I had a dream last night where I delivered pizza to Varg Vikernes...
...I either am delivering too much pizza or listening to too much black metal...Weird thing is, I have never listened to Burum on purpose nor do I care for his opinions.
...
He lived in some sort of trailer park...I can't remember if he tipped or not.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Through a glass darkly...(Black on Black part 2, I think)
I have had a bit of bad luck of late...The superstitious side wants to blame it on my continuing investigation of extreme/orthodox black metal.
Remember when you were a kid and you had ideas that there were people who worshiped the devil? You really didn't understand how they did, you just knew that is what they did. Well, it turns out those folks were just shtick. A few crosses here, a thrusted horn salute there; it was a means of keeping the outsiders out and the scenesters in.
Sure Venom played with the energy and Bathory too. Slayer had some scary songs ("Praise Hail Sataaaan!") but you knew they were either atheists or church goers.
Then, there is this, well, this other shit...
Watain, Deathspell Omega, anything on Norma Evangelium Diaboli...These folks actually worship the dark forces of the universe!
Anyway, they are all EXTREMELY talented musicians/bands. Makes it darn hard to criticize them...
Now, we African-Americans have deep devotional/evangelical Christianity hardwired into our brains; when everything was taken from us (names, drums, religion, freedom, property etc), all that was left in its place was Christianity given by the slavemasters. So, even in the enlightened aughts, we can be a superstitous lot.
Therefore, when investigating these bands and the Temple of the Black Light, a sort of Gnostic Satanism, I fell back on conditioning when my car crapped out the week of an appointment that was years in the making.
Of course the Watain and Deathspell Omega music research wasn't part of it, right? RIGHT?!?
Anyway, good albums, good bands...Check them out, but make sure you have no pressing engagements...
Remember when you were a kid and you had ideas that there were people who worshiped the devil? You really didn't understand how they did, you just knew that is what they did. Well, it turns out those folks were just shtick. A few crosses here, a thrusted horn salute there; it was a means of keeping the outsiders out and the scenesters in.
Sure Venom played with the energy and Bathory too. Slayer had some scary songs ("Praise Hail Sataaaan!") but you knew they were either atheists or church goers.
Then, there is this, well, this other shit...
Watain, Deathspell Omega, anything on Norma Evangelium Diaboli...These folks actually worship the dark forces of the universe!
Anyway, they are all EXTREMELY talented musicians/bands. Makes it darn hard to criticize them...
Now, we African-Americans have deep devotional/evangelical Christianity hardwired into our brains; when everything was taken from us (names, drums, religion, freedom, property etc), all that was left in its place was Christianity given by the slavemasters. So, even in the enlightened aughts, we can be a superstitous lot.
Therefore, when investigating these bands and the Temple of the Black Light, a sort of Gnostic Satanism, I fell back on conditioning when my car crapped out the week of an appointment that was years in the making.
Of course the Watain and Deathspell Omega music research wasn't part of it, right? RIGHT?!?
Anyway, good albums, good bands...Check them out, but make sure you have no pressing engagements...
Sunday, February 7, 2010
MOVIE REVIEW
Your intrepid blogger went to see "Until the Light Takes Us" tonight directed by Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell. After making sure all was right in the homestead, I journeyed out in the not-so-northern darkness to the Starz Film Center in Denver. I was almost completely alone in the theater save two young women slightly across from me. I had my popcorn, some paper and a pen to sketch out some notes on this film about the wildness of the Norwegian Black Metal movement in its earliest days. (They even sell beer here but I was unsure of the proper liquor to imbibe during a movie about church burnings, suicide and murder. It was late too, so, I passed).
I admit to passive-aggressive action on my part in seeing the film. First off, its $9.75 to see a movie at Starz (!) and the prospect of sitting in a darkened theater at 10 p.m. with people who could possibly be into Norse boogeyman/Eugenics fan Varg Vikernes was a bit daunting. But I was alone save the young women across the aisle. No need to use peripheral vision like I have to at black metal concerts (damn NSBMers!)
The movie opens with Fenriz from Dakthrone saying that the typical Norwegian stands in line a few meters away from one another; a statement that seems to echo the movie's undertow of isolation. We are treated to a few too many shots of Fenriz walking through the forest in black leather jacket and cargo pants or listening to music on trains or smoking cigarettes in bars. These shots are easily 20 minutes of the movie and do get old after awhile. But the isolation of the scene, Norway and Fenriz in particular is deeply conveyed.
