'I want you to support local metal'
A theory of metal scene formation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v6i1.116Keywords:
heavy metal, musical performance, scene formationAbstract
Much existing literature in metal studies contains an implicit theory of scene formation; the following article aims to articulate an explicit one. This theory is based primarily on ethnographic research on metal scenes in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Toledo, USA. These two field sites are quite dissimilar culturally, demographically, and geographically, yet their respective metal scenes share similar sets of concerns and values and even have contact with one another. Through the positing of four core functions of and six generalizations about metal scenes, the following essay considers artifactual circulation, institutional support, musical amateurism, boundary maintenance, generational succession, and specific stages of maturation as their essential features, whether they emerge in bustling, rapidly-industrializing Asian megalopolises; deindustrialized, depopulated cities in the Midwestern United States; or anywhere else on the planet. We end with a few provocative claims concerning metal’s uniqueness and an exhortation to a new generation of ethnographers to discover if these claims have empirical foundation.
References
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Shank, Barry. 1994. Dissonant Identities: The Rock ’n’ Roll Scene in Austin, Texas. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press.
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Wallach, Jeremy. 2003a. ‘The Poetics of Electrosonic Presence: Recorded Music and the Materiality of Sound’. Journal of Popular Music Studies 15(1): 34–64.
—2003b. ‘“Goodbye My Blind Majesty”: Music, Language, and Politics in the Indonesian Underground’. In Global Pop, Local Language, ed. Harris M. Berger and Michael T. Carroll, 53–86. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.
—2005. ‘Underground Rock Music and Democratization in Indonesia’. World Literature Today 79(3-4): 16–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/40158922
—2008a. ‘Living the Punk Lifestyle in Jakarta’. Ethnomusicology 52(1): 97–115.
—2008b. Modern Noise, Fluid Genres: Popular Music in Indonesia, 1997–2001. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
—2010. ‘Distortion-Drenched Dystopias: Metal and Modernity in Southeast Asia’. In The Metal Void: First Gatherings, ed. Niall W. R. Scott, 357–66. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press.
—2011. ‘Unleashed in the East: Metal Music, Masculinity, and “Malayness” in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore’. In Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music around the World, ed. Jeremy Wallach, Harris M. Berger and Paul D. Greene, 86–105. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Wallach, Jeremy, Harris M. Berger and Paul D. Greene, eds. 2011. Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music around the World. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Weinstein, Deena. 1991. Heavy Metal: A Cultural Sociology. New York: Lexington Books.
Wong, Cynthia P. 2005. ‘“Lost Lambs”: Rock, Gender, Authenticity, and a Generational Response to Modernity in the People’s Republic of China’. PhD dissertation, Department of Music, Columbia University.
—2011. ‘“A Dream Return to Tang Dynasty”: Masculinity, Male Camaraderie, and Chinese Heavy Metal in the 1990s’. In Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music around the World, ed. Jeremy Wallach, Harris M. Berger and Paul D. Greene, 63–85. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Bennett, Andy, and Richard A. Peterson, eds. 2004. Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.
Berger, Harris M. 1999. Metal, Rock, and Jazz: Perception and the Phenomenology of Musical Experience. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Brown, Bill. 2010. You Should’ve Heard Just What I Seen: Collected Newspaper Articles 1981–1984. Cincinnati: Colossal Books.
Donze, Patti Lynne. 2010. ‘Heterosexuality Is Totally Metal: Ritualized Community and Separation at a Local Music Club’. Journal of Popular Music Studies 22(3): 259–82. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-1598.2010.01241.x
Dunn, Sam, and Scot McFadyen, dirs. 2005. Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey. Seville Pictures.
—2008. Global Metal. Seville Pictures.
Finnegan, Ruth. 1989. The Hidden Musicians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fonarow, Wendy. 2006. Empire of Dirt: The Aesthetics and Rituals of British Indie Music. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Gaines, Donna. 1991. Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia’s Dead End Kids. New York: Pantheon.
Guibert, Gérôme. 2011. ‘Espace et lieu dans l’étude des musiques populaires, les paradoxes de la sociologie française’. Paper presented at ‘Music and Environment’. The Annual Meeting of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music—Canada, Montreal, Quebec, 18 June 2011.
Harris, Keith. 2000. ‘Roots? The Relationship between the Global and the Local within the Extreme Metal Scene’. Popular Music 19(1): 13–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/ S0261143000000052
Helb, Colin. 2009. ‘Use and Influence of Amateur Musician Narratives in Film, 1981–2001’. PhD dissertation, American Culture Studies Program, Bowling Green State University.
