“Bandung Rocks, Cibinong Shakes:
Economics and Applied Ethics within the Indonesian Death-Metal Community” by
Kieran James and Rex Walsh (2015), Musicology
Australia journal, Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 27-46
Abstract
While much of the western world views current-day
Indonesia as a confusing admixture of economic growth and ongoing poverty,
democratization, and Islamic fundamentalism, very few outside academic and
artistic circles have given much recognition to its rich and diverse musical
life. Despite this, the Indonesian provincial city of
Bandung in West Java is home to the largest death-metal scene in Asia with an
estimated 128 active bands and the Central Javanese city of Yogyakarta has a
smaller but diverse scene. This paper explores issues of values, ethics, and
sub-cultural capital within the death-metal scenes of Bandung and Yogyakarta.
We use the concepts of transgressive and mundane sub-cultural capital to frame
our analysis. Our research data suggests that the Bandung and Yogyakarta scenes
are in an interesting position where their seemingly mundane acts of
congregating in public places en masse wearing black gore-metal tee-shirts are
interesting, transgressive, and even slightly threatening within the context of
a socially conservative Islamic society. Furthermore, we argue that death-metal
is hegemonic in the Bandung underground ahead of black-metal, hardcore, and
punk. Therefore, to use the Japanese-language terms used in an important
scholarly book on Japanese hip-hop, we see aspects of both shinjinrui and otaku
operating in Bandung.
Keywords: Bandung music; cultural studies; death-metal music; ethics; extreme-metal
music; Indonesian music; popular music; Yogyakarta music.
Introduction
While much of
the western world views current-day Indonesia as a confusing admixture of
economic growth and ongoing poverty, democratization and Islamic fundamentalism,
very few outside academic and artistic circles have given much recognition to
its rich and diverse musical life. Despite this, Indonesia and Bandung in particular, an
elevated provincial city of two million people south-east of Jakarta, is home
to the largest death-metal scene[1]
in Asia with an estimated 128 active bands (according to Man, vocalist of Jasad,
personal conversation, Bandung, 24 February 2011). Baulch (2007, pp. 115, 156)
has referred to Bandung as ‘the heart’ of the Indonesian ‘underground scene’
where underground includes the inter-connected scenes of black-metal,
death-metal, grindcore, hardcore, power-metal, thrash-metal, and punk. As Wallach
(2008, p. 7) writes, Bandung is ‘home [to] a remarkably disproportionate number
of ... musicians’. Following an anonymous referee’s comment, the
first-mentioned author attempted to triangulate this 128 active bands number
but achieved only partial success. On the Indonesia page at metal-archives.com
there were 61 bands in the death-metal genre (excluding melodic death-metal) as
at 17 December 2014 which were based in Bandung and listed as ‘active’.[2]
To put your band’s listing on the site and to update it regularly requires free
time and a marketing-oriented worldview. We believe that Man’s number of 128
remains within the bounds of possibility. The Bandung death-metal community has
released a double CD compilation entitled Padiga:
Panceg Dina Galur (Pieces Records) which features one song each from 32
local death-metal bands.[3]
This paper explores issues of values, ethics, and
sub-cultural capital within the death-metal scenes of Bandung and Yogya.
Findings are compared with Baulch’s (2003, 2007) work on the Balinese
death-metal scene originally titled ‘Gesturing elsewhere’. We note that a key
difference between Bandung and Yogya is the Sundanese-majority in the former
and the Javanese-majority in the latter. Sundanese history, culture, and
language have been powerful background forces which have amplified the Bandung
scene’s self-confidence and oppositional radicalism.[4]
The love-hate relationship between Bandung and non-Sundanese Jakarta can only
be addressed at the level of popular culture (and football hooliganism) since
there exists no serious identifiable political movement for Sundanese
independence. However, despite this important element of difference, Bandung
and Yogya have in common their university-city status (Wallach, 2008, Appendix
C, pp. 275, 276).
