All bands end eventually and if you had to pick the best way for a band to go out, you couldn’t come up with something much better than what Isis said in yesterday’s announcement. They have done what they wanted, are all still healthy and engaged, feel gratitude to those they have met and stand by what they have done. Folks may feel sad or dramatic about the impact of this – “Isis is breaking up!” – but you’ve got to hand it to those guys: they’re ending it about as well as anyone could.

Tthink for a second about the thirteen years that Isis has been around and you’ll realize a lot has changed for the better in the world of music. Over that near decade and a half, the world at large has come to a different understanding of “metal.” Through the persistent work of a bunch of people the music that falls under that ever-broadening genre description is now understood to be a vast landscape of possibilities. You say “I’m in a metal band” and lots of folks will say ”Okay, what kind of metal band?”

Even the most “I-only-love-Steel-Panther-and-there’s nothing-ironic-about-it” fan has to appreciate that this means more people listening to, making and drawing appreciation from this expanding type of music. And Isis has been one of the most vital forces for this change. They’ve created and presented heavy music that was contrary to expectations – not macho, not fantastic, smart about design and abstraction, focusing less on technique and more on structure, but never too far from a roaring power that could straight-up destroy. When they started they were often lumped into a small box with one or two other oddballs bands on some fringe. The world has come around but it’s only because Isis’s dedication has been so, so persistent and compelling.

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“In times of trouble, go with what you know.”
- Red Tank, Scorched Earth

A few weeks back, I spent some time sketching out an idea about discovering the greatest Taco Riff in the world. My friend Lao Tzo is wont to say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a step right over to your music collection, so that seems a prudent place to start. I’ve been spending time with some favorite records and, as with most metal types, I keep coming back to the Big Four. So let’s just get into it – the Big Four Taco Riff records.

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Ho ho ho, it must be Christmas time, because Santa Claus is back on the cover of major magazines. Or, at least, Varg Vikernes was giving me an asymmetrical leer from the cover of this month’s Decibel. I do not envy J Bennett’s charge of having to write that piece – I have met J a few times, he’s my kind of people, and writing this “guess who’s outta jail” bit is a landmine. Still, I was disappointed that he spent more time reporting what was happening in some messageboards than tackling the most compelling question about Burzum and the music community: is it okay to listen to music made by people who you think are bad folks?

Let me say that this goes well beyond Burzum or my like/dislike for VV and his music. I’ve got a number of records made by people who say things I don’t like or do things I don’t like. And I get the sense that a bunch of people in strong, self-identified communities (straight edge, fundamentalist Christian, anarchist, Juggalo, some self-hating mix of all four, etc.) are often uncomfortable with copping to liking music that’s not a part of that shared ethos. So think for a moment beyond the guy peering at you from the top of your mail pile/stuff-I-stole-from-Borders-this-month pile and consider how we separate the artist from the art from the message.

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In 1992 or so, someone who must have inherited a few oil wells figured that it’d be a good idea to give some of that scratch to the Beastie Boys so that they could publish their own magazine. I don’t think you have to like them as a band or even as a cultural force to appreciate what it must have been like for these guys to get that first check. “You wrote a date rape anthem called ‘Fight for Your Right to Party’ and then proceeded to ignite doctoral dissertations with your next record. Here’s a shitload of cash so that you can indulge the spohomoric writing whims of you and your friends.” Even after the beepers of every weed dealer south of 34th Street finally stopped buzzing, there was plenty of moolah left over to stage photo shoots, subsidize starving indie writers, and pay for a die cut to assemble your own bootie bass jeep from the back cover.

Of course it all went bust, but the most lasting cultural impression of that cash vacuum were the metal record reviews that happened in the third or fourth issue, where the guy correctly identified records by Eyehategod, Today is the Day, 16, and one other band I don’t remember as being the shit we all had to go buy. I knew enough about TDID to take the cue, and so went out and bought the other three. And the most important thing in this review was the guy talking about was “Taco Riffs.”  When you heard those records, you knew exactly – EXCATLY – what he was talking about.

My noble band-mate Thad Calabrese and I have never had any confusion or even any discussion about what a Taco Riff is. It’s just the two of us, and so some late nights driving back from an ill-conceived show we’ll be playing “Strap It On” just to stay awake. Side 2 kicks in, the band clears away “FBLA” and then they rip it with “Blacktop.” And that “chorus” riff, accented the second time through with the vocals – “Walk on top. And you run beneath…” – we’ll just look at each other and won’t even have to say. Fucking Taco Riff. YES.

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The Austerity Program play this Sunday January 31, in Brooklyn at Public Assembly (70 N 6th St) with White Suns, Immanent Voiceless, Daniel Malinsky. You should go, goddammit!!!

I did not get into metal until relatively late in life. My teenage years were spent buying everything that came out on Touch & Go and Amphetamine Reptile. I’d see long-haired wasteoids hanging out in suburban playgrounds and think “Look at those chumps who’ve got it so bad for Reign in Blood while I know that Atomizer is really where it’s at. (Actually, I still pretty much feel this way.) At that point, MetalSucks was not a website, it was a personal belief.

