A Headbanger's Journey

I am watching a documentary called "Metal, A Headbanger's Journey". It was made by a longtime metalhead who is also a cultural anthropologist. It talks about the metal subculture and what makes it so, using interviews with a lot of oldtimers like the late Ronnie James Dio, Tommy Iommi, Alice Cooper and Dee Snider. Guys who have lived the metal life for many decades and had a hand in the genre's inception and evolution.

Personally, metal music and I parted company when it went Glam, and I've only recently revived a tentative relationship with it, mostly through operatic/symphonic bands such as Nightwish, or traditional  virtuoso-rock like Dream Theater. Neither of which would be considered "true" metal by many aficionados.

In fact EVERY genre and sub-genre of metal music is considered to be "not true" by fans of most competing genres.

In some recording magazine, I read an article about recording metal. The author ticked off all the usual techniques in an authoritative-sounding manner, then when he got to the section labeled "Keyboards", he just said: "There are no keyboards in metal!" Clearly, both of my favorite metal bands would not qualify as real metal in his mind.

Watching this film is, for me, like watching a documentary about my ancestors. Alien and familiar at the same time. I see a family resemblance, but they're like the distant branch of your family that joined a cult or something and then got weird.

Dave,

I guess what you and I would be talking about is 'Rockers' as those the were into the likes of Zep, Purple, Sabbath, Free etc, etc, etc.  In the US there is less snobbery when it comes to genre but 'Rock' music this side of the pond would mean, and only mean acts like those mentioned, I've heard for many years acts like Michael Jackson or Coldplay for example generically being referred to as 'Rock' acts over there which would be less likely happen over here.

The genre thing and it's various sub-divisions today is completely crazy and is not confined to types of 'Metal'.  Dance music also has a plethora of slight variations on a theme that are so hard to spot that a musicologist would give up on the definitions.

The thing about our time I think that is different was music had a cultural meaning which it doesn't have in the same way today and in the light of the 'Mod vs Rockers' mayhem and violence, certainly on this side of the pond, that has at least one positive aspect to it.

Given those broader distinctions of yore I always likened those 'Rock' fans to be very similar to 'Country' fans (British ones at least) although the music, uniforms and associated paraphernalia were very different, the defence of the 'genre' was staunchly loyal, the events staged by the fans were always very well-organized despite looking chaotic and even the dancing was every bit as well structured as square or line dancing.

The rules of engagement today are very much different in that your background will likely have less to do with how you 'should' be perceived on a societal level and you are freer to make intellectual choices, whereas before if you came from a certain background then you were likely to belong to that backgrounds tribe, consciously or not.

Whether I like it or not my defining period was the '70's and in the UK there were 3 main types of music as there we're 3 main types of fan, the disco crowd, and the rockers which largely still followed the social standings of the more extremist 'Mods' and 'Rockers' plus the prog Rockers whose came from a slighty better educated sub-class which would have developed from the University common room based 'Beatniks' of the '60's.

I don't think here there was much class distinction between the mods and rockers other than a behavioural one with the Mods latterly the Disco fans going for looking sharp and stylish, whilst going for status, and the rockers being less conformist 'let it all hang out' types, more attracted to rebellion.

The US having a far more diverse social structure than the UK is likely to have been far less simplistic than that.
 
Good topic.

"It was made by a longtime metalhead who is also a cultural anthropologist."

I call science that comes with a predisposed agenda... entertainment. :-)

Have you listened to much Baba Brinkman?

It's all Link Wray for me... they love him in Paris.

mgh


nice to see you embracing the heavy side of life again bit, metal is a far more diverse beast than ever it was! even within a sub-genre, say black metal, there are sub-sub-genres like pagan, folk, necro, symphonic etc etc. one thing metal fans love is a list and being nerdy!

