Where is the double bass on the drums: Vintage Roadrunner hate mail

Some posts just write themselves, like yesterday's on Stuff You Will Hate about BOSS' Crabcore pedal. Such is also the case with this collection of "interesting" letters received by Roadrunner about 5 years ago and passed on to us by a secret source that we will simply call "Green Rage." Please thank him/her and enjoy this rare treat!

Click on any of the images to see a full-size version that you can actually read.


This fucking dipshit is an asshole of the highest order, but what's much worse is that he's not funny. In this letter he pretends to think there is a defect with the CD they sent him FOR FREE and says the singer for Cradle of Filth sounds like a girl. Here is how I would probably react: Har har, real funny, you sure taught me a lesson about how lame I am for sending free stuff to people like you. You couldn't just silently throw it away like everyone else who doesn't like it, you had to rub it in my face. Your time is clearly priceless, other than the hours you spent writing this letter and patting yourself on the back for being so clever. How about this you motherfucker, I know where your fucking kids go to school and they get out in 10 minutes- think you can get there faster than I can? Why aren't you laughing anymore??



In this letter, some gimp/mongo begs Roadrunner to send him a Slipknot CD out of pity for his disability. True to form for someone who is asking for a handout, he is not only asking for a favor but has very specific demands regarding how the favor should be done: "CDS LPS ONLY NO SINGLES. IF 2 VERSIONS SEND EXPLICIT LYRIC VERSION. IF ONLY ONE VERSION SEND IT." It's kind of like when I told Olga Kurylenko she should pity-fuck me after the ATM ate my debit card, then said "MISSIONARY/REVERSE COWGIRL ONLY NO HANDJOBS. IF 2 ORIFICES USE BUTTHOLE. IF ONLY ONE ORIFICE USE IT."


If you ever did a zine, traded tapes, or otherwise corresponded with Euros by mail in the 80s/90s, this letter will sound all too familiar. Some German weirdo is pitching them on the idea of opening some Roadrunner stores in Europe. But that's not all! He adds that "When a Roadrunner Band is on Tour or the Roadrunner Roadrage Tour is across Europe this Band or Bands make a Autographbreak on the Local Roadrunner Store so Fans can get closer to their Idols." It sounds to me like he has fully considered this idea and I cannot imagine why Roadrunner did not jump at the chance to immediately engage him as VP Retail Development, Roadrunner Europe. Then he could give the gimp from above a job and kill two birds with one stone!


Now this letter is refreshing! He's not being a dickbag whiner, asking for free shit, or an annoying Euro, he's just a Roadrunner fan who is understandably concerned about the direction the label started taking around this time (1995ish). As a diehard Fear Factory and Machine Head devotee, he simply asks "Where is the REALLY heavy stuff? Where is the death metal? Where is the double bass on the drums??" And isn't that what we are all trying to find out during our time here on this planet?? Where *is* the double bass on the drums?


Hoo boy... this reminds me of the insane bullshit that covers the label of Dr. Bronner's soap. The scary part is the complete lack of awareness at play. Any time someone seems to lack a fundamental understanding of reality, it's unnerving because you never know what the fuck they'll do next. They operate on what seems to be their own bizarre logic system that has little or no relationship to the way the world actually works. When Z-level, local metal bands send their godawful demo to Roadrunner it's certainly kind of pathetic, but at least it makes sense: they are in a metal band, and Roadrunner puts out metal records. I always wonder what possesses some weirdo like this fruit to contact a label like Roadrunner, and how they might react if rejected. I imagine this guy is the heir to some insane fortune that his father made selling essence of honeysuckle in the 1920s or whatever, so he doesn't have to work. Instead, he spends his days wandering around, sniffing bicycle seats and park benches. When he gets the news that Roadrunner signed Billy Talent instead of him, he flips out and some poor girl waiting for the bus ends up in a dumpster behind 7-11, fragments of a shattered Dresden Dolls CD jammed into her skull.

Putting out the Disincarnate album alone is enough to atone for Roadrunner's sins of allowing Methods of Mayhem and the nu-Misfits to enter a recording studio

Conclusion
Working in the music industry might sound glamorous, but there's more to the job than the cool stuff you read about in No Glam Fags or The Wild Rag. For every "ZOMG all my dreams are coming true" moment like the time you get to help Donald Tardy wash his 1992 Chevy Luv while he tells you stories about Scott Burns' farts, there's decidedly unglamorous stuff like taking Tom Araya to 8AM Sunday mass with his daughters. We think that getting letters like this make it all worthwhile though, and welcome any other informants like "Green Rage" to share with us!

