The holiday comes every year. The International Day of Slayer is a day to celebrate both being metal and worshiping Slayer by playing loud Slayer and not going to work.
This day is important because it affirms our cultural identity as metalheads through the band that most exemplifies metal of any band through all of history. Slayer made metal into what it always yearned to be: a fully intense, terrifying, apocalyptic and mythological view of human decline and the need to reject society in order to not get dragged down with it.
It’s also singularly intense and powerful music. Today is a good day to not go to work; instead, listen to Slayer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdjS4qMXQmQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNwfRGLOWtc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNMoJiPBVkI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbGqPRFyHtg
How to Celebrate
- Listen to Slayer at full blast in your car.
- Listen to Slayer at full blast in your home.
- Listen to Slayer at full blast at your place of employment.
- Listen to Slayer at full blast in any public place you prefer.
DO NOT use headphones! The objective of this day is for everyone within earshot to understand that it is the National Day of Slayer. National holidays in America aren’t just about celebrating; they’re about forcing it upon non-participants.
Taking that participation to a problematic level
- Stage a “Slay-out.” Don’t go to work. Listen to Slayer.
- Have a huge block party that clogs up a street in your neighborhood. Blast Slayer albums all evening. Get police cruisers and helicopters on the scene. Finish with a full-scale riot.
- Spray paint Slayer logos on churches, synagogues, or cemeteries.
- Play Slayer covers with your own band (since 99% of your riffs are stolen from Slayer anyway).
- Kill the neighbor’s dog and blame it on Slayer.
Have a merciless Slayer Day, everyone!
666!
Hopefully Slayer will call it quits soon to spare the name any further embarrassment. If they drop it now and focus on their other financial ventures (guitar likeness licensing and running a farm) they could be the only speed metal band to get to that level of closure (full circle going back to at least Seasons quality). Otherwise, it’s another Mayhem or Sepultura situation: using the name to sell commercial products to idiots. You could argue their live show is what Slayer has had to offer since 1990, but it’s not even Tom’s headbanging situation. The whole band looks lazy on stage. Even Paul Bostaph is missing beats (maybe they’re just too old for this). Right now, everyone is in the denial stage, but we must accept that Slayer is done. We can cherish their 80s releases as being the very definition of what metal is supposed to be, and of course the name will always be out there (like when you saw people wearing Black Sabbath or Pink Floyd shirts all the time even during those band’s period of inactivity).