Good point. There is many different types of metal, today, and it's all "true metal", as it usuall hints back to the early stuff somewhat. I don't buy any of that "true metal" stuff. Stuff these days though, man, is pretty heavy and scary. Cookie monster vocals and all. It's like when you break out the Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, it sounds "poppy" in comparison.
 
I'm more into "post metal", stuff like Tool, Melvins, etc.. But you definitely hear the Black Sabbath in bands like that too.

 

Clearly a social outcast.... The kid was all right. 

I've told the story before (here's the short version): I recorded a band that was metal to the core. The dress, the look, the piercings and tats. Most of America would cross an 8 lane busy freeway/highway to not encounter them. 
They were the sweetest and most articulate guys you would ever want to meet.

The thing about our time I think that is different was music had a cultural meaning which it doesn't have in the same way today and in the light of the 'Mod vs Rockers' mayhem and violence, certainly on this side of the pond, that has at least one positive aspect to it.

I haven't given much thought to Mods and Rockers in quite awhile. I was living in England in 1969, at the dawn of that Mod/Rocker duality and witnessed firsthand some of the legendary violence between those groups. As well as the beginning of the next logical phase, ska and aggro. I'd been unaware prior to that just how frustrated and pissed off the working class young people of Great Britain were. I'd always thought of Brits as being reserved and stoic, with a wry sense of humor. That is, until I saw some furiously kicking the head of someone whose only transgression was apparently wearing the wrong color scarf after a football match. (And they consider American football a violent sport. At least we keep the violence on the field as non-lethal entertainment.)

Things may be different now, but in the 60's and early 70's the town where I lived (Oxford) was divided as cleanly as Berlin was back then. Divided along socioeconomic lines, and you could easily discern which part of town someone lived in by their dress, their dialect (ultra-weird to an American, that multiple dialects could exist in one small city) and by their music. Skinheads and their reggae, steel-toed workboots that doubled as both social statement and weapon. Nose-in-the-air well-dressed Mods, speaking the Queen's English but every bit as ready to bash someone's head in. Guys with stiletto-pointed shoes and leather jackets, caricatures of The Fonz. A social anthropologist needn't travel far to study tribal behavior - he could study it in the same town where he got his degree!

Fortunately, as a Yank no one could figure out which group I belonged to, so I was given a pass to move freely among them.

I hadn't though much about those days in a while. Now that you've reminded me of it, I find it curious that such animosity does not appear to be prevalent among metal-heads. Especially given their predilection for alcohol consumption. It would appear that global tribal affiliation trumps localized differences. But if that's the case, what's the deal with the Hip Hop subculture?

HI,

This is one of those topics that is really hard to "discuss" ... because music history, just like art history, and any other history, does not follow "rules" and sometimes, it turns left in Albuquerque and that is the end of the story ... you're in the desert and it's over!

My biggest contention, is that a lot of these terms were created to make it easier to sell and for fans to locate in a music store ... and the veracity of the term, of course, can not have any validity since what is metal in NY is merde in Knoxville, and crepe in SF, and vice versa, and the material will never reach the stores for anyone to listen to.

The Internet makes the cross-polination of these things better, but right now it's a huge mess ... and I think that it will take another 10 to 20 years before things can be defined properly and the wording actually make some sense of the whole thing.

I, personally, do not like to call Dream Theater "metal" any more than I like to call Pink Floyd "Pop" or "Rock" ... it is music. MUSIC. And musicians deserve that right ...

That said, it is one of my biggest fights in the ProgArchives, not to mention that a lot of people -- like King Crimson, or ELP and others that were given the credit as the starters for "progressive" did not do their music because it was progressive, but mostly because it was a reaction to a lot of the goings on at the time ... I mean, people not realizing how "Epitath" is as important as Jimi's National Anthem to our collective conscious, is like saying ... you were too stoned to give a damn ... and not many of us were that ripped, or stupid, or wore flowers in our hair ... and a lot of the music meant a lot more to us ... and was a massive inspiration to a lot of the work that we do and the way we live. It's almost like saying that VietNam didn't happen and the IRA thing was a joke, which is what "Epitath" was all about ... or maybe we all need to go see "Apocalypse Now" and "The Deerhunter" again ... to remind us. And a friend of mine said that those two movies were "kindergarten" compared to the real thing!