We don't know anybody at Roadrunner, but if you do, please pass this on to them and ask them to get in touch! There are few labels who have contributed more to metal than they have and we would love to work with them in one way or another. For starters, let's bro down with Mike from Killswitch and talk to him about the rad Devastation "Idolatry" longsleeve he wore when I saw Overcast in 1998.

---

A quick detour through bummer-ville

The best song from Left With Nothing's criminally underrated EP- check out a live version here. They were a rare combo of fun but also super intense and emotional, like Seattle's other ex-Trial/Undertow/Himsa regretcore band Everything Went Black, and I had a lot of fun at their shows.

Sorry to end on such a serious note, but we would like to express our sadness for the recent loss of Brian Redman, formerly of RR band 3 Inches of Blood. I knew him from the Seattle hardcore scene, where he played in Trial and the really-fucking-great-but-unknown Left With Nothing, one of my favorite Seattle hardcore bands. He was funny, friendly, and had a motherfucking INTEGRITY tattoo on his chest- you really can't fuck with that! I wasn't BFFs with him, but many of my Washington friends were and he is dearly missed.

Win a copy of Decibel's Precious Metal book

What is your favorite item in the Edit menu? You could ask a million people this question and get a million answers. You'd hear everything from Find to Redo to my personal favorite, Select All. But I know if you asked Decibel Magazine's Editor-In-Chief, Albert Mudrian, his answer would be a combo: Copy and Paste. He likes it so much that he made a whole book by compiling 25 of Decibel's finest Hall of Fame stories by copying and pasting them into one file, then printing it all on the cheapest brownish-grey newsprint that money can buy!

If you're too cheap to click here and purchase a copy from Amazon, continue reading for details on how to win a free copy- and this could be your last chance, since it's burning up the charts at #18,047 on Amazon!

You can also read our 2008 interview with Albert here.

Albert hard at work "writing" Precious Metal

The Press Release
Here is the ham-fisted copy from the back cover that goes into more detail about this 250-page tribute to repurposed content. As you can see, beardos, hipsters, and dinosaur rockers alike will all be delighted- I know I have been waiting with baited breath to hear the real story behind the fucking Diamond Head LP!!

Precious Metal gathers pieces from Decibel's most popular feature, the monthly “Hall of Fame” which documents the making of landmark metal albums via candid, hilarious, and fascinating interviews with every participating band member.

Decibel's editor-in-chief, Albert Mudrian, has selected and expanded the best of these features, creating a definitive collection of stories behind the greatest extreme metal albums of all time.

Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell * Diamond Head's Lightning to the Nations * Slayer's Reign in Blood * Napalm Death's Scum * Repulsion's Horrified * Morbid Angel's Altars of Madness * Obituary's Cause of Death * Entombed's Left Hand Path * Paradise Lost's Gothic * Carcass' Necroticism- Descanting the Insalubrious * Cannibal Corpse's Tomb of the Mutilated * Eyehategod's Take as Needed for Pain * Darkthrone's Transylvanian Hunger * Kyuss's Welcome to Sky Valley * Meshuggah's Destroy Erase Improve * Monster Magnet's Dopes to Infinity * At the Gates' Slaughter of the Soul * Opeth's Orchid * Down's NOLA * Emperor's In the Nightside Eclipse * Sleep's Jerusalem * The Dillinger Escape Plan's Calculating Infinity * Botch's We Are the Romans * Converge's Jane Doe * Nitro's OFR * Meat Shits' Ecstacy of Death

The contest
As you know, Metal Inquisition is first and foremost the viral marketing division of Red Flag Media, the company who publishes Decibel and acquired this blog via hostile takeover earlier in 2009. Therefore, it was only natural that we would promote Precious Metal with the following gimmicky contest:

Da Capo Press and Decibel will give away one or more copies of book to the best review(s) posted in the comments of this post.