The paper is based on formal interviews and informal
conversations with sixteen Bandung bands (Auticed, Bleeding Corpse, Bloodgush,
Cannabies, Dajjal, Death Womb Existence, Demons Damn, Dismemberment Torture, Forgotten,
Girlzeroth, Hellbeyond, Jasad, Jihad, Saffar, Turbidity, and Undergod); five
Yogya bands (Deadly Weapon, Death Vomit, Detritivor, Venomed, and Warhammer[5]);
and one Bandung death-metal scene identity (Dada, former vocalist of Turbidity
and owner of Deathstar Tattoo). Legendary Yogya band Death Vomit (hereafter
‘Devo’, the band’s nickname in Indonesia) played shows in all major Australian
cities in September 2010 in a tour organized by Jason Hutagalung and his Melbourne-based company Xenophobic Records. Demons Damn
(Bandung) is somewhat special because of its female vocalist Popo (real name
Puji Apriantikasari) who interpreted for the first-mentioned author during the
Bandung interviews.
The present article also relies upon the first-mentioned
author’s experience joining Bleeding Corpse for its overnight tour of the neighbouring
West Javanese city of Cibinong on 8-9 October 2011. Bleeding Corpse headlined
this show in front of a crowd of around 1,000 death-metal fans and it was the
only band from outside Cibinong to feature on the bill. This author also attended
a countryside show in Cililin (three hours out from Bandung) headlined by Bloodgush
on 27 February 2011; a local show headlined by Turbidity in East Bandung on 9
October 2011; a mixed-genres festival cancelled at the midway point by police
in Soreang, South Bandung on 1 April 2012; and Hellsound Festival held in the Bandung sister-city to the west
Cimahi on 13 December 2014. This paper describes the authors’ perceptions of
how the scenes operate, sociologically and economically.
Outwardly, at least, the sub-genre norms and boundaries in Indonesia
closely mirror the original norms and boundaries used overseas. For example, at
the risk of over-simplification, death-metal has lyrics of gore and
anti-religion and growled vocals and blast-beats. Black-metal usually has
corpse-paint and sings about satanic or pagan mythological themes (and uses
screamed vocals but not a metalcore or hardcore scream). There are some
differences in Indonesia in that lyrics against organized religion are much
less direct and confrontational on average (especially in death-metal as
opposed to black-metal) and death-metal has more hardcore-genre type lyrics
which encourage standing strong in the face of corruption and oppression. The
differences are referred to here and there in the paper. However, the present
study focuses on the scene-as-community,
rather than the music per se, and, although these are obviously intertwined,
the distinction is still important. The black-metal scene and the Islamic metal
scene (roughly the Islamic equivalent of Christian-metal and represented by
bands such as Purgatory and Tengkorak) may be the subject areas of future
papers.
Death-metal’s relationship with mainstream music is explored here
and there but we think that more detailed discussion would be outside the scope
of the paper because we study death-metal as a scene or community which has
definite boundaries and a definite history. The near-mythical locality of Ujung
Berung in East Bandung means little to the mainstream but everything to
death-metal people. We refer to Burgerkill as having achieved mainstream
success but as having roots in the Ujung Berung death-metal underground. It is
this combination of underground roots and mainstream popularity which allowed
Burgerkill to headline Bandung Biersik
2014 and Hellsound 2014. Where
‘underground’ ends and ‘mainstream’ begins (or whether they overlap) is very
messy and subjective and for the most part we choose not to directly
investigate these questions.
This paper is divided into the following sections:
Section 2 discuses the application of concepts used in Japanese hip-hop research
by Ian Condry (2006) and its application to the Bandung and Yogya underground
music scenes; Section 3 analyses the death-metal scenes of both Bandung and
Yogya in terms of Keith Kahn-Harris’ (2007) concepts of transgressive and
mundane sub-cultural capital; while Section 4 explores issues of ethics and
values within the two selected Indonesian scenes. Section 5 concludes.
