Metal, I don't love you anymore, but we'll always be friends.

Today I woke up and took the dog for a walk. It's nice. I reflexively thumbed the click-wheel of my ipohd and selected 'the roots' for my walking music. It felt like a refreshing relief for me.

I often talk up metal-crowds as the nicest crowds you will ever be a part of. Most of my encounters with metal fans are with big friendly fuzzy care-bare characters dressed in black t-shirts, denim jackets and the occasional studded accessory or chain. If I ever needed a hug at a concert at 2am I would hope I was in a metal crowd. That was my general experience.

But yesterday I discovered there are two types of metal fans. There are the aforementioned that are secure in who they are, don't care about changing trends or fashions or exerting the effort and financial commitment to following them and have found a happy dark place to call their home.

Then there are the type that are frightened, scared and angry, possibly bullied and feel ugly and possibly feel incredibly weak. Instead of addressing these issues though they cluster in a crowd of like minded people and far more aggressively than necessary say 'fuck you' to greater society.
I can only describe what it feels like, but it feels like imitation, it feels hostile and it feels pitiful. I imagine prolonged exposure would leave me full of either compassion or contempt and I hope its the former.

I guess the best analogy would be 'cornered animal', this brand of metal doesn't eminate strength but does seem dangerous. Like the whimpy kid in the trenchcoat mafia, you would never describe them as 'strong' but that doesn't mean they won't shoot you to prove a point. Like Fred Durst would probably stick a smashed glass bottle in your face if you called him a pussy, even though the conflict wasn't necessary and the action would only serve to prove that he was less than a pussy (possibly a dick).

As an artist, you often have the experience of picking up something you drew a while ago and your like 'man I drew this.' and not in a flattering sense, but this is good it means you have grown as an artist. Yesterday I saw a lot of bands I was into when I was 16 at Soundwave and some were awesome to see, others though I didn't even feel nostalgic, I just felt ... shmeh.

First and foremost Metal has gotten married. What I didn't witness yesterday but kind of felt - was the disturbingly holy matrimony between metal and christian rock. I saw Red playing on Conan and mentioned to then housemate Phil 'there's something not right about these guys... they feel... Christian.' I realise a lot of people are Christian. Most I know are Christian agnostic, never go to Church and literally don't sing about it. So what I mean about Red and what I kind of felt at Sevendust was this Gospel vibe, an incredibly shallow and unempowered emotional spectrum that says 'I'm hurting, somebody save me.'

I recall a lot, it makes me seem like a stalker most of the time, but I can't recall what I liked about bands like Sevendust, Mudhoney etc. the pre Nu Metal bands of the early to mid-90's. These weren't my favorite bands, I spent most of the time listening to Primus, FNM, RHCP, RATM, Tool and some others, but still I can't recall what if anything actually resonated with me.

But I think Metal and Gospel should get divorced, its a bad match and reflects badly on both sides of the coin.

The second matrimony is that of Punk and Metal. Sum 41 were the only recognisable punk band I checked out at Soundwave due to the schedule, and as my brother pointed out - 10 years ago they would have been the headline (I think they would have been alloted just before Blink 182) but Punk has - forgive me, somewhat died. People seem to forget pre-ok computer 90s often but the Tony Hawk days were huge, massive and I never got into the Punk Revival. The only band I could claim to truly have enjoyed from those days was Green Day whom were around long before Punk took over and are big long after (almost) all the punk acts have died.

But as Tenacious D sang in the 'Metal' you can't kill the metal. And I think that whats going on in Punk right now is trying to crossbread this genetic indestructability into itself in a desperate attempt to survive. It always seems to me that punk fans are numerous, but apparantly not numerous enough, they vocal and drumming traditions of Thrash/Death Metal seem to have particularly been misappropriated into Punk Rock. The use of double kick is profuse and the singers go off into screaming tangents. It's so metal it could hardly be called Punk, not even 'Punk Metal' as a meaningful genre.

I was looking for variety yesterday at Soundwave, and though I eventually got it, let's just say it was not to be found in the Punk Pavillion. Punk and Metal should get divorced because they are slowly suffocating each other and need the space.

Now as a snot-nosed kid I would have parochially stated that Metal drumming was some of the best, this is perhaps the biggest 'shmeh' thing for me that I experienced yesterday. It kind of started with Primus though. On Primus' discography you have two prominent drummers - Tim Alexander and Bryan 'Brain' Mantia.

