I was gonna make a point about commitment, comics & metal bands
...but it got lost, so I cut the metal band part. But, waste not want not, so here you go:
One of the greatest record stores in the Midwest was Sal's Record Emporium here in Iowa City, especially if you're into alt-country. Sal's the only real casualty of file-sharing that I know of, as Madonna has yet to starve to death. Anyways, Sal's observation about metal bands has always stuck with me: metal bands never ever give up. Every now and then I'll skim the metal stacks and be startled to find that Savatage is still at it (I still have my "Hall of the Mountain King" disc, but alas, no extant pics of my 80s mullet), or Testament, or hell almost all of them. Some are pretty dodgy at this point (Warrant with a haircut is still Warrant. Sorry.), but if you like Savatage, there's more Savatage for ya.
There are plenty of folks toiling in obscurity looking for validation. Validation automatically elevates you past some dutch hair metal band trying to pass for System of a Down, right? Maybe they get validated too, though; maybe there's a stadium full of Japanese on pins and needles waiting for them to return, or a Belgian DJ making room in his schedule for a chat with them, or a rural Classic Rock station desperate to figure out how to get them to shout "We're Hammerhand, and you're listening to 94.1 KRNA, Home of der Rock! Ja!" into the phone for them.
But is it true that all metal bands have this ethic? Nope. For every Savatage there's a Realm, a Scarlett O'Hara, a Warrant (you didn't hear?), and many many more that did give up. But we don't remember the vast majority of metal bands who were on and off the radar. For every band that got a minute (:53 seconds actually) of attention for their speed-metal ELEANOR RIGBY cover, there's plenty who got less. It's just that the ones that got our attention are keepin' on keepin' on. They got their dose of validation, and they're aching to reclaim it. Some stay for the "art" of metal, but metal is a strictly technical genre of music. It's a lot more complicated than it sounds or looks to do well, but it's a very narrow genre.
So this has something to do with comics? Sorta.
The rest I wrote after "sorta" is tomorrow's candlelightpress.net entry. The point ended up in my mind being more about metal than comics, so snip!
One of the greatest record stores in the Midwest was Sal's Record Emporium here in Iowa City, especially if you're into alt-country. Sal's the only real casualty of file-sharing that I know of, as Madonna has yet to starve to death. Anyways, Sal's observation about metal bands has always stuck with me: metal bands never ever give up. Every now and then I'll skim the metal stacks and be startled to find that Savatage is still at it (I still have my "Hall of the Mountain King" disc, but alas, no extant pics of my 80s mullet), or Testament, or hell almost all of them. Some are pretty dodgy at this point (Warrant with a haircut is still Warrant. Sorry.), but if you like Savatage, there's more Savatage for ya.
There are plenty of folks toiling in obscurity looking for validation. Validation automatically elevates you past some dutch hair metal band trying to pass for System of a Down, right? Maybe they get validated too, though; maybe there's a stadium full of Japanese on pins and needles waiting for them to return, or a Belgian DJ making room in his schedule for a chat with them, or a rural Classic Rock station desperate to figure out how to get them to shout "We're Hammerhand, and you're listening to 94.1 KRNA, Home of der Rock! Ja!" into the phone for them.
But is it true that all metal bands have this ethic? Nope. For every Savatage there's a Realm, a Scarlett O'Hara, a Warrant (you didn't hear?), and many many more that did give up. But we don't remember the vast majority of metal bands who were on and off the radar. For every band that got a minute (:53 seconds actually) of attention for their speed-metal ELEANOR RIGBY cover, there's plenty who got less. It's just that the ones that got our attention are keepin' on keepin' on. They got their dose of validation, and they're aching to reclaim it. Some stay for the "art" of metal, but metal is a strictly technical genre of music. It's a lot more complicated than it sounds or looks to do well, but it's a very narrow genre.
So this has something to do with comics? Sorta.
The rest I wrote after "sorta" is tomorrow's candlelightpress.net entry. The point ended up in my mind being more about metal than comics, so snip!
posted by John Ira Thomas at 8:17 AM
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