Monday, April 22, 2013

I Play the Garbage Can: My Musings About One Member of Slipknot

This subject has been eating at me.  I've heard Slipknot's music.  In case you haven't, it's basically aggressive, atonic noise with so much going on you can't really tell up from down.  Some people dig it.  I don't.

Recently my husband was watching a YouTube video of them playing live.  First of all, the stage is completely full of dudes.  There are, like, 15 band members and most of them are just screaming and jumping around in their jumpsuits and creepy leather masks.  Then I catch a glimpse of this one dude wailing on a trash can.  He's totally going to town on it.  There's no mic anywhere nearby, he's just wailing on a trash can because he's in Slipknot and it doesn't matter anyway, since basically it is a cacophony with a guy screaming laid over the top.

That split second image got me thinking.  How did this artist's career begin?  What was it like being him, trying to pick up chicks and be relevant in a band with 15 members?

Trashcan guy (TCG):  "I'm totally in a band, you know."
Chick: "Oh yeah?  Cool, what do you play?"

At this point, TCG can go one of two ways.  He can either own his position in the band and pretend like it's an off-the-wall artistic expression, like he's *really* a drummer, but chooses to play the trash can because it's raw and uncivilized and it totally makes the sound of the band.  Or he can lie until his pants catch fire.  I suspect that the latter option would get him more girls.

TCG: "I'm the drummer."

Which leads to another problem for our young man.  Er... groupies don't like drummers.  They're all after the singer, the lead guitarist is a backup and if neither of them are available they will shag the bassist.  Sometimes.  But drummers are chopped liver.

Chick:  "Oh yeah, that's cool.  Hey, I have to run and meet my friend, nice talking to you!"

I suspect that TCG has had a very hard life.  And I suspect that no one actually records him playing the trashcan, they just tell him he has an important job and sit him in the corner of the recording studio without a mic.  "Nah, man, the sound carries, we don't want it to overwhelm the vocals."  And then their drummer just wails on his set without listening to how everyone else is playing.  But now he's associated with one of the foremost bands in terrormetal or whatever they call their genre and I think his battle is pretty much over.

Sometimes I think perhaps I'm missing some crucial element of the music here that makes it all make sense instead of seeming like a crazed side show full of nonsense.  But then I see this picture and I feel certain of my judgements.




Photo from Tumblr.  Also... WTF?