Shinjinrui versus otaku
In his work on Japanese hip-hop scenes, Condry (2006, pp. 124-33) has
distinguished between two concepts both delineated by a Japanese-language word:
shinjinrui (new breed) and otaku. He argues that the Japanese music
scenes in the early years were characterized by shinjinrui. According to this concept, the scenes, such as
late-1970s disco, were a fashion to be followed and emulated by young people in
and at the fringes of the scenes. This stage is characterized by a generally
accepted hierarchical ordering of scenes based on trendiness. By the 1990s the
scenes and Japanese popular culture in general had largely transformed themselves
into otaku where each scene inhabits
tiny spaces (or tiny worlds (sekai))
of its own and its members obtain detailed practical knowledge of their own scene
and are largely ignorant of other scenes. Condry (2006) writes that ‘[t]his
idea of mutually exclusive islands in space is one way of understanding how
consumer culture has changed in Japan’. Under the otaku scenario, the otaku
being the ‘opposites’ (Condry, 2006, p. 124) of the shinjinrui, there is no hierarchy of scenes or genres (Condry,
2006, p. 126) with each being inhabited by its own isolated set of devotees.
Condry (2006, p. 126) explains the reasons for the changes as follows:
With expanding media networks, it is
becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of the wide-ranging possibilities
for consumption, and hence more difficult to assess the social significance of
different practices.
The otaku mentality can be
best summarized by the following quote from Condry (2006, p. 133): ‘One cannot
say “rap music” and stop with Run-DMC; rather, one needs to choose one thing
and go deeply into it’. To transfer this statement to death-metal we might
replace the Run-DMC reference with reference to Cannibal Corpse or, in the
Indonesian context, to Jasad.
The
Bandung death-metal scene is a combination of both these aspects. Firstly, it
exists side by side the largely separate black-metal, punk, and hardcore scenes
in Bandung, each of which has its own specific discourses, dress, leaders, heroes,
culture, and boundaries. Most people identify primarily with only one of these
scenes. None of these scenes is placed above any of the others at least in
theory. However, in practice, we also see shinjinrui
operating because death-metal is the largest underground scene and is the
hegemonic scene within the Bandung underground. Ujung Berung aka Ujungbronx in
East Bandung, is the mythical origin of the Bandung underground (albeit a real
place), and it still has a somewhat closed underground community, where the
older people for the most part know or know of each other. The first-generation
Ujung Berung bands all play in the sub-genre style known as ‘brutal
death-metal’ (BDM). These bands include Bleeding Corpse, Disinfected, Forgotten,
Jasad, Jihad, and Undergod (and also Burgerkill which has Ujung Berung roots). The
record label Extreme Souls Production (ESP), run by Man Jasad’s brother, Iwan
D., is also hugely influential and contributes to the hegemony of Ujung Berung
death-metal over the Bandung underground. West Bandung (Lembang) and South
Bandung (Soreang) have their own smaller scenes but ambitious and talented bands
tend to gravitate towards the Ujung Berung umbrella once signed to ESP (for
example, Humiliation from Soreang).
The black-metal guitarist, Abah ‘Desecrator’ or ‘Supri’ Supriyanto
of Warkvlt, claims it is hard for black-metal bands to get gigs and publicity
in Bandung vis-a-vis death-metal acts (personal interview, 4 April 2012).
However, this is denied by death-metal scene identities (such as Ferly of Jasad
and the four members of Jihad). Bandung
Death Fest is one of the most important annual underground music festivals
although its crowds are lower than mixed-genres festivals Hellprint (30,000 crowds) and Bandung
Berisik (20,000 crowds). The 2012 Bandung
Death Fest was held in one of central Bandung’s iconic streets (Jln. Braga
Panjang) in front of a crowd of around 5,000 people. [6]
(This festival was last held in 2012.) The name of Bandung Death Fest points to the hegemony of death-metal in the
city’s underground while the location and crowds suggest that death-metal is
beginning to ‘poke its head out’ above-the-ground too. It is the Ujung Berung
faction which controls the access of bands to Bandung Berisik, Bandung
Death Fests, and now also Hellsound.
