Pseudo fans

It may or may not shock you that I don't exclusively listen to death metal.  I don't even solely listen to metal.  The fact is, that's hardly a revelation to most.  People who claim to appreciate music and confine themselves stubbornly to a single genre are not only cutting themselves off from a whole other sphere of musical experience, but they're either a) lying, or b) lying.  [Where 'a' referring to their listening habits and 'b' to their degree of musical appreciation.]  What's more; if you were 'shocked', you're probably one of the people I'm talking about.

This is metal?  Are you sure?  Bitches be trippin'!

The fact is death metal is an elitist genre.  It's superior and snobbish and that's the way we like it.  The more elitist it is the less chance of pale, watered-down imitations of it cropping up.  No, I don't have my head in the sand and I'm fully aware of travesties like Arch Enemy or Mechanical God Creation.  It's a sad fact that any art form is going to have it's own fresh crop of mediocre, simplified shite.  My point is that it's relatively limited, despite the mediocrity of bands following the path of the above crop and their ilk, or even the flat-brimmed cap and low-slung trouser brigade of slamming wigger metalcore or whatever the fuck they dub it.  Unfortunately, as with all elitist pursuits you get the obligatory sub-set of individuals with nothing other than appearing to be superior to their peers.  Like newly wealthy social climbers who purposefully change their accents before launching into plumb-in-mouth tirades against 'low class' establishments they loved only a few short years before, these wannabe 'extreme' individuals wear the regalia of bands they've never heard of and eschew their nonsensical diatribes relating to music they don't own.   

Yet we all know this.  These are the little gobshites we deal with on a regular basis and the same retards who turn a scene into a scene.  I just cannot comprehend the deficit mentality of someone who isn't 14 behaving in such an idiotic fashion as to claim knowledge in an area they have none.

As I said before, I listen to a lot of different music.  At the moment my non-metal mainstay is jazz.  As with death metal; I love the variation of the genre, it's adventurousness, it's pushing of boundaries, the fact that it can be at once chaotic, loud and heavy or laid back and relaxing.  I love it's virtuosity.

So why, if I have this depth of feeling for jazz am I preaching only metal instead of penning a more overarching music site?  Well, the answer is twofold:  1)  My love of metal supersedes that of all other musical genres; and 2) As it stands today, I just don't know that much about jazz.

Freddie Hubbard

Granted, this is a situation that I will rectify and - who knows?  Maybe I'll see some of you on the other side of the interwebs ranting on some little-read portal about how Jazzy McFucknuts has missed the point or how Weezin' Willie Browneye needs to develop propper breath control for his trumpet solos.  Until that time, however, I'll do the sensible thing:  shut up.  Sit back and bathe in the words of those far more knowledgeable than I, soak up the knowledge and learn.  Sure, I'll say if I disagree, but what I won't do is pontificate where it's clear that I don't know what it is I'm drivelling about.

Similar to those will-wear-the-shirt-but-don't-know-the-band types, are the equally vacuous Ignorant.  Now the Ignorant, unlike the above mentioned Retarded, are not really arseholes.  They're just presumptuous.  They can't wrap their heads around the fact that there might actually be art forms out there that they're unfamiliar with.  So when, during my other life, I was in the lift talking to one of the girls in the office and the subject of death metal came up and her response was 'ooh, I love that stuff' and upon questioning couldn't name a single band, I didn't slam her sow-like brain into the metal confines in which we were trapped; neither did I rape her face until the gibberish ceased to flow from it.  Unfortunately, the work-place doesn't take kindly to such activities.  No, I murmured some platitudes, stepped out of the lift and went in search of a coffee.

The difference between the Ignorant and the Retarded may be vast, but at their core, we have some kind of deep-seated drive to prove to everyone that they're well-informed.  Admit defeat people!  You're insipid attempts at appearing knowledgeable do more to highlight your incomprehension than any questioning attempts at actually trying to understand the subject matter ever could!