Black (metal) celebration

I forgot to write about this earlier, but some friends and I went to see Metal Storm: The Scandinavian Black Metal Wars last weekend. We were expecting a somewhat sardonic portrayal of these guys who play rawgrawgrawg music and paint their faces like melting Kiss dolls. What we got was a sober and depressing story of pointless rebellion, arson, and murder. There were a few funny bits, but mostly it was just sad how dumb and destructive these guys were.

Afterwards, in an effort to lighten the mood, I announced that Carole and I would be forming a black metal band named Milieu after the massive amount of times Norwegian journalists used the word in the film. Of course, our other two friends would form a rival band called Retinue (same reason). Then we would plot intricate schemes for destroying each other, only not really. From there we moved on to how other musical genres might settle the score. Daniel cracked us all up with a most dire twee threat, "I'll unravel your cardigan." Awesome.

Sadly, I just discovered that I missed an exhibit of black metal musician portraits that closed yesterday. Photographer Peter Beste has taken some great pictures that I find both scary and funny. I should stress that as far as I know the guys - and where are the black metal girls? - pictured haven't committed any crimes and probably are decent, law-abiding Satanists. Here's the poster from Beste's Austin show.