I'm looking at In Extremo today, German Medieval Heavy Metal band that will be performing.
They often use classic fairy tales for their inspiration.
Horizont (Horizon) is a song with a fairy tale aspect that I don't fully understand but I've listened to it more than a dozen times now and love it more each time.
The song is like an apology, repentance, a recognition of wrong-doing (see him pullin' the weight / sins?)
"I deceived
myself a thousand times
I offended you a thousand times... I repressed everything a thousand
times Repressed everything, everything, everything
But
at this very hour. When I lost you I realise what I've done to
you And I condemn myself for it
I
spoke too much a thousand times
(I felt) the same sorrow a
thousand times I broke your heart a thousand times I regretted
it too late a thousand times Regretted too late, too late
*~*~*~
In the middle they sing: "There where the horizon
And the sea become one That's where I want to wait for you So that you could find me there."
What is the purpose of Art? (art with a capital A)
To make you feel.
--me
Not dictating what you feel, just that you feel something powerful, real, new, whatever.
What is the purpose of Art? according to LifeHacker
"The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls."
--Pablo Picasso
Therion is a Swedish Metal band, symphonic metal, known as the "most adventurous metal band at present." (Therion biography, MusicMight).
Originally death metal, started in 1988 (that was ages ago! I had just barely tossed my aerobics leggings by then). They added classic elements one by one till they became what they are today -- full-on symphony for some songs / some performances.
They've gone through a massive metamorphosis.
These three videos don't do justice to Therion, but it is a glimpse of their brilliant abilities.
First video - show to friends when they indicate that they think heavy metal is just guttural grunting. So. Much. More.
Second video - opera is for the sophisticated for a reason. The combination of sounds is incredibly intricate. You'll see in upcoming posts that it's heavy metal that pushes the boundaries of what is possible in music. They mess with the structure of music in ways that other musicians in other genres don't dare try.
Third video - Son of the Staves of Time. I had to research this one. It felt a little like a Heavy Metal Schoolhouse Rock Bio of a Famous Person. Short version: They're singing about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Bureus
who was an antiquarian (librarian type for ancient books), polymath (someone with a wide range of knowledge, not just mathematics), and mystic.
My favorite part -- Byrger Tidesson wrote the very first ABC book in Swedish. He used the runic alphabet and latin script, but still, how fun to be inside the mind of some person who first conceived of an ABC book, something that had never been created before in his mother tongue.
Therion = Erudite Metal
If you have to look up what erudite means (learned, well educated) then perhaps Alestorm is more your speed. Wink. It's all good at different times, for different purposes.
We've tried a few excursions that aren't sponsored by the cruise line and they were blech.
On one, a horseback ride along the beach, was a one hour drive deep into Mexico. At one point we wondered if we'd ever make it back to the cruise ship. It was a 1+ hr long "very short trip, only a few minutes" to the beach and horses. We will always go with the cruise sponsored events from now on.
*~*~*~*
So, here are the excursions so far for 2015:
Dolphin Touch Experience and Dunn's River Falls with members of THRESHOLD, TANK, GOD DETHRONED and EQUILIBRIUM!* 11:30 AM
Dolphin Swim and Dunn River Falls with members of ORIGIN, THRESHOLD, GOD DETHRONED, D-A-D and CANNIBAL CORPSE!* 10:30 AM
Dunns River Falls Express with members of THRESHOLD, THERION, JUNGLE ROT, and AMORPHIS!* 9:30 AM
Snorkeling with Kataklysm?! pic Canadian Death Metal
Chukka Estate Pass with members of CANNIBAL CORPSE!* 9:30 AM
Champagne Catamaran Magical Escape & Dunns River Falls with members of ORIGIN and D-A-D!* 9:30 AM
Exclusive Snorkel and Dunns River Falls with members of KATAKLYSM, MUNICIPAL WASTE, JUNGLE ROT and AMORPHIS!* 10:30 AM
Pearly Beach & Dunns River Falls with members of PRIMAL FEAR, MICHAEL SCHENKER’S TEMPLE OF ROCK and GRAVE DIGGER!* 10:25 AM
Pearly Beach with members of PRIMAL FEAR, THERION and TANK!* 11:20 AM
*Artists joining the Artist Guided Excursions are subject to change without notice.
