”The thin line between metal and bluegrass”

thinline3I'm fascinated over musicians who one day play metal and the next day begin to play bluegrass. Well, not exactly bluegrass. This particular kind of bluegrass is better known as trashgrass, streetgrass, punkgrass, speedgrass, murdergrass and other prefix-grass. Labels are often used profusely both diligently and resourcefully. At first glance, the shift may seem like a giant leap, but in fact it's a small step. We start with two questions: First of all: why change style in the first place? The main reason seems to be that metalheads tends to get bored with the head banging and therefore seeks a more traditional and true expression. Second: how is the dramatic change in style possible? The bluegrass genre is open and tolerant. Long-haired musicians can easily find refuge within the liberal bluegrass community. This facilitates the transition. Other factors are the intensity and drive in the two genres, but also the improvisation. One or more instruments each takes its turn playing the melody and more or less improvising around it, while the others perform accompaniment. In the good old days, you could hear bass and drum solos in metal music. Nowadays, the guitar seems to reign. There are many bands that more or less fit the bill of transition, for example .357 String Band, Highlonesome, The Goddamn Gallows, Devout Sinners, The Pine Box Boys, Filthy Still, The Calamity Cubes, Carrie Nation and the Speakeasy and Trampled By Turtles. There's a quote in "High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby of how the protagonist's music taste evolved "I can tell you how I got from Deep Purple to Howling Wolf in just 25 moves". From metal to prefix-grass is only one small step. "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind".

 

 

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