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1. A tribute to Chuck Schuldiner
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on Feb 16 2009

   First of all, this is probobly gonna be a long one. And the tribute will come later, so even if you don't read it, the title DOES match with everything I am writing, and IS a tribute to Chuck.
   
   So a certain co-worker didn't like what was playing on the radio. Quite frankly I didn't either since it was a hardcore punk band. But then she said "Ugh...I hate metal SOOO much!!! And I chuckled to myself, and told her "You know, this isn't metal..." only to get a bitchy "YES IT IS CAN'T YOU HEAR THE SCREAMING!?!?!". That was when I realized I shouldn't have spoken previously, but it was too late now. The line was crossed, I was walked right into another one of my defensive musical stances impossible to break. I used my usual opener, since when has music revolved solely on a singer? Sure pop divas stand out, and along with many popular bands, but none of them are JUST singers. All of them have some additonal instruments or sound effects behind them. Even Frank Sinatra had a huge band playing behind him! A singer DOES NOT define what genre of music a band plays. What does is how everything together sounds, although one person playing a different style of music in a band can change the bands genre if the genres are similar enough (I know that's kind of hard to understand, I don't quite have the wording down for that yet). Of course, her ignorance overwhelmed her and she snapped back with a "No the only kind of music where people scream is metal! That's all that metal is is some depressed loser who worships satan screaming into a microphone!" Again, the ignorance. Calmly (I've learned to stay calm during any debate or argument for psychological reasons) I told her that not only was the singer only screaming in about half of the verses, and that the band currently playing was hardcore punk. I then explained that metal often does have clean vocals (look at Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and a ton of power metal bands like Dragonforce and Manowar). Although most modern metal bands do use this "screaming" vocal style. Then I of course had to explain that while there are some black metal bands are actually satanic and perform mock rituals on stage (note that I can't think of any satanic bands I'm into, not from a religious aspect though, I just really don't care for most of them and quite frankly I think it's kinda stupid to say that God doesn't exist while using Satans power to fight God...Kinda contradicts itself...) Anyway, so I explained those bands, and admitted that most metal bands are atheists (I should state now that my personal politcal or religious beliefs are rarely ever stated and I hate hearing about other peoples and I don't care what beliefs any of in any band has, I will judge their music based solely on their music and nothing else!). Anyway Atheism does not equal satanism. There are a few metal/metalcore bands I can think of that hold Christian beliefs (such as August Burns Red, Underoath, and Demon Hunter).
   
   Anyway I also explained more about how most people who like metal generally tend to be more instrumental people, and that she was just being ignorant by blowing off everything I said because while she had no evidence, I had plenty. And she was the one getting mad, not me. I started to get into the history of metal and how it's widely accepted that Black Sabbath was the first metal band which was around the 70's. And that clean vocals were used in many famous metal bands...Unfortunately the only one she knew was Metallica (that was one of the strongest arguements I made). It wasn't until the 80's when Death's Chuck Schuldiner changed the path for the many generations of metal to come. No longer were clean vocals gonna hold a metal band back from being as kick ass and heavy as possible! Thank you Chuck Schuldiner!
   
   However the arguement was coming closer and closer to the end (since she was getting pissed at me). She stormed off saying "Well I hope Chuck Schuldinger dies and burns in hell!"...I stood in silence for a bit. That was truly crossing the line. I replied "You know what, his name is SCHULDINER and he did die" only to have her say "good did so he blew his brains out"...Ouch...It's not cool to mock the dead, as long as they weren't people with some seriously bad intentions in their life. I said "No...he died of brain cancer...Even Dave Grohl tried to help Chuck!" I knew she liked Nirvana and the Foo Fighters so I had to throw that in. She just made a *pffff* noise and walked off.
   
   That's when I truly realized how influential this man was, to litterally change music so drastically. But it seems that since people don't like that kind of music, then his life didn't matter at all to them. On the other hand, for us metal heads, Chuck is one of the most important people in the world to us! Sure someone may have eventually came along, but without "Death" then many of my favorite bands today would simply not exist. I sometimes think to myself, what would I do without music? Probobly be a little bit too big of a gamer . Not that being a gamers bad, I mean that it would take over too much of my life, where as I am now I have a healthy balance of two passions that allow me to have smaller passions for other things, and maintain a social life instead of playing Live all day .
   
   Okay so anyway I wonder if I would have ever wanted to be a drummer if all there ever was in music was clean vocals. I just don't like bands that have clean vocals and use double bass, minus a few circumstances as usual, but for the most part it just doesn't seem to work. That's when I realized that without Chuck Schuldiner I would be running around this world naked (metaphorically, and litterally). This man is (dare I say?) almost as influential as the Beatles!!! Keyword being ALMOST, although that might still be pushing it...But he was most certainly one of the Beatles of metal.
   
   And so I say Mosh Eternally Charles Michael Schuldiner May 13, 1967-December 13, 2001

   
   

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