Of course, you will be writing a review of a book you haven't read, just like when I used to write reviews of records I hadn't listened to for the magazine I used to work for (I will let you guess which one that might be; unfortunately it was not Decibel). Since it can't be accurate, it should at least be entertaining. We will select the winner next Wednesday: we'll post the winning entry/entries and you can email us your address if it's yours.

Go!

How can Metal Inquisition use its fans to become a more successful operation?

Ruth Scanlon, Director Of Marketing at Metal Inquisition, presents her findings based on last Monday's input from readers.

After collecting all the data about our reader's through Monday's post, we quickly turned that information over to our marketing and operations departments. It was the marketing department, after all, that had asked us to gather this data to begin with. Armed with information about our readership, the marketing department put an 89 page report (a horrible Powrpoint slidewhow actually) which is supposed to make our future posts better suited to our readership. The information you gave us will also allow us to launch a more successful ad campaign down the line, and will inform future marketing decisions. First on the agenda, for example, is the great Metal Inquisition Yo-Yo giveaway of 2009. Stay tuned for all the details.

In order not to bore you to death with the details of the lengthy Powrpoint slidewhow, I will merely give you some bullet points. As you'll see, the main recommendations I'll share with you are about using our readers for our purposes, in order to make our operation run more efficiently. I think we will all benefit as a result.

Everytime I see a picture of this guy from the band Disturbed, my blood boils with anger.

Some of our readers are younger than we thought, as such we will make less references to Nocturnus, Voivod, Tankard, Sarcofago, Mortal Sin, Napalm Death and Brutal Truth in the future. All Nocturnus time machine references will be changed to comments about Slipknot, Distrubed and Lamb Of God. The really bad news for me is that I may actually have to find out who Lamb Of God are, or what they sound like. Same with that band Distrubed*. Ughhh....damn you marketing department! Similarly, we will now hold Tommy Victor in high regard due to his amazing fashion sense, and his affinity for Affliction clothing.


*After writing this insanely funny part of the post, I realized that the bands I used as examples of music young people would listen to, peaked in popularity nearly 5 to 10 years ago, thus proving how out of it I am. It's like your grandfather saying "Are you into that crazy new rock music? Do you like Fleetwood Mac?"






Many of our readers are from countries outside the United States, this means that from now on all references that are overly western shall be changed. If any of us must make a reference to any sport, it will be cricket (which the marketing department found to be a " location neutral" sport). We will also start spelling words like "color" as "colour".

This reminds me, I fully expect that those of you who have good jobs, and don't live like slobs (I'm looking at all of you 20 year old unemployed readers) will host me next time I travel outside of the United States. By my calculations, I should be able to stay for free in nice accommodations with people who are lawyers, scientists, web developers and teachers in pretty much every continent. Singapore, South Africa, Finland, Norway, Australia, Portugal... these all sound like great distinations to me. As far as our reader who lives in Toledo Ohio..I'm not at all interested in visiting your city, so don't leave the light on for me. What will you show me once I'm there? The newest wing that was recently added to Franklin Park Mall? Tony Packos? Will you take me to a Mudhens game? I'll pass. Similarly, I'll pass on going to Poland. You know a country is in bad shape when its greatest tourist attraction is a damn concentration camp. Look, I've been there, and my only fond memory of the trip would have to be when I saw a drunken man unknowingly walk through another drunken man's stream of urine.

Preliminary renderings of the new MI headquarters in Geneva.

We have at least one architect as a reader, which will come in handy when we finally decide to build our new world headquarters in Geneva. Maria, I'm talking to you, sharpen up those skills, and start thinking about some possible schemes. To any other architects who are reading this, I have to warn you, we are unbelievably good at writing about metal (duh), but we are terrible clients and can never make up our minds. Consider the ongoing arguments that MI staffers have been having about Voivod being good or not. After nearly 10 years we have yet to come to a unified conclusion. As such, I will make an executive decision right now and tell you what we're looking for: Something ala Richard Meier, but ideally not inspired by his work at the Getty center, which I find to be lacking in cohesive narrative. Much like Slayer could do no wrong...until they did wrong, Meier too had his fall. Since you live in Barcelona, I should tell you that I was not impressed with MACBA. Start sketching, I would like to see four alternative direction by next Monday.







We have a few lawyers as a readers, Lou C Fer being just one of them. He practices law in Spain. By the way, why do they call it "practicing" law? If you have a degree, I hope you are done practicing, and you know how to do things right. I know, I know, that last insightful bit about "practicing law" made me sound out of it, and a bit like Andy Rooney.

