Roots: The Beginning of Metal.

It's been a long-term goal of mine, ever since getting seriously into Iron Maiden (and heavy or progressive music for that matter) way back in 1986, to someday seriously begin to dive into the roots of Heavy Metal, to discover the bands who truly changed history.

Sometimes, when seeing the odd documentary on BBC or Discovery Channel, seeing the Woodstocks and other big festival footage of the 60's and 70's, combined with a sometimes dormant passion I do have for even earlier music, I wish I had been born a decade or two earlier. I wish I could have felt that heat, that sweat and energy of the music as it invaded every facet of peoples lives at the time.

The texture and rawness of the music of these periods achieves something the music of today rarely captures: our progression as people. Our explorative ways, our needs to create.

The bands of these times, Grand Funk Railroad, Thin Lizzy, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Hawkwind, Rainbow, Ziggy Stardust and Rush among many others would create the path that Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer, Kreator, Sodom and countless other metal bands would expand upon for decades to come.

My earliest memories of childhood in England were paraphrased by these incredible artists. As I have done in my Saturn Return, I am in my neverending thirst to know as much as I can about music: I feel like I'm kind of coming home. It's going to be a rewarding and deep journey.

1349: New Interview with Archaon.

One of my favourite current day Norsk Black Metal bands is 1349.

Often overlooked as they don't particularly break new ground, 1349's thunderous style is something I consider extremely well executed for what it is. They are a phenomenally solid band, and I couldn't recommend them to enough people.

Their guitarist Archaon is featured in a new long and interesting interview available here.

1349's Official Site.

Addiction to Politics.

For some totally unknown reason, I'm becoming more and more addicting to watching the news and reading things about politics. I even went as far as to capture the least session of Question Time for 2006 with my new TV capture card and took great delight converting it to DivX afterwards and watching it again.

I feel quite enlightened somewhat, and get a bit of a kick sitting on the train in a Black Metal shirt, reading a book on who knows what (politically related) and raising the odd eyebrow of people around (and wishing I could say yes, I love metal and I have a brain).

Thanks to Linda, I recently finished off The Truth About Hillary.

A somewhat anti-Hillary Clinton sensationalist book about "The Big Girl" herself, it was a very interesting read, but I have to keep reminding myself to take it with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, I couldn't put it down and knocked it off in just under a week.


The big one though, is a result of my somewhat not-recent admiration of who I consider The Dude, The Hon Paul Keating.

I have no idea why, but I love this man. If it wasn't for him, I would never have been able to go to university, and unlike many people, I forgave him for the recession a long time ago. I'd love to see him as a Prime Minister now. His recent commentary regarding Sydney's ugliness is right on the dot, and recent interviews with him show a man who is different from the average politician these days.

So, while passing the bookshop last week, a fabulous looking book caught my eye, and a few days later I rushed back into the shop and picked it up: Don Watson's "Recollections of a Bleeding Heart - A Portrait of Paul Keating PM".

This is the thickest book I have embarked on since Raymond E Fiest's Magician, and already it is highly engaging. I can't wait to dig deeper into it.

Goodbye, Matthew.

Today I attended the most unfortunate of events: a funeral.

It is perhaps the first one I have attended in my (adult) life for someone who is not a relative.

Matthew King was a young, extremely intelligent senior network engineer at the young age of 26. He was a dark, yet intricate human being, capable of mixing with people much older than himself, and able to communicate with them in ways most people of Matthew's age could not do.

I was not close to Matthew, in fact, for many, he was a hard young man to get close to. Matthew was the first metal head I met at work. He approached me solely due to an image on my PC he saw one day, and from there we began to chat.

I had times of difficulty with him, as many did, but I never lost my respect for him. In his final days at work he was very sick, pale with no colour but yellow and on Boxing Day we learned he had collapsed and died.

Matthew had been with his partner Dannica since high school, and she gave a moving eulogy today. They were together for 8 or so years. I can not imagine her pain, let alone that of Matthew's mother, to lose this young man at such a young age, under such sudden circumstances.

Tonight, to the hymms of Burzum and Hekel, I will go to the golf course, light a candle for him and wish him well on his next journey in the afterlife while I overlook the sea.

Goodbye, Matthew. Rest in Peace.

NSW steers clear of Vista

From news.com.au:

THE NSW government has shied away from Microsoft's new Windows Vista operating systems after executives in charge of the state's $1 billion computing budget agreed they saw little value in upgrading to the software.

The state's most senior technology boss also called for government agencies and other large organisations to ween themselves off automatic upgrades to new versions of software and instead focus on rebuilding and replacing legacy business systems.

NSW government chief information officer Paul Edgecumbe said that the state's CIO executive council, which comprises technology bosses from many of NSW's largest computer and communications users, were not backing a move to Vista.

"At the moment we're not seeing any particular value in doing any major upgrades to Vista in the short term," Mr Edgecumbe said.

"What we need to understand is what the value proposition is to doing the upgrade. If Vista has functionality that serves the need of a government then we'll look at it, as opposed to upgrading because (Microsoft) comes out with a new operating system."

