Last week, or the week before, I forget, I set up a Myspace page for my Great War Black Metal 'project' Abwehrschlacht. Basically, Abwehrschlacht was a return to where I began with music. Back to the Black, so to speak. The Black in question being Black Metal. It has been nearly twenty years since I recorded any form of Black Metal so this was coming full circle. Back in 1993 I was involved in the band Xaztur and my later solo project Immanis. During my time in both of these bands I was involved heavily in the underground Black Metal scene that was bubbling under the surface of music. This was the best time in my opinion for Black Metal: it was dark, underground, mysterious, dangerous, dynamic and very difficult to penetrate both musically and physically.
By the latter, I mean, to get hold of records one did not simply walk into your local branch of HMV or Tower Records like today and pick up the latest Dimmu Borgir or Cradle of Filth album like the Pop Music they are. In fact this was actively discouraged. No, we had to write to the bands themselves or record labels and distributors in order to get hold of the recordings. Many were the hours I spent putting dollar bills into envelopes along with hand written letters in order to get the latest albums by Mayhem, Burzum, Emperor, Gorgoroth and the like. This was also the way the latest news about new releases was spread. I would write to a band to get a copy of their demo (on cassette tape) when it arrived they would send a handful of flyers, promoting their band and others, which I would send on in the next letters I wrote to friends or bands.
Why am I telling you this? To put you in the picture of how difficult it was to get hold of new music back in the day. There was no file sharing, no MP3s and no Myspace. With reference to my earlier bands, Immanis and Xaztur, I don't remember exactly how many demo tapes we sent out to people (Xaztur had one rehearsal tape and one full demo, Immanis put out two rehearsal tapes), but the final Immanis rehearsal tape was hand numbered and I think I sent out no more than thirty copies. The numbers would have been much higher for the previous releases as the last rehearsal tape for Immanis was when I decided to call it a day. Now, since setting up the Myspace page for Abwehrschalcht, it has had, to date, 555 profile views and the songs have been played 167 times. This is by no means a massive amount, but compared to 1993, it is astronomical. It is the equivalent to sending out over forty demo tapes within a week. But I still look back twenty years and feel we've lost something from the Black Metal scene. The sense of immediacy has destroyed the sense of achievement one felt when a new album came through the post.
Keep the fires burning...
