My Dad Said It Was Rubbish

With thanks to fellow blogger Gareth Saunders for bringing this to my attention. My journey with Metallica started about the same time. They celebrate 30 years making music this year. This blogger congratulates them, thanks them, and hopes they come to the UK again soon!

If you don't like Metallica, this probably isn't for you! (some language too, be warned)

Rock on

You Know You Are Tired When ...

This morning, I had need to visit the tip (dump, place to discard ones unwanted detritus). So, I loaded the car with a whole manner of bags and dead things turned on my music and drove off. Excellent. It was not yet 9am, so a productive day was in the offing. 

Well, the thing is, the music got too loud even for my grunt-like tastes, so I turned it down. The windows of the car were open for two reasons - first, because it is muggy and warm, and the second being the irrational sense that if I have brought a spider in with me, it will cast itself out of the window and not climb on me. With the windows open, vile obnoxious heavy metal is perhaps a little much when it spews forth from  passing car, and I am a decent sort of man. So I turned the music down, as any nice person would.

Only when I turned the knob, the volume remained at the 7000 decibels that it was currently enjoying. I turned the volume button again - nothing. The next song was due any moment and to the best of my failing knowledge, had some rude words (like such music does from time to time) and as a familiar face, really needed the din to not be detected by the lovely folk of Aylesbury. But the volume would not turn down.

So I whacked the button to silence Mr Zombie before his next phase of invective - but to no avail. He had possessed my stereo for it didn't fall silent. Not good; not good at all. So, I hurriedly pulled over so I could sort this issue out. Add to this the ever present stress of advancing spiders, and you might imagine that I was in a little bit of a tizzy.

Well, push the button as I might, over and over, the bawling American bawled and the Axe-wielding geezer wielded on. The music would not stop. The lights did as I wanted when the buttons were pressed - they flicked on and they flicked off. So what was I doing wrong? I bent down to look at the fuses to see if an issue existed there, but they all look alike to me, so I abandoned that notion. I turned off the engine and removed the key - still no silence. I began the curse this four-piece rock combo.

What to do? The key was out of the ignition, the button on the stereo refused to work, the caterwauling crooner was getting more and more irate and his lyrics reflected that fact. The spiders were coming, and I needed to get the car back so that Mrs Acular and Twins Aculae could toddle off and see friends. I was going to make them late ... 

Until it occurred to me that I was wearing my iPod and the music was courtesy of my nice earphones.  

My Favourite Song at the Moment

 

This video is of the song I like to listen to most at the moment. I put it here because it is my blog and some Christians (and some priests) like this music. It is a large part of who I am, and this a gift for them.

What is more, this montage of clips was partly filmed at the London O2 when I watching. I am one of those fans, though so far to the front, you'd never spot me!

For those who are unfamiliar withe the genre of Heavy Metal, this is a fine band and one of its finest songs. Enjoy (or try to, but it won't kill you)

Metal Head

The place of 'Heavy Metal' music in the lives of Christians has crept up the agenda a little more recently - though I doubt it will ever overtake the Papal visit. 

For many, Heavy Metal is the work of one Mr Lou C. Ferr, and in truth, its symbology does little to dissuade that viewed. It is often a genre of music that appears to be followed by the oily and lank-haired breeds who seek comfort from their leather jimmie-jams and and spider-web tats cast artfully across their acne-scarred visages. They wear jeans which are so tight they promote herniae; their ankles seem to be of a magnetic order that they can only exist poles apart, thus causing the legs of the 'Metal Head' to be forces to a perpetual inverse 'v', with each legged concluded as it is by scuffed boots with more buckles and straps that a clergy away-day!

'Bloody Noise', my dad called it. 'Awful Racket', Mrs Acular says. 'Why are they shouting', the Twins Aculae enquire. But they are mistaken, all of them.

For those of you unfamiliar with the breed, 'Heavy Metal' is something of a British invention, spawned of the likes of Ozzie Osbourne and Tony Iommi that then spread to America and brought to genesis the likes of Metallica and then onto splintered genres [Nu-Metal, Death Metal, Glam etc] which all have their own sound. In essence, these bands comprise one or more electric guitars, bass, drums (often double-pedalled for machine gun speed), and a lead singer who growls. Put another way, Metallists are musicians, often classically trained in their instrument, but nonetheless experts. Their music attends to subject matters that the fluffy popsters tend to avoid. 

I have, I think, all the albums of Metallica and many of their tracks deal with a struggle with God and the pain that some human activity can bring to being. The lyrics often speak of struggling on in the face of the odds - and very often the struggle with evil. There are some very noble songs. Another group I like to listen to, System of a Down (since disbanded, sadly), write songs about justice and the horror of war and its machinery. 

In short, these are musicians who deal with some of the spectres that live in all of us. I love classical music and with that I find this to be very compatible. Yes, the genre is loud and often angry, and it is often sweary and growly - but if you can get under the facade you can hear some poignant sentiments. Give me a moment of Metal music to a lifetime of plastic pap that Mr Cowell engenders. I would rather a moment of 'The Judas Kiss' than a year of 'My Baby-boo Is My Cootchy Coo' - bleh!