Heavy Metal is underated

If I’ve learned anything from experience it’s that Heavy Metal, as a musical genre, is highly underated, and highly misunderstood.

When I tell someone that I listen to or enjoy Heavy Metal there is an automatic stereo type blanketed over me, because there is a blanket conception of what Heavy Metal is.

Actually there are two, that I frequently hear. One is that heavy metal is all screams that you can’t listen to, and the other is that heavy metal is all growls that you can’t listen to.

I can’t deny that these factors don’t *exist* in heavy metal. In fact, they’re quite prominent. So I can understand where the stereotype comes from, in a sense. But most of the time, people hear one song and take a stance that all metal sounds like the song they just heard. They didn’t get it, or couldn’t hear it, or it actually was so extreme they couldn’t like it. The simple fact is that they didn’t understand it and they fear what they don’t understand. Then they don’t give anything labeled as ‘heavy metal’ a chance.

Or perhaps they just “remember” it being worse than it actually was. It’s like coming out of the tropics for the first time in your life into a brisk cool morning, and going away thinking the place was the coldest you have ever been, even if eight years later you go to the mountains where it’s snowing. It’s all relative at the time, but the relative difference is what you remember. You’ve never been so cold as you were that day you first left the tropics – and you’ve been to the snow!

And then so many people might hear something I’m listening to and tell me that it’s not what I normally listen to. They don’t say that the metal isn’t what they expected. It’s that they didn’t expect what I’m listening to to be classified as metal, so they assume it’s not. And then make a statement that they thought I *would* be listening to metal, increasing their own misconception of what metal *is*.
It actually took me several times to be told this before I really got a grasp on how to react. Should I be upset that they stereotyped me so badly? Should I be defensive that they attack my tastes in music? Or should I look down at them for being ignorent or idiotic?
I try to explain that metal isn’t what they expect, or that my taste in metal is not what they expected, or that there’s so much more to metal than they can fathom, but they pass it off as incorrect and hold their viewpoints – usually.
In some rare cases, they’ll actually listen to what you’re listening to and say it wasn’t as bad as they expected. But that’s really the end of it.
In the end, I try to just take a bla-se stance, realising that it’s not worth my effort to explain myself or metal to these people. In some ways I like that they will never take the chance to listen to metal, because they could actually start enjoying it, and I actually like knowing that people are missing out – and that I don’t follow the societal norm. It’s my thing.
Or the reverse, that they actually *do* take an interest, and I have to spend time teaching them 30 years of music that has completely passed them by. Where do you start?
Metal has grown with me over the years. I have grown with metal.
It was raw when I discovered it, and over time recording qualities have improved. Media has improved. The abilities of musicians have improved. There’s no formula to determine at which point an introductory course in metal could or should begin.
Start at the beginning, and the raw sound would turn them away for not being polished, or being too close to their fear – screaming incoherance.
Start too new, and work backwards, and you’ve started with better quality music, and they’ll get bored with older tunes. And then they’ll miss out on so many of the classics. And never understand the progression of any single band, or genre or connect sub genres.
Start in the middle? Work forward from there? Let them not understand the influences of bands, musicians, eras and genres?

Yes, people. There’s more than one kind of metal. And each genre has its own fanbase, and these people can be mutually exclusive. Different genres can be likened to each other like house and RNB, similar enough that you might like both as much as each other, or like Rap is to Jazz – so different you couldn’t possibly appreciate both.

But it’s even more than that. Heavy Metal is the culmination of all that is good in music. I think of it as an elitism.
It combines everything that is great in every other style of music. You like a solid rock beat, and energetic rythm? Rock metal for entree. Power metal for main course. You like delicate fingerwork, classical music, wind instruments, symphonies or anything similar? You might like neoclassical and perhaps some progressive metal.
You like the beat in house music? Industrial? Techno? Industrial metal for you. Try some fear factory or nine inch nails, for example.
You just like some good old tunes to tap along to? You might like the classics. Maiden, Sabbath, that sort of thing. And so on.

And there’s nothing you can’t sing about in metal. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is taboo.
And you might be sitting there telling yourself that the music you listen to is just as versatile, but if it ain’t metal, it ain’t so versatile.
Sure, in rap you can sing about shooting someone. How many rap songs sing about true and everlasting love? How many songs can Celine Dion sing that *aren’t* about love, or some other emotive state? How many angry songs can Elton John sing?
Heavy metal can have all of that and more. So much more. It can be descriptive or philosophical. There are songs of birth, of death, of afterlife. Theft, love, cars or bikes, the music, women, apocolypse, faith, broken faith, the future, the past, dragons and magic, ANYTHING. Tombstones, graverobbing, I’ll bet they’re out there. (and worse!) Ghosts, faeries, demons, succubi, vampires, alien life, even poltergeists.
Getting drunk and alcoholism – both considered in positive or negative tones, drugs, and drug abuse, the earth and environmental affairs, the philosphy of war, the irony of war, the effect of war, or just a song about war. Even just a song about the social effect of greed.

