Standing in defence of that which I love

"In 1986 something strange happened. Metal became the biggest, most popular music in the world. And everywhere you looked, kids were growing their hair long and flashing the devil horn sign and playing air guitar.

But not everyone loved it. Critics thought it was unsophisticated music for unsophisticated people. One writer went as far as calling it “sick, repulsive, horrible and dangerous”. Heavy Metal was the moral panic of the day. And Metal fans were considered low lives, dead-end kids - the bane of society. This music has millions of passionate fans worldwide. Yet for 35 years it’s been constantly critisised…” Sam Dunn, Director of, Metal – A Headbangers journey (2005)

The first time I watched this DVD (yes, I’ve watched it a few times since) it blew me out of the water.

I was, and still am, so used to defending the music I love to people who do not understand it and only see defunct, non-productive, scum-sucking youth in their leather clad outfits banging their heads to a cacophony of machinegun drums and distorted guitars. This post is aimed at those people.

People grossly underestimate the average Metal fan, believing that we cannot construct a sentence or speak English fluently. Little do they know that we run multi-million Dollar, independent record labels, we run print media in the form of magazines and newsletters. We operate web pages and fan sites that receive more hits than some of the popular websites you may know. We are intelligent, well educated, well spoken people that are being judged solely by the music we listen to. Researchers surveyed 1,057 members of the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (USA) - a body whose 120,000 student members are within the top five per cent academically in the 11-19 age range found that, far from being a sign of delinquency and poor academic ability, many adolescent "metalheads" are extremely bright and often use the music to help them deal with the stresses and strains of being gifted social outsiders.

When Dee Schneider, frontman for 1980’s Shock-Rock band Twisted Sister, was subpoenaed to appear before the US Policy Review Committee (PRC), he walked in with his big hair, torn jeans, earrings, some residual make-up from the night before and a true stick-it-to-the-man attitude, they did not expect the well formed speech he had prepared slamming the conservatives for their prejudice against people who follow this genre of music. (Watch the interview here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QqplPfYTE8)

The common perception of the Metal musician is that of the unsophisticated, uneducated individual, but if I may draw your attention to virtuosos the likes of Beethoven and Bach. Arguably the greatest composers in history – these composers of classical music, associated with higher learning and academia, never attended college. They were labelled as rebels and improvisers, out of the accepted norm of those days. Does that not make you think of muso’s like Jimi Hendrix, Eddie VanHalen and Yngwie J. Malmsteen? But why then is Metal not considered a virtuosic form of music?

Let’s get deeper into that:
The PRC rated songs according to profanity, sex, drugs or alcohol, the occult, violence – most metal songs deal with much more provocative themes. Themes like hedonism, religion, death and war. Themes that society tends to recoil from, Metal embraces. Not to be morbid, dark and scary but to purge these negative thoughts. And that’s what Metal is to me and many other fans, a release. Is what people feel not more, or at least as important than what they think? Metal gives its fans a sense of belonging, transcendence – much like the modern church does for its flock. Therefore, can Metal not be seen as a pathway to God? Far fetched? I think not. In a recent article an Anglican priest spoke out against religious groups’ negative view of metal music, saying churchgoers could learn lessons from heavy culture.
Rev Rachel Mann believes people who can deal with the concepts explored in dark lyrics, and who can accept negative aspects of the human condition, can have a more balanced world view than worshipers who take themselves too seriously. (Read the full article here: http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/priest_says_church_can_learn_from_metal.html).

“It becomes a great big family of people” – Ronnie James Dio (R.I.P)

Now people are going to call me out on the Satanic and Occult culture associated with metal. Church burnings and blasphemy is part and parcel of the allure of some Metal bands. To my mind it’s not real Satanism, it’s Halloween. The majority of Metal fans, or at least those I have come in contact with, can’t understand or defend these actions. And they shouldn’t have to.

For me, my love of Metal started as a teenager when a dear friend of mine played some songs on his acoustic guitar around a camp fire one night. To my dismay, all the girls went ga-ga over him and his musical ‘prowess’. I borrowed a guitar, he taught me 3 chords, and my journey into darkness started... The first Metal album I was exposed to was the Metallica “Black” album. I listened to Nothing else matters 22 times that day. I knew I had to learn that song, it haunted me, and stuck in my head and would not go away. It seems like an eternity ago, and yet the love and flame of passion burns in me stronger than ever. To this day people often ask me “Aren’t you getting to old for that shit?” I guess they’ll never understand that Metal is a passion, it’s a lifestyle, it’s a commitment and a drive that will never dissapate. And my honest hope is that those people find something in their lives that they can stand up for. Something that makes their heart beat faster when they are exposed to it.

