Tag: Heavy Metal

Monday Metal: The Red and the Black by Iron Maiden

I try to avoid wasting your time with songs that are restricted by the record label from playing on any site other than YouTube (because who wants to give even a tiny amount of free publicity to such jackasses) but since the Iron Maiden concert in St. Paul was Friday I thought it would be appropriate to toss up something by them.

Friday was the first time in, I think, 17 years since Iron Maiden has played in Minnesota. I’m glad they came because it saved me from having to fly to see them again. The show was part of their Book of Souls tour so they played quite a few songs off of that album. I know some people don’t like it when their favorite bands play their newest stuff because they got hooked by the older stuff but I appreciate that Iron Maiden hasn’t resorted to reliving their glory days at every concert. With that said, they did play a lot of their classics including Powerslave, Wrathchild, and The Number of the Beast.

This week’s Monday Metal is off of the Book of Souls album. The Red and the Black is one of my favorite songs off of the album and it was fun hearing it live on Friday.

Monday Metal: Get Up And Fight by Masters of Persia

This week’s Monday Metal is taking us to Iran where metal isn’t as appreciated, at least in the more religious rural areas, as it is here in the United States:

For nine months after the beating, Meraj laid low, but one day a representative of the city’s religious authorities called his father and demanded he report to the police station. He didn’t, and a few weeks later a well connected student said that both Meraj and Anahid had been discussed during a high level meeting of the city authorities. “They said we have music in this city and there is a group named Master of Persia. The girl has a shaved head and is a Satanist,” he said.

A prominent local religious leader, Ayatollah Alam Alhoda told the meeting that the band were clearly kaffirs, or unbelievers, and demanded that the authorities deal with them. This, said Meraj, was serious. “When a big mullah says ‘kaffir’ this is no joke.

They don’t need the documents and the law – they will kill you,” he said. Ayatollah Alhoda also had priors: in 2012 he called for an Iranian rapper, Shahin Najafi, who lived in Cologne, to be assassinated. Najafi was later given a death sentence for apostasy by another hardline cleric based in Qom and an Iranian news website announced a $100,000 reward for anyone who would kill the rapper. Within four days, Meraj had sold his car for $4,000 and he and Anahid had fled Iran, first travelling to Tehran and then across the border by bus. They have not been back since.

When metal first arrived on the scene here in the United States it was also met with significant resistance from religious individuals and concerned parents. Granted, by that point in the country’s history religious leaders had already lost their extralegal privileges but they tried their damnedest to get the government to restrict metal and other “obscene” forms of music. Their push for government control was serious enough that Dee Snider had to defend himself against Tipper Gore in front of Congress in 1985.

While the fight for metal here has basically been won, the fight continues in other parts of the world.

Heads Will Roll

A lot of people were making a big stink about some washed up comedian posting a picture of herself holding up a fake severed head of Donald Trump. Apparently the people flipping out about that picture haven’t heard of GWAR:

Comedian/actress, etc. Kathy Griffin has found herself under fire this week after posing with a fake severed head of United States President Donald Trump. GWAR have been quick to point out in the below video however, that they did it first. You can watch the band’s Beefcake The Mighty discuss that below.

People’s selective outrage has always fascinated me. GWAR has had severed heads of presidents as part of its show for ages now and nobody gave a shit. But when a comedian who most people have probably forgotten does the same things people get butthurt. I’m not sure why this is but if I had to hazard a guess, I’d guess it’s because GWAR isn’t being overtly political. Inserting politics into something that unremarkable has a tendency to make it remarkable to many people.