Anything you didn’t think there was a song about, there’s probably a metal song out there about it.
And the lyrics aren’t the only thing worth noting in most metal.
(And how often have you heard a song on the radio where the music took a pathetic second place to the vocals, or even just the catchy chorus?)

Most heavy metal songs are an *experience*. The songwriting talent abounds. The music is as much the focal point as any lyrics, and usually more so. It’s the energy it provides, or the resonance created within from a guitar riff, or the talent required to play the intricate melodies or solos.
But you have to focus. Metal isn’t usually background music, it’s something you listen to. Something you concentrate on, think about, appreciate. There’s gemstones in the background of a metal song, stuff you don’t hear until you listen closely. Each instrument usually presents a work of art in its own right, in so many thousands of songs.
That’s why fans of heavy metal consider it not just music but their way of life. They spend so much energy enjoying it that it becomes an integral part of them. It’s who they are. It’s what they do. It’s what they WANT to do, want to listen to, want to spend time thinking about.
Maybe that is what is feared by the others – to become totally gripped by this beast they can’t control and don’t understand.
To give up the life they know, and thought was right, to learn there’s more out there than they knew.

Stealing the blinds

I tend not to bluff.
I have played enough hands now to see what happens to me, and others, when I or they bluff – they lose.

I think it was Dan Harrington who taught me that you can’t bluff a novice. If they can’t imagine you have what you’re representing – and then fold a hand not quite as good as that (but better than what you have) then you’ve only cost yourself more chips.

On the other hand, an expert would likely have such a good read on me and the situation to know he actually has me beat, statistically or otherwise.
So when I put my chips in, I usually think I have the best hand or a good chance to get there. Most of the time, mind you, I still want everyone to fold. That is a pot you don’t have to earn.

There-in lies the allure of the bluff. Sure, it’s all about having more gustre than your opponent. That game of chicken, making the enemy stand down to your brute force, sly wit, or intimidating threat of taking all their cash. Sure, for most people, that’s what bluffing is about – I guess – but for *me*, it’s about winning something I didn’t earn with the minimal effort. Cunning.

In other words, I like to bluff when I think it’s a sure win. Some might say it’s not really bluffing if it’s a sure win, but anyone who calls usually has me beat. So I wait til they’ll fold before I even bet.

I’ve never been good at stealing blinds.
Phil Gordon tells me that to make a profit on my blinds, (because I intend to lose them usually) I need to bluff four times every three rounds to steal the blinds. Then I make a profit of one and a half bets.

Anything else on top of that is just gravy.

And every book I’ve ever read tells me that a standard play is to try steal the blinds when you have the button.
But as Phil again points out, that play is so standard, that it’s expected. Nobody raised until the button? Well he’s just gonna raise to scare us all off, right? So Phil says he makes *his* steals from the cutoff – one before the button. But who hasn’t read Phil’s book? We *all* know that’s now the new standard.

And when I raise from these positions, I always get called. Either by a good hand or by junk in the blinds – that usually hit and smash me.
So unless I have a great but speculative hand, or a monster hand (AK or AQ suited, for the former, AA,KK,QQ for the latter) I won’t raise from those seats. Instead I try to play small and hit hard, to take a bigger pot or get out early.

So why would I be writing this blog if I don’t have anything to say on this matter?

What I’ve discovered is that because I play a recognisably straight forward tight game that the only place I can steal the blinds is when I am under the gun. It really is harder to pick my spot, and I don’t usually do it with *absolute* junk, but quite often a standard raise – by me – from under the gun takes the pot. I’ve had players fold hands like Ace-Jack suited with only a Queen Ten in my hand.
Of course, this won’t work against any table with a fresh untutoured player on it – all players on the table need to recognise a tight player, and know how to play in position, and what it means to play out of position.

But when I get that table, I can steal my blinds back. I don’t get to steal four times every three rounds, but I get one or two.
And when I *finally* get called, I know I’m up against a monster. If I don’t hit the flop HARD, I bow out, get caught bluffing, and change gears. If I *do* hit the flop hard, I actually get paid for the effort.

And maybe when I get my AA under the gun, I’ll get a caller too.

Anyway, if I’ve only discovered one thing for myself in poker, or invented a play, it’s that I steal blinds from under the gun.