The Tyranny of Tradition

The Falcon Can’t Hear The Falconer

(My brother-in-law BlaK Dan (or Zarathustra as he now likes to be called) has emerged from his cave in the mountains of North Georgia to eat a free meal at our house, scare my children with stories about Varg Vikernes and share his vision of how to save heavy metal from the forces of non-metalness.  My wife asks me, as a favor, to let him write for the site occasionally in order to feel “useful”)

Let’s face it folks, the heavy metal world is in crisis.  An invasion of hipsters, mall goths, meth-heads, beardos and garden variety morons have turned what was once a great scene into an embarrassment.  Things have gotten so bad, the other day I told a guy at a party that I listen to nothing but folk music and trip hop.  When you can’t turn on your television without seeing Ozzy Osborne’s wife hocking skin care products, when you hear the members of Savatage rocking out Christmas songs over the PA system at your local Wal-Mart, when 7/8s of the youth of America are unable to name a Metallica song besides “Enter Sandman”, when Iron Maiden spends the majority of their time writing 25 minute adult contemporary songs and selling craft beer…we are in deep trouble!

The center has not held.  Real heavy metal is dying a slow, painful death and it seems like there is nothing we can do to stop it.  Metal was once pure.  People wore their hair long, played loud and wore denim jackets with Venom patches on them.  But, those days are over.  At a metal show today, you are likely to see a nightmare panorama of Buddy Holly glasses, pink hair, iPhones, ear gauges, and Chelsea Grin shirts.

Some of this breakdown in heavy metal morality can be linked to environmental causes like radiation from the Fukushima meltdown and the widespread use of tetanus vaccinations.  However, the root cause of the deracination of true metal can be traced back to a much deeper, more profound issue.  That issue is genre mixing.

It started innocently enough.  A little bit of synth on an Iron Maiden album, Anthrax experimenting with hip hop, female vocalists fronting death metal bands, Slayer doing a punk album, Pantera… and all of a sudden we are in a vast wasteland of Deafhaven and pirate metal.  As we mosh our way into oblivion, it becomes more and more clear that desperate times call for desperate measures.  It seems unfashionable to talk about eugenics today in our politically correct world, but, the truth is, it is the only way to save metal from the dark, sinister forces of poseurness.

Subhumans

It is obvious to anyone who spends five minutes at a concert or on a metal message board that there is a hierarchy of metal fans.  At the bottom of the ladder are the Hot Topicafied kids who tried to furtively ditch their Justin Beiber loving image by showing up to school one day in an Asking Alexandria shirt.  They are the heavy metal Untouchables.  If they are wearing a “Ride The Lightning” shirt, chances are they think that is the name of the band.  At any moment, they could rediscover the Miley Cyrus album they considered throwing out a week ago and leave the scene altogether.  But, they probably won’t.

They are slightly lower on the metal food chain then the hipster metalhead.  If you’ve ever seen a dude quoting David Foster Wallace while wearing a Liturgy shirt, you probably know whom I’m talking about.  Bookish, frail and generally annoying, these creatures secretly long to find someone else in the scene that owns every Paul Westerberg solo album.

Slightly above them are the dim-witted, slumped shouldered, neckless, meth-addled Pantera/groove metal fans.  They randomly shout Slayer at inappropriate times and ramble on about how they wish they could beat up more of the people lower on the metal totem pole.  They are noisy, poorly groomed, have enormous craniums and take Cannibal Corpse extremely seriously.  Each of them secretly hope you think they are mass murderers, in spite of the fact that they have never done much worse than feed a hedgehog to their pet python.  All of these groups fall into the subhuman metal category.

Those Worthy of Being Spared

Above them, there are better types.  You have your old school Florida death metal types (Children of Chuck), your loony bird power metal fanatics (Middle Earthers), the veteran thrasheads who saw Exodus on the “Bonded By Blood” tour (Oldbangers), the Eurofabulous obscuritarian types who wander the earth fantasizing about being perceived as the next Wagner (known as Thomas G Warriors, this group was nearly wiped out by the release of Cold Lake) and many other breeds of slightly evolved metalheads.  They are certainly not perfect, especially when they want to tell you for the six hundredth time how great Overkill was before Rat Skates left, but they are mostly harmless if kept separate from the upper classes.

The Brahmans

There are two groups of true Brahmans in the metal world.  First of all, you have your proto-Nietzschean, back to Mother Earth, church burning, Necronomicon quoting black metal fans (Ubermenschians).  They must be pure of heart and eardrum, because only they can actually tell what is happening on an early Darkthrone album.  To the lower castes, it is simply noise.  To them, it is art.

Above them are the serious New Wave of British Heavy Metal people (Metal Kings).  They get the Judas Priest album “Rocka Rolla” at both an artistic and spiritual level.  They can recite, from memory, every Diamond Head lyric.  They’ll never forget where they were the day Dennis Stratton left Iron Maiden.  These are the folks Manowar are really talking about.

The Problem

Were all metalheads to simply stay to themselves and not attempt contact with these other groups, things would probably be okay.  But, there has been a mixing of the castes over the past decade.  Oldbangers have bred with hipsters, Children of Chuck have mixed DNA with Panterites, Ubermenschians have mated with Thomas G Warriors, Metal Kings have blended with Hot Topicers, on and on South of Heaven.  Nowadays most of these metalheads openly admit to listening to other genres and even brag about associating with the lower and upper classes.  It’s gotten so that almost no one is pure anymore.

This is where eugenics come in (or UGH!genics, to the Thomas G Warriors).  The metal community needs to step in and enforce a series of measures designed to keep these groups from diluting the metal in the blood of the best of us.  Otherwise, all will be lost.

The Solution

Step #1:  Mandatory Sterilization of All Pantera Fans

These people tend to breed like rabbits.  The average Pantera fan has 9.71 children.  At this rate, by the year 2030, there will be more Pantera fans than people in Australia, Asia, Europe and South America combined.  Pantera genes tend to dominate all other metal genes, so the child of a Panterite and a Metal King will invariably become a Cowboy From Hell.  When they begin mixing with other metal fans, the possibility for a “Pantera Population Bomb” where the metal world is only able to support bands that sound like Pantera becomes a very real possibility

Step #2:  Deport All of The Lower Metal Classes to Greenland

Here’s how you do it.  You build a really big boat.  You promise most of them that Metallica will be playing a concert in Greenland where they will do nothing but songs from Kill’em All.  You’ll have to explain why this is significant to the Hot Topicers, as they will probably wonder if that means they will play “Until It Sleeps”.  Drop them off in Greenland and get out as fast as possible.  Occasionally, you can air drop the things they need to survive to them (copies of Spin Magazine for the hipsters, raw meat for the Panterites, and A Day To Remember hoodies for the Hot Topicers).

Step #3 Use Science To Create a Perfect Heavy Metal Being

The human race has yet to evolve to a point where we can scientifically generate perfect beings, but we have to prepare for a day when this is possible.  We must make an effort to collect all the DNA from people who purchased the first two Maiden albums on vinyl before 1983 and still have them in pristine condition.  We will use that DNA to one day create a Metal Messiah.  This Metal Messiah will destroy all those who have false metal blood and lift all those pure in thought and gene to their rightful place as masters of the lower animals.  And then, we won’t have to talk to them anymore.