Toadcast #91 – The Metalcast
Well the Funkcast was probably about as gentle a ‘tell me about this genre’ podcast as you’re likely to get. This, on the other hand, is not gentle. I suppose it was never likely to be – there’s only so gentle an introduction you can give to this kind of music.
Basically, I was becoming increasingly curious about the number of alt-folkies I know who come from heavy metal backgrounds. Loads of my friends here who I know because we all listen to indie rock or alternative folk or all sorts of things inbetween seem to have been really into metal when they were young. This doesn’t entirely make sense to me because I see very little connection between the two kinds of music, and for so many people to have made that transition it must be a strong connection.
Then, of course, it turns out that loads of people whose music I listen to – alt-folk, once again – also grew up listening to metal. The Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle, Phil Elverum of Mount Eerie and, more locally, Dan from Withered Hand and Neil from Meursault. So, having been round at the house doing artwork for their single releases I asked the Neil and Chris from Meursault and Matthew who helps out with the label to put together a metal podcast. It might not be quite as pleasant to cook your bacon sandwiches to on Sunday afternoon, but erm, well I never made any promises with these bloody podcasts anyway – just deal with it, we’ll probably be back to the alt-folk next week.
Toadcast #91 – The Metalcast
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01. Half Man Half Biscuit – Vatican Broadside (0.00)
02. Withered Hand – Takeaway Food (05.03)
03. AC/DC – Whole Lotta Rosie (13.17)
04. Slayer – Jesus Saves (17.25)
05. Mount Eerie – Wind’s Dark Poem (24.21)
06. Nirvana – School (35.13)
07. Dinosaur Jr. – On the Way (37.50)
08. Lightning Bolt – Ride the Sky (42.59)
09. Richard Cheese – Rape Me (47.47)
10. Children of Bodom – The Trooper (53.50)
11. Meshuggah – Autonomy Lost (57.05)
12. The Mountain Goats – No Children (62.01)
13. Anal Cunt – You’re Old (Fuck You) (73.27)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InZNBcJTmWs
First album I ever bought was AC/DC’s the Razor’s Edge.
ANOTHER ONE!
What’s wrong with you people?
The metal > alt folk migration makes perfect sense to me. After a youth spent listening to large scary men screaming over six drummers and a sadist torturing a guitar, wouldn’t you want to listen to something that doesn’t make your ears bleed?
Hi. My name’s Chris and I was a teenage metalhead. I guess I was an awkward kid who didn’t fit in so naturally gravitated towards sounds that didn’t fit in either. As time passed, my listening habits got a bit more extreme as yer Maidens and yer Metallicas gave way to yer Napalms and yer Obituarys and yer Cannibal Corpses (“Entrails Ripped From A Virgin’s Cunt” anyone?)
And then I saw Nirvana on The Word. And it was that much of a Year Zero moment that I went out and bought Nevermind the next day (on tape from Sleeves Records in Kirkcaldy). And I fucking loved it and consumed it to such an extent that as I started to grow up a bit open myself up to other sounds then the progression started. It’s an easy leap to go from Nirvana/Mudhoney/Soundgarden to Sonic Youth or Fugazi and onto Yo La Tengo or Tortoise onto The Sea And Cake and more alt-country sounds like Lambchop and so on and so on. It was pretty natural, you read something or a pal tells you that “well, if you like “x” then have a listen to “y”" and things begin to fall into place.
I still listen to metal today though, I love bands like High On Fire or Converge and there’ll always be a place for the older, classic stuff. I saw AC/DC in the summer and it was one of the best gigs I’ve ever been to (tho, they’re not a metal band, more loud bluesy rock) – you can’t beat a bit of showmanship and musicianship if you ask me.
I dunno, I’m rambling now. I just like a good bit of noise from time to time, and that can be Lightning Bolt or Pissed Jeans or Big Business or Oxbow or Boris or even Nuclear Assault and Slayer (who I’m going to see in November. Can’t fucking wait!) And then I’ll listen to My Kappa Roots right after. There’s no guilty pleasures, there’s either music you like, music you don’t or music you haven’t heard and I’m pretty happy with the music I like.