Still, I was not unaware of what the metal kids were up to, even around fourth grade. A few of them that I invited to my birthday that year party chipped in and bought “Shout at the Devil;” since I only had about twelve records at that point, I figured that I’d listen to the record once a day because what else are you going to do? And it kind of freaked my parents out, and that was cool. And it had a pentagram on the cover which I spent a lot of time trying not to look at because I was worried something might happen to me.

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I wanted to jot down a few quick thoughts based on the responses that people took the time to post on the last piece that I wrote.

Responses: I tallied up people’s responses and have charted them out below. While no one’s expecting something statistically robust (and this is [i]not[/i] statistically robust), I should note that this tally is what I could gather from what people who decided to respond said that they did (and that the responses are current as of Wednesday at about 5:30 my time). You will see that the percentages add up to more than 100% – this is because a bunch of folks reported that they get their music in more than one way. The “Purchase Other” category includes folks who said they purchase a digital download and at least one person said they buy cassettes.

Given all these technical caveats, I wouldn’t recommend any record executives base their next release schedule on this – a bunch of people didn’t respond and their behavior may be very different from those that did. And if someone reported that they Soulseek a hundred records, buy ten CDs and buy 1 vinyl record, they’re counted equally for each category. Still, I’m surprised to see that as many of those who did respond still say they value getting a CD; I assumed that it was dying a lot quicker than this suggests.

Anyway, big thanks to folks for sharing their perspectives on this.

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I was in sunny Los Angeles a few weeks ago. There, nestled among the palm-lined streets, gleeful roller-skating commuters and destroyed real estate market, is a dank little office building where a personal injury lawyer shares space with a bunch of bearded fellows in their 20s. This is our record label (the beards, not the lawyers). So let’s say you were to go inside this cave of workplace: past the boxes and boxes of a particular 10-inch that someone had waaay over estimated the demand for; past the energetic bull terrier sniffing crotches of employees, owners, visitors and interns alike without discrimination; past even my 3 year old son, patiently watching Wonder Pets on a portable DVD player beneath the looming poster of impending rape happily portrayed in The Evil Dead. There, on a water-stained fourth-hand couch, you would have found me sitting as I talked one of the chaps who runs the whole affair. Let’s listen.

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I saw Until the Light Takes Us last week and was mildly surprised (again) at some of the unusual belief systems swirling around that scene. When you think about it, there’s nothing intrinsic to heavy or extreme music that must link it to scary, misanthropic stuff. Still, people all around the world who get into this music want to put their emotions into some additional context. When the music feels violent or painful, maybe it’s just natural to want to surround it in images and language that also feel violent and painful.

But here we are in 2010. Churches have been burned, dead religions exhumed, forearms branded and medical pathology textbooks scoured. If you and your bandmates are skipping homeroom to do this meth-ed out hatecore thing you’ve been G-chatting about and you really want to blow minds, what’s left? You think anyone gets unnerved at the sight of a pentagram? (Answer: no.) Do you really think that wearing black nail polish is making some statement about anything other that your ability to source black nail polish? (Answer: same answer as before – no.) I am telling you that it’s all been done, it’s not scary and it’s about time that folks did a damn sight better.

And better is what I’ve got: To take your band’s nightmare vision of moral obliteration farther than it’s ever been taken, there is only one ideology left to use.

I’m talking, of course, about Joe Lieberman.

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I was visiting friends and family in Chicago around Thanksgiving and I went to see the Jesus Lizard.  It was a fine show, the lead singer had a really hurt rib, the set list was solid.  Afterwards, we were all happy and sweaty and some friends and I went for pancakes.  A good night out.  And I am now wishing more and more that I had never gone – there’s a part of my brain is really stuck on something and I just can’t let it go.

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From time to time in the past we’ve exchanged e-mails with The Austerity Program‘s Justin Foley, and the dude’s e-mails were so goddamn funny (not to mention smart) that we finally asked him to write for us. Hopefully Justin’s contributions to MetalSucks will become a regular, or at least semi-regular, occurrence. Enjoy!

MORE COMPLAINTS ABOUT THAT BAD VILLAGE VOICE THING. I KNOW, IT’S BEST TO IGNORE THESE THINGS BUT I JUST CAN’T THIS TIME.

“O Confusion! Cruel mistress – thou who would lead thine servants to slaughter like a lamb also gets led (Ed – to slaughter). Cruel! Innocent lambs, gently editing metal blogs, knowing not of your unkind plans nor the wicked scroll of fate.” Henry VI, Act 4

Like many of you jokers, I was struck with a growing sadness as I read the nonsense that that nice Wingerschmidt boy posted the other day. Sadness because it really missed the main point about the Voice’s article –a refreshingly pure distillation of concentrated bullshit. Fortunately, I didn’t miss it and neither did many of those who commented. But just in case there’s any doubt, let me tell you why that Voice writer has it so, so wrong.

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