For those that don't know, a 'Reader's Digest' version of the story.....The Norwegian Black Metal 'scene' in Norway in the late 80s early 90s centered around the Helvete record store and a handful of bands including Mayhem, Emperor and Darkthrone. They wanted to stand apart from 'commercial' death metal. Apparently Morbid Angel must have been played alongside Michael Jackson and Madonna. I don't remember this in the 1980s. A few lads were pro-Pagan and anti-Christian, and burned some very old churches. A lead singer (Dead) killed himself and pictures were taken by other band members. Varg of Burzum, killed Euronymous, of Mayhem. Faust of Emperor killed a homosexual acquaintance because of his homosexuality....Fun bunch you say? Yeah...
Now, most metal fans know a bit of this story and I mean no insult in this curt description, but the movie in trying to build mood and, apparently trying to do a film version of the rustic (some would say crappy) production of early black metal releases, does scarcely a better job than the above description. If you know this story already, NOTHING new will be shown to you. When you see the gleam of pride when Hellhammer (drummer for Mayhem) speaks of how Faust killed that "f*****t", you realize slowly, almost glacierlike, that whether you like the music or not, these bunch of folks are royal douchebags. Even Immortal come off a little like rock star idiots. This is fine because really, how many documentaries have likable protagonists as the main characters?! Everyone gets off light; very little examination of the activities themselves outside of fond remembrances. By makings caracatures of those that were upset by the church burnings and such, the directors eliminate a well-rounded examination of the scene.
If you don't like black metal or the artists of black metal, this movie will not convert you. If you are like me and like black metal, some of the sheen gets worn off and the curtains expose some of the wizards for the frauds they are. We followers of art forms often project our deepest realizations onto the works we are enthused by. We imbue transcendental/intelletual wisdom where there is none. If one were to take this movie as the definitive examination on the black metal culture in Norway at its beginning, then we ALL would need therapy to not idolize folks who haven't the mental maturity to show even a multifaceted opinion on their pasts. Don't get me wrong, I do think there was amazing creativity in the scene but this movie shows precious little of that (a song here, a corpsepainted grimace there).
Part of the problem is the fact that the directors have all of the subjects speak English which makes them sound like they are speaking some form of Scandinavian ebonics. I feel all the subjects would have been better served speaking their original language and allow for more depth in the interviews rather than minutes of stumbling over words.
If Fenriz is the Seasonal Affective Disordered soul of the movie, its brooding heart if you will, then Varg is its brain. He eloquently, and in my opinion, retroactively and revisionistically, cast the movement in terms of a rejection against American capitalism and Christian hegemony of Norway. I do believe his nationalistic tendencies were the esprit de corps for him and a few who idealized him but this seems contradictory when given the lyrical content of the bands at the time... At one point early in the movie, Varg complains about the fact that Euronymous controlled the storyline of what was going on and why and that he didn't have a chance to correct that storyline as he was incarcerated. It seems as though this movie has only switched who gets to control the history now that only Varg is alive to tell the tale.
When Varg comes of as the most eloquent and reasonable man in the picture, well-spoken and thoughtful, you're film has problems. Now, there's no need to paint Varg with a broad brush but his viewpoints aren't that out of step with the Germany of the 1930's (sorry kids, no links to his site. I don't need to receive spam from Stormfront or other supremacist websites). Not exposing Varg for some of his wackier sentiments lets him off the hook and cuts the depth of the film in half. If it weren't for a few pix of him in Hilter youth haircut and garb, you'd never even have an inkling of some of these views. In becoming 'friends' with the elder scensters, the directors castrate any criticism that could possibly arise.
I really wanted to like this movie. I didn't hate it by any means and there are moments, particularly when Varg is discussing the religious oppression Christianity has conducted on cultures all over the world when the film gets both interesting and challenging. Other elements belong in the "WTF?!" category. The performance art piece of Frost, while gripping, seems out of place save for the fact he is in Satyricon, a black metal band that was not even in the first generation of artists.
