Episode #4 - 3/26/10

Jesse's out of town this week for Spring Break, so I thought I might take this opportunity to play a setlist that I've had in my back pocket for some time. The list is, in a way, about the history of Heavy Metal. Or perhaps more appropriately, about the stigma surrounding heavy metal. This week's setlist is about suicide. That and the relationship that heavy metal music and specifically the stigma surrounding heavy metal have with self-destruction. Indeed, of the songs on the list, only a few actually concern suicide directly. The rest either use suicide as a (perhaps reductive) metaphor for a number of things (war, religion, life, death, substance abuse), describe historical events (e.g Jonestown cult), and/or actually are only commonly mistaken for having anything to do with suicide whatsoever. That this last category exists has been the greatest instrument in the creation of metal's dangerous stigma. Indeed, the Ozzy and Priest songs were both subject to landmark court cases in which case the "offending" artists were respectively sued for responsibility of the suicides of young men. Much as the PMRC's insistence that metal and hard rock were corrupting America's youth led to the Explicit Lyrics stickers that have so accelerated record sales, heavy metal music, despite its naturally dark atmosphere and serious content, has gained most of its reputation from those ignorant enough to label it as such. Metal was never Satanic before the religious said it was.

Metal music's content tends more towards both the philosophical and the vulgar than much of today's mainstream music, but I think for the most part, the genre's best work gravitates around the former. Perhaps this has greatly to do with metal's attitude of "no boundaries", "pushing the envelope", and about connecting with listeners in a very deep, personal way, particularly with the uglier sides of life. Hence, much metal is about struggle, life, death, war, hatred, religion, blasphemy, and any number of topics, simply because they're deeply important, deeply connecting elements of the human race and merit discussion. I could go on about how the "metal
concert" is akin to the primal human gathering and is, in itself, a great release for its listeners, through moshing, crowd-surfing, motion, or simply reveling in a unity of spirit (and admittedly, I just did), but this might distract from today's theme.

The following are all excellent songs (Spooky Tooth aside), but you won't find suicide among them outside of metaphor, misattribution, or hyperbolic extension.

Opening Sample from Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire"
In Flames - Take This Life

Ozzy Osbourne - Suicide Solution
Judas Priest - Better By You, Better Than Me (Spooky Tooth cover)

Megadeth - A Tout Le Monde
Pain - Suicide Machine (Cut short by technical difficulties)

Sentenced - The Suicider
Sentenced - Excuse Me While I Kill Myself

Metallica - One

Black Label Society - Suicide Messiah
Nightmare - Battleground for Suicide

Manowar - Guyana (Cult of the Damned)

This show is archived for your perusal/amusement/deal-with-it at:
http://wmbr.org/m3u/Heavy_FM_20100326_0200.m3u

As always, archives are located here:
http://wmbr.mit.edu/cgi-bin/arch

Nightmare #3 - 3/19/10

Good to be back from the trip to DC. Megadeth/Testament show was incredible, despite being congested all to hell and generally unable to bang my head without much discomfort (you heard me). Tour was an anniversary celebrating the release of Rust in Peace in 1990 and The Legacy in 1987, by the respective bands, or at the very least a well-executed "Oh shit, we just got ready to go on tour with Slayer, but Tom Araya blew out his spine and had surgery, what the hell do we do now?" circuit of slightly smaller venues of North America (sans New England, hence the trouble).

Having everyone in a place half the size of the Avalon scream out

IF THERE'S A NEW WAY!
I'LL BE THE FIRST IN LINE!
BUT IT BETTER WORK THIS TIME!

is almost humbling if you weren't also a part of the thing.

We brought some of that aggression to the airwaves tonight in a heavy-hitting salvo of metal for you. It looked like this:

Prong - Whose Fist Is This Anyway?

Sentenced - Vengeance is Mine
Symphony X - Domination

In Flames - Land of Confusion (Genesis cover)
Ozzy Osbourne - Trap Door

Testament - Alone in the Dark
Megadeth - 44 Minutes

Van Canto - Battery (Metallica cover)
Primal Fear - Church of Blood
Dark Tranquillity - Monochromatic Stains

Manowar - Fight Until We Die

This show is archived for your perusal/amusement/deal-with-it at:
   http://wmbr.org/m3u/Heavy_FM_20100319_0200.m3u

As always, archives are located here:
   http://wmbr.mit.edu/cgi-bin/arch

"It's funny playing this album 20 years after I wrote it, in the city that I aimed it at. No offense to any of you, of course. Or to anyone in our government who is a patriot.

Vote for me, and you'll have at least one, motherfuckers!
  <Holy Wars... The Punishment Due>" - Dave Mustaine, DC, 3/15/10

Nightmare #1 - 3/4/10

A bit late, but that's my fault. I am a delinquent webmaster. I am a much better metalhead. Here's the playlist for our first show under the new flag:

Manowar - The Gods Made Heavy Metal
   *Hello, World!*
Sabaton - 40:1
Ozzy Osbourne - Mr. Crowley
Fear Factory - Demanufacture
   *wank*
Luna Mortis - Ash
Blind Guardian - Imaginations From The Other Side
   *wank*
Pain - Shut Your Mouth
Megadeth - Addicted to Chaos
   *wank*
Lordi - Raise Hell in Heaven
Iced Earth - Brainwashed
Blind Guardian - I'm Alive
   Sometimes I don't remember to take out the CD. Whoops, more Germans.
   *signoff*
Arch Enemy - Silent Wars

You can find an archive of the show at:
   http://wmbr.org/m3u/Heavy_FM_20100305_0200.m3u
and archives of our last few shows more generally at:
   http://wmbr.mit.edu/cgi-bin/arch
under "HeavyFM" (or "Heavy_FM", as they seem to insist on calling us...)

"I'm in a heavy metal-powered world
That's my way to be"
   - Iron Savior