Well duh. Performing has to take a lot out of a person... More on that in future post about Contrast the Water.
There's a natural surge of "let's party" on Fridays that helps us transition to Saturdays.
Note: NEVER say, "What do you do on a Saturday?" to any Mormon you love.*
Saturday is supposed to be like this:
To lead up to an awesome Saturday, you need a let's-blow-this-joint type of Friday.
So, obviously the band to profile today is Alestorm.
Message: Stop being so uptight.
There was only 1 group of uptight people in the scriptures. Pharisees. Just sayin.
Now, I may lose your respect with this next part, but when I heard Alestorm for the first time it was in the background after Sacrament and I had this awesome image of the deacons passing the Sacrament with, "Drink! Drink! Drink!"
The Drink! video is one of the cleaner heavy metal music videos, ending in a dance party, the girls in really cute white and cream skirts. Give the girls sleeves on their cute dresses and you have a Single Adults dance. Or at least, what I wish they would be.
Don't click out of the video before the very end -- one of the most enigmatic weird expressions I've ever seen. Perhaps creepy, but so, so loaded.
"We are here to drink your beer, scratch that, Sacrament wine, scratch that too, drink your blessed water."
Remember that the most pivotal moment in the history of humanity on Earth was a "Drink!" moment, the first Sacrament, the Last Supper.
If you're having a hard time focusing on Christ's Atonement next time you're taking the Sacrament (a bit of bread + little cup of water like at the Last Supper) then think of the Alestorm Drink! song and smile.
Eating & drinking are life-affirming.
The Sacrament is a way of saying, "I messed up. Life goes on. TG (literally) for my great big brother."
My guess is that Christ's atonement / the Sacrament as a reminder of the Atonement is supposed to be a HAPPY thing. Alestorm is a HAPPY band making HAPPY (albeit rough, uncouth, pirate-based) music.
* Note on why never to ask what a Mormon does on a Saturday. it's because of a highly contagious song we sang as kids, "Saturday is the day we get ready for Sunday." The lyrics are a long task list of all the chores that need to be done on Saturday. It's tedious. Sure, those things need to get done and yes, the song is upbeat. It's also great to help little kids see the purpose of Saturdays. It's just annoying the same way 100 Bottles of Beer or the Barney song are annoying. It makes you want to strangle someone. Since the song writer's purpose was to motivate and inspire kids, don't inflict it on adults.
In "No Way Out" your hair looks red and I was looking forward to more redheaded awesomeness, but it was just the lighting at the beginning of "No Way Out".
The first time I watched this video, I spent the whole time asking, "Where's the redhead? Hey, where'd he go?" Think: cat (me) chasing a red laser.
Regardless of how well you hit the jackpot in the gene pool for red hair, you are a superbly talented drummer, Mike Harshaw.
The entire band performs live exceptionally well. Some bands don't. They look so comfortable on stage.
Technical skill aside, Annihilator has themes that I don't fully understand, but I'd sure love to know more. In several of their songs they talk about women and their power / lack of power.
In "Stonewall", they say -- get this, so cool -- in context of a cute little blond girl:
It's time to listen and hear her cries.
Reminds me of something an older brother would say... I wonder.
In another popular song, "Deadlock", the woman is powerless, total victim, then the guys all kill each other (message = war is futile), then in the end the woman wins. Fully Powerless / Ultimately Powerful.
I'm not including a link to "Deadlock" because DO NOT WATCH. It's not Mormon-ok content. It shows police violence (hurting police) and violence against women. The end message is good, but it's too Machiavellian. (In the 1400-1500s Niccolo Machiavelli had some great ideas, but didn't live long enough to see that his theory, "The ends justify the means," turns out badly nearly every time.)
Annihilator is a Canadian heavy metal band that's been around since 1984. What a great year to start a heavy metal band. (Think Orwell.) Jeff Waters has been the one and only constant all those years. He's the guy with the shortest hair in the "No Way Out" video. They're the highest selling Canadian heavy metal band.
Annihilator has a more consistent beat than most. Their songs are so SATISFYING rhythmically. Some heavy metal bands shift rhythm so often that I end up intellectually challenged, but in the end, confused. Annihilator is more constant and that will probably make it more fun to hear them play in person.
