666 : Fallen Hero, How Chris Cornell's Death Affected Me

There is a poetic poignancy that the first day of this year’s mental health awareness week fell on the third anniversary of Chris Cornell’s death. Around 1988 Kerrang started talking about interesting releases coming from an independent label out of Seattle called “Sub Pop”. They reviewed the first singles from Mudhoney, Tad and Nirvana, describing a raw primordial sound that took Metal’s heaviness and combined it with punk’s guttural energy. I was intrigued, but as this was the days before Spotify (and I had limited disposable income) I became a Grunge fan because I liked the way that it was described as opposed to actually having heard any of it.

666 : Thought for Mental Health Awareness Week

You know what? When this is all over and I get to stand in front of a real-life, in the flesh live band I will cry like a friggin baby. I’m emotional just thinking about it. Gigging is my hobby and my passion. In fact, it is more than that, it is my crutch and my salvation. It is my rock (n’roll), the antidote to rough days. It is something that I look forward and hungrily countdown to. Life’s ups and downs and frequent disappointments are made easier by the thought of forthcoming shows. Work crap is made more bearable by the thought that I have got some obscure Norwegian Black Metal act that evening.

666Author : Stewart Lucas18 May 2020Mind, Black Metal, Blog Post, Helloween, Stewart LucasComment

666 : Why I ain't doing live streaming gigs!

I’ll let you into a secret, I just don’t get filmed concerts. In lockdown, I have tried the plentiful streams coming from some of my favourite artists (Insomnium, Enslaved, Swallow the Sun, Hevy Devy) and I also tried revisiting films of classic shows. Both have sadly left me cold. I adore Frank Turner’s “England Keep My Bones”, but heretically I left his full album performance on Thursday midway through coz I was bored. You can see me surging in the crowd in the footage from both AC/DC and Iron Maiden triumphant early nineties Donington headline sets, yet I barely get through the opening numbers with both shows before I decide I have something else tp do.

666Author : Stewart Lucas25 April 2020Live Stream, Hevy Devy, Enslaved, Insomnium, Frank Turner, Blog Post, Stewart Lucas, Isolation, CrowdComment

666 : The Dystopian World of Live Music, What Next?

If you read the comments on Facebook regarding the few festivals that are left, you will see that opinions divide neatly into two camps: those desperate for the events to go ahead and those weary of ever again being within two meters of another human being. This split is also evident in national research on how the general public view the potential return to some form of normality. On Radio Five this morning, they hypothesised that if Coronavirus stuck around for years to come, there could develop a real suspicion of social mixing that would intrinsically change the way that we operate as human beings. This has led me to mulling over how this will affect live music.

666 : What is Metal?

Our universe is vast. It is full of melodic mountains made up of euphoric life-affirming anthems. Music that makes you feel invigorated. There are also dark recesses where the pain and anguish run as torrents of harrowing human misery. Music that speaks to the broken and down-trodden. Yet, both exist side by side. Both are Metal. Metal started as Sabbath. Sabbath was Metal, Metal was Sabbath. Simple. But then like any virus it started mutating. And that's the point. There is no blueprint or grand plan for this music. It is not built to some preordained structure, it creeps, it develops and it evolves. Which begs the question “What actually is Metal?”.

666 : The History Of Metal

Earth change their name to Black Sabbath, come up with that riff and metal is born. In this country, they appeal to kids bored by their elder brothers Beatles records. In the states, they appeal to kids bored of smoking spliffs to the Grateful Dead. Some stay awake long enough to form Aerosmith, Kiss and the Alice Cooper Band.

666Author : Stewart Lucas4 March 2020The History Of Metal, Stewart LucasComment