Awkward metal band photos

Whoa!

Black dudes! There was Living Color, and like, who else…?

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Only 9? That’s depressing.

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All of these are awesome!

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Is it weird that I want to buy an album by every one of these groups?

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That’s quite some repudiation of the genre, given African-Americans gave us blues, jazz, rock, funk, hip-hop, etc…

Oh yeah, Body Count! Fuck yeah. KKK Bitch is probably my fave.

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Spotted this on myspace:

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What defines a “Black” metal band, exactly?

The so-called “Djent” scene is actually unusually diverse, from what I’ve seen. Animals as Leaders’ fantastic guitar player is Nigerian-American. (And the frontman, as much as an instrumental group can have one)

Some black-fronted metal bands:

Killswitch Engage
Skindred
Sevendust
Candiria

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I went to high school with the members of a band called F.U.C.T. that was three white guys and a black guy. And a college friend of mine who was black was also lead guitarist for a band called–I kid you not–The Happy Mutants. This was their logo:

They briefly considered changing their name and options included Bionic Tuna and Filet O’Anus.

Anyway I learned early that there’s at least as much diversity in metal as there is in rap and hip hop.

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Bottom right corner. There is nothing not impressive with that photo. While that raging six pack dominates, the dude in the back with that epic mustache and blinding bangs is my favorite.

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Not surprising that Manowar (or MAN-O-WAR!, or MANOS, The Hands of WAR!) shows up here more than once. They were on their own level of cheese.

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Yeah, that’s Manowar. Dangerous Minds posted a great video of them a while back playing on Nickelodeon in the early eighties. Hilarious!

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Aww, these are great and all, but they’re just the merest taste of what’s out there. I guess the funniest thing about these is that most of 'em are Actual Professional Metal Outfits, some of which are still Going Concerns (Manowar, Stryper, and the immortal Judas Priest in the second picture down).

But if you dig a bit deeper, there are some serious laffs to be had at the amateur level of the Pro-Am Rock-n-Metal Circuit. Until a few years ago, these were faithfully collected and displayed by a guy whose name escapes me and who eventually retired from his sacred calling when it all got to be too much. Fortunately, his “Hall of Douchebags” collection of amateur rock-band photos can still be found at Rock and Roll Confidential.

Start with the first photo, at this link right here, and just keep hitting the little red arrow to the right. Way, way, way too many of the photos are shot in front of brick walls and railroad tracks, but sometimes the captions are sublime hilarity.

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F.U.C.T.

They anchored the whole scene, even if I never got to see them, their rep was ubiquitous. I used to have a copy of the House O’ Pain zine. Good stuff.

On the topic of race-mixed bands in Nashville, the Hard Corps did pretty well for themselves for a while. Seemed they only ever played 18+ venues when I was underage and in high school (didn’t turn 18 until college, but I did see them once there in Knoxville)

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It’s like how a cat looks when you try to distract them so they will look into the camera.

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I can’t believe I clicked through the whole thing.

I… I could not look away

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What six pack? Where? Oh… Just distracted…

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This guy earned his caption: “Wow.”

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