is in the US. This might have something to do with the amount of people in the US who take death metal at its face value rather than as a chance to vent a bit. It might amuse some of you that there are two “camps” in the death metal world, depending on what side of the Atlantic one hails from, with the UK splitting down the middle. You find that deathmetallers in the US tend to loathe the European brand since it may contain female vocals, keyboards and even orchestral arrangements. The American version tends to feature a man grunting or screaming, with his cohorts playing as fast and as brutally as possible. Death metal on this side of the pond contains a melody; it does not on the other side. It is even possible to write a book on the sub-genres of hard rock and heavy metal. My friend Martin Popoff does a very fine line in specialist books on the subject.
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Part 2 to be posted tomorrow