I don't like to take the "soul" of the music out of it, because the music will only stand up through some notes, chords or a style ... and those, per se, are quite meaningless in the long run of music history ... only one or two endup getting remembered and discussed.

Thus, the terms are a discredit to the music in my book.

But tell that to the kid that has a mohawk is knows that he is only going to that one spot on the store! We did the same thing when we wanted to go smoke a joint behind mom and dad!

The only way a "scene" can get remembered is when it is bigger than just the music. And the 60's come 70's were and gave us a whole artistic scene that included literature, music, theater, film ... you name it ... and as such that ear will always be remembered and appreciated.

"Metal" will probably die and become something else ... unless these people can expand their interest beyond a few fans and sales that make them happy. It has to get away from the claws of the industry in order to make it viable ... otherwise a movie like this will become like ... the GTO's ... (movie called "The Groupies") ... was there, but who cares?

a favorite

Crg


Metal purists, what a concept. Keep the dial on 11 and you're good. Black Sabbath. Deep Purple. Early Cream. All metal to me. 
Todays keyboard synthesizers can go really metal if you want them to. But I guess that's electronica.

Not just today's keyboards, what about Jon Lord's Hammond C3 + RMI Piano + Ring Modulator setup, that could easily compete with Blackmore's guitar turned up to 11.

Crg

 
I'll have to give that a listen. What album is it on?

It's on a lot of their stuff. Highway Star on Machine Head springs to mind. The reason people found it hard to emulate Lord's Hammond sound is his C3 was modified, the electronics of the RMI elactra piano was bolted on to the bottom and wired into the keys. Then he had a ring modulator fitted that he used to produce that distinctive distortion.

For me, it's Black Sabbath

Gotta agree Dave. That was the heaviest thing I've ever heard up to that point and as they say, there is nothing like the first one/time. IMO, nothing has broken the heavy barrier in the way they did. Yeah, there may be heavier bands today but not groundbreaking like BS.


Oh yeah, I mean 'for me'.

I was in Frankfurt in 1971. How did I miss that?

How, indeed? It seemed like every hippie in town was there. Someone had been selling counterfeit tickets outside, so the hall was packed to the rafters. I lucked out and wound up in the near-front-center, sandwiched sardine-like in a sea of enthusiastic stoners (is that a contradiction?).

Back in those days you could be that close to a band and not suffer profound hearing loss, even with a fairly loud band like Deep Purple. I don't think the guitar and bass amps were even miked. They sounded great. The audience was great (Germans are great audiences generally - if they like you they are not shy about letting you know it) and it was a great evening of entertainment.

"There are no keyboards in metal!"

Dio used keys,  Rainbow In The Dark comes to mind.


I went and saw Black Label Society a few weeks ago and one of the opening bands was a hard core/thrash band with a keyboard player. It didn't quite fit in or sound right to me but then again it just might have been the 'sounds' he was using and the parts he played.
As someone mentioned above, it just sounded like an after thought.


I don't 'do' the whole genre thing. It's getting somewhat ridiculous.
For me I keep it simple. Jazz, Blues, Rock, Classical, Country, World, Bapu.


Mike 

Atomic Rooster - now you're digging into the obscure past. I didn't think anyone had ever even heard of them in this country. They were the original "who's in the band this week" ad hoc ensemble. Kindred spirits to Coliseum, who actually did it better and were equally obscure in America. Coliseum live was definitely "heavy".

As for Uriah Heep's place in the chronology, I remember them being contemporaries of Sabbath. Musically superior to Sabbath, but probably too brainy for the emerging metalheads.

And of course, The Who predates them all.