Dopecentury III --- The Most Heavy Metal Thing
This short fiction is part of Dopecentury, an experimental project where I attempt to channel the aural aesthetics of Dopesmoker into written text. (Dopesmoker is the legendary stoner-doom metal masterpiece by the band Sleep, of which it is said: “the monotony rarely becomes tedious.”) My plan is to listen to the single hour-long track of Dopesmoker while writing each of these “Dopecentury” entries. And repeat that 100 times. See the Dopecentury project page for more details.
“Fifteen fucking hours we drove to get to this armpit of the state. It was not fucking worth it.”
“This is the only show they are playing in the country this year. It’s either here, or nowhere.”
“This is fucking nowhere. Featureless fucking landlocked state.”
“The band is not exactly popular these days.”
“So then remind me again why we think they are good?”
The venue is like an overgrown shack, with cracked paint on weathered wood siding nailed up sometime deep back in the previous century. It is surrounded by a dirt and gravel parking lot, dusty and baked in the mid-continental sun. Though what is first taken as gravel on closer inspection is flattened, faded, and rusted bottle caps, in their thousands. Maybe tens-of-thousands. There is no corner of the parking lot where they are not abundant. But one side of the building hosts the exterior entrance to the bar area, and the bottle caps aggregate ever more densely on approaching the bar entrance.
And the reason is apparent, for outside the bar entrance a half dozen people stand or slouch or lean, bottles in hand, some gripped by fingers that also pinch a half-gone cigarette, others tipped forward with a pointed finger towards a conversation partner who needs a point made, the maker leaning dangerously along the same angle as the bottle. After some short time, inevitably, another person will stumble out from the darkness of the bar with a brown bottle that sweats profusely in the sun, and thick fingers grip and twist the bottle cap — or sometimes pried off with the chipped butt end of a lighter. And then that cap takes flight, along a path long predetermined and flown closely but never precisely by so many of its brethren before. Somewhat upward, but mostly outward, hanging, twisting as it catches a slight breeze, over the apogee, then down down to bounce into the dirt, maybe stopped by one of the stray grasses that pokes up in desperation from the acrid dust.
The bar entrance is on the side of the building. But the main entrance is around front. There a few dozen early arrivals congregate. They are not allowed in yet, because the band is doing their soundcheck inside. The distinguishing feature of the music is the sheer volume. Outside sounds like inside. The bass staccato of the kick drums resonates in the old wood frame of the building and pounds the walls. The guitar solos and tears through the afternoon heat. Falsetto singing pierces like an awl through the fabric of base reality. The band finished their soundcheck and the dozens outside follow it up with a cheer.
The sun works its way down towards the horizon. The drinkers outside the bar come and go, but don’t diminish. The crowd out front steadily grows. So many large, hirsute men. So many black t-shirts. So much long hair smelling of Prell and held back in ponytails — for now — with black hair ties. Unshaven armpits clamped clammily to the sides of open armholes where sleeves have been removed, the better to let the fleshy fields breathe. A surprising number of small, thin women as well.
And despite the heat, a not insignificant number of black hoodies: Emporer, Bal Sagoth, Burzum, Hammerfall, Huntress, High on Fire, Goatwhore, SOD, Mercyful Fate, Rhapsody, and a hundred others, each more obscure than the last. The hoodie logo is the shibboleth of metal.
Inside it is dark, and the air conditioning is, apparently, working. Inside, the bar server pitchers of beer. Ostensibly to be enjoyed with a group, and each plastic pitcher comes with a half-dozen plastic cups to keep up that illusion. But the huge men (and occasional tiny woman) stand around drinking directly from the pitchers, gripping them palm-against-barrel, like the pitcher was nothing more than a normal pint glass.
The place fills slowly with masses of black-clad, sweating bodies until it starts to pack in, and the people towards the stage are tamped into place by the increasing weight of the crowd behind. A strange soft banjo music plays over the PA.
Anticipation is the best part. And when the lights go down the crowd goes up. Mid-cheer the lights blast on, and the stage is filled with the band — for all of three seconds before every fuse in the old building blows out with a whiff of ozone that floats across the crowd.
Blackness again, this time eerily silent with the sound of the climate control systems now offline.
From the stage, a ranting rage. “This is fucking bullshit. This place is a fucking shithole. Our fans deserve better than this, get the fucking power back online now, I don’t care if you have to stick your fucking loose change in the fusebox. I’ll stick your fucking skull in the fusebox assholes.”
The lights come back on.
“You fucking fans! This is fucking for you! You are the brothers and sisters, and assuming the fucking pennies they stuck in the fucking fuse sockets don’t melt down, we’re going to blow the fucking roof off this shitty, shitty club.”
And then the sound is so loud that the bottles start falling off the shelves behind the bar. The bartenders run back and forth catching them and pushing them further back on the shelves. The people in the audience stand seemingly at attention, eyes wide open. They appear to try to absorb as much of the shockwave coming off the stage as they can get into their meaty flesh.
The bass player chugs a beer in the middle of a song while continuing to pull at the strings, laying down a long string of shuttering undertones. He crushes the can against his head and overhands it into the audience.
“His fucking can hit me in the head!”
“Keep it as a souvenir dude!”
“Holy shit, forget that. Check out the lead guitar…. his fucking hair, his fucking long blonde hair, is fucking caught in the guitar tuning pegs…”
“Look how much he is tearing out! Just yanking that fucking guitar up and down.”
“Never fucking missing a note! That is the most fucking heavy metal thing I have ever seen in my life. Here, hold my pitcher of beer.”