My favorite quote from Jeff Waters himself, "We are truly among the few bands with a long history, that have always waved the flag for honesty, integrity, and perseverance in this hard-edge category of music."
Mormon moment: "...honesty, integrity, perseverance..." sounds like the Young Women's theme
Have you ever read anything written before 1200? All Epic poems, stories. Most of it is hard to get through, but so rewarding. In college, I read one text that went roughly like this:
Massive war, battlefield covered with bodies, blood, gore.
Only two warriors remain.
They fight.
One says, "Oh, I recognize your voice. Is that you master?"
The master says, "Yes, tis I but my eyes have been gouged out and I cannot see you, therefore I hit you blindly. Who art thou?"
They are both still swinging at each other. Think: Holy Grail's Black Knight
Other one says, "Tis I, your humble servant, but I am a bloody stump of a man. My arms are gone. I am hitting you with my head and cannot make a wound on you, though you are bleeding profusely so perhaps I am wounding you. I am sorry Master."
They continue fighting.
Master says, "Well then perhaps we ought to stop hitting each other."
I read it when I was 18 yo, sitting in the university library laughing riotously while covering my mouth so I wouldn't get kicked out.
Ever since then I've loved epic poetic stories, especially the juxtaposition of grandeur and ridiculousness.
Here's a fun juxtaposition very similar to the EPIC story above:
The lyrics are TOO GOOD.
...if I ever lose my legs, I won't moan, and I won't beg,
Yes if I ever lose my legs, Oh if... I won't have to walk no more.
...if I ever lose my hands, Oh if... I won't have to work no more.
And if I ever lose my eyes... I won't have to cry no more....
And if I ever lose my mouth, all my teeth, north and south,
Yes if I ever lose my mouth, Oh if... I won't have to talk...
And... silence. "I won't have to talk..." Total beatdown silence. Go Cat Stevens.
It's the ultimate anti-depressant. It doesn't matter how bad it gets, I'm Alive (name of next song)
Next time someone says Metal is too dark, I'm going to show them the band photo of Blind Guardian:
Just looking at them makes me happy. See that? Smiles.
Reminds me of the Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic. I went a while back on the recommendation of a friend (I was asked to speak at a technical conference in Brno so we were already there). Holy cow. Sedlec Ossuary took me by surprise.
Crazy fun story short: With bodies piling up from the Black Plague and so many other plagues, the church cemetary was overflowing. A half-blind monk (wish I could have met him!) made the best of a bad situation and turned the bodies into artwork. Artwork!
Walking through Sedlec Ossuary feels like all these people are dancing, combined in cool and beautiful shapes in one big body-mash of a dance. The ultimate metal mosh pit? All made by a half-blind monk. "If I ever lose my eyes..."
Blind Guardian. I love the music you're making. Beautiful.
For those of you who are not yet Heavy Metal fans:
If you got a kick out of 2 Cellos performing "Thunderstruck",
you might also enjoy Apocolyptica:
When I first watched 2 Cellos perform "Thunderstruck", I wanted, needed, to hear more of their music, but I ran out of content quickly. Apocolyptica might be exactly what I need.
1. Classically trained.
2. Even their logo is artwork:
http://www.apocalyptica.com/en/
I've spent ridiculous amounts of time at the Louvre, the Pompidou (modern art museum near the Louvre), the Musee d'Orsay, the San Fran MOMA, the Guggenheim (LA) and dude, you do not to see the full list, but the Apocolyptica site blew me away. At risk of sounding like a dork, I must say:
3. They use bodies as musical instruments in their music videos. As an artistic statement, it was like beatbox meets classical meets living art expo. Freaky brilliant.
4. Not afraid of pulling in all sorts of talent for various pieces. I'm guessing that some bands might not want to pull in extra talent because it makes touring more complicated?
List of artists below. Apocolyptica is a Finnish Metal band, so not heavy metal, but still metall-y. I'm willing to bet there is no other metal band who has played with so many distinct / discrete artists? Yes / no from those of you more familiar with bands than me?
