Spring Break
Turn that frown upside-down
by Daniel D. Snyder
Associate Editor
Arts | 2/5/08
Posted online at 11:42 PM EST on 2/4/08
Generic Metal Band 101 meets for its album photo shoot:
Norman Shrillcream: Dude! Where the f- is Stanley!?!
Yertle Powerchord: F-ed if I know man. I'm f-ing freezing out here.
Jan Solo: These woods are scary dude.
Francis Bangcan: My mom packed me an extra pair of socks and a flashlight. You want them?
Yertle Powerchord: No, goddammit!
Norman Shrillcream: I dunno, man. You better take those socks. Francis' mom is kinda cute.
Jan and Norman: HAIL FRANCIS' MOM!
Stanley Toolow: Hey guys! Sorry, it took me forever to find you out here.
Yertle Powerchord: What the f-, Stanley! We left you a map in your locker!
Stanley Toolow: It's a goddamn napkin that has "Meet us in the Woods of Despair" painted on it! In f-ing whiteout!
Everyone: HAIL THE NAPKIN OF DESPAIR!
First, I'd like to thank the cartoon Metalocalypse as the inspiration for this little sketch. Second, I'd like to point out that scenarios like this are unfortunately common.
Maybe they're less ridiculous, but not by much. I'm not sure when it happened exactly, but somewhere around 1990, a memo must have gone out to 90 percent of the world's Metal bands dictating that smiling in promo photos and in fact any semblance of fun in either image or sound was to be punished by death.
You think I'm kidding? Just ask Varg Vikernes, a former member of the Black Metal band Mayhem, who stabbed his band mate Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth to death in 1993 after a series of disagreements within Norway's famed Black Metal Inner Circle. Apparently Vikernes still had something to prove, despite having burned down several churches the year before.
Now believe it or not, before Metal got all hot and bothered, it was just good ol' fashioned Heavy Metal: Soundtrack for a good time. Even bands like Mercyful Fate (It's not a typo, they're just Danish), the evillest of them all back in the early '80s, were willing to inject plenty of uplifting chord progressions and groovy, danceable riffs. In fact, by today's standards, classic Fate albums like Melissa and Don't Break The Oath sound like hard rock with a wailing singer and over-the-top guitar solos. Even with the cornball Satanic lyrics, the evil facepaint and the skeletons on stage, they still sounded like they were having a good time. This attitude seems lost on the current generation, which is apparently locked in a faster/heavier/grimmer/eviller/more technical-than-thou arms race.
Norman Shrillcream: Dude! Where the f- is Stanley!?!
Yertle Powerchord: F-ed if I know man. I'm f-ing freezing out here.
Jan Solo: These woods are scary dude.
Francis Bangcan: My mom packed me an extra pair of socks and a flashlight. You want them?
Yertle Powerchord: No, goddammit!
Norman Shrillcream: I dunno, man. You better take those socks. Francis' mom is kinda cute.
Jan and Norman: HAIL FRANCIS' MOM!
Stanley Toolow: Hey guys! Sorry, it took me forever to find you out here.
Yertle Powerchord: What the f-, Stanley! We left you a map in your locker!
Stanley Toolow: It's a goddamn napkin that has "Meet us in the Woods of Despair" painted on it! In f-ing whiteout!
Everyone: HAIL THE NAPKIN OF DESPAIR!
First, I'd like to thank the cartoon Metalocalypse as the inspiration for this little sketch. Second, I'd like to point out that scenarios like this are unfortunately common.
Maybe they're less ridiculous, but not by much. I'm not sure when it happened exactly, but somewhere around 1990, a memo must have gone out to 90 percent of the world's Metal bands dictating that smiling in promo photos and in fact any semblance of fun in either image or sound was to be punished by death.
You think I'm kidding? Just ask Varg Vikernes, a former member of the Black Metal band Mayhem, who stabbed his band mate Øystein "Euronymous" Aarseth to death in 1993 after a series of disagreements within Norway's famed Black Metal Inner Circle. Apparently Vikernes still had something to prove, despite having burned down several churches the year before.
Now believe it or not, before Metal got all hot and bothered, it was just good ol' fashioned Heavy Metal: Soundtrack for a good time. Even bands like Mercyful Fate (It's not a typo, they're just Danish), the evillest of them all back in the early '80s, were willing to inject plenty of uplifting chord progressions and groovy, danceable riffs. In fact, by today's standards, classic Fate albums like Melissa and Don't Break The Oath sound like hard rock with a wailing singer and over-the-top guitar solos. Even with the cornball Satanic lyrics, the evil facepaint and the skeletons on stage, they still sounded like they were having a good time. This attitude seems lost on the current generation, which is apparently locked in a faster/heavier/grimmer/eviller/more technical-than-thou arms race.
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