Damn, the marketing department just informed me that an Andy Rooney reference is too Ameri-centric for our international readers. I'll go back and fix it before I publish this.

Anyway, Lou (if I may call you Lou) we will need your help in the next few months, since you practice in Spain. Like my post about Manowar and the houses they live in, we are currently working on a devastating piece about Baron Rojo (see photo above), their homes and their preferred methods for hair loss prevention. The piece will surely anger the band, and will have endless legal ramifications, so we'd like to keep you on retainer.







For future posts that may include the topic of sports, our marketing department has instructed us to bring in the one professional athlete within our readership, one Marizle Farizle, as a consultant. The first post for which we will need his help will be about John Jospeh, singer of the Cro-Mags, and his use of a full Saxo Bank kit in this video where he teaches us all how to work out like an urban warrior. Wait, scratch that, I just got a memo from the marketing folks...the post will be about cricket, and how great of a sport it is.






Due to overwhelming response from our readers about our recent Metal Inquisition Archives post, we are recruiting a few of our readers who are librarians, to properly care for these delicate materials. As part of your duties you will be caring for my personal collection of Beta tapes, which include all the Danzig homve videos, Ultimate Revenge 1 and 2, a few Metallica bootlegs, and hours of Headbager's Ball shows (circa 1990). Along with this collection, the vintage issues of Metal Hammer (circa 1987-1989) will have to be cataloged. Similarly we will need to have our guitar pic collection classified and organized, the same holds true for our collection of Wild Rag newsletters (our equivalent to a Gutenberg bible). We are unable to pay you for these duties, the economy being what it is, but hope that you'll take a Mythic 7" and a Flotsam and Jetsam signed 8"x10" as payment.

To represent "finances", we have been instructed by the marketing folks to use images of the British pound, since it does not have the cultural baggage that the American dollar does.

Due to Metal Inquisition's finances being in complete shambles, we are bringing in a reader to help us sort things out. CallPastorBob is an accounting clerk, and should be able to sort out our situation out very quickly. You see, we are extremely profitable as a company, but have been having some issues with expenses over the last few months. Sergeant D keep expensing things like his Chris Isaak tattoo, and $1800 worth of XS Energy drink from Amway, although he claimed this was "research", I'm a bit suspicious. Similarly, Mr Gene Hoglan's Balls has just expensed his eight copy of the Grindcrusher sampler cassette. With irresponsible employees like this, I ask you, how long we can stay profitable?






We couldn't help but notice that an unusually high percentage of you work in nursing homes. While we have no use for your skills here at MI (I mean, I may wear orthodics and feel like an old man, but I'm still in my prime), we would still like to work with you on a project that we are currently developing. You see, Sergeant D has had a little pet project going for some time (aside from his Amway colabo with Waking the Cadaver), and it's now time to kick it into high gear. I'm talking, of course, about his research into using Benediction's music as a sleeping aid for the elderly. Contact us, and we'll make sure to get you started on this most important project.






Latly, I should now let you all in on the fact that the last question we asked you (about going back in time and letting the bus run Lars over instead of Cliff) was not merely a question. Oh no. We were taking requests. As you know, here at Metal Inquisition we own the actual Nocturnus time machine. We bought it from Mike Browning recently, when he was in need for some quick cash in order to buy more Egyptian decor for his Florida home. Although we've owned the time machine for about four months now, Mike took a while to send us The Key that starts it up. Now that we have (word to the wise, never use FedEx when sending The Key to a time machine) we wanted to know what our maiden voyage should be. The concesus seems to be that running the tiny Danish man would make him into a martyir, which we certainly don't want to do. As such, we are now clueless as to what our first trip in time should be. Any suggestions?

Scene archetypes: People who annoy me

You can say what you want about us here at Metal Inquisition. You can call us assholes, posers, old, whatever- and you'd probably be right. But don't ever say that we don't love you, because we do. We are here to help, like true friends. One of the toughest parts about being a friend is telling your friends when they are being a retard. It's tough, but you have to! With that in mind, we are willing to bet that the majority of you guys are retards, and the best thing we can do for you is to help you identify it so you can start to correct your problem. Admitting it is the first step. This is far from a comprehensive list of all the annoying d-bags in the scene, but it should get you started.