If this list doesn't make you smile -- freaky big smile -- then you might need to take a break, take a deep breath, and if absolutely necessary, use your fingers at the corners of your mouth and push up, up, up. That's called a smile.
I have given more thought to my own spiritual beliefs while listening to heavy metal than I have on any Sunday in church.
Odd, huh?
Ex: One day someone said something that could have sliced my beliefs in shreds. People have left the LDS church over far less offensive things. It came from someone wearing a Senior Missionary badge and was inextricably intertwined with gospel and my personal history.
Anger would have been an appropriate reaction, but the anger would have eaten me alive, incinerated me from the inside out. Instead, it was intensely depressing.
While sinking into depression that afternoon, I clicked on Pandora and the first song that came up was Primal Fear, Church of Blood.
My first thought: "I'm going to hell. It's official."
Despair can make a person superstitious.
But it was worse than that. I felt a self-destructive surge as I began to believe what I had been told -- I was evil from birth.
It wasn't until the end of the song that I was able to hear the lyrics. Just in time:
Oh lord, my God - consider all the words thy hands
Have made
Your son - you sent him to die
I scarce can take it in
That on the cross
My burden gladly bearing
He bled and died to save me
From my sin
Wait. That's just like a Sacrament hymn. Maybe these guys have something to say.
I hit Replay.
Then I got it:
"To use a religion - increasing the terror"
Wait. The purpose of the Senior missionary's incendiary comments had been to induce fear, terror in me.
I doubt that Christ wanted any aspect of the gospel to induce fear. I may be wrong, but realizations I had when considering what the Senior missionary said were all fear-based.
The artists, Primal Fear in all it's talent-ial awesomeness, took it one step further. They gave it historical context.
My daughter and I have been studying the conquest of South America by conquistadors and how the native people's culture was devastated by the incoming conquering nations, Spain and France mostly.
What are they fighting for
They call it holy war
So many innocent have died
... Ready to kill in the name
Of our Lord
Wow. It's not just me. Entire nations have been brought to their knees. And then decapitated.
I found my hand was on my neck, feeling the warmth and sweetness of still having my head attached to my body.
See The Mission if you want a clear visual of what it was like when nations collided and Christianity was used as a justification for murder. Your local library probably has a copy of it.
Once I saw the historical context, I was able to let go of a heapload of the pain. I no longer took it personally. Instead of threatening my ability to go to church every Sunday, now I saw a poor, twisted soul using a principle of the gospel for their own gain -- and their own gain was to induce fear which allowed them to declare superiority.
On a micro-level it was the same dynamic in action. Superiority, control, power, judgement, all justified because scripture was used to justified a point.
Full lyrics below of Primal Fear's Church of Blood below. I'll never hear this song within the walls of an LDS church building, but in my heart and mind I will hear it and be strengthened by it.
--Heavy Metal Mormon Chick
"Church Of Blood" was written by Lasch, Matthias/ Naumann-Philipp, Thomas/ Scheepers, Ralf/ Sperling, Klaus.
Steel and fire
Spreading the holy word
Dirty liars
The truth has never been heard
Are you the own who think free
Or do you share this mad insanity
To use a religion - increasing the terror
Is much more that just a human error
What are they fighting for
They call it holy war
So many innocent have died
No democracy in the church of blood
There's no democracy
Welcome to the church of blood
Pray salvation
The promised paradise
Violent nations
Who kill and terrorize
Sowing the seeds of discord
Ready to kill in the name
Of our lord
Suicide victims setting their signs
Burning the books and the tales
What are they fighting for
They call it holy war
So many innocent have died
No democracy in the church of blood
There's no democracy
Welcome to the church of blood
Oh lord, my god - consider all the words thy hands
Have made
Your son - you sent him to die
I scare can take it in
That on the cross
My burden gladly bearing
He bled and died to save me
From my sin
1st - I want to record my experience with 70,000 Tons of Metal
2nd - I want to record those ideas that float in and out of permanency, ie I forget them too quickly. Thoughts that help me understand why I go to church on Sundays, why I pray, all that good stuff.
It's all about
* understanding on a deeper level than platitudes
* remember, oh, remember what you believe
* committing to living my beliefs, yes, within the context of headbanging, grinding, gutteral growls.
Subscribe to the blog and let me know what you think.
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