No Updates from me for a Few Days

Hail my true metal brethren,

I apologize for the lack of updates yesterday. The last thing I ever want to see at the top of my page is anything related to Charlie Sheen, let alone his glazed-over, retarded face staring back at me. Personal thanks to Mattasacre for a great violation post about having a "cause", that if you haven't read already, you're going to now. 

Telling you that this week has been a very difficult one for me would be the understatement of the century. Without going into the gory details, I had to completely disassemble the life I've been working on for the last 8-9 months in Nashville, TN and leave it all behind to fly back home. It makes you feel pretty insignificant when you can fit your entire life into two suit-cases and a small carry-on item, but what can I say? I never was one for excess. (Or rather, could never afford it.)  I'm in the process of reassembling myself in my home state of Massachusetts, where I'm once again among family and friends who can support me in this rough patch of my life, and help me get this metal master back to his full glory.

The positive aspect in all this, is that I'm once again living in an area with a genuine metal scene and genuine musicians. Metal acts actually stop and play in my state, as opposed to drive through it to get to the places on the map that musically matter. Nashville can suck it. Country music is, and always will be, a 10-gallon hat wearing parody of its former self. The rest of music laughs at its obnoxious ability to remain relevant with retards. Even considering the things I did like about Nashville, I'm still happy to admit I won't be living in the capital of bad music anymore. 

Every 'rock artist' in Nashville had this douchey "I need to make it" mentality, and the lot of them were 40-somethings with a Les Paul, a fake tan, and a gray soul patch. If you're a guitarist with a laminated business card, you're not a guitarist. I took comfort in the fact that they'd be spending all of their artistic efforts and budget getting professional photographs of themselves holding a Gibson while leaning on brick walls looking sullen, rather than writing music people want to listen to, and ultimately die penniless and alone chasing a pipe dream. 

Everyone in church thinks you suck.

All poison aside, it was a great experience, and I feel really discouraged about things not working out in the long run. I'm not one to let moments of difficulty get me down, but I appreciate all of you guys and gals understanding that I just need a couple days off to clear my head, have some beers and laughs with old friends, and take some time to consider my next step in life. 

At this very moment, it wouldn't be a lie to say that this blog, you guys, and the metal are just about all I have right now. I've read every word of support over these months, the compliments, the encouragement, even the hilarious naysaying. Even if I haven't replied back, I've seen all of it and (save for the hate) taken it to heart. The last couple weeks have been so rough, and I've seen the quality of my writing just plummet as a result of my stress. You guys hardly deserve that. You're a flock of wayward black sheep very much in need of some serious true metal herding, and if I'm not on my game, I might lose a few of you to the wolves of shitty music. 

You can expect nothing but good things as a result of my relocation. Actual metal shows to go to and review, actual metal fans to meet up with, a potential for interviews with musicians, and most of all, more free time for me to dedicate to the site. (For the time being, anyway.) 

Special thanks from these last few months: Steff Metal, Alkahest of Heavy Blog is Heavy, Sergeant D of Stuff You Will Hate and Metal Sucks, and Rob Liz from That Devil Music for sharing my page with their readers, and in turn gaining me some new readers as well. RoCkStArBaSs100 for being a fantastic sport in all our true metal bullying, Mattasacre and Tyranneous for their awesome contributions to the site. Ed "The Infidel" Veter for suggesting the blog to his YouTube viewers. And most of all, you, the readers, who know when to not question the gospel of your true metal gods and wave the flag of true, elitist metal glory high above your heads in one hand, with a perfectly formed devil horns pointing straight forward with your thumb properly tucked in with the other. 

Keep it metal. See you soldiers of rock soon!

- Brenocide \,,/ 

Having a "cause"

The world is doomed.

Finito, kaput, el screwdo. You are nothing more than a worthless speck of dust floating through the cosmic infinity just waiting to be consumed by the endless black of armageddon.

Visual Reinforcement

Metalheads as a whole have known this to be an undeniable truth since Black Sabbath first rang those three dissonant chords on their first album. We responded accordingly by drinking copious amounts of hard liquor, banging our heads and making awesome music. In the following four decades, there have been countless metal songs written about nuclear holocaust, global war and environmental degradation. I think it’s fair to say that not only do we expect it as an inevitability; a few of us welcome global destruction.

So why, why I ask you, would any of you be so naive to think you could change that?

