e is for excuses

THE TERRIBLE TRUTH ABOUT DEAD ANGEL

or

I WAS A SHAMELESS MIDDLE-AGED WHORE JONESING FOR RECORDS, LOTS OF RECORDS, ANY OLD RECORDS AT ALL HOO BOY

or 

LET'S SEE YOU REVIEW 3,000 ALBUMS WITHOUT TURNING INTO A JADED AND BITTER ASSHOLE

For those late to the party, THE ONE TRUE DEAD ANGEL was a long-running publication best known for reviewing lots of exquisitely strange music by incredibly obscure bands. It kicked off in 1994 as a cheap print zine for the express purpose of getting to talk to Bliss Blood and K. K. Null -- seriously (you only think I'm kidding) -- and once those goals had been achieved, it theoretically shouldn't have lasted more than two or three issues. I certainly never imagined that it would soldier on through several format and location changes for over eighteen years. Here is a scary truth, my troubled li'l children: this is the longest span of time in my entire life I've been associated with any one thing, especially one of such importance. (Korperschwache, formed six months after the launch of DEAD ANGEL, comes in second place.) Long-term dealios have never worked out real well for me, so it's nothing short of miraculous that something as labor-intensive as DEAD ANGEL should have lasted as long as it did. 

[AND NOW A WEE DIGRESSION: For those all broken-up and stuffs about the zine's demise, I should point out the one person most responsible for the zine existing beyond the first couple of issues. That would be Mason Jones (Charnel Music, Subarachnoid Space, Trance), an early supporter of the zine, and the first label to start sending in promotional material. What little success DEAD ANGEL ever had was something that was built up over time, as the zine continued to exist while others folded, and a steady stream of good things to review from labels like Charnel Music, Public Eyesore, Edgetone, Public Guilt, Crucial Blast, and far too many more to mention, allowed the all-review format to really flourish. For a while, anyway. Until (lo! hoist thy irony and prepare for impalement!) the zine's success turned into its undoing as the promotional pipeline started coughing up so much stuff, month in and month out, that it eventually became impossible to deal with all of it. Charnel Music was there at the very beginning, though -- back when the entire idea of a review backlog sounded like a good problem to have -- and even after Charnel Music ceased activities, Mason continued to be around in the background. An all-around swell guy, and not just because he's the one who introduced me to Skullflower, Gravitar, and K. K. Null.]

I will admit right now that one of the biggest perks of running the zine was the swell listenables arriving in the mailbox all the time. As the zine's open-door review policy became known, I started receiving stuff as amazing as it was obscure, and over the years I was introduced to one exceptional band after another courtesy of the DEAD ANGEL review pile. In fact, the tantalizing thought that the next wave of mail might bring another soul-shattering musical discovery kept the zine going long, long after I had burned out on the actual process of doing reviews. This continued to be true right up until the end, with great albums arriving unbidden.

But eighteen years is a long time to do anything, much less something like record reviews. The earliest incarnation of DEAD ANGEL also included interviews and other random musings (not to mention the long-running and increasingly unhinged issue introductions, a narrative that culminates in THE ETERNAL CRIPPLING VENGEANCE OF THE EVIL PENGUIN, a document that defies all logic in a manner best described as "zen stupidity"). Over time, all of these other things fell away, one by one, until nothing was left but… reviews. Lots of them. A promotional stream that eventually turned into a whitewater rapids, churning out an unbelievable amount of product, far too much of it for one person to review in a reasonably thoughtful manner and still remain sane. This was ultimately the biggest factor in the zine's demise; I was simply drowning in stuff to review, with no way to review all of it fairly. Toward the end I went into complete vapor lock, unable to even look at the review pile without getting the old twitchy eyeball. 

Burnout is an occupational hazard of doing reviews of any kind for a long time. Even if you like what you're doing, even if what you're hearing is interesting, the novelty fades after about a thousand reviews. Even if you continue undeterred, by the time you reach two thousand reviews, a number of things will have become painfully obvious: one, there are too many bands who all sound too much alike; two, too many of those bands (or band members) are making too many records; and three, there are only so many things you can say about these bands and albums. By the time you reach three thousand reviews, you will struggle daily with the need for journalistic integrity and fairness versus the burning, aching, fire-breathing desire to round up all those bands with records that sound just like the last seven albums before them and set them on fire. 

All of which is to say that the scene, you know, was starting to bum me out. So much to listen to, all the time, no time to hear it properly, always stuff to be reviewed, so much like a job, only with no pay…. can we say blah? Toward the end, i approached the review pile with a sort of ritualistic dread, never certain whether the next album would be a brilliant work of genius or yet another band that looks like every other band trying to reboot Slayer Metallica Fugazi Converge Bikini Kill etc. and sounds just like what it's supposed to sound like and not much else. Part of the problem is that just keeping up with the increasing flood of bands and their albums has become an impossible task; it doesn't help that an awful lot of those bands are competent but unremarkable. The final slide toward the end came for me when I started having problems with reviewing certain albums, particularly hardcore albums, where it became increasingly difficult to separate what I don't like about certain genres from the review process. 

The moral of this story is: um, there is no moral. We don't do morals around here, boyee! There is, perhaps, the suggestion that if you do anything for too long, regardless of the reasons, sooner or later the center does not hold. Sometimes when the levee breaks, the shit starts running downhill. 

Please note that I'm not against doing reviews in the future (in fact, I'm planning to review a lot of stuff from my own collection here), although certainly not on any kind of schedule or deadline. Those who know me know where to find me if they have something for me to hear.

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