How I Ended Up Here (and Where I'm Going)
Looking back on the ten year anniversary of launching Black Metal & Brews
Ten years ago today, I established a website called Black Metal & Brews. I was young, unemployed, and frustrated with the state of extreme metal blogging. I frequented a handful of download-only blogs that introduced me to thrilling new music, but these websites rarely included descriptions of the music. When they did, half the time it was merely a statement like “A MONUMENT TO FURY” or something equally cryptic. If you were a diehard you’d just click download and figure it out for yourself, but it did little to prepare you for the experience. On the other side were a handful of websites that offered news and reviews, but primarily covered larger acts. These sites were often supported by advertising revenue and, understandably, a feature on anonymous black metal collectives wouldn’t bring in the clicks in the same way a feature on Megadeth would. Also, if I’m being completely honest, the writing didn’t really speak to me. I have always been more concerned with how something feels as a listener than in the retelling of the song. I don’t care about what the singer says right before the drums pick up in intensity, I care about where your mind goes when you hear it. As a cocky (but dedicated) 25-year-old with a solid eleventh grade education, I decided I could make the small blog that I wanted to read, even if I thought only a couple of my friends would read it out of kindness and sympathy.
[it should also be noted that my site initially began with written reviews of craft beer, but I felt that writing about an experience like that quickly fell short and I began a YouTube channel to cover that aspect more thoroughly. it worked well but even at its peak, my audience was always fans of outsider music. if some of them had an interest in beer as well, it helped, but I do not believe anyone from the beer world was ever going to follow my path and I am completely fine with that]
My site was originally an anonymous project, although obviously a couple friends knew it. I didn’t want acknowledgment and I feared interacting with a “metal community” online when I had somewhat intentionally kept to myself. In hindsight, I’m glad that my own technical ineptitude made me very easy to identify in spite of this. I didn’t realize that every blog post connected to an automatically generated “blogger” profile that included my name and email address. I forget the exact details, because it’s been nearly a decade, but a musician figured out who I was. Easy enough. He contacted me & somehow within a few months a lot of other folks with similar interests were aware of my site and my identity. And nothing bad came of it, mostly.
Through some stroke of luck, many of the bands I chose to cover early on were bands that not only persisted and grew beyond the scope of tiny blogs like mine, but most of them are still around and thriving today. I specifically remember shouting about bands like A Pregnant Light, Cara Neir, and Yellow Eyes to anyone who would listen. Some people did. Many didn’t. But within a few years, that changed. As the underground developed and more people took note, many of my pet favorites found homes on larger labels. In the case of Yellow Eyes (the sole live act of the three mentioned here), they even became the sorts of bands who could command headlining tours across the world. The joy I feel when I see these artists remaining true to themselves while cultivating increasingly large fanbases is hard to put to words, but it’s massive.
After a few years of doing my own thing, I was trusted to start freelancing for other, larger sites. My very first interview was an awkward email exchange (four very short questions) with Tollund Men, just because I wanted to see if I could. Two years later I was interviewing SunnO))) and Enslaved for Noisey. A year after that, I made a request to cover Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Netherlands as a member of the press. Despite never having more than a couple hundred visits per day and an intentional commitment towards weird shit I bought from cassette labels instead of artists anyone had heard of, Roadburn granted me a press pass and made me feel very welcome. Around the same time, I also found my way into a (short-lived but incredibly fun) radio program with then-fledgling Portland, OR radio station KFFP. This period, in early 2016, was undeniably the peak of my BM&B “career.” Losing as much money as I possibly could, but somehow finding a way to throw myself across oceans to write about music and playing bands like Oranssi Pazuzu and Triumvir Foul on FM radio when not halfway across the world. A goofy blog set all of that in motion. It never became a career path for me as it did for many others who were perhaps better at networking or more interested in branching out, but occasional chances to contribute to publications like The Quietus, bandcamp, and The Chicago Reader have been an honor and make me feel as though some folks see value in what I do even though my own activity remains small-scale at best.
Six years on from that golden period, the site hasn’t been updated in nearly two years. Between the weight of a pandemic and my own extreme medical issues (which would require their own lengthy blog post to get into) I simply haven’t found it in me to sit and write about music on a dedicated schedule. That’s not to say I’m not writing, but I’m also channeling the BM&B energy elsewhere these days and it’s not currently published. A talented friend and I are conspiring to share music writing on a new website where we will work together to bring the strangest and most challenging stuff we can find to our audience. Basically the original purpose of BM&B revisited, but with ten years of learning behind me and a second set of eyes to edit my work, plus a different voice sharing their own perspectives so that it’s not just a one-person show. While the chance to share a bit of myself & become a person others recognize has been fun and flattering in a way, I have always been more interested in music than in myself and I feel most comfortable reverting to a form where the music will once again be the focal point instead of my taste in music as a “brand.” The shift towards that with my old site wasn’t intentional, it was a natural development fueled by social media, but it’s something I’d like to slow down a bit.
I realize this article/update has no real arc, no meaning, and no resolution. That’s probably evidence of the atrophy I’ve experienced over the last few years (and a side effect of some of the meds I’m taking as I prepare for a major surgery to finally rid me of some of the aforementioned medical troubles. As thanks for reading this far, I’ll do the thing I complained about earlier and share a few albums I’ve loved in the last couple years without lengthy descriptions. If you ever came to me for musical advice, I hope one of these ten incredible releases from 2020-2022 sits well with you. Ten years ago, I was an idiot killing time in Florida and blogging about tapes I bought. Today I’m an idiot killing time in New York and blogging about blogging. My life has been improved in ways I can’t begin to share just from the simple act of doing something I loved, but in so many ways I’m still doing the same thing. Just hopefully a tiny bit wiser. Here are a few albums that have helped me survive the last couple years. I hope that in the very near future, I will be able to properly share the launch of a new blog with you so that we can continue to connect over weird new music (of all genres, but of course especially metal).
Blu Anxxiety- Plaay Dead (2021)
Special Interest- The Passion Of (2020)
The Ruins of Beverast- The Thule Grimoires (2021)
Madam Data- The Gospel of the Devourer (2021)
Sunrise Patriot Motion- Black Fellflower Stream (2022)
Fire-Toolz- Eternal Home (2021)
Chat Pile- God’s Country (2022)
Gonemage- Sudden Deluge (2021)
Various Artists- The Longing Soundtrack (2020) [dungeon synth]
Pensées Nocturnes- Douce Fange (2022)
Thanks for being here, whether you found me today (as strange as that would be) or if you found me in 2012 when I started writing short articles with blurry pictures of tapes taken from my smartphone. I’m nowhere near done, although the work may take a different shape after ten years of learning and growing. I hope soon I can share updates about my new work with you. Here’s to another ten years of celebrating challenging music and the community of freaks that come with it.