It seems that more and more these days, there are so called “metalheads” that are developing a “social conscience”. They sit in cafes, drinking fair trade latte’s and munching on granola, possibly debating the plight of the Bavarian Painted Shrew or Canadian refugees or God knows what else these self-important blowhards decide to get passionate about for the next six months of their lives. They are the kind of people that sit there, picking bugs out of their dreadlocks and berate you over wearing leather; eating meat that’s not been processed in a kisses and cuddles free range cow day-care and accuse you of being callous and disengaged. Now, hang on, I hear you say, that sounds awfully similar to elitism, isn’t elitism what this website promote? No. You are wrong and ugly. The kind of elitism that these... crusaders we shall call them, promote, is nothing more than a steaming load of delusional hippie ideals that needs to stay the hell out of my genre.

You're one step away from this.

Brenocide has already covered the falseness of Vegans and The Open Minded and these new-age crusaders are very much cut from the same cloth, one where words like tolerance and positivity are liberally tossed around. Typically, they are fresh-faced (and I use that term very loosely) College students with far too many ideals and not enough common sense. They still have the outright arrogance to think that they can change the world, because, let’s face it, there is no such thing as a completely altruistic motive. These smug little do-gooders really just want the self-satisfaction and karmic brownie points that come from “doing their bit”. What these people don’t seem to understand, is that their efforts are generally going to be fruitless. Remember that Ethiopian orphan boy you were sponsoring? His entire village was wiped out in a flood. That fair-trade coffee you buy all the time? The CEO of the company is embezzling half the funds to feed his cocaine and Faberge egg habits; all of his Cambodian workers are still starving. You haven’t made a difference.

There is only one path to true metal redemption from something that’s as deeply engrained into one’s psyche as this. What these people need, (and generally get) is a good dose of reality. They usually do this themselves, by going backpacking in some Third-World Country and experiencing poverty first-hand. They ride in on a wave of good intentions, but soon find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer number of people in need. They simply don’t have enough money to hand out to every one-armed beggar and fall for every slick scammer that specializes in preying on such simple folk.

When they return after a few months, they are broken people, unable to look at the world and see the hope that was once there. Some of them cut their hair and settle down to a life of corporate finance, some of them remain filthy longhairs. However, there is one crucial difference. Now, they aren’t concerned with saving the whales anymore, they’re just angry. At everything. These people are the enlightened few that realise life is nothing more than a machine fuelled by broken dreams and the blood of sick puppies and the only thing you can believe in is heavy metal.

Charlie Sheen invites Asking Alexandria to go on "People still like me, right?" Tour

I know next to nothing about the whole current Charlie Sheen situation. Here is what I do know: he was in Platoon. Not much else. I heard that he got kicked off of the prime time television series, "Two and Half Men" for being an insane drunken douche like he's always been. He tried to sue the producer, acted a damn fool, and on the way from there to now, he's concocted this plan to pull this ham-fisted Conan-style comeback to trick people into still considering him relevant, by going on "tour". 

Who does he ask to perform as his opening act? OH... MY... GOD!! None other than British trancecore breakdowners Asking Alexandria, of course. 

The greatest part of this bit of celeb news? They turned him down. That's right, Asking Alexandria would rather do their crab bounce act in some shady dive-bars per usual, than earn massive amounts of publicity sharing a stage with this human loser. That's gotta hurt. Especially considering Sheen and Warsnop have that whole alcoholism thing in common.

Special thanks to Ryan Hoffman for the news submission! 

Tim's Letter of Resignation from True Metal

Dear Brenocide,

I would like to inform you that I am no longer reading you blog, due to complications involving your opinions. Normally I would not complain and/or care for ones opinion but your thoughts and views within the metal world are just flat out ridiculous whether you are being sarcastic or not. You should not be forcing people that what people are doing is currently not metal. Last time I checked metal had no rules, so i don't know who you think you are making up the rules within the heavy metal community. If I'm a ginger does this mean I am not worthy of heavy metal stature? What if I have Attention Deficit Hyper-active Disorder? Does that not make me worthy of heavy metal stature as well? You can't control people Brenocide, even though i do agree with you on some levels, the fact that i can't be open-minded is what makes me want to stop reading your blog. Who are you to tell me that I can't have a free mind? Do me a favor Bren, stop try to control people within the metal community and let them be themselves, if we think someone is a poseur then we will call out that person as a poseur. Your little perfect world will never exist.

