Posts tagged Slayer

Photo 2
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Posted 1 year ago
“God is dead. I am alive.” - Slayer. Zoom

“God is dead. I am alive.” - Slayer.

Video 5
Notes
Posted 1 year ago

A quickish, bloggish rant on why young kids suck, Slayer rules, and how witnessing things in real time colors your reality differently versus a reading a wikipedia blurb about said events.

Slayer - Raining Blood (Live Sofia - Big Four Concert)

3 things I cherish about this perfomance.

  1. 36 Marshall Cabs creating a wall of eerie, terrifying feedback.
  2. The Smile on Tom Araya’s face when 80,000 people dig into their most famous riff.
  3. Dave. Motherfucking. Lombardo.

A lot of my younger metal friends hate Slayer. They think Slayer sucks. Most people aren’t, by nature, going to be Slayer fans. I don’t know any female Slayer fans personally. Slayer is not a band I would put on if I was trying to woo a lady.

They are associated with dirtbags and weirdos. Funny, almost all metal is tied to that stereotype. I’m not a dirtbag or a weirdo. I’m not a criminal or a junkie. I appreciate the technical prowess, ability, dexterity, and the speed of the music. The classical overtones. Bach and Mozart would most likely listen to metal. I’m sure they’d love Jazz as well, but this is much closer to their style.

I love all kinds of music but metal is my soul music. Interpret that any way you wish. I feel no need to tell these snot-nosed punks they should like Slayer. People like what people like. There is no changing that. I wouldn’t want to change that.

But these kids that hate on Slayer need to realize/recognize/respect how far they helped push the envelope. How many other bands they inspired to play faster, to play better, to explore darker imagery.

It’s easy to be cavalier when Slayer was already around for 20 years when you turned 14. But I was fourteen when they popped up with some national presence. If any of my asshole friends (whom I love dearly) had actually BEEN there, they might see it differently. I know Slayer’s importance. I know what they’ve done.

I watched it happen real time. I saw them crucified by televangelists and politicians on the stump for being ‘satanic’ and ‘evil’. Old white men trying to terrify grandmothers out of their saving or their votes. They were a much-cited act by shitty conservatives who created the PMRC, which resulted in pre-emptive censorship by affixing warning labels onto music.

Funny how EVERY FUCKING GENERATION of “do-gooder” fails to realize the second you make something taboo, the more you demonize it, that everybody that ISN’T like you gravitates to it, embraces it, and makes it more popular and successful than it would ever have been if your dumbass had just left it alone. That’s because these people are self-absorbed idiots that can’t see past their own agenda. Serves them right for being arrogant enough to think they know whats’ best for everyone in the first place. 

To this day, I still think Tipper Gore is an enemy of free speech and a horrible cunt to boot. I wish her the worst for attempting to impose her morality on the land of the free.

That’s the negative. The positive is I’ve seen their influence spread to (and ripped off by) by other bands for the last 25 years. Music inspires other musicians. It inspires other art. That art may not be for you, but it makes other people happy. That’s worthy of respect.

This all sounds like ‘Old Man Speak’. It is. I’m fucking old. And when you get old and younger kids try to devalue what people you consider pioneers have done, you best stand up to them, push back, and call them ignorant. Not stupid, just ignorant.

You don’t have to try to change their minds, but if you don’t stand up for your idols, then you’re either a coward or your idols aren’t worth standing up for.

One final note: Dave. Motherfucking. Lombardo.

Video 2
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Posted 1 year ago

This is easily, easily, one of my favorite internet videos ever, but at the same it makes me angry. The only reason it makes me angry is that I didn’t think of it first.