As Long As This Is, It's Not Nearly Long Enough

Alright, this might turn out a little geeky. Not like Batman geeky, but like I'm going off on a tangent geeky. There isn't really a point to this post, but then again, there doesn't really have to be, so there.
I've been thinking off and on for a while now about music. I never really thought about how to define myself musically. I've always just referred to myself as a metalhead. But that's not entirely accurate. I mean look at my personal profile. Those bands aren't all metal. Johnny Cash is TECHNICALLY old country, blues, and folk. Nick Cave is more like mood rock. Tom Waits is Tom Waits music (I have no fucking clue what to call him, and I don't think "beatnick" is nearly broad enough).
The thing is, I like clean-cut labels for myself. I hate having to explain too much of a self-proclamation to people, because I can see when there eyes glaze over, and I take it as an insult when they bump their head on the coffee table as they pass out from boredom.

Subtangent: It drives me nuts how hung up people are on the "permanence" of labels. Unfortunately, we're taught (almost always with humility) at an early age that labels are permanent, leaving lasting impressions that are harder to wash out than duct tape glue. We forget that we forget what those impressions were half the time. We also forget that one of the most foremost geniuses (genii?) in physics was an idiot in math. We seem to remember the kids who killed their school peers as having trenchcoats or dyed hair, but not that they were struggling to express themselves without realizing that they were adolescent and fucking nuts.
I don't find labels permanent. I think of them like clothes. You change them (hopefully) often; many you grow out of, some you don't; some are really cool, some are of questionable taste or even goofy; some are well-worn, yet are persistently worn...you get the point. They're interchangeable.

Ok, back on track. What kind of a label can I give myself musically? A music-head? A folk-banger (sounds like the plural to motherfucker)? A beat-metal-folk-classico-country listener? A music teacher? I don't know. Maybe when someone asks me what kind of music I like, I'll just tell them what I don't like. Well, no, because for all the music I do like, there's an equal amount that I can't stand. I love Pantera, Superjoint Ritual, Metallica, Type O...but I hate Quiet Riot, Motley Crue, Seether, Six Feet Under. I like Pearl Jam & Days of the New, but I hate Creed and Phish (I REALLY hate Creed).
My best idea for a label would be that I like emotive music.
But wait a minute, what the hell does that even mean? And why does it sound pussy to use that term? Well, I don't know why it sounds pussy, but I'm using it because it's the best term to use. And I'm secure. So there.
It took me a long time to even come up with a term like "emotive", and it is in fact a word. It just basically means to show emotion, but I'm not really meaning it that way. What I mean is, listen to "Domination" or "Cemetery Gates" by Pantera. Dimebag's guitar literally screams, and it boils up this kind of excitement that a lot of other music just can't. Many would call it panic, or maybe even rage. Listen to "Hollow", and hear it come out in the guitar and singing.
Listen to System of a Down and tell me that that guy isn't exhausted at the end of a concert set. He puts so much out in his singing style, it actually hard NOT to get into. "Spiders" is a great song for that--so is "Toxicity" and "ATWA".
Listen to Johnny Cash, hear the pain of life in his voice. Listen to Tom Waits, hear that same pain waxed a bit more philosophically and to more experimental music. "No One Knows I'm Gone" reminds me of Louis Armstrong, While "The Piano Has Been Drinking" reminds me of that song by the Naked Trucker (I can't remember the whole name of the band) about the guy who thinks his deadbeat dad took off to be an astronaut. Ok, that's a little vague--the unique quality is that both songs are funny until the end, when you realize how hopeful and hopeless that characters in them really are.
I've been listening to three bands lately more than others.
I don't know why, but I like Dark New Day. I think it's because they're metal, but they're so mellow about it. Plus the guy can sing well, but also scream right. You don't hear it much, but guys like Phil Anselmo, Dave Williams (Drowning Pool), Serj Tankian, among others, just crawl out of the woodwork and give me hope for heavy metal. Besides the singing, Dark New Day uses clean guitar sounds and make it work with metal.
I don't even know how to describe Mushroomhead. They're a little like Slipknot (also a band I've newfound respect for), only the music is different. I saw the video for "Sun Doesn't Rise" the other day, and damn near shit myself, it's that cool. The song that hooked me was "Bwomp". There's a part about 3 1/2 minutes in, when in a wail the singer say's "What do we have to hope for? Why do we even try?" I guess I can't really explain that. If you get it, you get it, if you don't, sorry.
The last band is called Machete Avenue. I've only been able to hear 2 of their songs, because that's all that's available. I found them on www.soundclick.com, and I liked how they amped their acoustics. Plus the guy sounds a bit like he pushed his voice through a cheese grater and it definitely gave the impression of anguish.

Subtangent: If any of you have seen Evil Dead II (and if you haven't SHAME ON YOU!), there's a part where the girl's dad is trying to get reach the group from the dead. One of them says something to the effect of how it sounded like someone was trying to break through to their realm. The line was cheesy as hell, but I always thought the concept that something would try so hard, at risk of death or some other kind of unfortunate transition, to reach across realities for whatever purpose. I don't know why, but I always imagined it would involve (theoretically) some kind of ungodly pain and a lot of it. It's the same way with music. There's a point somewhere in there where you can't take it just singing this unemotional crap, and some kind of thing just rips out. It's in harmony with the song, it's in key, it's even timed well. But it's like a scream or wail or a growl and it's expressed to the point of exhaustion, and you wonder how the hell that person managed to bottle it up in the first place. And once it's through, you see how much pain it caused in coming out. Listen to "Daddy" by Korn. I don't know if Davis was really crying and if all that really happened that he sang about, but if it didn't, he's a hell of an actor, even on a CD.

So, there you have it. Three bands I've gotten really into. Two subtangents to lead everyone somewhat off track. And one label, maybe a permanent one, to add to my collection. It took a large Pepsi at 2am to get this goosechase out of me (was there, in fact, a point to catch?), and I still haven't even unpacked my acoustic yet. But hey, it was fun to self-reflect, and if I ever have a thought about this again, I can think, 'refer to blog entry 07/15/05.'