low culture

Countdown: Five Weeks

TRAPPIST FRONTMAN

crafts a monthly journey through MORBID ALES

BY CHRIS DODGE

n a little over a month, I’ll have experienced two momentous life events: My daughter will be born, and I’ll have hired and trained 50 people over the last 10 weeks for work. At the same goddamn time. This means a massive change in how my time is spent and what my life will look like. I managed to get out of the job that was killing me and into something lucrative and challenging, and I didn’t pull out, which also has consequences catapulting me into deeper adulthood. So, you would think this would be a time of reflection for me; about how I’ve pulled my shit together and should be maturely considering my life.

You’d be absolutely fucking wrong.

Because for the last two weeks or so, I’ve allowed a pea underneath my mattress (Google it) to ruin my train of thought. And that pea is how much I despise the use of “blackened” as a descriptive for a band. Jesus, that’s a fucking awful signifier. It generally means some asshole is screaming in a higher pitch than whatever genre said asshole’s shitty band is in. Or there’s some melody in the guitar playing, but it’s not slow enough to be called “doomy” (also a shitty adjective). Or a bit of both, mostly in “blackened grind,” sort of a shit runway down the middle of the genre’s briefs.

Labels and press people love this. It’s the apex of lazy descriptions and somehow is always “served up” à la “Shit Hammer serves up a heaping mass (or some other equally boring way of describing a record, usually around the idea that the music is fucking food being prepared, which I guess makes sense since we’re pretty much reduced to being consumers at this point) of blackened doomy grind!” followed by a list of three dozen similar artists, because fuck anything having its own identity anymore.

I don’t know how I would change the format of descriptions because it also gives my dickhole a paper cut when I see a press piece or review that has fucking nothing to do with the music, but is some kind of short story about dungeons or battlefields (ancient or contemporary, take your pick), or some kind of extended metaphor that’s more the writer jerking themselves off for no one’s entertainment or enlightenment. Again, almost entirely written around black metal or something that has black metal influences.

I’m told I get irritated over meaningless things. There’s a guy across the street from where I was working for the last month who still has his pumpkins out in February, and I’ve probably bitched more about that than talked about how excited I am to be a father. Will this sort of shit ease off once I have a kid? My cat Spaghetti turned into a mean bitch once she was fixed. Is this my fate? Jesus Christ, that’s a sad life.

Regardless, I don’t see anyone changing their lazy writing anytime soon, and we’ll be hearing about “platters of blackened expressions” being served up until the end of time; but truth be told, that’s probably a good thing, because it helps me steer right the fuck away from those records, as it just announces that I’m going to be bored by them. I think one of the labels that did the Twilight records described us as “blackened,” which is probably why those records sold like shit (and probably why I seem to be triggered by it). Who knows? Join me again next month when I discuss crowning and changing diapers.

Barnaby Struve (1972 – 2021)

Seriously, fuck this decade. This is the column I never wanted to write. Barnaby Struve has passed.

He was the molten solder that fused the worlds of metal and beer. Trailblazing extreme brewer, 3 Floyds, Wayfinder Beer, Puppy Mill Recordings, artist, roadie, one-man think tank, iconic mad scientist. Pay homage. Even if you didn’t know him, you owe him. Go pour one out for Barnaby; a beer or a greyhound will do. “To Evil!”

Todd Haug (3 Floyds, Powermad): In 2012, as Barnaby and I lamented how craft beer was lousy with hippies and not with headbangers, it was obvious that we could do more. A slogan was born: “Bludgeoning the hippies out of craft beer.” And the rest is history. R.I.P., my friend Barnaby.

Chris Boggess (3 Floyds): [One] time I tricked him into going to see Mötley Crüe at the Summit in Houston. I think it was in ’95. Barnaby hated Mötley Crüe, but he started the “CRÜE! CRÜE! CRÜE!” chant in our section, saying, “I had to… my hands were tied.”