In November, just after the election from hell, I became a metalhead.
It was an accident, but its too late to reverse course now.
Before saying more about that, I want to step back in time.
The devils horns of the Wacken Open Air festival are silhouetted against rain clouds on Aug. 4, 2016, in Wacken, Germany.Alexander Koerner/Getty Images
By about 60 years.
During most of those years, I was good at keeping up with the currency of popular music.
That, too, was an accident.
I never took any journalism courses.
Instead, I took music courses music was my major at Portland State University.
I didnt get that much from all that study.
Earlier in the 1960s, radio was the primary educationalmedium for me.
Every day, there was something new.
Of course, there was some music you didnt have to seek out on the airwaves.
There was plenty of music that simply owned the air.
I took to it like a dog to water (or whatever dogs take to).
Before long, that was my beat: writing about dead people and departed events.
Except none of that history was really dead, even if some of its artists were.
As Willam Faulkner wrote in the part-novel, part-playRequiem for a Nun, The past is never dead.
Its not even past.
I was drawn to it because of the word acid in the albums titles.
Heavy Rock from the American Comedown Era, as RidingEasy describes it.
These collections were post-garage proto-metal, and more often than not, the music knocked me out.
Its no longer in print but can be heard at Spotify.)
What did I find?
A change in my life.
That exploration still hasnt stopped, and I doubt it ever will.
You couldve knocked me over with a mallet.
Black metal had early foundations in England, Switzerland, and Scandinavia but similarly spread beyond.
Black metal was in a sense theological, but much of it was closer to the theology of H.P.
Lovecraft: The real gods will kill everybody, including those who love and follow those gods.
Lovecrafts fictional mythos into full-fledged philosophy.
They arent about to kill anybody or burn anything down.
Black metal is a sound that its devotees value immensely and they are ready to argue for its meanings.
It is a genre that is core to metal and much of it is flat-out brilliant.
I have been floored time and again, daily, by the quality of these permutations.
In fact, it makes for oceans.
One such site I now visit daily isAngry Metal Guy.)
In fact, I bought a labels 140-disc discography the other night for 50 cents.
What this means isnt that this music is cheap or worthless.
What it means is that the music is a work of love, a way of life.
Metal and its diverse manifestations makes for the best and most fascinating music scene Ive ever encountered.
Everything I said above about the currency of popular music?
In truth, metal can seen more of an umbrella than a genre.
All the international permutations have their own takes on subgenres.
Theres even Mormon metal.
(My home team is trying nonetheless.)
(Which it really isnt.
For me, the more cacophonous and dissonant those sounds, the more consoling they feel.
Did the November election have anything to do with it?
This is certainly a time for more brutal sounds and sentiments.
Or is it my naturally sunny disposition that has turned me metalward?
Depressive waters seek their own level.
I shouldnt rule out that possibility either.
