My latest post for DMR Books is up: A Fitting, Final Honor for Charles Saunders, Author of Imaro.
Check it out for my thoughts on the late, great Saunders, who fled the circles of this world in May 2020, but left a warrior behind.
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| RIP Charles Saunders (July 1946-May 2020) |
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| The Boys from Britain don't need no stinking HOF! |
My reaction? Who gives a shit.
Evidently I’m supposed to be excited by this news… I find
myself feeling rather apathetic, with a smattering of bemusement and a (slight)
bit of anger. I do recognize the considerable
irony in stating “who gives a shit” and then spending my time writing a post
about the news. Evidently I have some level of investment. But I’m writing this
as much for as my own amusement as anything else.
A little history on my relationship with the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. In the past I have kept tabs on the list of inductees. I was
happy to see the likes of Black Sabbath and KISS eventually get in, though both
are kind of no-brainers. I didn’t get too wrapped up in either nomination, because
I figured it was a done deal. And it was (an aside: it took KISS, eligible for
induction since 1999, FIFTEEN YEARS to get in, which it finally did in 2014).
My typical level of detached minor interest ratcheted up in
2018 when stupidly, I got wrapped up in the fan vote for Judas Priest. The Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame includes a fan vote, with the top five acts in the
popular vote earning what amounts to a single “vote.” These five bands then get
that one vote added to the couple hundred votes cast by the real power-holders,
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Committee, a shadowy cabal of unknowns who hold
all the power of who gets in and who gets left “Out in the Cold” (pun
intended).
As should be obvious by the formula, one fan vote stacked against
a couple hundred “educated” votes by the “critics,” counts for next to nothing.
I spent time--too much, as you can vote over and over again, though only once
per day--voting on the HOF platform, only to see Priest—which did get in the
top five in the fan vote—get croaked by the committee.
So, in 2018 Judas Priest—a band who revolutionized heavy
metal by adding an iconic sound (the twin guitar attack) and establishing its iconic
look (leather and studs), immortal songs like “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming”
and “Breaking the Law,” and a 50+ year legacy of influencing countless bands—lost
to the likes of Nina Simone.
Since then Priest has failed to make it any further, to the
Hall’s eternal shame.
That brings me to Iron Maiden, another personal favorite band
of mine about
whom I’ve made my love abundantly clear here on the blog.
Maiden has had a career that would turn 90% of the
previously inducted acts’ faces green with envy. I don’t think people outside
of heavy metal circles understand how massively popular and influential these
guys are. They’ve been selling out sports arenas (pre-COVID of course) for 40
years. They’ve sold more than 100 million copies of their albums worldwide, all
without any commercial airplay or support. At one point VH1 ranked them No. 24
in their “100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.”
It’s utterly absurd to think that they need to add a Hall of
Fame credential to justify whether or not they are great, or influential on the
development of rock-and-roll. But frankly, it’s the “hard” part of “hard rock” that
makes Maiden an unlikely candidate for Hall of Fame acceptance.
The fact is, the voting on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is
calculatedly political, and archly snobbish, and therefore actively hostile to brash,
loud, metal acts. Heavy metal can never get its just due in this stifling,
narrow-minded environment. Even relatively safe, mainstream party rock acts like
KISS only get a look when their case is so overwhelmingly obvious that to leave
them out would compromise any shred of validity the enterprise still holds.
Bruce Dickinson has voiced his opinions very clearly on the Hall
of Fame, calling the Hall "an
utter and complete load of bollocks" that is "run by a bunch of
sanctimonious bloody Americans who wouldn’t know rock ’n’ roll if it hit them
in the face." Go Bruce.
So in the end, it does not matter whether Maiden gets in. Their career
speaks for itself. When Maiden is finally retired and gone, the echoes of “Hallowed
be thy Name” and “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” will ring through the ages, long
after most of the acts in the Hall of Fame have been forgotten.
Unlike 2018 I will not waste a moment voting for Maiden. Not
because I don’t love the band, but because the institution itself is corrupt. No
Maiden, Priest, or Motorhead renders the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame utterly irrelevant.
The first 1:02 of "Nightwinds," an obscure song by an obscure Swedish metal band named Parasite, encompasses everything I love about the heavy metal genre. Atmosphere. Grandeur. Power. Artistry.
Unfortunately the song is undone by its underwhelming chorus. Also, "breaking the nightwinds" sounds suspiciously like a nocturnal emission under the sheets. Oh well. But I also love the incredibly cheesy depths that metal occasionally descends into. It's all part of the charm.
Anyways, crank up this clip from Youtube, and listen to at least the first minute or so. You have to play metal loud or it doesn't work.
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| Now that's old school. |
My top shelf has got the collected works of Rudyard Kipling, Rafael Sabatini’s Scaramouche, and several books by E.R. Eddison and Poul Anderson. The next shelf down are the Lancer Conan Saga, Karl Edward’s Kane, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Not exactly George R.R. Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, or John Scalzi. Any of which I could be into, but am really not, even if some day I do plan to finish A Song of Ice and Fire, if Martin ever gets around to it.