Fenriz seems mostly frustrated that this child called black metal that he fathered has snuck out of the house and become a whore. You really feel bad for him as no-one else seems particularly apologetic, not that I needed them to be. Nor do they mention much about the music itself. It leads to this static feeling; a sense that any dynamism that characterizes black metal itself does not attach itself to its creators. It is this fact that really gives the subjects this sort of regressed quality that makes you as a film-goer feel that they haven't really evolved much or thought about their actions as being incorrect or immature. Varg seems a little penitent in a half-hearted way. This is most obviously apparent when Fenriz attends a photo exhibit of Bjarne Melgaard's depicting pix of the movement and its members in its infancy. Fenriz looks as though he is a bashful adult sheepishly explaining his 'movement's' past indiscretions. Aside from him, nary an element of real self-awareness, just nostalgic reminisces. I don't need self-awareness from documentary subjects but in not showing that or really much about the music, we are left to fill in the blanks, which if I knew nothing about the scene at all, would make for an empty experience. The movie avoids sensationalism but the dynamism too.
I am reminded of the story of Icarus and Daedalus and flying too close to the sun. In the case of this metal movement, they flew too close to one another and the spiked armbands pierced the bubble of their solitude. One of the first things Fenriz says in the picture was that the distance the Norwegians have with one another says it all. Perhaps a close group such as the early Norwegian black metallers just got too close to one another where isolation and solitary misanthropy is the rule. To get too close caused passion but the psychic distance, still intact, allowed for reactionary violence. Essentially a movie about people that didn't know how to deal with other people and the movie doesn't show that had changed for any of them.
ONE SENTENCE REVIEW: A movie with no new info and poorly edited cult-of-personality documentary done by film students with no previous knowledge of the music or the scene who eliminate an even-handed portrayal of a unique sub-culture.
I admit to passive-aggressive action on my part in seeing the film. First off, its $9.75 to see a movie at Starz (!) and the prospect of sitting in a darkened theater at 10 p.m. with people who could possibly be into Norse boogeyman/Eugenics fan Varg Vikernes was a bit daunting. But I was alone save the young women across the aisle. No need to use peripheral vision like I have to at black metal concerts (damn NSBMers!)
The movie opens with Fenriz from Dakthrone saying that the typical Norwegian stands in line a few meters away from one another; a statement that seems to echo the movie's undertow of isolation. We are treated to a few too many shots of Fenriz walking through the forest in black leather jacket and cargo pants or listening to music on trains or smoking cigarettes in bars. These shots are easily 20 minutes of the movie and do get old after awhile. But the isolation of the scene, Norway and Fenriz in particular is deeply conveyed.
For those that don't know, a 'Reader's Digest' version of the story.....The Norwegian Black Metal 'scene' in Norway in the late 80s early 90s centered around the Helvete record store and a handful of bands including Mayhem, Emperor and Darkthrone. They wanted to stand apart from 'commercial' death metal. Apparently Morbid Angel must have been played alongside Michael Jackson and Madonna. I don't remember this in the 1980s. A few lads were pro-Pagan and anti-Christian, and burned some very old churches. A lead singer (Dead) killed himself and pictures were taken by other band members. Varg of Burzum, killed Euronymous, of Mayhem. Faust of Emperor killed a homosexual acquaintance because of his homosexuality....Fun bunch you say? Yeah...
Now, most metal fans know a bit of this story and I mean no insult in this curt description, but the movie in trying to build mood and, apparently trying to do a film version of the rustic (some would say crappy) production of early black metal releases, does scarcely a better job than the above description. If you know this story already, NOTHING new will be shown to you. When you see the gleam of pride when Hellhammer (drummer for Mayhem) speaks of how Faust killed that "f*****t", you realize slowly, almost glacierlike, that whether you like the music or not, these bunch of folks are royal douchebags. Even Immortal come off a little like rock star idiots. This is fine because really, how many documentaries have likable protagonists as the main characters?! Everyone gets off light; very little examination of the activities themselves outside of fond remembrances. By makings caracatures of those that were upset by the church burnings and such, the directors eliminate a well-rounded examination of the scene.
If you don't like black metal or the artists of black metal, this movie will not convert you. If you are like me and like black metal, some of the sheen gets worn off and the curtains expose some of the wizards for the frauds they are. We followers of art forms often project our deepest realizations onto the works we are enthused by. We imbue transcendental/intelletual wisdom where there is none. If one were to take this movie as the definitive examination on the black metal culture in Norway at its beginning, then we ALL would need therapy to not idolize folks who haven't the mental maturity to show even a multifaceted opinion on their pasts. Don't get me wrong, I do think there was amazing creativity in the scene but this movie shows precious little of that (a song here, a corpsepainted grimace there).