I’ve explored what Metal means to its fans, and I’ll end it as it began – with a quote from Sam Dunn:

“35 years after Black Sabbath first played the devils note and Metal culture is still thriving. There’s a new generation of fans, and the old guard still stands strong.

 Why has metal always been consistently stereo typed, dismissed and condemned? Metal confronts what we’d rather ignore. It celebrates what we often deny. It indulges in what we fear most. And that’s why metal will always be a culture of outsiders.

Ever since I was 12 years old, I’ve had to defend my love for Metal against those who say it’s a less valid form of music. My answer now is that you either feel it or you don’t. If metal doesn’t give you that overwhelming surge of power, make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck – you might never get it, and you know what? That’s ok. Because judging by the millions of metal heads around me, were doing just fine without you” – Sam Dunn

Afrikaans music - hit or "mis"

This is a subject that has caused many a heated debate amongst friends and family. Some having ended in total agreement, some we have had to agree-to-disagree, and in some (rare) cases it has ended with a screaming match and a physical confrontation.

Something must be said for Afrikaans music if it elicits such varying responses. That begs the question, what can be said for it? Can the Afrikaans music scene hold up a candle to the rest of the world's indigenous language music, or is it just a gimmicky genre made to fill a hole? With record sales on the increase, and more and more (so called) artists {I'll get back to that comment in a second} booking up to 200 gig's a year, there is defiantly something driving this niche section of the market.


Allow me to speculate on what that may be...


Is the ferociously loyal following to the Afrikaans scene due to the quality of the music, the appeal of the artist, or is there a deeper core-reason for all this madness?


In my humble opinion the primary reason for this fanatical following is not a simple one at all. The not-so-slow crawl from the metaphorical primordial-soup began around 1994. If you care to take your memories back to that year some will remember watching hundreds of thousands of people lined up to cast their vote in the first democratic elections this country has ever seen. And the result of that election (amongst many other positive changes) was the end of the Apartheid era. Now with the white supremacist government out of power, the agenda of the Afrikaans speaking South Africans was thrown out the window. With the State no longer backing the privileged position of the Afrikaans culture, the Afrikaners were grasping at straws to save their culture - NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! But to get back to the crux, my theory is that the Afrikaners will eat-up anything on offer for no reason other than the music is in their own language.


Now before you start taking me apart, this is not a political or cultural blog, this is a blog about music. But more often than not music has a political and cultural influence, a message or ideal to share. There is no debate to be had that the vast majority of Afrikaans pop sounds exactly the same a Euro pop, and to become a hit single needs nothing more than a catchy tune and an easy beat. Is that acceptable? And thus the reason for this post.


Most of the ‘artists’ are just a pretty face put on the sleeve to sell albums - and this is true for most pop around the world. (and this will most certainly be discussed in future posts on this blog) However, in South Africa this realisation has not yet hit the consumers. They are reaping up this junk, not for the quality of the artist, the depth of their lyrics, the message the song proclaims, but purely for the sake of hearing Afrikaans coming out of the speakers.


Again, I must defend my statements and proclaim that I am not at all opposed to Afrikaans music as a whole. Make no mistake, there are Afrikaans singers and song writers for whom I have the greatest amount of respect because they have earned that respect. I refer to artists like Chris Chameleon, Laurika Raugh, Koos Kombuis, Anton Goosen, Johannes Kerkorrel and even Steve Hofmeyer (although I say that with a foul taste in my mouth). These guys and girls paved the way for the newbies to make lots of money for hardly any effort! These artists pioneered, they worked their hands to the bone to get the respect and admiration they (used to) enjoy. This has been cheapened by the likes of Nicholas Louw, Kurt Darren, Jakkie Louw, Nadine, Juanita du Plessis and the likes who's themes are mundane and quite frankly, common and unsophisticated. You need to understand that these artist hardly ever compose their own music, they are, for the most part, not included in the decision making for which singles that make the cut for the album. They are not artists and should not be referred to as such. They are performers, and that is all. Pure performers, performing other people’s songs and music on a stage or in the studio. These people are not in it for the love of music or even love of entertaining, they are in it purely for the money! And they are making plenty of it just because they have a pretty face or nice hips to shake about.


This is a wake-up call to those Afrikaners who blindly buy Afrikaans music. Make your choices wisely. You are bringing this garbage into your homes, exposing your children to sub-par, unintelligent musical influences. With role-models and influences such as these, where will our future Bach’s & Beethoven’s come from? Stop rewarding mediocrity by splurging your hard-earned cash on artists who are not fit for that title.

My favorite comic strip - Cyanide and Happiness depicting what a artist is NOT: