Look at that dummy in the blue shirt on stage!
Hey Deano I read your post about deathfest. Fun fun! my email stopped working so saaaad :(
AnonymousWho dis? Email… stopped working? Just go around back and give the e-machine a kick and four cranks. The electronic mails will be pouring in in no time at all.
Back from Deathfest alive;
Some observations:
- People love the color black.
- A major chord at a metal festival is like an overcast sky opening and rainbow coming out and a Technicolor Hello Kitty doing cartwheels down the rainbow.
-Metal heads come in different varieties: straight thrash dudes, black metal waifish wisps, anarcho-socio-communo-vegan-crusties, dads in Opeth shirts, neck beards, etc…
-You will see the largest sized t-shirts ever at a metal festival (XXXL).
-The booths that sell said shirts should have a huge, tatooed, musclely dude that politely asks, “Would you like me to rip the sleeves off your new shirt for you?” and then does it if you want in the most brutal way possible.
-Going to Deathfest is like going to any other subculture convention — people put on their costumes.
-These people have no sense of humor. If they do, it’s a bad one. Saw some guy in a shirt that said “I <3 CUNTS” the heart was all bloody too.
-Biceps, biceps, biceps. Biceps as big as tree trunks and covered in tattoos of bleeding babies or eviscerated jesuses, or boiling bugs.
-Metal people aren’t very good with words. Most band and song names are pretty shitty, strung together phrases that are meant to sound brutal, i.e. Chasm of Oceanus, Morgoth, Church of Misery.
-To be “heavy” is the highest goal. I overheard an exchange between a guy working a booth and a customer: “I heard about this new record. Is it heavy, man?” “Oh yeah. So heavy.” “Heavy as their last one? That one wasn’t so heavy.” “So heavy man. Way heavier. Heavy. And densely heavy. Not fluffy.”
-Circle pits aren’t as imposing as they seem. Lots of bigs dudes tromping about, thats about it. Seen shit just as intense at a Double Dagger show with twelve art kids in horn-rim glasses.
-Graphic design majors: get into the metal logo field. Everyone, i mean everyone saw today had a shirt on with some elaborate spiky, spindly, hard to read metal logo on it. It seems to be of paramount importance that a band have a solid image: they must have a cool logo/t-shirt/album cover, but they must also have the right look, right equipment and right fans. It is a style of music overwhelmingly concerned with image. I think is why so few artists outside of the metal community dabble in its aesthetics; its such an insular group that doesn’t allow for much deviation. A non-metal artist will never be metal enough for metalheads while still retaining the vast portion of their old fans.
All in all, had a good time. Interesting insight into a subculture that I’m not super familiar with. I severely overestimated my tolerance for metal itself though. Too heavy for too long today was. Imma listen to new Mount Eerie and detox for like a week.
Just watched The Fly. Might be a little late to this party, but fuck was that shit horrifyingly tragically gross. Good too, but fuck.
jwp:
Pumping water for the family camels in #mongolia. Google ‘npr mongolia’ for pictures and stories about the mining boom there. (Taken with Instagram at South Gobi, Mongolia)
Or just click here to go straight to the story.
Ha! Sorry for the double post. It’s such a good picture that I’m just going to leave it. —Wright