"I love Jesu!!"

The Beardo/Relapse Dork
Let's start with an easy target. You know this guy... he says shit like "Dude I just got the new Gridlink 11" EP on 180 gram colored vinyl, it's a Japan-only, hand-numbered limited edition of 1. They haven't even written it yet, but I have it. It's amazing!!"* Please note how much they love to call things "amazing." It's a good example of how the defining characteristic of the Beardo is that they are way too fucking enthusiastic about the dumb shit they are into and won't shut up about it because they are socially awkward dorks who have no ability to detect your complete lack of interest in their nerdy bullshit (such as obscure black metal).

Also, you can be a Beardo without actually having a beard, although of course that makes you even more of an asshole if you do have one. The beard is merely a symbol that you have no ability to understand how the world sees you, because if you did you would throw yourself on a sword in shame before you had time to get out the trimmer.

Psyopus: Do they have a noise side-project?? If not, that's the only thing that could make them bigger Relapse Dorks.

Then there is the Beardo's kissing cousin, the Relapse Dork. The differences are subtle, with the main one being that the Relapse Dork is like half Wanker, half Beardo. Rather than beating off to pictures of obscure Hydra Head releases like Beardos, they follow Brutal Truth around on tour, collecting Dan Lilker's pubes that fall off onto the rims of the urinals in venue restrooms and saving them in plastic baggies so they can brag about it on the Relapse board while they gush about the Human Remains demo.

* I stole the "they haven't even written it yet, but I have it" line from Lifesucksdie #3

I was trying to find a more original picture than Mosh Girl, but, well, it pretty much says it all. See how grossed out everybody is when girls try to act like boys??

The Tuff Girl
She's so different from all the other girls!! She's just like one of the guys!! She's up front at all the shows moshing her, uh, balls off! Don't treat her like a girl or she will punch you in the face because she's tuff! See, she has a Terror shirt and brass knuckle necklace to prove it! You can also tell from her chest piece and surly, unfriendly demeanor. I knew a girl like this back in the day. I went to like Taco Bell or something with her, and was about to sit down when she told me, "Wait let's sit over there, I don't like sitting with my back to the door." I laughed and said, "Who the fuck are you, Billy The Kid?!" Anyway, these girls suck because they are like the worst of both worlds: all the annoying parts about dudes in the mannish body of an ugly girl.

If you want to show all the boys that you like punk, this is a much better option than trying to be tuff. Just smile and hold my coat while I dance.

Look, I get it... girls can listen to metal and hardcore too. Nothing wrong with that. I hung out with this 22 year-old girl last week who was listening to Old Man's Child while she drove me around in her Acura (this really happened). But ladies, you really don't have to try as hard as Tuff Girl if all you want is male approval because your daddy didn't love you enough. Just stand around looking cute and giggling demurely at my jokes, that's all I ask of you.

He looks so happy, willfully ignorant that Fear Factory ever released an album after Demanufacture

Mr. Old School
You could rightly accuse some of us here at Metal Inquisition of being Mr. Old School- probably everybody except me, since I mostly listen to Forever The Sickest Kids, not metal. To Mr. Old School, they stopped making good metal records somewhere between 1992 and 1994 and anything else is trendy garbage and/or simply flew under their radar.

For example, I told Lucho a few years ago that "Don't Care" was one of the best Obituary songs. "Hmm, I don't think I know that one," he said. I told him it was from "World Demise" and he said "Oh, well I never heard their newer albums," and I was like "Dude that shit came out in like '94." You see how frustrating it is to deal with Mr. Old School?? It's like talking to your grandparents who think Eisenhower is still president and ask you who is going to be on Johnny Carson tonight. As far as Lucho is concerned, metal died when they stopped publishing The Wild Rag... my friend, the world keeps turning.

I'll be honest, this photo has nothing to do with Mr. Old School... but wtf? Why so serious?

Mr. Old School isn't really annoying, just disappointing. He just stopped trying. And I get that: at some point music isn't really the center of your life anymore, especially metal. But Mr. Old School is like the dude who gets married, then instantly gets fat and never wears anything but sweat pants. Sure, he can let down his hair a bit because who does have to impress, but his wife is like "This isn't the guy I married!" and walks out on his ass. I'll never walk out on Lucho, but I do wish he would buy jeans from H&M or Forever 21 instead of the Gap and Old Navy (that's not a joke, it's seriously where he gets his jeans). He could probably wear size 4 girl jeans without too many problems.