I do take comfort in the fact that I’m not alone. An adherent of Anglo-Saxon literature and Icelandic Saga, J.R.R. Tolkien was of the mind that anything after the Canterbury Tales was (mostly) not worth his time. I’m glad I’m not that extreme, or else I never would have discovered The Lord of the Rings or “Beyond the Black River.” But, in another sense I’m quite like Tolkien, my eyes cast ever backwards at the literature of a lost age. We’ll never have another golden age of sword-and-sorcery, when drugstores carried Conan the Buccaneer on their wire spinners and Thundarr the Barbarian thundered through living rooms on Saturday mornings. But that doesn’t mean I’ve moved on from those glory days. Today my drugstore is Abe Books and Ebay, where I hunt down old copies of Pursuit on Ganymede and Raven 5: A Time of Dying. And I know there are many others like me, based on what I’ve seen in the Facebook groups I belong to.
My tastes in reading are analogous to my tastes in music, which is likewise the music of my youth. My favorite bands are Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, KISS, Rush, and AC/DC. Some of these guys are still writing new material—some of it damned good—but mostly they are associated with their heyday in the 70s and 80s. If you’re a fan, you’re ancient history, pal.
I would not say I’m a hopeless case, irrevocably trapped in the past. I can and do enjoy some new stuff. Battle Beast, a young Finnish metal band for example, caught my attention, and now have muscled their way into my playlist alongside the likes of Blind Guardian and Pantera. I like Joe Abercrombie, including the likes of The Heroes (2011). At this very moment I’m reading and enjoying Brian Keene’s The Lost Level (2015), which just came out in the last decade.
But on some level even these “new” finds are anachronistic, often deliberately so, which continues to prove my point that I like old shit. For example, The Lost Level is a clear homage to the likes of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar series. Battle Beast is an unabashed throwback to the 80s. It should come as no surprise that the band draws inspiration for its sound and lyrics from that era. Even in the new stuff I consume, I’m drawn inevitably to older forms of expression.
I do wonder: Do we develop our tastes during a formative time in our lives and become part of us forever? Does some biochemical process shape our malleable brains between the ages of 8-18, and permanently alter our mental wiring? Musician and musicologist Nolan Gasser offers some answers along those lines, arguing that the music you listened to as a youth placed you within a culture that formed part of your identity:
“I actually use the term ‘intraculture’ to describe cultures that take place within a culture,” he explains, likening them to subgenres of music. “A lot of it has to do with where you grew up and what kind of musical influences are in the air, but we participate in so many subcultures of affinity, just based on what we like. Intracultures provide us with access to music just because you’re a part of a group, and that group means something to you.”
“Music becomes that stake in the ground — ‘this is who I am,’” says Gasser. “But at the same time, the music people listened to at an early age becomes their native home comfort music. When they grow up, that music will be part of who they are, tied in with memories and growing up. All of these powers are why music is so important to us.”
There is no doubt that heavy metal had its own culture and ethos, one that I participated in, and on some level still do. I may be indistinguishable from your average everyday middle-aged middle class dude, but I have a metal spirit in me, an anti-authoritarian streak and a pride in having tastes that are harsher than the mainstream, even anathema in some quarters. I’m sure that’s part of the reason why I maintain such an enduring loyalty for these bands.
Interesting is my lack of nostalgia in other areas—I enjoy the latest psychology and self-help books, for example. I delight in the latest and greatest beer from new breweries (Heady Topper is way better than Pabst Blue Ribbon). I’ve come to enjoy podcasts as a new medium for consuming information and entertainment, even though I still prefer the printed page over e-books.
It’s really only certain forms of art, in particular music and fantasy literature, where my preferences clearly lie with works pre-1990.
Another possible explanation: Were the authors and musicians of my youth simply better at their craft? Were these subgenres—heavy metal and sword-and-sorcery—more widely practiced because they were more lucrative, or more creatively vital, and hence attracted more and greater talent, producing better art than we see today? Perhaps. Some authors can and did make a living writing for Weird Tales back in the day, and of course many metal acts made a fortune in the 80s. Artists don’t enjoy the same market realities today. The bar to writing and publishing stories and music is easier than ever, but I don’t believe it’s as easy to make a living at either these days.
Who knows. Be it a matter of identity and cultural imprinting, or idiosyncratic tastes, it’s hard to say why I enjoy the old shit. All I know that is that heavy metal and Tolkien and sword-and-sorcery were my obsessions then, remain so today, and likely always will be.
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| Warrior on a blue zebra with horns! In space... |
New post up at the blog of Goodman Games, publisher of Tales from the Magician's Skull: Sword-and-Planet Love-Letter: Gardner Fox’s Warrior of Llarn.
