Nachtmystium, Wolves in the Throne Room - Free show, unlikely sponsors
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Nachtmystium and Wolves in the Throne Room are playing a free show at the Knitting Factory in LA tomorrow (RSVP required - see here). The reason it's free is sponsorship by Scion and Vice magazine. In this era of corporate-branded everything, including metal - e.g., the annual Jägermeister tour (which is schizophrenically inconsistent - having Slayer, Alter Bridge, Disturbed, Staind, Slightly Stoopid, Stone Sour, The Cult, Hatebreed, and Hinder as successive headliners pretty much guarantees zero brand loyalty) - such sponsorship is perhaps unsurprising. What is surprising is that the ecologically-minded Wolves would lie in bed with an auto company and a conservative hipster magazine. Even liberal hipster sponsorship (i.e., Pitchfork) would make more sense.
Nachtmystium - The Antichrist Messiah
Wolves in the Throne Room - Face in a Night Time Mirror: Pt. 2
I don't know what to make of this. On one hand, if Scion and Vice want to throw money at underground metal (they've also sponsored shows by Today Is the Day/Withered and Motörhead/Enslaved/High on Fire/Napalm Death - ironic, the latter), that's great. Henry Rollins has made a career out of redirecting corporate money towards worthy ends. On the other hand, it's weird as hell to see corporate logos on flyers like the one above. Where to draw the line? If Philip Morris and Wal-Mart had really great taste and bankrolled the mother of all shows featuring a reunited Godflesh, Kyuss, and Sleep - but with corporate logos splashed everywhere - would you go? I once went to a Buju Banton show sponsored by a cigarette company (Camel, I think), and the whole time, company reps walked around passing out free cigarette packs like candy. I still shudder at the thought.
Labels: black metal, clee, features, usa
19 Comments:
Fucking hipsters!
I'm still going, hipster or not!
I'd go to a Godflesh, Kyuss, Sleep show if it were sponsored by ALL the corporations. That said, yeah, Wolves taking part in this is a tad...askew.
It would be cool to see a Scion with the artwork from Assassins on the hood and giant Nachtmystium logos on the windshields. Now that would be a sweet ride.
Scion + Vice also got me to see Heavy Metal in Baghdad for free, so at least it's a concerted image-shaping on their part.
When I saw Dethklok, they had video game consoles set up in the back, and showed a commercial before the show started. That was definitely odd.
I've been disturbed by SBC/AT&T sponsoring events before, and it was a great laugh to be at the WaMu tent a day after they collapsed.
I've also been to Camel shows, where I wouldn't have gone if it weren't for the free smokes.
I don't think any of it's necessarily bad. It's not like we're in Canada, and we can rely on government sponsorship of the arts. Then again, the gradual phasing in, may be gradually desensitizing me to it. These sorts of things will only succeed where there is some sort of similarity in image between promoter and musician, so I don't think it'll ever get to the "logical extreme".
I've read that Scion has the lowest advertising spend-to-sales ratio among carmakers. So from a return on investment basis, their advertising is well directed.
written from my cubicle
bacon and blastbeats wins again. I was actually thinking of that possibility.
camelkamel - good point about need for synergy between sponsor and event.
fishskull - interesting/perhaps scary that it's working. will we see a rise in metalheads driving scions?
wayne and helm - you crack me up.
dschalek - i like seeing hipsters at metal shows (delightfully out of place, etc.).
On a similar theme, Vice in London has been all over Fucked Up like a rash from quite early on and one would hope Jerry A is seeing some kickback from Hipsters picking up some of that Poison Idea back catalogue...
"a conservative hipster magazine"
Hipsters have politics now?
Mind you, I did think that Heavy Metal In Baghdad was really good--but throw enough shit at a wall...
Who knows if hipsters stand for anything, but, yeah, Vice has conservative leanings, both overtly (comments by cofounder Gavin McInnes) and subtly in its content.
I believe Scion is aimed at younger car-buyers, especially what with the 'unique' painfully un-aerodynamic boxy shape. Trying to get the metal younglings, of course.
Plus I think they are okayish on the environmental front. It would be way weirder if WitTR was sponsored by Hummer.
Thus far haven't been to a corporate-sponsored event. Crappy divebars, ftw!!
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funny thing is, although Scion is aimed at young car buyers with the hopes of 'graduating' to buying a Toyota, they actually have attracted older car buyers.
in any event. i'm not surprised in the least that Nacht would be cool with this. with Blake donning mascara and all now gunning for the Hot Topic sect. WITTR however is a big surprise and i share the same sentiments as you in regards to their relationship with a large auto maker. i guess in the end, money talks and at least they can still get their music out there.
oh, and Vice re-published Peter Beste's BM book, so they don't really surprise me sponsoring this event.
I went to the show last night (though I only made it for Nachtmystium - Yom Kippur interrupted the Wolves set) and can say that Scion's branding was fairly minimal, unlike the Dethklok show that SunBurntKamel mentioned (check my review if you're interested: http://www.prefixmag.com/features/dethklok/ucla-show/16492)
I wonder though, considering Nachtmystium was kicked off the Opeth show not long ago, and the Opeth show happened a day before the Scion show, I wonder if Nachtmystium begrudgingly accepted the Scion offer so that they would have SOMEthing to do in Los Angeles this week?
Though I've never cared for Vice's magazine, the company's definitely earning points with the relationship with VBS.tv and the Heavy Metal in Baghdad doc. I'm working with them at ASCAP to work out publishing for the dudes from Acrassicauda, and Vice seems sincerely committed to bring them over to the US.
Etan, nice Dethklok review. Man, Mike Kenneally has aged...I suppose it's been, like 10 years since I last heard his music/saw his picture.
Interesting theory about Nachtmystium.
I actually talked with someone recently about Vice and metal, and it seems there's at least one person there who wants to do right by metal.
I have a review of the show at http://metalrunsinmyveins.blogspot.com if anyone is interested.
Can't wait for a Carpathian Forest Scion. It's gotta have torches, inverted crosses, 20 inch nail spikes, chains and the windshield wipers oozing with fake blood. The driver's seat would be customized to fit Vrangsinn's massive ass.
...or American butts.
They should have a GPS with black metal vocals.
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