Thanks to ironic hipsters, these kids look like they should be in a band that's opening for Atreyu

The Dinosaur Rocker
Did you know there are people in the 2K9 that actually listen to Manowar, Iron Maiden, Saxon, Keel, and other shit that I am pretty sure Confederate soldiers jammed on the way to do battle in the civil war?? It's true, they are called Dinosaur Rockers. An even more decrepit and out of touch version of Mr. Old School, they are frozen in time like so many denim-vested insects in amber. Like the doddering fossils that shamble through the halls of nursing homes, waiting to die, Dinosaur Rockers have no idea where they are or what's happening around them. I can't even laugh at them, all I can do is shake my head in pity, hoping that the lord will call their souls home soon.

You don't have to be old to be a Dinosaur Rocker, just boring and weird

Look, I don't expect everybody to be into Winds of Plague or whatever else is trendy at the moment (although to be fair they are some 2K8.5 shit so already kind of played out), but I seriously don't understand how anybody can non-ironically listen to Bathory, Venom, Accept or whatever. I'm sure those bands were great in 1982 because everything else was wretched at the time, but that shit sounds so lame when you listen to it today. Dinosaur metal sucks!! It's so boring and slow, it sounds like something my mom would listen to. I can just imagine her coming home from the mall, Van Morrisson/Loudness split 7" in hand. New Yorkment said it best on their MySpace:

NO PUSSY ASSED OLDSCHOOL BULLSHIT!! FUCK OLD METAL IRON MAIDEN N MOTERHEAD IS UNBRUTAL SHITTY DINOSAUR METAL!!!!!

Wankers: the only people dumb enough to be in a band because they actually like music, not to get laid

The Wanker
Remember in the 90s when ska got popular, and every annoying redhead that played trombone in jazz band all of a sudden got to be in a "cool" band? Yeah me too. Well, The Wanker is what happens when that kid discovers metal, and it's just as irritating as ska was. Actually it's worse because at least Evan from Mindrot played in Save Ferris so there was at least one cool person in that scene. (Can anyone confirm the rumor that his license plate said MINDROT back then?)

Ugh, look how seriously this jerk takes his music. Die in a fire already.

The Wanker takes everything really seriously, probably because they all suffer from mild Asperger's Syndrome. For example they are the humorless turds that hate all my posts on here because I don't write 9,000 words about how Corner and Mekong Delta are the best bands to ever exist, or a fucking tutorial on how to play Spastic Ink songs on your Chapman Stick. They rival Ani DeFranco fans in their ability to ruin a good time by taking offense at absolutely anything and everything that touches their incredibly thin skin- especially if you praise a band that isn't intellectual enough for their refined sensibilities!!

Speaking of things I would destroy if I had access to the Nocturnus time machine...

But I can't blame them. I'd probably be pissed at the world too if I spent all my time holed up in my room, painstakingly transcribing Behold the Arcoptus songs, only taking my clammy hands off the neck of my guitar long enough to eat a bowl of Fruity Pebbles and see if I won a piece of Sean Reinert's used toilet paper on eBay. I'd be angry if I threw away thousands of hours of my life on playing music only to realize that I wasn't ever going to get laid by playing technical deathcore. In fact it's worse than that: remember in the original Batman movie when he is getting attacked by a shark, but spritzes it with a little Bat Shark Repellent and it runs away instantly? That's what playing mathcore is like, only to hot girls. It's like vagina repellent. They can tell that you'd rather fuck your guitar than them, and that your balls smell bad.

I found this image with that caption already added. I love the internet!

Add your own in the comments!!
I fully realize this only scratches the surface when it comes to describing all the different kinds of annoying people in the scene. It's late and I'm out of funny lines, but I especially wanted to make fun of deathcore kids. Please help, it shouldn't be that challenging!