Tim Alexander recorded for most of Primus' hey-day and is probably considered the 'traditional' Primus drummer. He was stadium rock style with two kick drums and a whole bunch of toms and I'm told 'very technical'. Back in the day I would have been all 'Tim Alexander is the shit'.

But getting psyched up for seeing Primus live I'd been listening to Brown and I'm not sure what changed in between now and 2000 but I was all like 'Brain is the fucken shit.' I think personality wise he was more of a fit for Primus and I have fond memories of the jerky and crap videos of early internet access days of Brain's antics posted on the primussucks website.

But I think in the same way that Southpark made the statement 'just because somethings complicated doesn't make it intelligent.' I think my easy reverence for drummers who play massive kits and play 'real fast' has dissappeared, and seeing live music probably helps because the beat is what you can dance to.

Somewhat hypocritacally this doesn't really apply to Tim Alexander so much, his beats are texturally interesting, and his return to Primus took them in a prog-rock direction that creates these sprawling rambling hypnotic sets that are head and shoulders above any other live music experience to be witnessed at Soundwave (in my opinion).

But the beats hammered furiously out by all these double kick weilding metal and punk-metal drummers are just... plain... boring. I don't get it anymore, it isn't impressive and it's no fun to be in the crowd to witness. It's just these long winded chops, and a beat you are supposed to jump up and down to but due to sheer physics you can't.

I'm sure the happy-metal fans would tell me that I was just seeing crap bands like Bullet For My Valentine, Stonesour, Sevendust and Rob Zombie with 'shmeh' drummers. And they are probably right.

My day was made though by the metal fan that yelled out between 'One Day as a Lion' numbers 'Play some real music' that relieved much tension and embarassment I had about hanging around white people. They just don't get it. Jon Theodore had a basic 5 piece drum set, made up Bonham style with one rack tom and two floors, and he just owned, schooled and fucked every other drummer there.

There is vernacular that you don't even need to describe the metal drummers - feel, groove, dance and perhaps even 'beat' but the key difference is this - the better the drummer the more you want to shift your weight from side to side in the audience and the less you want to jump directly straight up and down.

I don't want to make this a race thing, but the drummers at Good Vibes put the dance in the music, it's pretty easy to let all the Soundwave drummers wash over you impassively. Jon Theodore created so much space, this is something that now drummer of Primus Jay is pretty good at too, it is a pleasure to watch the Primus band members talk to eachother like jazz musicians through their instruments without ever losing the shape of the song. But Jay is a bit of a Tim Alexander replacement rather than having a distinct feel to him.

I no longer know where this post is going, it has become an ignorant persons discussion of drumming, but a glance at the post title tells me I should move on to the 'we'll always be friends' part.

There are metal bands that have plenty to offer, Tool and particularly Danny Carey on the drums has so much to offer and longevity as well I'm sure I will be listening to Aenima in my 50s. Sepultura with their Afro-Brazillian influences are great, again particularly for the distinctness of the drumming. Pantera tellingly are described as 'Groove-metal' and you can groove to it. Even Nu Metal can be appreciated with Irony like a bad sweater.

I will always have a fondness for metal, but like getting over an old love, you are never really aware of when it happens, but one day you just realise you don't occupy that same emotional space. I think this can only be a good commentary on my emotional constitution these days. I feel I am in no danger of being mistaken for a type 2 'Sad metal' fan, because thankfully I just can't relate to the insecurity in numbers. I lack the commitment and taste buds to be a type 1, but I don't begrudge them.

Iron Maiden were the headline at Soundwave and Iron Maiden were the crowd. I can't conclude that the crowd was in the same headspace as the band, but Iron Maiden are clearly happy guys that live securely in their own happy Iron Maiden world. They do wonderful things and you can tell are full of love for what they do and people in general. That's the kind of metal I can always be friends with, even if nothing about the band is easy on the eye - from the horrific artwork to the aged band members, they play face melters and they love it. They rock stadiums and they love it. They pack their elaborate sets into their own airplane and they love it. They love their fans, they love their sound, they love eachother.

I think that's what we all hope to achieve in life. But there are many different roads to get there, mine lies elsewhere.