Part of the problem is the fact that the directors have all of the subjects speak English which makes them sound like they are speaking some form of Scandinavian ebonics. I feel all the subjects would have been better served speaking their original language and allow for more depth in the interviews rather than minutes of stumbling over words.
If Fenriz is the Seasonal Affective Disordered soul of the movie, its brooding heart if you will, then Varg is its brain. He eloquently, and in my opinion, retroactively and revisionistically, cast the movement in terms of a rejection against American capitalism and Christian hegemony of Norway. I do believe his nationalistic tendencies were the esprit de corps for him and a few who idealized him but this seems contradictory when given the lyrical content of the bands at the time... At one point early in the movie, Varg complains about the fact that Euronymous controlled the storyline of what was going on and why and that he didn't have a chance to correct that storyline as he was incarcerated. It seems as though this movie has only switched who gets to control the history now that only Varg is alive to tell the tale.
When Varg comes of as the most eloquent and reasonable man in the picture, well-spoken and thoughtful, you're film has problems. Now, there's no need to paint Varg with a broad brush but his viewpoints aren't that out of step with the Germany of the 1930's (sorry kids, no links to his site. I don't need to receive spam from Stormfront or other supremacist websites). Not exposing Varg for some of his wackier sentiments lets him off the hook and cuts the depth of the film in half. If it weren't for a few pix of him in Hilter youth haircut and garb, you'd never even have an inkling of some of these views. In becoming 'friends' with the elder scensters, the directors castrate any criticism that could possibly arise.
I really wanted to like this movie. I didn't hate it by any means and there are moments, particularly when Varg is discussing the religious oppression Christianity has conducted on cultures all over the world when the film gets both interesting and challenging. Other elements belong in the "WTF?!" category. The performance art piece of Frost, while gripping, seems out of place save for the fact he is in Satyricon, a black metal band that was not even in the first generation of artists.
Fenriz seems mostly frustrated that this child called black metal that he fathered has snuck out of the house and become a whore. You really feel bad for him as no-one else seems particularly apologetic, not that I needed them to be. Nor do they mention much about the music itself. It leads to this static feeling; a sense that any dynamism that characterizes black metal itself does not attach itself to its creators. It is this fact that really gives the subjects this sort of regressed quality that makes you as a film-goer feel that they haven't really evolved much or thought about their actions as being incorrect or immature. Varg seems a little penitent in a half-hearted way. This is most obviously apparent when Fenriz attends a photo exhibit of Bjarne Melgaard's depicting pix of the movement and its members in its infancy. Fenriz looks as though he is a bashful adult sheepishly explaining his 'movement's' past indiscretions. Aside from him, nary an element of real self-awareness, just nostalgic reminisces. I don't need self-awareness from documentary subjects but in not showing that or really much about the music, we are left to fill in the blanks, which if I knew nothing about the scene at all, would make for an empty experience. The movie avoids sensationalism but the dynamism too.
I am reminded of the story of Icarus and Daedalus and flying too close to the sun. In the case of this metal movement, they flew too close to one another and the spiked armbands pierced the bubble of their solitude. One of the first things Fenriz says in the picture was that the distance the Norwegians have with one another says it all. Perhaps a close group such as the early Norwegian black metallers just got too close to one another where isolation and solitary misanthropy is the rule. To get too close caused passion but the psychic distance, still intact, allowed for reactionary violence. Essentially a movie about people that didn't know how to deal with other people and the movie doesn't show that had changed for any of them.
ONE SENTENCE REVIEW: A movie with no new info and poorly edited cult-of-personality documentary done by film students with no previous knowledge of the music or the scene who eliminate an even-handed portrayal of a unique sub-culture.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
February is for lovers...
Looking at the calendar, there is a surplus of concerts in March and April but February is severely lacking... Lucky for me actually as my wife was getting burned out by my concert going which was only just beginning!
February is going to be a concert free month ('cept seeing Dave's band Havok on Friday). This month will be posts about metal; genres, hang-ups, philosophy etc., rather than concert reviews.
So, February is going to be for lovers: my wife and, for readers of this blog, lovers of metal...
February is going to be a concert free month ('cept seeing Dave's band Havok on Friday). This month will be posts about metal; genres, hang-ups, philosophy etc., rather than concert reviews.
So, February is going to be for lovers: my wife and, for readers of this blog, lovers of metal...
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