When it comes to instrumental atmospheric Chicago metal quartets, there’s no one like Pelican. Actually, Pelican blow away lots of bands that aren’t quartets and aren’t even instrumental. Like Isis and Neurosis, Pelican navigate the slippery road between subtlety and savagery with unwavering skill. This live clip of “Sirius” from the new Pelican DVD “After the Ceiling Cracked” should show you what we mean. If you can’t get enough, check out our interview with the band. And don’t miss our guest blog with guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec, which follows the clip.
Obscure Metal Is Just a Click Away
by Pelican guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec
I’ve been an obsessive metal fan since I was 11 years old (so, that’s 1988 — the end of metal’s first true glorious decade). It’s been a daily ritual ever since this older kid, Tommy, got on the bus and introduced me to Lizzy Borden, Flotsam and Jetsam, Warlock, older Scorpions, Forbidden, etc. Right away, I loved traditional metal and the Bay Area Thrash phenomenon. Yeah, I’ve broadened my palette considerably over time (uh …Emmylou Harris, the Dead Kennedys, Slowdive) but it’s always metal I feel aesthetically most connected to.
Because of Pelican’s travels, I’ve had the chance to pillage way more record stores than I ever imagined I’d hit in this lifetime. And my bandmates can confirm that the cargo I stress to send home in a well packaged box on tour is considerable. Just this last tour I scored true gems by Living Death, Eloise, Glory Bells, Crimson Glory, Steeler, Destruction, etc. Not familiar with those bands? I wasn’t with a lot of them either. I thought my knowledge got
exponential after 20 years, but Martin Popoff’s metal guides helped me see that I don’t know s–t, first off, and there’s also enough metal to check out for the rest of my life, basically. And that’s just stuff from the ’70s and ’80s.
So where am I going with this? This isn’t a column about the metal bands I dig and why you should dig them. It’s about a source of music and community that has basically given my love for metal a big fat rail of coke: blogs. Sure, when I bought Napalm Death’s Harmony Corruption in Germany in 1991, reading the thanks list gave me enough band names to check out for a long-ass time. But there’s too much metal out there and not enough money. So I love being able to check out records that someone else loves, read why they’re so fanatical about them, share my own views, and then get psyched to find it someday in Tokyo — Witch Cross’ LP on Metal Blade! SO GOOD! Just the other day, I was at Amoeba in Los Angeles, and Larry (our drummer … and a total bro’) found me the Battleaxe LP and the first Warlord EP. Like I said, read Martin’s books.
But the point is that I had heard those records before and loved them because someone shared that with me. Metal has always been about sharing, whether it was the tape trades that went on in the early ’80s or the mixes I made myself for countless friends. Yes, the immediacy has changed and the format, too, but the love is the same. And when I like a band, old or new, I find the records. I go to shows. I buy shirts. I make it my personal crusade to show that love.
Do I think I’m hurting the bands? No. For one, a lot of that stuff is out of print — waaay out of print. And I’ve never (this is something I feel strongly about) liked a record and not tried to find a CD reissue or the vinyl. Truth is, I’m also aware that there’s a lot of bootlegged vinyl out there, so you never know what artists are getting cut in on what reissue. But the blogs are thriving, out there in the open, always forthcoming about taking things down if the artist isn’t down with something being on there.
This is about community. I’m in Pelican and all too familiar with our music being spread on blogs, via torrents, etc. I don’t care. If people like it, they’ll support us on tour. And it hasn’t hurt us as far as I’m concerned — although I did get super bummed out when our record leaked before it was mastered and we’d even had a chance to conceptualize the art. And then the Internet lit up faster than a Christmas tree with instant critics placing judgment on something that we worked so hard on but wasn’t even finished! That’s the s–tty end of the Internet sharing reality, I guess. But then again, when the record does surface, our label, Hydra Head, goes out of its way to make it a little piece of art… so as a collector, or even just a fan that appreciates the design and packaging, you don’t feel like you’re getting ripped off. On the other hand, the dude who just bought a CD for $17.99 at Borders with a thin booklet… he might feel like he overspent.
I think the Internet has changed the way we can share music, but I don’t think it’s all of a sudden turned music fans into enraged pirates who’ll stop at nothing to rip off their favorite artists. If anything, we’re transitioning to something new, and a band like Radiohead is showing us that on a more mainstream level. For me, nothing has changed. I’m 11 at heart and doing whatever I can to listen to new and forgotten artists and to eventually hold their records in my hand and let my mind wonder why they riffed that way, why they picked this artist for the sleeve, etc. I’ll leave with a bit of advice to metal labels that have a ton of records that are just chilling in the vaults: If you can’t make full pressings, put them up as digital downloads for cheaper with cover art as JPEG files. You’ll make the few hundred of us that are hunting for those records super-stoked. You won’t have to spend much money either. Anyway, metal forever.
