Black Metal is Opening Up

WARNING: This video clip and post are about a music style you’ll most likely hate. It’s the first time I actually blog about this and pretty sure also the last. Enjoy.

I’ve been out of the scene for a long time already, finding much more interesting and relevant things in other (underground) music scenes. One of the main reasons it couldn’t satisfy me anymore for a single bit was the lack of intelligence among most of those people and also the lack of relevant contemporary behavior and attitudes. It did have some advantages later on. There were (and still are) a few bands that grew older and matured in my eyes as much as life around them and the style of music did, but with most of those garage bands existing out of ‘not-gonna-invent-anything-new-shit-artists’ trying to profile themselves as ‘traditional’ or ‘old-school’ which basically was an excuse for repeating the same shit over and over again, music-wise as well as content-wise. “Really, you praise Satan, huh? Here, have a lollipop and suck some more on mediocrity.”

But last week I got to see this clip. Music-wise it’s the same raw French material coming from the artists who have been responsible for corrupting lots of teenage minds with their music in the acts Hell Militia and Arkhon Infaustus. But it’s the video clip that makes this so damn interesting. Not because there’s some hot chicks doing nasty stuff, but because it relates so much to contemporary urban nihilism, which is what this band, and lot of the music in this genre actually is all about.

There are some insiders in there only people in the scene can see and can laugh with, such as throwing away the Mayhem-cd (one of the traditional Norwegian pioneers in the genre) or the guy that gets a nice shag in the bathroom wearing a Mütiilation shirt. But overall, I think everybody young can relate to this content, at least ‘understand’ it. Which is why I think this is a good sign and hopefully we will see more of this. [of course we’ll see more of this, every time a BM-band does something original, 500 other copy-cats follow] But there has been a gap for too long between bringing a message of depression, negative thoughts and nihilism, and standing on a stage painted like a fucking ridiculous panda bear. How can anybody ever take you serious? Do you even want to be taken serious? I guess not …

This stuff comes from the guy most of the promoters wouldn’t want to book (I did twice). He has been caught throwing (used?) needles on his audience and more than once thrashing an entire backstage. He’s also pretty much of a veteran (his first release dates back from 1992!) in the scene, yet here he (them) proves himself worth some respect again in my eyes. Because if you’re really searching for the destructive minds in contemporary society; it are those who got bored on routine and escape reality into binge drinking, lots of drugs, unprotected sex, an most of all: a complete careless attitude about your surroundings and yourself. Bret Easton Ellis’s novel ‘Less Than Zero’ described this attitude perfectly. And NOT about praising some theme-park devil or Pagan heritage nobody gives a fuck about, wearing a black uniform like everybody else who wants to be “special”, or for just trying to have an excuse for being a complete failure in life.

That said; I do hope to see some more mature material in this style without losing touch and coming up with something really original. I’m not saying this clip itself is original, but the combination with this music is. And it fits so well.

Follow Rivers

This video deserves some sharing and attention. I’m not a fan of Lykke Li, but this ‘I Follow Rivers’ cover by Belgian rock band Triggerfinger, done live on the Dutch radio recently, blew me completely away today.

Belgians always brag how many good (rock) bands we have. We do have some, but it’s overrated once in a while. Triggerfinger is among them though. If not, the best. If you’re into Queens of the Stone Age, definitely check out their album ‘What Grabs Ya?’ for some serious stoner / hard rock. This clip shows their more subtle side, nevertheless true artists at work here. Respect.

EDIT: They keep on deleting the video from Youtube due copyright claims, you can watch the video here as well: http://omroep.vara.nl/media/84673

A good share for a Friday 13^th if I may say so.

Have a Good One Jim

I know, I know, it’s a bit lame to blog about the death AND the birth of the same person in the same year (click here for my more personal opinion written last summer), but if there’s one person I feel completely comfortable doing that with, it’s without any doubt my personal hero Jim Morrison.

68 years ago (damn, that’s starting to become long), on December 8, 1943, James Douglas Morrison was born in Melbourne, Florida. With his brilliant intellect and vast interest in the arts, film, literature and music; he became an icon in the late sixties with the deep and emotion driven music The Doors brought back then. Damn, if there’s one band I simply never get sick off and can listen to all day long without feeling bored for a minute, it’s these guys.

I guess God wasn’t paying very much attention that particular day of his birth, because not that Jim is to be considered as the Antichrist, but his life morals were simply higher than the Christian faith ever could become. Yes, I do dare to challenge that. While the bible is trying to restrict and limit human behavior, Jim thought the world about the post-modern libertine way of living your life and trying to push the boundaries, physical but also emotional and intellectual. Jim’s life is the ultimate proof you can do a lot more than what they once told you, you could do; while probably his early death is the proof there are consequences of course. For you to choose, as long as you understand deeply you have that choice.

I think I have to thank Jim for that life lesson. Although he would probably hate being referenced on a blog that also deals around advertising and commercial value.

If you consider yourself a fan, I highly recommend you to read ‘Jim Morrison – Life, Death, Legend’ by Stephen Davis. A brilliant and precise biography about a man the world has seen too few of. Then again, it’s exactly that what makes him so unique and worth listening too.

 

2 Girls 1 Band

Now here’s some music I would like to share with you: Azure Ray.
I recently discovered them (shame on me), although they’re being active and popular already for quite a while (first official release in 2001).

Ok, people who claim I’ve started to listen to emo or whatever they don’t know about great crafted music, think again. This is simply brilliant, elegant and has so much passion it makes me want to be alone and rethink everything I’ve learned and done so far.

I like it for many reasons. First of all, because all real emo’s, goths, metal junks, hipsters … can learn how you do can portray sad music without sounding OR absolutely lame OR absolutely ridiculous and pathetic. If you check the youtube page from this clip you can read the lyrics which are pure poetry of which I could only wish my English (or Dutch) was that well. And; how with those simple words you can bring such a breathtaking story.

Second reason because they’re girls. I am so sorry to say, but for me, there’s few music out there that really touches me, created by girls. There are a few singers (Beth Gibbons, Édith Piaf, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday, Justin Bieber* …), but really not that much and especially not that much where (almost) the entire band consists out of women.

Third reason … I actually don’t really know. You love certain music or you don’t. For me, great music is always the one that brought you to a next emotional level. A level words couldn’t reach or even bring you close. The fact there are (great) lyrics involved here, only brings it better to the surface, makes it more understandable, from the artist’s perspective.

 

 

*Obviously kidding. Of course I don’t like her music.

Take It Underground To Look Up

… or why circulating in an underground music scene can be helpful for you in advertising.

I used to have a very small underground black metal label. I used to spend a lot of money on several bands you have never heard of (and never will) and you will crack up when you hear their names and song titles. I used to organize concerts and be very pleased if a hundred people showed up. I used to think it’s awesome to know so much about something so small while so few others didn’t, and frankly … I still do.

But I never used to believe it was all I needed. The ‘this is it’ feeling an adolescent has for his favorite rock band thinking he will never listen to anything else again except for those 5 albums the band created. I never took it for granted and I always knew it would be a certain fase in my life. An active fase I mean, since I still listen to a hand full of those bands, yet I’m not actively involved in the scene anymore. Also due the fact I’ve been travelling a lot and busy with more meaningful things in my life. And also because my intellectualism couldn’t handle it anymore. That’s right, I just said that.

I think it only gets dangerous and actually just to the point of being completely pathetic, when you lose that touch with reality and start to believe your scene is the only scene out there and life you are experiencing, is life in general for everybody else as well. Or just the obsessive denial for what’s happening around you. (Then again, I don’t think those people would line up for an ad-job.) I think that only happens when you are all completely filled up with your own scene and refuse to acknowledge others are out there as well, operating under the exact same norms as your scene is. I was mostly into the black metal one, yet I’ve seen a lot already – passively and actively. Shifting from the black metal one into the more hardcore themed. I’ve been at some GOA parties at the most smelly places possible. When I was 10 I already was fascinated by the electronic hardcore scene taking place in Holland and Belgium in that time. I got in touch with the vibrant jazz scene in Gent the last years I was living there. As well as the KRAAK type of scene in Gent put me in contact with lots of experiment music such as drone, ambient, sludge, noise, and so on. We can thank the internet for that like no other.

Apart from getting to know a lot about one particular musical subject, meeting the same people a lot at the same places and pushing yourself into your pre-adult entrepreneurial skills like organizing events and running a label with foreign bands and select international distribution; I believe getting involved in such a mess is beneficial for people working in advertising or communication. I don’t think that Harvard marketing graduates are close to the truth of what lives out there on the street and among the people. Same for lots of CEO’s who take every morning their private car, come into the office, take the elevator to the upper floor and behold their view on the skyline of whatever city they may be in. The best creative and most appealing ideas have come from people that truly understood what’s living out there and who they’re talking to. People living among them.

Now why would this come from people who spent their entire adolescence in crappy surroundings digging into something noncommercial?! Because, like I mentioned above, if those people have always been in place with reality as well, which in most of the cases they have, they would normally have developed a certain skill to look at ‘the general people’ and themselves and more importantly: what sets them apart from that. Into that differentiation there’s an enormous and valuable resource to be found, not only informational but most likely more socially practicable. If they have been circulating or at least got introduced to a lot of other underground scenes (and as of today, there A LOT out there and all mixed up anyway), they simply got to know and understand lots of other people, sub-cultures and styles that breaded further their knowledge base in all the different kinds of people who’re out there.

Now; to refer to the title of this post. I see being around in an underground scene as a perfect metaphor for actually being able to look slightly up and observe what’s happening ‘above the ground’. Keeping a short distance, yet never too far away brings a huge advantage in trying to understand people, movements, (sub-)cultures, youth styles and many more. And I think that knowledge is the most valuable if you’d like to capture contemporary behavior.