Heavy metal was the first genre of music that I loved on my own that was separate from the music that my parents listened to. It all started with bands like Guns 'n' Roses, Judas Priest, and Ozzy Osbourne. My small group of friends in forth and fifth grades traded cassette tapes back and forth, introducing each other to new finds. Eventually we moved on to heavier bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Suicidal Tendencies, and Slayer. But then we also started moving away from metal as we began to discover punk rock in the early 90s. I saw bands like Bad Religion and Green Day in tiny clubs before they came into national prominence. My brother took me to my first shows with his group of friends. As I got more into punk rock and tried to get to as many shows in Cleveland as I could, I pretty much stopped listening to heavy metal. The things that I used to listen to didn't seem to keep pace with my new interests and fascination with diy. Between Cleveland and Columbus I saw hundreds of bands with my friends and I even played drums with a few bands in our own shitty performances.
So, it wasn't until much later that I started listening to metal again through the influence of a few new friends. But it really grew on me. Metal had changed. There was more of it, a lot more sub-genres, and it got really heavy. I had also changed. I was still into a lot of the same punk that I had always been into but I was more open to the variety of music out there. I always knew that there was a lot of cross-over between punk and metal, but I had clung to a kind of anti-prog, anti-excess purity in punk that just stopped being so significant to me. Plus, I re-discovered that a lot of what I had found in punk was there in metal, too. It was fast and aggressive. They are both unapologetic for being what they are, and they both strive to create accepting communities within their fandom.
The very first foray that I made back into metal was listening to Slayer's Undisputed Attitude. A friend had burned a copy for me because he figured (rightly so, it turns out) that a punk cover album would be a good transition. The album is spotty (aside from the interstitial solo, the cover of "Filler/I Don't Wanna Hear It" is easily the best track on the album) but it beat the shit out of The Spaghetti Incident?" That friend was really into Metallica, so I heard a lot of his drunken convincing that I should give their later catalogue a shot. This didn't work out as well. I liked their early stuff but couldn't really get into anything after ...And Justice for All.
After a lot of trial-and-error, I found my way back to the niche of metal that I really liked, and it started to go into heavier rotation than a lot of the punk that had been my mainstay for so long.
When I moved back to Ohio and near my family, I had the chance to start going to shows with my brother again. He had left punk behind a while back and had stuck with heavy metal. We shared some of the same taste in music, though I think he can run into some pretty questionable stuff (he would, of course, disagree) and we started planning to go to shows again.
Over the last couple of years I have had the chance to see a lot of great shows with him. We saw the oddly-matched lineup of The Eagles of Death Metal (who do not play death metal), Russian Circles, and Mastadon. We missed part of Russian Circles but stood through the entirety of Mastodon's 2+ hour long set. We also went to see Gojira, who are among my favorite bands now.
I don't have a satisfying ending to this post because I want to write about a show we recently saw and this is already getting long. I recognize that this post breaks the tone and theme of content matter that I have established for the blog so far. That's what you get.
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