MOTHERFUCKER

One thing I like about writing this blog is I can use the word “motherfucker” whenever I want.  I can’t use that word in the writing I do for my day job, much as I’d like to, but I know none of you will take offense. After all, metalheads get called “motherfuckers” all the time — most often by bands they’re paying good money to see at shows.

Pause and reflect for a moment on that phenomenon: There really aren’t many forms of entertainment where the performers routinely call paying members of the audience “motherfuckers”. Maybe that happens at rap concerts, though I wouldn’t know. I do know it happens routinely at metal shows. If I had $100 for every time a frontman for a metal band has called me a motherfucker, I could fucking retire.

I’ll grant you, motherfucker is a great word. Sometimes, no other word will do, like when some motherfucker unexpectedly swerves his car into my lane in heavy traffic. But still, isn’t it a little bit odd to hear a band’s vocalist call all his adoring fans motherfuckers at the top of his lungs?

Last time I got called a motherfucker was at a show I saw in Seattle on the night of December 30. Neurosis was at the top of the bill, with support from Wolves in the Throne Room and a Seattle band called Black Breath. I’d heard a lot about Black Breath but hadn’t yet checked out their 2010 Southern Lord debut, Heavy Breathing, much less seen them in the flesh. They put on a loud, raucous, energetic set of heavily thrash-influenced death metal, including a sweet cover of Sepultura’s “Desperate Cry”, which you can see right after the jump (along with more impressions of that concert).

I bet Black Breath’s frontman called me a motherfucker a dozen times. Me, and everyone else in the audience. I can only speak for myself, but I have never fucked my mother. Some people might take offense at being accused of such a deed, but I’ve gotten immune to it. No one else in the audience seemed to be offended either. At least no one bull-rushed the stage screaming, “What the fuck did you call me?!?”

Of course, not all metal bands delight in calling all the paying customers motherfuckers. Take Wolves in the Throne Room, for example. Not only did they not call me a motherfucker, they actually didn’t speak at all. They smoked the shit out of the club with fat incense sticks — making this the third Pacific Northwest black metal band I’ve seen in the last month (including Agalloch and Alda) who burned incense before playing — and then launched a non-stop sonic assault. Instead of stage banter in between songs, we got massive feedback. So, basically there was no let-up in the sound, from start of the set to the finish.

I’ve been a big fan of the Wolves’ recorded music, but the live show was just completely overwhelming — extraordinarily loud, penetrating, almost unbearably intense music, but also completely captivating and often beautiful. And the drummer — Aaron Weaver — is just stupendously good.  For me, their set was the highlight of the night.  I was with my NCS co-founder Alexis, and she thought it was extremely cool that the band never said a word. After being called a motherfucker repeatedly by Black Breath, I thought it was cool, too.

(All the videos I could find of the Wolves’ set at Neumo’s were crap, so no video.)

As best I can remember, Neurosis never called me a motherfucker either. Scott Kelly and company were too busy inflicting heart-busting slabs of doomy, experimental sludge that was as morbidly evil sounding as any live music I’ve ever heard. The catastrophic effect of the music was enhanced by a flickering montage of often disturbing images displayed on a giant screen behind the band. This video of “At the End of the Road” will give you a flavor of the experience, though this was filmed at the same club the next night — New Year’s Eve.

Actually, if Neurosis had called me a motherfucker a few times, it probably would have perked me up. The music was creative, unorthodox, heavy as shit, mesmerizing — but man was it funereal and oppressive. I went outside for a smoke mid-way through the set, ran into a dude I hadn’t seen in two or three years, and spent what was left of the show drinking beer in a bar across the street and shooting the shit with him. It was just as well. If I’d stayed for the rest of the Neurosis set, I might have been moved to open a vein and just bleed out on the floor.

So anyway, all you motherfuckers may be wondering, “what’s the point of this rambling post?” To which I could respond that I’ve been meaning to write something about that December 30 show for the last week, and finally found the time to do it. Or I could be honest and say, there’s really no point except for the fact that I felt like using the word motherfucker a lot today. Does there have to be another point?