The NSW government is one of the country's largest users of Microsoft software and holds a whole-of-government licensing agreement with the software giant.

But Mr Edgecumbe said that Microsoft and its large account resellers had been slow to inform government agencies of Vista functionality that would specifically benefit the public sector.

"I think Microsoft is just starting to do that. Perhaps it would have been better for them to start a bit earlier, but they have started to do that now," Mr Edgecumbe said.

While Mr Edgecumbe singled out Vista, he said that large organisations, including big private sector computer users, needed to break the habit of automatically upgrading to new versions of software.

He said the money could be better spent on other pressing projects, such as replacing billions of dollars worth of legacy software currently used by government departments, utilities, banks and telecommunications companies.

"At some point we've got to ween ourselves off this automatic upgrade merry-go-round that we all seem to live on from day to day. It might be a finance system or an operating system, and we just upgrade," Mr Edgecumbe said.

"In part, that automatic upgrade merry-go-round diverts funding from core systems, from upgrading and replacing legacy technology. That's a problem for government and all large organisations."

NSW government organisations under pressure to replace legacy systems include the Department of Education and Training, Sydney Water and Railcorp.

National Socialism in Black Metal.

Originally I posted this in a topic at Ultimate Metal, but I've decided to post it here also as I think it deserves to be blogged about:

It is a very tough topic this one, and much of it is based on personal interpretation and personal racially based views.

I'm an English born Indian Sikh, living in Australia and I have a huge intolerance for racism, I've experienced a lot of it myself.

I've always been a supporter of multiculturalism, I have no grudges with any races, but I probably have more grudges against religions, namely Christianity and Islam. I live in an area which is largely Jewish and Israeli, among many other cultures.

Buying my first Burzum album was a long process of deep thought. I had to really think about my motives for it. In the end, I concluded that my main focus was the music itself, and we all know that Burzum the band is not National Socialist Black Metal, but Vikernes the political figure is a National Socialist of sorts.

With this in mind, I don't feel guilty for the Burzum shirt I just bought and proudly wore yesterday. In the end, it is Black Metal I continue to support, and not the racism in it.

There is a huge irony with National Socialist Black Metal at the moment: most of the National Socialist Black Metal these days comes from Poland, the very place which we all know was deeply persecuted by Nazis. I find it extremely stupid that so much National Socialist Black Metal comes from there, let alone from anywhere.

I do understand the motive behind National Socialist Black Metal musicians, it is because they seek to express their need for their cultures and races to be kept intact, and not destroyed by multiculturalism.

I can understand this, we have many mixed marriages in my race, but the fact is that things are changing. It is overall positive imo becauase at the end of the day, we are PEOPLE, and PEOPLE need to be together and have respect for their differences.

The reality of a Fourth Reich is a stupid dream. it will be tolerated even less than the Third Reich was, but of course, you can not eradicate peoples opinions.

I have little respect for National Socialist Black Metal. It seems, that in recent times, even some of its own musicians are coming to the realisation that their anger is based on something which is not realistic. Rob Darken (Graveland) in recent interviews is clearly trying to detach himself from the National Socialist Black Metal scene. Drudkh have *hints* of National Socialism, but it is extremely diluted in comparison to what their members did in Hate Forest.

These people are much better off as artists to express a higher purpose, and in more intelligent ways. But I think they are also growing older, maturing, and coming to accept that there are differences in this world we must simply accept as part of our attempt as humans to live a harmonious existence.

As a result of my personal beliefs, there is no excuse to hate another race. I do not hate Germans because they have a Nazi past, after all, it was not all of them, and even the soldiers of the Third Reich were sickened by the concentration camps themselves. Many ended up mad and deranged from what they saw.

I have watched many documentaries about WWII in recent times. Seeing what the Jews went through is the ultimate insult to HUMANITY. It is disgusting, immoral, abhorant. Words cannot describe how sickening it is. It is impossible to watch the footage and not shed tears for the innocent elderly, disabled, men, women, pregnant women and children who died naked in cold bricked chambers for no reason other than their ethnicity.

Overall I find National Socialist Black Metal and racial intolerance extremely immature. To me, all it conveys is teenaged angst, sooking boys who can't have their fucking own way. Grow up.

Cultural pride (a large topic all its own) for the most part is okay, to me it is a far more intelligent and mature way to express ones individuality. I don't see why it's wrong to celebrate your culture, your folks stories, myths, art, architecture and gods. Even more so, I see Black Metal as the ultimate modern art expression for these things, to me, Black Metal's higher purpose *IS* for things such as this. We see Negura Bunget, Drudkh and Darkestrah among others achieving this with their fantastic art.

To me I almost view this expression in Black Metal as a new wave of Black Metal in itself, but right now it is so small scale that most may not notice it.

I do not see National Socialism in Black Metal as a logical step. It is a step which should never have been taken. National Socialism in Black Metal is a fucking trend, and thus has the lowest stature in Black Metal.