An interview with DECIBEL MAGAZINE's Albert Mudrian

There have been many new metal magazines over the last decade or so, and most of them have sucked. For example, PIT and Terrorizer. Terrible, terrible magazines, unless you like paying $5 to read interviews with Decide's Hoffman brothers that are two paragraphs long and looking at stolen JPEGs of Hate Eternal. Thank Christ for Decibel, which is well-designed, always well-written, and aside from some regrettable beard metal coverage, entirely credible. Decibel Editor-in-Chief Albert Mudrian was kind enough to answer a few questions for us. Now, please buy his magazine. And his book. He probably also has some old Century Media promos he will sell you for cheap, too.

I know you are the brains behind Decibel magazine and the book "Choosing Death." Can you tell us a little more about yourself? What is your favorite color?
I recently learned everything I ever wanted to know about myself after practicing some self-Googling (it’s the safest form of Googling!). I’ll save everyone the trouble of sorting through the 13,000 “Albert Mudrian” matches and just provide the most defining results:

— “Albert Mudrian is fucking faker who wrote that book is just a joke! reading from the book is not worth anything! Albert Mudrian does not know nothing about death metal because he did not know that there was another band name Heretic was already taken back in 1981 duh!”— hornsofthegoat@yahoo.com, from Blabbermouth’s comment section

—“short-haired and friendly” — Pop Matters

—“Mudrian gaat daarbij in op de Britse, Amerikaanse en continentaal-Europese grondleggers, waar zij de mosterd en darmen haalden, en wat ze teweegbrachten bij hun fanatieke achterban.” —Boleuzia Blog

—“He also has a younger brother named James.” —Wikipedia

I’d say this is a pretty accurate snapshot. Oh, and my favorite color is blue.

LOLOLOLZ! He thinks that posing with the DVD version of the Hard n Heavy Grindcore video will earn him scene cred. Try again when you have the VHS tape, poser.

Many of the Metal Inquisition staffers have first-hand experience with the brutal realities of the publishing industry, so we greatly admire your accomplishments with Decibel. That said, it is unfortunate that you are sometimes forced to feature bands like Mastodon, the Dillinger Escape Plan, and other stars of the beard metal scene. How does it make you feel when you barely devote a singe paragraph to a band like Decrepit Birth while fawning over Earth or the latest Hydra Head release for pages?
Thanks for the kind words. I won’t pretend to love every band that’s ever been on the cover of Decibel, but I really do dig about 90% of them (Mastodon and Dillinger included). And I will say that we gave the new Decrepit Birth record considerably more coverage (not to mention a higher review rating) than the new Earth, but I can understand why you’d wanna send in the false metal police for the occasional unannounced inspection on us. I mean, I like the new Genghis Tron LP more than the latest Prostitute Disfigurement, so can I really be trusted?

Not enough bands thank other bands "For inspiration" these days. Why is that?
I stopped reading CD booklets in 1998, so I’ll take you at your word. The short answer is that most of today’s bands are simply uninspired (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!?!) and feel that moving a band they like into their MySpace “Top 24” is thanks enough. I don’t think there is a long answer.

If you had access to Nocturnus' time machine, what band would you go back in time and kill?
It wouldn’t be a band, but instead a person… and I don’t know his name. It’s the dude who was in charge of production at JL America. Seriously, those one-page CD “booklets” still make me angry when I think about them! And I wasn’t about to shell out $25 for the Osmose pressings of those records just to read Blasphemy lyrics.

Hardcore bands seem to emulate whatever was popular in metal a decade earlier. For example, in the 90s hardcore bands emulated Sepultura and Slayer. These days they copy At The Gates and late-period Carcass. What is next for crappy Victory Records bands? Do you think they will ever get into funk-thrash like Mordred?
If only! When Robert Trujillo joined Metallica in 2003, I was hopeful that a new generation of metallers might dig deep into his background and unearth his true musical masterwork—Infectious Grooves—and in the process trigger a retro-funk metal movement! Alas, it was not to be. So if that didn’t set off a 24-7 Spyz-charged renaissance, I’m not sure anything will. I mean, for fuck’s sake, Sarsippius Ark doesn’t even have his own Wikipedia entry. Can someone get on that, please?

We are big fans of wigger slam metal like Devourment, Rest In Gore, Vomit Remnants and Soils of Fate. What do you make of this scene?
Oh, come on. Devourment is still cool, but the Japanese slam metal scene is sooooo 2006! Mexico is the new Japan, people! And Rottenness, who have been ambitious enough to organize the annual Fistfuck Family Festival, are the future of the entire scene! Honestly, the slam metal movement is not my field of expertise, but through that scene I have discovered that Brie is indeed the most brutal of all cheeses!

