PANTY RAID! MR NOVEMBER IS….HUGH PLATT OF THRASHHITS.COM!
Let’ s be honest: metal fans are a bunch of elitist pricks who hate, hate, HATE anything and everything mainstream – even more so when something that’ s ostensibly “ metal” goes mainstream. Halloween used to be cool. Ghosts and Satan and horror and shit like that – Halloween used to sport a veneer of things that were “ metal” .. While kids today seem hell-bent on aping the wipe-clean candy-obsessed shit spiral Halloweens they’ ve learnt to expect from American television, for the generation here in Britain cruising through their mid 20’ s, Halloween was all about being wet and cold and getting eggs thrown at you by gangs of local feral children. Halloween – in the UK at least – was always a load of shit.
Remember, remember, the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot…
Guy Fawkes’ Night, on the other hand, is, was and always will be totally fucking badass. And what could be less mainstream than writing a metal column for someone else’ s metal blog, about an obscure holiday that’ s only celebrated at night in the 22nd most populated country on Earth? Yeah, I’ m gonna write about how Guy Fawkes’ Night should be the kvltest of all holidays….yet instead falls miserably short of this.
Now, I’ m taking it as a given that most of you reading this will be American, and that probably the only knowledge you have about Guy Fawkes’ Night (also referred to by idiots as “ Bonfire Night” ) is from that slightly guff film adaptation of V for Vendetta a couple of years ago. If you want a proper history lesson regarding the who’ s where’ s why’ s of what British people celebrate on November 5th, I suggest you fuck off to Wikipedia for a bit. For everyone else, here’ s a quick recap:
Group of 17th century Catholics plan to assassinate Protestant King of England. Plan is to blow up the British Houses of Parliament during the King’ s ceremonial opening of the parliamentary session on November 5th, 1605. Plot is discovered and foiled by British Intelligence agents. Plotters hunted down and are killed during apprehension or captured and subsequently executed. Government passes law marking official celebration of the foiling of the plot to be had yearly by burning an effigy of the Pope on a bonfire. Law repealed 150 years later, but bloody-minded British public carry on tradition to the present day.
And boy, are we confused over what we’ re celebrating. Some people reckon we’re celebrating the fact that the plot was thwarted (celebrating failure? How very British!), while others think now we’ re lamenting the fact that every politician in the country wasn’t blown sky-high (discreetly cheering on from the sidelines without getting involved? How very British!). What hasn’ t changed is that the celebrations take the form of firework displays, followed by various effigies (called “ The Guy” , after Guy Fawkes, one of the plotters) being burnt on bloody massive bonfires. Usually it’ s just some generic “ Guy” , as these days burning an effigy of the Pope is seen as a touch “ politically incorrect” (no matter how much paedophilia he’ s alleged to have helped cover up).
Every now and then some backwards reactionary rightwing nonsense town will stir up national controversy by burning an effigy of gypsies or something equally meatheaded. Some kids will get maimed after throwing fireworks at each other in the street (resulting in all sorts of horrorshow TV advertising, and plenty of people under the age of 30 will get drunk on cheap cider and throw up after one too many turns on the shitty carnival rides that invariably turn up alongside the larger, organized firework/Popeburning displays. Good, clean, honest Autumn fun for all the family.
“So what in the name of Satan does this have to do with metal?”, I hear you ask. Well….next to fuckall. And that’s my problem.
We all know that metal follows it’s own version of Rule 34 – if it exists, then there’s going to be a ridiculous subgenre of metal dedicated to it. We’ve got Viking metal, we’ve got pirate metal, we’ve even got surfmusic goat metal, but there’s barely a fart when it comes to Guy Fawkes metal. Britain has an identity crisis at the best of times, and we’re failing in our duty to carve a new niche out of this unique chapter of British history. It’s a statesantioned holiday where people burn effigies of humans on giant fires, for fuck’s sake – how much more metal can a holiday intrinsically get?!?
In fact, the only metal song I can find that really references Guy Fawkes at all is ‘Un United Kingdom’, by the onagainoffagain late 90s/early 00s technometal (urgh) band, Pitchshifter. Anyone under the age of 27 is probably (and thankfully) unfamiliar with this band from Nottingham, but be rest assured that it is the likes of that paved the way for insipid drum’n’breaks bore offs Pendulum to sweep to popularity. “We could all learn a thing or two from Guy Fawkes” is the lyric in question – part and parcel of Pitchshifter’s alltoofucking earnest studentpoliticslevel social commentary.
…or the Live version…
Thanks lads, fight the power, ETC.
Then there’s this lot – a band that’s called Guy Fawkes. They’re not even British, but Australian. Given that due to a hangover from the time Britain owned half the planet, Australia is technically still the British Queen’s bitch, which would kinda explain how Guy Fawkes entered these kids’ consciousness. Apparently buying fireworks is pretty difficult in Australia (or so the internet says – I cannot be arsed to check with an actual reallife Australian) so I guess that makes them think the name makes them sound cool. Unfortunately, any kudos they might’ve gained from the Guy Fawkes connection is lost thanks to their lead vocalist sporting a single fleshtunnel, and the fact that their MySpace player stacked titsdeep in more shitty deathcore than I can stomach.
Going back to V for Vendetta, it seems to have influenced little else than to inspire Otep to occasionally break out ‘V’ masks onstage every now and again, which invariably they think equates making some kind of salient political point. The fact that I can’t be bothered to find out what that point might be says as much about Otep’s musical output as it does the effectiveness of the gesture.
And that’s the rub I guess these days, Guy Fawke’s Night is a holiday built around such vague, almost contradictory ideas, that any old bunch of twerps can use it as an antiGovernmental stamp. *Sigh* such a perfectly good celebration of burning and blowing stuff up, and all metal can exploit of it to turn it into the calendar’s equivalent of a Che Guevara tshirt. How utterly, utterly disappointing.
-Hugh Platt
www.ThrashHits.com