- Tim Ploghoft

When the going gets tough. Timmy has enough! :(

"Due to complications" involving my opinions? Are we talking about a miscarriage here?

While I can sincerely promise you Tim that you will not be missed, I'm a little confused with your message about why you're discontinuing your readership. I really couldn't care less if you want to just stop visiting the site, but you felt strongly enough about it to go out of your way and inform me via e-mail as to why you wouldn't be reading anymore. Far be it from me not to grace you with your deserved response. I just want to make sure we're on the same page in regards to you leaving, in order to at least stay on good terms with one another. I very much want to provide you a glowing letter of recommendation for when you apply to the everybody-is-friends-in-the-hold-hands-metal-club after leaving us. I also would like to explain to you in the simplest terms I can, that the issue of you leaving is completely on your end and not at all on mine.

So here's what gets me the most about your little two-week-notice: I have never changed. This page has always been what it is. If you didn't enjoy me dictating to people how they should be and you didn't like the fact that metal has rules to follow, then you shouldn't have kept reading a blog that's completely about all of that like a dumbass. How could you possibly have not felt this way from the get go? At what point did the neurons fire across your brain and make you go "hey... ... ... I think this guy is trying to tell me what to do...!"

If you go to my list of Violations you'll see that Tyranneous and I wrote 50 violation posts before I even touched on Open-Mindedness a few weeks ago. 50. Those date back from mid-November of last year. I've been doing this for a while. Why you were mentally incapable of calling me out with the improper objection that "metal has no rules" until my 51st post about a metal rule, is some sort of mental defect all of in itself. I can promise you it's not just ADHD. I think it's medically referred to as "stupid", and symptoms develop "due to complications" in your education.

Where exactly have you "checked" to make sure metal "has no rules", and when was the "last time?" See, the place where I check for such a fact is my own blog, and I do it at least once a day, because I know I'm right. That trumps whatever source and timeline you're referring to, because unlike you, I'm not fabricating a source and a timeline. Look, disagree with me specifically on the rules I lay out if you want, (you'd be wrong,) but anybody who denies that metal has rules doesn't know their dick from their elbow. Of course metal has rules. Everything has rules. A rule is just a "prescribed guide for conduct or action", or a "regulating principle". There are necessary components you need to make a metal song, a metal song. Otherwise it wouldn't be a goddamn metal song. If metal has no rules, what's to stop me from calling a Ludacris tune pure, unadulterated, true heavy metal? A bird and an alligator are respectively a bird and an alligator because one follows the proper guidelines in being a bird, and the other an alligator. I don't know how to break it down any simpler for you dimwits. "Metal has no rules" is just what open-minded, free-loving snuggly "metalheads" tell each other because they think it sounds like a bad ass thing to say. Anybody mentally capable of a moment of rational, careful thought would retract that statement faster than I retracted my manstrument from your sister's mouth when I was good and finished because I like to see it all over her face.

No, I wouldn't write any rules against you being a ginger with a child's disorder, because that doesn't make any sense. Those are things you can't really help, (save for taking your Ritalin), and it wouldn't be fair of me to rag on people because of something they were born with. You weren't born with an eyebrow piercing. Every violation I've ever discussed is something within someone's personal control to do or not do. I am a firm opponent against the concept of trying too hard. I'm hardly trying to control anybody. I just make the rules bro, nobody's enforcing them. I don't really care if you do what you want, wear what you want, and listen to what you want. My only role in all of this is a position of advisory. I'm here to tell you whether or not it makes you metal. You see, my perfect little world already exists. It's up to you whether you want to come be part of it.

Do you want to know who I think I am to tell people this stuff? I'm some asshole typing my opinion on the internet. That's it. Exactly who are you supposed to be?

So all in all Tim, it's called elitism for a reason. Not everybody can make the cut, and I apologize if it started to become too difficult for you. If you can stay away as you promised and won't ever read my response to you, well I find that unfortunate as well. I feel there would've been a chance you might have seen what a nonsensical retard you were being and gave true metal another shot. Oh well, I wish you the best and hope you don't let being a poseur discourage you from listening to the occasional decent metal bands.

Enjoy listening to Meshuggah or whatever.

Sincerely,


Brenocide \,,/