  |
||||||
|
|
Ian Christe's Sound Of The Beast: The Complete Headbanging History Of Heavy Metal is a book that all heavy metal fans should own. It's general enough to be a good primer for new fans, but detailed enough to satisfy hardcore fans of the genre. The book traces the development and evolution of heavy metal from Black Sabbath to the present day. He also explains and describes the many different genres of metal and interviews over one hundred different artists. There are also interesting lists sprinkled throughout the book, and an appendix of the 25 best heavy metal albums of all time and a few more lists. I highly recommend this book, and recently discussed it and a few other metal related topics with its author, Ian Christe.
Ian Christe: AC/DC's Back in Black. That album, especially the power and doom of "Hells Bells" blew me away. After that, it was a quick trip to Judas Priest, Saxon and Iron Maiden. I realized I had a lot of catching up to do. How and where did you become a DJ? When I moved back to America from Germany in 1983, I found a local radio station one Sunday afternoon playing Raven, Manowar, Mercyful Fate, and Black Sabbath's Born Again. A few weeks later, they advertised for DJs, and I went and trained, took the written test, and got my FCC license. I had to wait until I was 14 to actually get on the air! That was WEOS-FM in Geneva, NY. At that time, they had three hours of metal a night, and they're still going strong today. I was basically just a little kid, playing Slayer, Metallica, Venom, and Voivod to a huge audience, with no supervision. Ha ha!! In addition to being a writer, you're also a musician. What style is your music, and have you released CDs? I played in the bluegrass band Grouse Mountain Skyride, the experimental group Willing, and a French punk band with a bunch of New York luminaries. I've also played with Half Japanese and Glenn Branca, and I've traveled around the world doing music for modern dance. My main outlet is Dark Noerd the Beholder, which is kind of a vision of heavy metal of the future. We have a song on the Gummo soundtrack with Burzum and Bathory, and there's an out of print vinyl out there. We're working on a new CD now, which is unlike anything anybody's ever heard before. Basically, music has always taken a back seat to writing in my life, but I've been lucky to have a hobby like this. I've had all the experiences of being in bands: major labels, indie labels, tours, production, and playing to crowds. The only thing slowing me down lately was Sound of the Beast -- it was a massive undertaking!
|
|||||
|
|
||||||
