The Gothenburg Project 6.05.09: A History Of Music, Part 1

Posted by Matt Shoemaker on 06.05.2009

I know it's already been done this week, but I'm starting an introspective look at the music that made me who I am today. Rather than just focus on one artist, I figured starting with a little history would help to get my point across a little bit better. So join me this week as I give a (very) abbreviated history of the music I grew up on, as I build to the three biggest musical influences in my life.

Originally, this week, I was going to do take a look at some of the music I had been checking out over the past few weeks, but now, about 15 minutes after getting home from work, I'm starting on something new, with about an hour till deadline. In a mix of inspiration between MiGo's column this week and a deep discussion at work between myself, my boss, and his brother, I'm looking at the music that made me who I am today. This might stretch into a two parter, since I don't know if I'm gonna have enough time to fully detail everything I want to. I'm gonna aim to describe everything in this column, and next week, explain the impact it had on my life.

My heavy metal experience started with a kid named Rich Garcia. Rich and I were classmates in 7th grade, and he was probably one of my closest friends at the time. We always used to hang out after school, skate, play video games, whatever. The usual stuff 12 year olds do on "playdates", if they were even still called those back in the day. One afternoon, he pulled out his CD collection, and put in a CD I had never heard of. A CD labeled Metallica- Master of Puppets. Little did I know, that album would change my life forever.

Now, I grew up with a decent knowledge of rock. My mom had a huge record collection from the 70s. All the staples were there. Hendrix, The Doors, Zep, the Stones, the Beatles, and tons more sat in huge piles and crates in the basement of our house. There was also a fair amount of older metal. Stuff like Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, and Iron Maiden was scattered around in between all the psychedelic stuff. So, being the young wise-ass I was, I thought I knew a lot about rock. All of that went to shit the first time I heard Metallica. I knew from those opening chords on "Battery" that I had stumbled onto something incredible.

Hanging out with Rich, I also discovered bands like Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Disturbed… and maybe a couple of others. However, maybe a year later, I began really hanging out with my next door neighbor, Phil. He was a couple of years older than me, so I kind of looked at him in a mentor-ish kind of light. We used to skate together as well, and among other things, he's the one who got me into video games. But I learned a lot more about music hanging out with him than with Rich. Phil was into a lot of different bands at the time, ranging from Nine Inch Nails to Slipknot, both my firest exposures to those bands. Skater punk was also a huge part of his collection, bands like H20, Anti-Flag, Bad Religion, and Mest. We also listened to a lot of System of a Down, Insane Clown Posse, Korn, and Mushroomhead. Diversity has always been a big thing with me when it comes to music.

High school began a new era, and new discoveries, in terms of metal. Not too far into my freshman year, my first band, Crimson Skies, formed, and whenever we hung out, we would always sit around for hours, listening to various bands for inspiration. It started with bands like Killswitch Engage, Lacuna Coil, In Flames, and Lamb of God. We tried covering a multitude of songs from most of those bands, most of them only partially successful. I still can't play the intro to Lamb Of God's "11th Hour" on drums, and we covered that all the time. I also began getting into bands like Children of Bodom and God Forbid, to name a few.

Halfway through my freshman year, I started taking music classes with one of the biggest influences on my life, both personally and musically, John Raimondo. I'll leave the personal stuff out of it, but musically, this is the guy who really taught me how to expand my tastes, musically. He was a drummer as well, so we would always chat after class about different drummers we thought were awesome, and just about music in general. His band mixed funk, punk, and experimental, so he had a very wide range of influences, most of which he recommended to me, and most of which I explored further. Tool, Akira Jimbo, Phil Collins, the Blue Man Group, and various others became a part of my library, most of which I probably should have had in there already, but that's beside the point.

I pretty much spent most of high school listening to the same bands, even, admittedly, going through a slight emo phase at one point. God I'm glad those days are behind me. Once I reached college, and my sophomore year roommate, my metal tastes expanded beyond anything I thought possible. My roommate Mike shared my passion for metal, but he was more into the foreign stuff. Melodic death metal was constantly heard blaring out of our tiny dorm room, pissing off other roommates and RAs alike. It wasn't until then that I really got into bands like As I Lay Dying, All That Remains, Bodom, In Flames, and At The Gates.

So I guess I'll start explaining what metal means to me, and finish up next week. From the age of 12, metal has pretty much been my life. Yeah, I branch out into anything I find appealing, but there's nothing like metal for me. It's always had something of a soothing quality for me, for some reason. One would argue that, while in a bad mood, listening to such "angry, hateful music", as some I know like to describe it, would make things worse. Not for me. Most metal helps me find an outlet for whatever I'm feeling at the time, I guess helping me to relate to something. It's pretty difficult to explain, but there are certain bands that always help to calm me down in a shitty mood. Those bands are too numerous to be named, especially because, at this point, I'm running out of time on my deadline. So I'll leave things here for this week. I apologize if anyone finds this boring, but it's all got a purpose, which will be explained next week. Much like MiGo did with Nine Inch Nails, I'm gonna be taking a look at a couple of the bands here that shaped my life: Metallica, In Flames, and Slipknot.

Until then, take care.