I enjoyed this immensely and without reservation, too much for my own good. So much fun, and the pacing is basically a dead sprint. If you're bored reading Warrior of Llarn there's minimal to no hope for you. Definitely worth seeking out and reading. If you're a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars series it will feel intensely... familiar. It's basically an homage to A Princess of Mars. But still great. Thief of Llarn doesn't rise to the same heights, but it's still good.
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| The OG, Heady Topper. |
I’m not sure how many of my visitors are from the New
England region of the United States, but among the many reasons why I enjoy
living here (along with fall, and the mountains of New Hampshire, and the seacoast)
is the beer scene. New England gave birth to a style of beer that has become my
favorite, the New England India Pale Ale, or NEIPA.
NEIPAs are characterized by their hazy appearance, citrus
aroma, and hop-forwardness. Some are double dry hopped, with the likes of
Citra, Mosaic, and Galaxy hops added in whole, late in the brewing process, to add
even more hoppy goodness and piney bite. In the last decade the NEIPA has exploded
in popularity and has become a staple at breweries everywhere. But we largely
have Heady Topper, the OG, and the Alchemist Brewery in Vermont to thank.
I’ve never been a beer snob. I started with the likes of
Budweiser, Miller Lite, and Coors, and will still drink a cold Coors Lite on a
hot summer day. But in the late 90s I began to branch out and discover the joys
of smaller breweries and styles beyond Lagers and Pilsners. Sam Adams Boston
Lager was an early favorite, as was Harpoon IPA and Long Trail IPA. Blue Moon,
a Belgian White, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and Magic Hat #9, another pale, were
also early favorites. These were “craft beers” before the true small, local craft
beer scene began to emerge in the late 2000s.
As the 21st century rolled around I started hearing
about this new beer called Heady Topper. An article in the Boston Globe
described Massachusetts residents driving for three hours up to Stowe, then
waiting for another 2-3 hours in line, to get it. Who the hell would wait for a
beer, when my local packie offers immediate convenience?
How good could it possibly be?
I had the chance to find out in 2014 while up in VT visiting
some friends. My friend had picked up some Heady Topper, Focal Banger, and
Crusher from the Alchemist, and I finally got to crack a few cans with him, in
front of a wood fire in the cold mountains outside of Burlington.
Mind blown. My eyes were opened to what beer could truly be.
I didn’t weep, but something inside me was moved, and since then I’ve been all
in on the craft beer craze. Later I took a trek up to Stowe to buy a two-case
allotment from the Alchemist. My wallet and waistline have paid the price.
Heady Topper is 8% ABV and packs a punch. It’s also very hop
forward. You can’t give a new beer drinker a Heady Topper or any of the high
IBU IPAs right out of the gate. It’s cruel, like plopping a wobbly new skier on
a double black diamond ski run. You need to build up to it, condition your
palette, before taking that kind of plunge. I don’t believe I could have
enjoyed Heady had not I had a history of drinking Harpoon and Sierra Nevadas
and the like.
Since Heady Topper many other amazing NEIPAs have come along
with their own takes on the style, and many believe the Alchemist has been
surpassed. That could very well be the case. My personal favorite is Bissell
Brothers Brewing in Portland, ME, whose Swish (which can only be purchased at
the brewery, in limited releases, and for which I have waited nearly 2 hours in
line to obtain) is so good that words fail me. I also love their flagship Ale,
Substance, as well as Reciprocal. They don’t make a bad beer.
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| Heavy hitters. From left to right, Trillium Fort Point, Battery Steele Flume, Kettlehead The Agent, Swish (Bissell Brothers), Sip of Sunshine, and Focal Banger (Alchemist) |
Other favorite beers and breweries include:
I do like other styles of beer beyond the IPA. There is an
amazing brewery about 10 minutes from my house in neighboring Amesbury, Brewery
Silvaticus, which makes wonderful German inspired ales and lagers and stouts, amazingly
well-balanced beers that are a joy to drink. It’s wonderful to walk into
Silvaticus and see the stainless steel brewing tanks set against old brickwork,
drink a beer or three, shoot the shit, and watch the world go by.
Today local craft breweries are springing up everywhere. While
the pandemic has certainly slowed their growth and put a few out of business,
from 2008 through 2016 craft
breweries grew sixfold. Their superior product has put a major dent in the
goliaths. Over the same period shipments from the likes of Anheuser-Busch,
MillerCoors, Heineken, Pabst, fell 14%. Local craft breweries have the advantage
of producing fresher, unpasteurized beer, hyper-locally, and often offer great
atmosphere and personality. The small breweries of today remind me somewhat of the
classic Irish Pubs. Instead of loud music and 20-somethings pressed shoulder-to-shoulder,
swilling shit beer, craft breweries gather folks of all ages to gab, and revel
in well-made local product.
I’m very glad to be living in this golden age of beer.
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| By Dwalka! This was a fortune to make a man mad. |
At right is the complete Kothar series. Below is a period advertisement from Kothar and the Wizard Slayer. It's so cool I think I'll take up smoking.
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| Smoke up Johnny. |