Burgerkill and Jasad were the two headlining bands at Bandung Berisik 2014 (29 November 2014)[7]
whilst Burgerkill and Kaluman headlined at Hellsound
(13 December 2014). Kaluman is an Ujung Berung death-metal supergroup
(formed 2012), featuring members of Bleeding Corpse, Devormity, Dismemberment
Torture, Digging Up, and Jasad. The authors did a content analysis of the gig
flyers for Bandung Berisik 2013, Bandung Berisik 2014, and Hellsound (2014). For the 50 bands
listed on the flyers (some bands appear more than once) there were zero
black-metal bands although Melody Maker (Jakarta) started out as a black-metal
band before switching to symphonic deathcore.[8]
These results offer strong support for Abah Supri’s hypothesis that it is hard
for black-metal bands to play at gigs organized by the Ujung Berung faction.
Ujung Berung death-metal remains a relatively closed
underground community, where at least the older people know or know of each
other. Because of this it has been able to partly preserve itself from the
post-modern global trend towards the dominance of otaku over shinjinrui. The
power-metal genre, which has most adherents in Surabaya, has virtually zero
presence in Bandung with three near-unknown Bandung bands appearing on the Indonesian Power Metal Compilation CD
released in August 2014.[9]
We argue that death-metal is hegemonic in the Bandung underground largely
because promising bands get sucked up into the Ujung Berung-ESP faction and the
senior Ujung Berung bands inspire and serve as role models for younger bands
and local teenagers. The weakness of power-metal in Bandung (compared to
Surabaya) shows how successful the Ujung Berung faction has been in maintaining
death-metal’s pre-eminence and securing its hegemony. Therefore, we see aspects
of both shinjinrui and otaku operating in Bandung.
Transgressive and mundane
sub-cultural capital
The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1979, 1993)
developed the concept of ‘cultural capital’. This was later extended and
adapted by Sarah Thornton (1995, pp. 11-14, 98-105) who coined the term
‘sub-cultural capital’ for the capital which is accrued and invested within a
sub-cultural scene but which has little or no value outside of that scene. Keith
Kahn-Harris (2007) has critically dissected the concept of ‘sub-culture’ when
referring to extreme-metal. However, he much prefers the more malleable idea of
‘scene’ where a metalhead spends part of her/his life operating within the
scene and the rest of her/his life operating outside the scene. For example,
when Mr Corna Irawan, the former band manager of Devo, works in his day-job at
the bank he is operating outside the scene but when he is involved in metal-related
activities he is operating within the scene. This dividing line used to be simply
during-versus-outside standard business hours but now many Indonesian band
members, such as Abah Supri (who works as an IT consultant), promote their
bands on Facebook during working hours via office, shop or factory computer or
via mobile phone. Therefore, and this is symptomatic of broader societal trends,
the dividing line between work-time and leisure-time has become blurred as Indonesia
is a country with a very high number of Facebook users. Where do a scene’s
physical boundaries begin and end? When Devo bassist Oki works at his Yogya sandwich
shop with his girlfriend we could argue that this shop exists within the scene if metalheads are
encouraged to congregate there and if metal band and gig posters are displayed
on the walls. Kahn-Harris (2007, pp. 7, 121, 122-7, 128-31, 132-3, 136-7,
138-9) also uses the idea of ‘sub-cultural capital’ but he further divides this
capital in what could be termed ‘two accounts’ for two types of capital: the
‘transgressive’ and the ‘mundane’. He argues that extreme-metal bands and
individuals need sufficient capital of both types and that one cannot be
‘converted’ into or ‘exchanged’ for the other.
Regarding criticism of
sub-cultural capital the term is extremely subjective and it is very difficult
to rank groups or people according to sub-cultural capital. Another criticism
is that it s so sufficiently different from financial capital that the word
‘capital’ may not be suitable to use in relation to the concept at all.