Nothing says generic 1990s death metal like Morrisound Studios. What do you think Scott Burns is up to these days? Why did he like bass drums that sound like a typewriter?
I gotta defend my homie here. Scott Burns is really one of the nicest dudes to ever come out of the U.S. death metal scene. I think he took an unwarranted beating over the years, because every unimaginative death metal band that walked through Morrisound’s doors just wanted Scott to give their band “that Morrisound sound.” Ultimately, it’s an engineer’s job to get the band they sound they want, so it’s hard to fault him too much for the steady stream of bullshit that was pumped out of there in the early ’90s. And say what you will about that double-bass typewriter sound—it still beats the double-bass lawn-sprinkler system that Cradle of Filth employed in the late ’90s.

Plus, most people don’t know this, but Scott was instrumental in repairing the Nocturnus time machine, which repeatedly malfunctioned during the recording of “Destroying the Manger.” If not for Scott, Louis Panzer would still be limited to thrashing where he was at in Nazareth.

Tell us about writing "Choosing Death." Some of the Amazon reviewers feel that you focused excessively on Napalm Death. I like Napalm as much as the next guy, but why didn't you write more about Suffocation? I am sure that Terrence Hobbs would have been more than willing to speak with you while he was on his lunch break at Guitar Center.
It’s a fair question, but you’ve gotta ask yourself, “Were Suffocation featured on the legendary Hard N’ Heavy Grindcore Video Special?” I think we both know the answer to that. Also, what band that was featured had the longest segment? That’s right, it’s those who were “chuffed and weakened at the same time.” So who was I to question Jennifer and Grob’s vision of the death metal and grindcore scenes?

One of the most annoying things in over 100 years of music is mediocre hardcore bands that think they are funny by giving their songs exceedingly long, sarcastic titles. For example, Every Time I Die. What's the deal with that?
I dunno, dude. I think this should have ended with Drowningman, who (for me, anyway) were the last band to do the funny-song-title-thing well. But you can definitely add this unfortunate development to the growing list of current tired trends, which also includes but is not limited to the following:

— “Pagan” Metal
— Ironic or unironic appreciation of hair metal
— Thrash metal revival (you’ve already got that covered: http://metalinquisition.blogspot.com/2008/02/current-thrashcrossover-revival-civil.html)

I am sure that as part of your efforts to woo advertisers, Decibel conducts reader surveys to find out more about your reader base. How would you describe the average Decibel reader? I will take a guess, and you tell me if I'm off the mark: 32 years old, male, 25 pounds overweight with a neckbeard and a Neurosis tattoo partially covered by his Super Mario Brothers shirt. Also, he is a virgin unless you count the one time he got to second base with the chubby goth girl in 10th grade.
Your question implies that we’ve conducted market research in the magazine’s four-year history. What wishful thinking! The only firm readership data we have to go on is from the comments posted on the Decibel MySpace profile. Based on that evidence, our readership is a 50/50 split between 14-year-old girls who want us to a “HAVE A FUCKING BR00TAL WEAKEND!” and unsigned bands who would like us to “check out [our] new shit that’s up!!!”

That's it for me. Thanks again for your time, and please tell our readers where they can buy your book and magazine!
You can purchase Decibel from Borders, Barnes & Noble, the other usual metal magazine retail suspects and at www.decibelmagazine.com. Choosing Death is available at any fine establishment that sells books about death metal and at Amazon. You guys rule—thanks.

What brings you to Metal Inquisition?

Metal Inquisition headquarters- Gibraltar branch


Metal fans are like beautiful snowflakes, no two are alike. Everybody comes to this site for a different reason. You can see some of the different paths that our readers take to come here, courtesy of our referrer logs:

Search for "sweet boots"	1	—
Search for "ultimate wigga slam"	1	—
Search for "spastic ink blogspot"	1	—
Search for "worst metal band ever"	1	—
Search for "slam brutal death blog"	1	—
Search for "were you can build a time machine com"	1	—
Search for "glen benton"	1	—
Search for "blog metal nitro"	1	—
Search for "danny spitz 2008"

Personally, I like "were you can build a time machine com." Obviously that person is a big Nocturnus fan- don't ever let someone tell you metal fans are stupid.