Wednesday, December 22, 2010

KIDS THESE DAYS

Disturbing Trends In Youth "Rock Culture", Part 666

May the Gods bless Rockabilia.com. Not only is it an excellent spot to pick up sweet Immortal and Defeated Sanity gear without all the trouble of getting off the couch and going to shows, but it is also a lifeline of sorts for all of us Olds--a place where we can voyeuristically inspect the trends and fashion of our younger counterparts, laughing maniacally all the way.
And what a strange and fascinating world it is, that of tween "rocker culture": a place where our septugenarian sensibilities are rendered obsolete, where the aesthetics of "metal" have turned into a neon teddy-bear nightmare unrecognizable to the faithful. Indeed, I cannot claim to "understand" the style or clothing of the age-challenged--that is a job for Sergeant D. What I can do is notice odd trends as I scan through my Rockabilia catalog in search of grim and frostbitten treasures, identify them, and then share them with you here, where we can all point, laugh, and speculate on what the future could possibly hold.

But enough talk, let's commence with the pointing and laughing.

I'll start with a very specific T-shirt trend, and then branch off into much more nebulous territory. That specific trend is the "art-less" T-shirt, with the word "FUCKING" added. Observe:

ATTACK! ATTACK!, "No Fucking Respect"



BORN OF OSIRIS, "Fuckin Bow Down"




AS BLOOD RUNS BLACK, "Bring The Motherfuckin Ruckus"



By far my favorite: ATTACK! ATTACK!, "Crab Fucking Core"



How do we know when a youth fashion movement has reached its proverbial "crest"? Easy: when the Olds start biting it. Again, observe:

"MACHINE FUCKING HEAD"



DEVIL DRIVER, "I Could Fucking Care Less"




ARCH ENEMY, "Pure Fucking Metal"




"FUCKIN SLAYER"



One more from the kids:

BLESS THE FALL (?)



Did anyone else notice something that this Bless The Fall (Beyatch?) shirt has in common with a few of the others? Namely the Born of Osiris and As Blood Runs Black designs up top there? If you answered "some sort of weird suburban-white-kid attempt at urban sensibilties", you win. The art-less "fucking" shirt trend is closely related to the "ironic ghetto" trend that so many young uhhh... "metal"? bands have embraced as of late. I suspect that this "ironic appreciation of hip-hop culture" in heavy metal will soon merge with the oncoming retro-nu-metal movement, leaving many rich suburbanite tweens confused about who exactly they are making fun of. But this is pure speculation. We'll just have to wait and see.

Until then, let's point and laugh at a couple more "ghetto metal" treasures:

OCEANO are "Bringin' The Beef"!(?)!




And yes, I am truly saddened to report that there is, in fact, a "rap-metalcore" band actually called DEEZ NUTS. I apologize.


Wow.

I'll throw a couple more unrelated designs at you before I get outta here, just a few random entries in the Rockabilia T-Shirt Hall of Fame:

IMPENDING DOOM


No.


FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH are HELLA TOUGH, yo!




Christian rockers FOR TODAY encompass a veritable cavalcade of horrible artwork, I highly recommend checking out everything they offer on Rockabilia.com.



This one is pretty amazing:




And of course we can't forget our old friends IWRESTLEDABEARONCE:



Yep. Thoroughly depressing.
Let's cheer up with a new video from Gold Panda (thanks to The Living Doorway for the recommendation):



Ahhhh, that's better. Maybe I'm not so out of touch with youth culture after all.


Before I go, and while we're still on the subject of the Rockabilia:

I'm sure many of you are planning on sending me anonymous Christmas gifts this year. It's totally cool, I appreciate it, and of course it's all part of the territory when it comes to the whole "Blog Hero-Worship" thing. But I've got some corny gifts in the past, and that shit needs to stop. Allow me to just drop one huge hint here, before I end this thing.

Rockabilia.com Item# 101893. I can do either medium or large.

KTHNX!

10 comments:

KEVIN CASTANIERO said...

HILARIOUS...JUST MADE MY DAY THAT MUCH BETTER

Reginald said...

Wait, why do Darkthrone have a tie? I know there were Burzum ties in the past, too. I can't decide whether band ties are lame or sort of ironically cool, although the latter lends itself to hipster material, which is lame again. This is a tough one...

Shelby Cobras said...

I vote lame.

Monsoon Cobra said...

I saw that IWABO shirt at a how fairly recenty. The singer of Lecherous Nocturne pointed it out to me and both had one of those tired kinds of laughs that only old people have when they realize that the world is composed of irony. Except neither of us immediately died after our exchange, and we just had to deal with our disappointment with the youth of today. *Sigh*

Ambassador MAGMA said...

That terminator Jesus shirt is pretty clever

Ambassador MAGMA said...

crafty christians!

The Thing That Should Not Be said...

I have an old melvins shirt that says 'FUCK MELVINS' on the front and 'LOUDER THAN SOUNDGARDEN' on the back. Does this mean it's not cool now?

RyGar said...

I remember Fenriz saying something about how "metal" bands these days wear colored clothing, and it is not right. I agree. I think Fenriz ought to be deemed international arbiter of metal. All final judgments on posers and trends will end with his casual dismissal, the guilty to be set on fire and launched towards the sea. (If he is busy, you might be in the running Cobras. After the year-end round-up fiasco, I think you have rubbed your heavy metal balls all over the falsers.)

Shelby Cobras said...

Hey thanks!

I must now seek out and destroy Fenriz.

Anonymous said...

I got a Leng T'che shirt from 2002 maybe that has RAZOR FUCKIN GRIND on the back, and they had an ironic ghetto/hood but their music was pure grindcore with slick production.