Nice podcast btw. That Mount Eerie track was fantastic.
fuck anything i ever said about any of you, i’m running off with Chris
Is that all it takes, Tart? A power chord & distressed denim?
Very tight distressed denim, DC.
Heavy Metal bands get all the best names.
I believe the term on the tag matthew was ‘spray in denim’.
or man spandex
i really didn’t mean that
i meant on
i really did
I don’t think I was that into metal. I listened to Rage, I dabbled in Korn but I was mainly into Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden and all those grungey bands from the States.
Me too, Euan. I never got into, nor was that tempted by metal. But then, I tended to express any rage on the football pitch, not that I was all that angry at that age anyway.
Mandex.
I’ve never dabbled in Korn, have I missed out on anything?..
nope
The first Korn album is pretty good. The others may be as well but I was no longer 14 when they came out so didn’t buy them. I still listen to that first one every so often though, but found I on the whole, as I grew up metal just didn’t quite seem as hard as it should. For me something really heavy has to be a bit loose as well. Most metal seems too clinical and produced, when I want it to sound like gluey porch treatments, or early Swans.
if you want heavy then go see the fuck buttons live. that wrecked my ears for days!
the first Korn single – Blind – is awesome, everything else just seemed a little overwrought.
Corrosion of Conformity loose and heavy
im afraid the bronx and modest mouse are about as heavy as get these days.
I tried gents. I really did try but Heavy Metal, or at least the stuff I’ve heard, leaves me so cold. So, so cold.
I will probably attract howls of derision and despair for saying as much here, but one of the best uses of a Heavy Metal song was when the BBC’s Top Gear show pitched a Lotus Exige against an Apache helicopter gunship, all to the dulcit tones of Motorhead’s Ace Of Spades.
I mean, have a look and tell me honestly it has no entertainment value whatsoever..
It’s a classic bit of television..
Does Ace of Spades count as heavy metal?
I don’t know all the subgenres, but it would probably be considered in the broadest church of metal, wouldn’t it?.
Weren’t Motorhead credited with inventing, or at least trailblazing, a new subgenre of metal when they started out?
From their Wikipedia article:
Motörhead are typically classified as heavy metal, speed metal or thrash metal (and often regarded as a foundational influence on the latter two styles), Lemmy dislikes such labels, preferring to describe the band’s music simply as “rock n’ roll”.
Who am I to argue with Lemmy?
Yup I’ve seen Motorhead and they most definitely count…..only Mogwai scared my ears more. Oh that brought a horrid thought back about Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, now that’s one scary bunch of dudes.
oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh…
I found the Mighty Boosh photo!
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c224/electrified_and_cherry_red/ep7_3.jpg
“Does Ace of Spades count as heavy metal?”
Fucking hell, Toad. Seriously, step away from the Marshall amp & stick with what you know.
This kind of bullshit conversation is genuinely pointless & does nothing but expose the limitations of age & experience.
My advice is: if you know nothing about whatever it is you don’t know whether you should have an opinion about or not, keep quiet & go play in the back garden. You’ve been stuck in front of that fucking computer all day & you’re beginning to wilt. It’s sunny out & you might make some friends.
it’s simple. you can do it with ven diagrams. there’s a distinct overlap at the weirder edges of folk and noise and metal. and the toaty bit in the middle’s where we all meet.
oh and i never thought i see mention of early swans on here…
DC, whilst your fuckwitted comments are always appreciated around here, either you’ve made that one without bothering to listen to the podcast or you’re just a stupid prick.
This podcast was done with three genuine (or two genuine and one somewhat lapsed) metal fans in the room. Why the hell would I try and do a metal podcast based only on my barely existent awareness of the genre? That would be utterly pointless.
