Hayward..............Music and Ice Cream

by FRANCINE HAYWARD

Throughout my childhood, my dad had a fantastic career in what was then known simply as “the record business.“ One of the best perks of the job was that Dad was able to acquire, through his business contacts, tickets to any concert.

One night Dad was particularly excited about tickets for a fabulous act. Dad just knew that the concert was going to be a watershed event. He wanted me and my sister, Marlene, to see this show because the group was so incredible, and well, we’d want to tell our children about it someday.

Marlene and I were easily convinced, not merely because we were obedient, but because we were really young. At single digit ages, we were rather incapable of putting up much of an argument. And why would we? The concert meant staying up well past our bedtime.

I can’t remember why my parents couldn’t take us. In my memory, my mom was about to give birth to one of my younger siblings. Or maybe she was recovering from childbirth? Whatever! Aunt Nancy, my mom’s twin, was called. There were four tickets. Would Nancy and her beau, a man we called Uncle John, take Marlene and me?

At the time, Uncle John was not officially our uncle because he had not yet married, nor even proposed, to my Aunt Nancy. It would be a few more years before all would be official. John was a civil engineer. He worked on construction sites and helped build real things. Though he and my dad would be friends, John thought so very differently than my dad, the record executive.

Nancy asked John three times before he agreed to take us. I suspect that on some level, our future Uncle John just didn’t think the concert would be his scene. The concert was a warm summer night. The anguished screams of teenage girls filled Shea Stadium. It was nearly impossible to hear the music. Marlene and I did our best to take in the scene. Then things got really interesting: Marlene spied, far in the distance, a man selling ice cream. Could we get some?

Aunt Nancy said yes. We waved and signaled our desire to buy. But the vendor could not get through the crowds. Uncle John then valiantly volunteered to get us ice cream, even though this meant wading through a tidal wave of screaming humanity. Knowing ice cream was on the way, the concert became so much more enjoyable. Though we waited patiently, it seemed like days, and probably was 35 or more minutes, before Uncle John returned. He was a hero to us! The ice cream man had only one Dixie cup left, not the two we were expecting. I, being the eldest sister decided that Marlene, the younger, should have the ice cream. I’m sure she offered me a taste but really it was fine that she have it. It was pretty melted anyway. I’ll always be indebted to Uncle John, who died last week, for taking us to see The Beatles. Though early in the phenomena that decades later would be called the Culture Wars, the demarcation would soon be visible. There would be the hippie protesters on one side. On the other, hard working, regular folks, like John.

John’s willingness to put himself among the “other,” in this case a whole bunch of people with whom he didn’t think he’d have much in common, is inspiring to me, and according to new research, increasingly rare in American life. May music always provide an opportunity for people to come together, get acquainted and enjoy. But if for some reason the music doesn’t do it for you, I suggest you try the ice cream.

I call myself an idiot because I know very little about black metal. Thus it’s a little bit unfair for me to suggest that I am capable of having a really useful discussion on whether or not Liturgy is a “real” black metal band or not, but since my exposure to them, I have found them to be an interesting topic of conversation.

Perhaps that has more to do with Hunter Hunt Hendrix’s somewhat cavalier opinions on Black Metal rather than the actual sound of the music. Last issue (way back in winter term) NoFi ran a copy of HHH’s controversial manifesto entitled “Transcendental Black Metal.” Like any good piece of philosophy, a large portion of the document is mostly unreadable, yet intriguing to a fault. Underneath his vague constructions and somewhat obtuse generalizations (for instance, he implies that Black Metal from Sweden sounds lame because the country doesn’t have enough variation in climate throughout the year), there are some legitimately interesting ideas buried in there. In the paper, he sort of problematizes the whole question of “brutality” and whether the pursuit of “brutality” as an end in itself can ever be fully realized. Admittedly, this whole discourse comes off as hilarious, because it’s literally a discussion about how you tried so hard, and got so far, but in the end, you still weren’t brutal enough. But, HHH’s flagrant, philosophical masturbation aside, Liturgy makes interesting music. It definitely has some elements of Metal, and it is certainly brutal in many ways, but it feels different from a lot of other Black Metal I’ve heard. In some senses, it sounds literally very different (as is the case with their new album The Ark Work), but a lot of the time the real difference is stylistic. Liturgy doesn’t sound like this negative-medieval-Satan nonsense; its sounds a lot more positive and triumphant, a little bit like “Also Sprach Zarathustra.” Not literally of course, but it has this similar kind of existential vibe. When you throw in Liturgy’s general postmodern weirdness and use of digital instrumentation (especially on The Ark Work), it is actually a sound that Black Metal hasn’t been serving up before. In fact, not a lot of ROCK bands in general have that kind of aesthetic. Liturgy are making some actually interesting music, and even if it’s not good (like quite a bit of The Ark Work), it’s certainly experimental.

So for that reason, I give Liturgy a thumbs up. I don’t give HHH a thumbs up because it’s pretty obvious that when left to his own devices, he mostly sucks shit (see “Vitriol” on The Ark Work), but Aesthetica is a great album, and whether or not its Black Metal, it’s still awesome as shit.