Well, Mark Shelton died yesterday. As is not unusual, this led me down the path of metal ponderings. However, counter-intuitive as it may seem, this post is not about Manilla Road, or even regular heavy metal. Rather Manilla Road leads me to think of Darkthrone…
Until 1998, I was pretty unaware of “extreme metal”. I’d been a fan of metal since 1981 when I first heard “Hot Rockin'” and I got pretty into the commercial thing: Priest, Maiden, Saxon, Accept, etc… Even branched out a bit into Raven, Mercyful Fate, the first Anthrax and Megadeth albums… But then it all went downhill (as in, JP released Turbo) and I fled, which caused me to miss Metallica (pretty much the whole thrash movement, death metal, etc). I lived in pretty much a media blackout for the late 80’s and most of the 90’s. So while I was familiar with the look of some Nu-metal bands, I had no idea what was happening in metal. For me, it really ended when Turbo came out and I never looked at anything past that again.
Then, in 1998, I applied for a job at 2nd Avenue Records. The application was basically just a sheet asking about musical interests. I mentioned the noise rock I’d been listening to for the previous 13 years, some classic metal stuff and threw on Mercyful Fate, just for kicks. That was what the owners clicked on. Probably the only reason I got an interview. At the interview, they asked about my knowledge of Norwegian Black Metal… Well, I’d never heard of black metal, wasn’t familiar with any music from Scandinavia at all aside from Abba (well, and MF as I guess Denmark is Scandinavia), but I said it sounded interesting and I got the job.
I then started exploring. We had tons of Extreme Metal and, due to the lack of interest in it from the rest of the staff, I ended up sort of being “the metal guy” for helping the customers out. I started digging in myself… First with the big names… Emperor, Immortal, Darkthrone, Vader, Dark Funeral, Satyricon, Burzum… I tried to stay somewhat a purist and avoided most things that were released after I became a fan… Only stuff that predated me was old enough… Though, as luck would have it I only worked there a few months and, while I nursed along my black metal ideas for a few years after that, I fell out of like with black and death metal by about 2001 (aside from Darkthrone, Burzum and Vader). But, through the attention I had given it, I ended up discovering more early Metal from the 80’s that I really appreciated and wished I hadn’t missed at the time… Cirith Ungol, Angel Witch, Manilla Road… Then it all came together in 2007. Darkthrone, one of the classic black metal bands, and pretty much the only one I still listened to, released F.O.A.D. An amazing record of snotty, raw early-metal-thrash sounding music. I loved it, and still do. It led me to investigate more retro-metal… Starting with Overdrive and Armour in 2008, and then I continued keeping a side-eye on some of the current retro-metals for a few years, but didn’t pay much attention.
Then in 2014 I started selling some of my records. That got my attention back into things and got me feeling like I could maybe explore acquiring some stuff. And in 2015 I found Bandcamp. I have been firmly anti-“major label” since about 1985 and this was like a dream come true! A treasure trove of artist selling their own music directly to the fan, with tons of retro metal!
I started with Clouds Taste Satanic, Kosmodrom, and Spaceslug… And know I don’t see any reason to purchase music from anyone aside from the artist themselves.
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