Instead what I’ve done is get three people who like metal, but whose music taste overlaps quite considerably with mine, to try and do a few things:
Firstly, to explain what the overlapping and non-overlapping parts have in common so I can see what they’re getting out of a genre that I don’t really understand.
Secondly, to see what music on the fringes of both (Mount Eerie, for example) might be able to help me enjoy something from a genre I don’t really get at the moment – the gateway drug’ mentioned in the podcast, basically.
Thirdly, to play some of the more interesting stuff and avoid writing off a whole genre based on its commercial face – the equivalent of saying that Keane are pussies and Kasabian are cocks therefore indie is shit.
And acutally, although some of it I didn’t like at all, there are definitely large chunks of the songs they played which I really enjoyed, so actually as a music fan I personally did indeed get something out of it. Hopefully the bulk of my listeners did too.
The other option is to develop more and more tunnel vision and simply churn out an hour of alt-folk+swearing every fucking week which would bore me to tears, quite frankly.
Oh, and the question about Ace of Spades was simple: it is really rather tuneful and melodic for a metal song, and fans do have a habit of disowning the songs in their particular genre which absolutely everyone else seems to like as well. That’s all that question was.
So if that’s all pointless bullshit, you can fuck off and listen to another slightly pretty-sounding woman singing mellow songs with shades of jazz, folk and country about them and masturbate yourself senseless as you do so by deluding yourself that she might just be drunk or bored enough to shag you one day.
The warmth between you 2 makes me smile…..
Well honestly, what sort of a thing was that to say?
Red Rag
my favourite metal moment of the year, last track on Brakes album, and the fact that what DC said was always going to be.
What do you mean, that someone was always going to get weird about me stepping outside my comfort zone for a week?
Pretty much so. If you ask so many people to step outside with you, there’s always going to be one non smoker who doesn’t like the rain and the cold. That’s a bollox ex smoker line but you get the idea.
for what it’s worth I enjoyed the podcast and it’s good to keep challenging jangly indie folk music will damage your brain eventually. Talking of which didn’t you get a copy of The Young Republics new album, that’s way outside the box. Ambitious I’d say.
You may have no idea what you are talking about but it certainly wasn’t dull….cheers
Well I never pretended to have any idea what I was talking about, that was kind of the point, and also why I asked so many stupid questions.
Anyhow, I’ve only heard the unmastered YR album, but I really liked it. Definitely a big step on from the last.
Come on, DC’s been on his own Stateside for a while now, give him a break.
He just needs the caress of a good woman!
I just actually watched that Top Gear clip I linked to earlier, and it’s not right, I do apologise.
The original film had a good few minutes of a squealing Lotus sports car, a swooping helicopter gunship and a blistering rock song.
That clip has edited-out all but around thirty seconds of the good bit, and left decade after decade of the dull bumpf about torques and horsepowers in. (Imagine the bit from 5:06 to 5:38 running like that for three or four minutes instead of just 32 seconds)
Sorry about that.
And I can’t find the full version anywhere on the web, even on Top Gear’s own site.
How odd.
All that stuff about engine performance when what the public really wants is metal, sports cars and helicopters. Joyriding for the middle-aged, basically.
And Clarkson thought it was all about him.
It is all about Clackson. If they put someone young and healthy fellow with good hair in that job they would alienate their viewers. Stick a fat, thoughtless turd in the drivers seat and people who own sports cars don’t feel like such utter twats.
And I agree with DC. If you don’t know anything about a certain musical genre what you must not do, ever, is sit down with some friends who like it and give it a try. People would be much better served by trying fewer things and listening to fewer opinions. That’s why I’m voting BNP. Now, I see there’s a new post up and I’m off to read it.
I’ve said to myself a thousand times over the past 24 hours to just stay out of this, but when do I ever take anyone’s good advice eh?
Yes, everyone here pokes fun at everyone else’s musical taste and knowledge. But the below the belt hits really are my territory, no?
Don’t make me choose who to mouth off at first, xoxxo