Popular music is a hard gig. To maximize your chances, you quit doing everything else and it becomes your only option in life. Then if that turns out poorly, you have the choice of being a 40-year-old shelf stocker at the local grocery, or swallowing your pride and becoming a cheesy third-ring entertainment figure. For this reason, musicians — especially those who first bands did not make the final cut of election to “favorite” of the public — tend to pander, flatter and provoke the public whenever they can. The resulting drama is the only thing standing between them and putting those cans on the shelves.
And yet, drama finds us all. It started on Twitter. Drama often starts on Twitter:
To clarify what is happening here: some armchair white knight decides that because some guy out there does not like homosexuals, there must be a social activity consisting of people gathering to hate on this guy. As usual, I point out the reality-based analysis which is that his opinion does not concern us; let him do his thing, and you do yours, and stop being a busybody nanny state jackbooted interloper simply because your life is boring and your society is failing and you want a scapegoat for all your problems. Grow up, in other words.
That set off a chain of nasty replies. According to David Ingram (Benediction, Bolt Thrower): if you defend free speech, you are on the side of “hate” and you are a very, very bad person. To him, defending the right of people to coexist is the same as endorsing the most extreme of their opinions, even though I never said anything in support of what the guy said, only his right to say it and the maturity of letting him enjoy that freedom over there without our action against him. Free speech works when the other guy says what he wants, and you say what you want, and you do not directly intervene in one another. Boycotts and mob attacks change that, even if non-violent, and we all suffer as a result.
Not wanting to let a good dialogue drop, I took it up with Ingram when one of his promotional spams hit our inbox:
Again we see the formula: defend free speech and you are a Nazi.
Join the angry mob and you are “good.”
Interesting to see Mr. Ingram cave to this. I suspect he is just doing it to try to keep his (flagging) career alive, and I have sympathy for that. But one can never truly have sympathy for those who use bad logic and are motivated more by hatred (of anyone who disagrees with them) than a desire to do right.
Tags: benediction, Bolt Thrower, censorship, david ingrama, free speech
He called the scene “retarded!” Isn’t that total self-character assassination today?
Benediction is retarded.
Sometimes you think they have a catchy riff and then they revert to some bouncy 2 note hardcore chug and you want to kill yourself.
Yup, and so is the Bolt Thrower album he did vocals on. In 20+ years in the scene, this Ingram dude doesn’t have a single worthwhile metal release under his belt — that is the true travesty here.
If you both lived in one city, You could appoint him a meeting offline and propose him a thorough investigation of who is a masturbating lad. (A lowkick-and-uppercut investigation.) I wonder if SJWs have enough courage to at least show up offline.
http://covenantpeoplesministry.org/forum/content.php?881-The-Death-Penalty-for-Homosexuals-is-prescribed-in-the-Bible&s=36568d510e6cc960643dfd0839157378
quotes violent, militant homosexuality, “Gay Revolutionary” Outlines Goals of Homosexual Movement by Michael Swift,
where they gladly want they want to “sodomize your sons” —
so if somebody (eg.African chairman) doesn’t like them, it is because of there are valid reasons.
sorry, typos, was retyping my comment a few times, making it shorter.
Mr. Ingram has hung out with Barney Greenway too much, perhaps? Barney did play with Benediction before Napalm Death and they all come from the same UK scene which is heavily influenced by the leftist politics of hardcore punk. Mr. Ingram’s hissy fit is reminiscent of how any given napalm death member would react if they read a comment that they deem racist or homophobic, this sounds like a hissy fit Barney would have. I do like the early ND, Carcass, bolt thrower and benediction albums however, but I guarantee just about all of them have that stupid leftist mentality(pro-gay, anti-racist, etc) that is akin to an SJW. There’s a certain left wing mentality that is dominate in the UK, more so than other countries. I hope they enjoy their muslim invasion.
That is the nature of grindcore (ND, Carcass, Bolt Thrower) and much of hardcore. Then again, that replaced the original hardcore bands which were much more interesting. The crowd always replaces any good thing it can find with inferior substitutes that are inoffensive and support The Narrative.
I don’t mind the gore themed lyrics of early Carcass and other early grindcore acts like Repulsion, Impetigo, Macabre and Meat Shits who did have a song called Violence Against Feminist Cunts which I don’t think is anything an SJW would approve of. Perhaps, Pungent Stench can be added to this list as well. As time went on grindcore just got more and more retarded. The gory horror movie theme doesn’t bother me at one point it was offensive and dangerous, not so much now of course. It’s the PC leftist beliefs inherit in grind which aggravate me. As you pointed out, they replaced it with inferior substances to make it inoffensive and safe. Playing it safe never produces anything special. Their beliefs are similar to mainstream media and society. That’s not being extreme and that’s not pushing the envelope. It just makes it plastic.
As for the hardcore bands that the UK grind scene replaced, Discharge was the main influence on all said bands. I always liked their apocalyptic lyrics and lyrics that dealt with enslavement by the system which had that realism and they didn’t really whine about racism, homophobia, etc at least not on Hear Nothing, See Nothing Say Nothing I wouldn’t know about any of there other releases. I always liked Bolt Thrower’s lyrical take on war, not saying they are for or against war, but just the consequences and the facts(both sides trying to gain control, casualties, possible annihilation,etc) which carries that harsh realism.