Friday night, Jess took me to a show in Newport, NH, at which there was much moshing, metal, and mayhem. Some really great local metal bands played: TEETH, Rumors of Betrayal, Ballast, Twisted Legacy, Wake the Sleeping, etc.
I’m an almost complete newbie to metal. I was scared of it till recently, okay?
The covers of the records have death and stuff on them and a lot of the vocals sound like a low blood sugar Cookie Monster. This shouldn’t have made much of a difference to me–my favorite band sounds more or less like a bunch of Germans having a pipe fight in a sheet metal factory*–but a difference was made nonetheless. So this was my first ‘real’ metal show, aside from having seen Meatsaw play in Manchester not too long ago.
Consider me a convert, dudes.
There was such great energy in that little club that my drawing style changed from the 
normal curve-and-hatch approach (seen in the pics above) to this angular, energetic, cartoony approach which I guess has more in common with Jesse Mead’s stuff than anything I normally do.
I kinda like it.
More on the show so that I can place the rest of the images without resorting to creating a slideshow: Jess and a few of her friends noted that the crowd had really changed in the past year or so. Upon hearing this, I looked around and saw that there were dozens of high school or middle school-aged kids throwing ‘bows and jumping around like most of the other patrons. What does this say about the youth of today? 
That they are unsatisfied by the overproduced pop confections offered them by mainstream media? That they have deep seated angst and antisocial tendencies? That they like double-kick drums? WHO KNOWS WHAT LURKS IN THE HEART OF THE AMERICAN TEENAGER?
I kept mostly to the back, being somewhat ill, intimidated by the mad press of pubescents toward the stage, and in the middle of a very important beer. And then another beer. And some drawings.
Everybody I spoke with was somehow involved with the bands, or knew someone who was involved–Seth Rogan Bro was a member of one of them, I think. I wish I had gotten the dude’s name instead of just being the creep drawing him from the back of the room. Sorry, Seth Rogan Bro. I didn’t mean to seem pervy or whatevs. Here’s some drawings of you on the internet.
Towards the end of the night (I think during TEETH’s set, actually–you can see all of it on the YouTube), the aforementioned youngsters’ parents showed up to whisk them away to their comfortable domiciles. You could tell that these people felt incredibly out of place–there was a man with a well-groomed 
salt-and-pepper mustache who looked like he had just found a mummified finger in his oatmeal. I guess they were waiting till the end of the set before they grabbed their young ruffians by the ears and dragged them to the car whilst spouting invective against that ‘devil music.’ I’m exaggerating, of course–these were probably people who were blasting Black Sabbath and Zep in the middle of the night, much to the chagrin of their parents, who had done the same thing with Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly records a scant few years prior. We all know how it goes.
Anyway, the metal scene in New Hampshire is, it would seem, incredibly vibrant, and taking on new recruits just as fast as the old tyros must retire in order to take care of their kids or whatever. I’m really thankful that Jess helped me get over my fear of metal–it’s not something I ever would have done on my own.** \m/
Tangentially related: at a recent Movie Night, Steve Bissette showed a couple of José Mojica Marins’ Coffin Joe films, including 2008’s brutally uncompromising Encarnaçáo do Demônio/ Embodiment of Evil. I’ve been watching the other films in the series over the past couple of weeks, and each one has given me weirder dreams than the last. So I decided to do some more PS coloring practice.
(It was also an excuse to look up words in Portuguese, a language about which I know next to nothing, aside from the fact that it favors accent marks and using Ç’s.).
More to come, sooner rather than later, I hope.
*Also, I listen to MERZBOW, for chrissakes.
**There are also some drawings of Matt Verdine, the vocalist of Twisted Legacy aquí y aquí. I could only barely see him from where I was standing/drawing/drinking, and the rest of the band was obscured by adolescents. Sorry dudes! Holler if you want me to draw you, I guess.
cantocomics 
