Give me the doom metal, gothic gloom metal and grindcore, and I will headbang until me head falls off.Dio — real name Ronald Padavona — had a voice that when the vibrato was turned to 11 could rattle church bells and shatter glass. He was operatic without the rouge and wig. Instead, he had The Gesture — the devil-horned sign of the clenched hand. (Ironic really, Dio being in league with the devil.) Actually, it was the little finger and index finger raised in a fist. It's become the fleshy talisman of the global tribe.
It's also an indication of something deeper, for if there is one field of music where fans and protagonists stay true to their own, despite shifting alliances, it is heavy metal. It's also a parallel universe to Peter Pan and the Lost Boys, without Wendy. For this is a world almost entirely populated by males who never grow old. But then once you have heard the thunder of Thor, seen the giants of Valhalla, drunk the nectar of the gods and swum in the waters of the Styx then your life hums to the great cosmic chord of the Otherworld. You are both, spiritually speaking, the hammer and the anvil. You have tapped the spine of the mythological beast. Your life is in runes. In a good way.
But you don't dance. Oh no, you never dance. You throw your head backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, banging it against the sonic wall of the cosmic chord. It's dancing from the neck up. If you're co-ordinated, you can make the devil-horn gesture while you sing along to the words. If it's a slow number, you can flick up the cigarette lighter. You can also do this at concerts.
It's all harmless. Even the splinter genres into which heavy metal has sheared over the years — death, nu, thrash, gothic, doom, classic, speed, glam, industrial, funk and classical (to name a few) — are about as sinister as a cold sausage. (If you want to be truly scared listen to traditional folk music. There's more blood, guts and misery in a simple tune and an acoustic guitar than could be conceived in all of metaldom.)
Where metal detractors have fair ground is in the lyrics, which can be infantile, bordering on, at times, misogynistic. If you want more women in the halls of Valhalla fellas, cut it out. Much has been said and written about the causal link between anti-social behaviour and metal music. But if that were so, the alternative premise would also be true, which Frank Zappa put: most songs are about love, so why does that not lead to an overwhelming feeling of love towards others? Whatever the dysfunction is in a person's life, the root is there before the music arrives. The song may say to someone, "You are not alone". But that goes to how a listener interprets a piece.
Sure the players in the great halls of metaldom can take themselves too seriously while singing like a cat being strangled or someone gargling alphabet soup. Sure they can posture and prance while redefining epic into a comic strip. But it's worth bearing in mind AC/DC's pithy pearl: "Rock and roll ain't noise pollution".
One person's noise is another person's toys. Some boys just never let them go. If it hurts no one else's eardrums, then let the battle of evermore go on to infinity, and beyond.
And it's good for a laugh, especially if the drum kit explodes — mid-solo.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-a ... -vbfe.html
I care nothing for fashion, taste or trend.
My name is Gob, and I am a metalhead till I die.
