We're Taking It to 11 (And Somtimes to -1)

by Ari Abramowitz
15 February 2006

It’s primarily a physical thing. That’s what turns me on most about music. It’s not the lyrics, it’s not politics, it’s not attitude, it’s not social impact or influence. It’s the physical response music catalyzes that radiates past our conscious cortex, straight to our core, without being rationalized, dissected or disseminated. This is the sublime. This feeling of revelation can be triggered from many sources of light: massive physicality, melt-down intensity, ingenious composition, and even exquisite tones and melodies. All sorts of music can open this ‘third eye,’ but the genres on which I expend the most energy are metal and progressive rock.

When the addiction to this primal, unconscious experience hit me, it was MITCH MITCHELL of the JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE. “Crosstown Traffic.” Trashing his set: flailing, hard, funky, blitzing, all out abandon—VISCERAL. It was PAUL WHALEY of BLUE CHEER on MTV’s Closet Classics: massive double bass kit, arms pounding, hammering, head down, mane of blond hair covering his face—MASSIVE, FORCEFUL. It was also YES’s Close to the Edge. Fantastical journeys, intricate passageways, rises, falls, dark, light, bass runs, drum counterpoint, then three-part vocal rays of indescribably beautiful, prismatic light—TRANSPORTIVE.

If that’s what gets me going, what the heck am I doing on Big.Takeover.com? For one, metal and prog are often overlooked in indie circles. But the big reason is that it’s all about DISCOVERY, for others—and for me. It’s what I live for. On this blog, I plan to explore the elusive bridges between the usually distanced worlds of the punk/indie experience that The Big Takeover holds dear and the metal/progressive zone that is close to my heart—where one informs the other and influences the other’s evolution. A few examples: The evolution of hard-core, from BAD BRAINS to ISIS, the prog-like, ecstatic journeys of indie-faves GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR, to the propulsive proto-punk spirit of the notoriously iconoclastic prog pioneers HAWKWIND.

Other genres of music—the kind of revelatory music that I’d like to share—will also be frequently highlighted. This goes for evocative, delicate, and ecstatic music as well as for strictly heavy and progressive music—I will try to show that these attributes need not be mutually exclusive. Warning: Metaphysical tangets on truth, meaning, soul, and existence may shoot out of this sphere every now and then, but it’ll be the arms of the unconscious, primal experience of music that I hope to raise most frequently.

This is the physicality and transcendence I’m talking about: power and sublimity, force and light. Exploring how these things are achieved in the elusive discourse between punk/indie and metal/prog is a charged space into which even I haven’t ventured yet, so it should be interesting for both of us. I look forward to seeing if we can get to some really good levels of discovery. But, hey, I’ll be psyched just by starting some really good dialogue.

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