Hickam, Brian, and Jeremy Wallach. 2011. ‘Female Authority and Dominion: Discourse and Distinctions of Heavy Metal Scholarship’. Journal for Cultural Research 12(3): 255–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2011.594583
Ivanova, Maranatha. 2009. ‘Limning the Jianghu: Spaces of Appearance and the Performative Politics of the Chinese Cultural Underground’. PhD dissertation. Department of Political Science. Berkeley: University of California.
Kahn-Harris, Keith. 2002. ‘“I Hate This Fucking Country”: Dealing with the Global and the Local in the Israeli Extreme Metal Scene’. In Music, Popular Culture, Identities, ed. R. Young, 133–51. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi.
—2004a. ‘The Failure of Youth Culture: Reflexivity, Music and Politics in the Black Metal Scene’. European Journal of Cultural Studies 7(1): 95–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/ 1367549404039862
—2004b. ‘Unspectacular Subculture? Transgression and Mundanity in the Global Extreme Metal Scene’. In After Subculture, ed. Andy Bennett and Keith Kahn-Harris. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
—2007. Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge. New York: Berg.
—2011. ‘“You Are from Israel and That Is Enough to Hate You Forever”: Racism, Globalization, and Play within the Global Extreme Metal Scene’. In Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music around the World, ed. Jeremy Wallach, Harris M. Berger and Paul D. Greene, 200–223. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
LeVine, Mark. 2009. Headbanging against Repressive Regimes: Censorship of Heavy Metal in the Middle East, North Africa, Southeast Asia and China. Copenhagen: Freemuse.
Murši?, Rajko, 2011. ‘Noisy Crossroads: Metal Scenes in Slovenia’. In Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music around the World, ed. Jeremy Wallach, Harris M. Berger and Paul D. Greene, 294–312. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Osbourne, Ozzy, with Chris Ayres. 2009. I Am Ozzy. New York: Hachette Book Group.
Shank, Barry. 1994. Dissonant Identities: The Rock ’n’ Roll Scene in Austin, Texas. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press.
Straw, Will. 1990. ‘Characterizing Rock Music Culture: The Case of Heavy Metal’. In On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word, ed. Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin, 97–110. New York: Pantheon.
—1991. ‘Systems of Articulation, Logics of Change: Communities and Scenes in Popular Music’. Cultural Studies (5)1: 368–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502389100490311
Thornton, Sarah. 1997. Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Urban, Greg. 2001. Metaculture: How Culture Moves Through the World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Waksman, Steve. 2009. This Ain’t the Summer of Love: Conflict and Crossover in Heavy Metal and Punk. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wallach, Jeremy. 2003a. ‘The Poetics of Electrosonic Presence: Recorded Music and the Materiality of Sound’. Journal of Popular Music Studies 15(1): 34–64.
—2003b. ‘“Goodbye My Blind Majesty”: Music, Language, and Politics in the Indonesian Underground’. In Global Pop, Local Language, ed. Harris M. Berger and Michael T. Carroll, 53–86. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.
—2005. ‘Underground Rock Music and Democratization in Indonesia’. World Literature Today 79(3-4): 16–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/40158922
—2008a. ‘Living the Punk Lifestyle in Jakarta’. Ethnomusicology 52(1): 97–115.
—2008b. Modern Noise, Fluid Genres: Popular Music in Indonesia, 1997–2001. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
—2010. ‘Distortion-Drenched Dystopias: Metal and Modernity in Southeast Asia’. In The Metal Void: First Gatherings, ed. Niall W. R. Scott, 357–66. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press.
—2011. ‘Unleashed in the East: Metal Music, Masculinity, and “Malayness” in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore’. In Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music around the World, ed. Jeremy Wallach, Harris M. Berger and Paul D. Greene, 86–105. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Wallach, Jeremy, Harris M. Berger and Paul D. Greene, eds. 2011. Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music around the World. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Weinstein, Deena. 1991. Heavy Metal: A Cultural Sociology. New York: Lexington Books.
Wong, Cynthia P. 2005. ‘“Lost Lambs”: Rock, Gender, Authenticity, and a Generational Response to Modernity in the People’s Republic of China’. PhD dissertation, Department of Music, Columbia University.
—2011. ‘“A Dream Return to Tang Dynasty”: Masculinity, Male Camaraderie, and Chinese Heavy Metal in the 1990s’. In Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music around the World, ed. Jeremy Wallach, Harris M. Berger and Paul D. Greene, 63–85. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Published
2012-05-14
Issue
Section
Countercultures
How to Cite
Wallach, J., & Levine, A. (2012). ’I want you to support local metal’: A theory of metal scene formation. Popular Music History, 6(1-2), 116-134. https://doi.org/10.1558/pomh.v6i1.116
