Tag Archives: Death

Making money in the name of charity

Maybe you’ve heard of the Kim Kardashian charity scandal (hardly a scandal, but suitable as an example) earlier this year. If you haven’t, and if you’re too lazy to check the link above, let me break it down to you. Kim Kardashian has sold some of her clothes via Ebay, under the banner “Charity Auction Supporting the Dream Foundation.” In the end only 10% were actually donated and she has kept the rest to herself.

What does this have to do with metal, and especially with Chuck Schuldiner (pictured above)? Well, we might think that something like that couldn’t happen in our perfect metal world. After all, metal musicians seem less money hungry than women who’re only famous for getting fucked by some R’n’B singer. But we’re wrong to assume that.

Beth Schuldiner, Chuck Schuldiner’s sister, has now spoken about the Sick Drummer Magazine/Death To All Tour debacle. Again, to break it down for you, Sick Drummer Magazine has helped organize the Death To All/Chuck Schuldiner tribute tour earlier this year. The earnings of said tour were partly supposed to go to the Sweet Relief charity, which had also helped Chuck when he was dying from cancer. Now Death’s management has claimed that the owners of Sick Drummer Magazine has not paid musicians, charity, booking agents, crews or Death’s management, Perseverance Holdings Ltd., despite the tour being a success.

Those are some very strong accusations and to further fuel the fire, Beth Schuldiner has now spoken out about it, and you can read that after the jump.

I’m not going to pick sides myself, because I hardly know all of the details of this story, but I’d like to point out how incredibly weak it is to make thousands of dollars in the name of charity, and then not even give 1% to that charity. Even Kim Kardashian knew better.

Death ’til Death – Day 1: Death

When I announced our week dedicated to the most important Death Metal bands of all time yesterday, I guess everyone had one band in mind: Death. They’re an obvious choice, and were the very first band to spring to my mind when I came up with this idea. My idea was to either cover them first or last, and ultimately decided to go with the fathers of Death Metal first.

Death were started under the name of Mantas in 1983. Mantas recorded five demos, including the infamous Death By Metal demo, before changing their name to Death. “Evil Chuck” Schuldiner; vocalist, guitarist and temporarily bassist of the band; named the band Death to turn the death of his brother Frank into something positive.

The name “Death,” and the early demo Death By Metal, are also the reasons why the genre was named Death Metal. Early Death Metal bands usually played a heavier Thrash Metal style, up until Death, and some notable other bands, changed the game. In the early and mid 80’s, people therefore referred to this style of music as Death’s metal — which over time turned into Death Metal.

This band is not only responsible for the name of this Extreme Metal genre, they’re also responsible for a number of groundbreaking metal releases. While Scream Bloody Gore and Leprosy are landmarks of the early Death Metal scene, Individual Thought Patterns and especially Symbolic were pioneering releases of Progressive Extreme Metal.

Symbolic was, and still is, one of the most important monuments in all of metal. Death were, and still are, one of the most important bands in Death Metal. That is the reason why I just couldn’t skip this band in this one-week column. Death Metal without Death wouldn’t be Death Metal.

Death – Empty Words

Death ’til Death introduction – Day 1: Death – Day 2: Possessed – Day 3: Morbid Angel
Day 4: Cannibal Corpse – Day 5: Nile – Day 6: Hypocrisy – Day 7: Obituary

Friday Top 10: Best Death Metal songs

People always ask me “Hey, you awesome metal journalist you, what are the best songs of <insert genre>,” so I figured I’d write a list about the greatest Death Metal songs of all time.

There are just a couple of rules I’m limiting myself to. #1 Only one song per band, #2 Must be Death Metal; not Melodic Death, Deathgrind or Blackened Death.

Sounds simple? Well, it is, isn’t it? So make the jump now for this week’s Friday Top 10.

Friday Top 10: Most Influential Metal Bands

Remember when I posted my wacky comments on Kerrang! magazine’s Top 10 of the most influential rock bands of the last 30 years? Well, it’s time to post the metal equivalent of that Top 10, only we’re not limiting ourselves to time, so it’s the most influential bands of metal history.

Also, only metal bands can make the list. Not bands that aren’t metal themselves but influenced a wide array of metal bands, so exclude AC/DC, Deep Purple etc.

Now, make the jump to see if my list is better than Kerrang’s list.

It is.

Atheist vs. Death?

So, I just woke up and read a couple of news posts on Blabbermouth and then I saw the headline “ATHEIST Frontman: CHUCK SCHULDINER Did Not Create Technical Metal“. Now, that sounds kind of interesting, doesn’t it?

So, I read the article which features an interview with Atheist singer Kelly Shaefer and he talks pretty respectfully about Chuck Shuldiner and Death. He does include the line that Schuldiner didn’t create Technical Metal, sure, but I felt like the headline of the article was pretty misleading. Just read the most important part of the interview yourself:

“Everybody has a branch on the tree, and Chuck was definitely a thicker branch on the tree, a very important part of what we all do. We owe him a great deal of gratitude for being the pioneer that he was. I have a lot of respect for what he’s done and accomplished. But truth and matter of fact is that technical metal was not created by Chuck Schuldiner.“

So to me it seems like Blabbermouth took that last line out of context to create a headline that makes people want to read the article. Don’t get me wrong, we do that as well at times but we usually set it straight when you start reading the article.

The issue I’m having with this headline is not that it’s putting Atheist in a bad light, which it does, or that it’s trying to set up a feud between two legendary bands, which it does as well. My issue is that Blabbermouth turned Metal news into ordinary gossip and that doesn’t sit well with me.

Maybe I’m just trying too hard to be an elitist here, but I still view metal as something that can make people bond, something absolutely positive. I don’t even remember how often I got into a conversation with people because of the band shirts I’ve been wearing. There’s just something about “Hey, that dude wears a shirt of a band I like as well” that makes people bond. It’s not like everyone around you is a metalhead so it’s cool to meet new ones and I kind of think we should stick together and Blabbermouth is doing the exact opposite of that.

Blabbermouth is trying to create a feud not just between Atheist and Death but also between Atheist fans and Death fans. Personally, I view both bands as almost equally important to the scene so this is no Metallica/Megadeth situation, it’s more like a Judas Priest/Iron Maiden situation, albeit in a much smaller way.

What I’m trying to say is that especially metal sites should try to be better than Perez Hilton and not follow his example. Let’s try to unite metal fans, not divide them.