If we consider the history of
heavy-metal, and its various sub-genres, the bands that have achieved long-term
success have had substantial amounts of both transgressive and mundane
sub-cultural capital. If we consider death-metal, scene pioneers Cannibal
Corpse (USA) shocked the metal community by taking the levels of mutilation and
perversion in the lyrics to more extreme levels than earlier bands Carcass
(UK), Death (USA), Kreator (West Germany), and Slayer (USA). Cannibal Corpse’s
original vocalist Chris Barnes shocked many, on the Butchered at Birth (1991), Tomb
of the Mutilated (1992), and The Bleeding
(1994) albums, with his transgressive song lyrics covering rape, torture, and necrophilia
and directed usually at an unnamed female. The first-person narration and the
absence of the verse-chorus-verse structure were seen by some as being particularly
unsettling (Kahn-Harris, 2007; Phillipov, 2006, 2014, pp. 123, 125, 134-5).
Cannibal Corpse members’ calm,
polite, analytical, and professional public images and discourses, under the strategic
direction of bassist and founding member Alex Webster and new vocalist George
‘Corpsegrinder’ Fisher, have allowed the band, in the past nineteen years, to
build up its mundane sub-cultural capital. The band’s relentless touring
schedule and consistently ‘good attitude’ has seen it accrue mundane
sub-cultural capital at a rapid rate in the years since 1994 when Fisher first joined
the band. Garry Sharpe-Young (2001, p. 65) comments that ‘[t]he band’s album
artwork has remained deliberately provocative’ but he goes on to add that ‘many
releases [are] being issued in tamer variants of the original shockers’,
suggesting that the band sees no need to expand its transgressive sub-cultural capital further still.
The members of the
death-metal scenes of Bandung and Yogya, based on the authors’ personal
interviews and fieldwork, are only marginally less socially conservative than
Indonesian society as a whole. We can see Jasad vocalist Man’s social
conservatism (he affirms the positive role of a loving nuclear and extended
family) in the following quote when he talks about Agung, the former vocalist
of Devo, who followed the lead of Sid Vicious to die of drugs at age 22:
Many
of my friends in Yogyakarta passed away from drugs, heroin. When I see Death
Vomit perform [today] I see the former singer Agung. I’m luckier than him
because I still survive now. I lived in a normal family with mother and father,
not like Agung. Agung, from when he was born until he passed away, he never met
his parents. I told him not to use drugs but he used more and more, he died
very young, aged 22. ... A lot of good friends of mine in the past were victims
of heroin and drugs so I dedicate part of my life to helping drug users and
people with AIDS. If I meet the baby with HIV they are unlucky, born to a
mother with HIV [personal conversation with first-mentioned author, Bandung, 11
October 2011].
 |
| DEMONS DAMN band |
In the Bandung death-metal scene mundane
sub-cultural capital is arguably more important and transgressive sub-cultural
capital is arguably less important than in the west. However, it is not quite as
simple as this. Behaviours which are now mundane, uneventful, and unthreatening
in the west, such as wearing black gore-metal T-shirts, writing gore-metal
lyrics, mosh-pitting, and crowd-surfing are still new and somewhat threatening in
the Indonesian context. When Aries (the 185cm, 110kg Kaluman vocalist),
crowd-surfed at Hellsound Festival
the local police were observed taking special interest. The authors have only
ever observed Indonesian metalheads behave in socially responsible and
respectful manners in non-metal and public spaces in Indonesia. It was this
author, and not a member of the 15-person Indonesian death-metal contingent,
who undertook the transgressive act of sticking a Bleeding Corpse sticker on to
a balcony railing at a KFC outlet located between Cibinong and Bandung at 3am
one Sunday morning. Despite this, the Indonesian death-metallers’
self-confident, assertive, and even western-style body language (with large ‘personal
spaces’), large numbers, black tee-shirt “uniforms” (Baulch, 2007, pp. 54, 60,
62), and occasionally frightening tee-shirt designs mean that they certainly
stand out in a crowd and can be unsettling for some and worthy of curiosity and
respect for others.[10]
The somewhat westernized and assertive body language (especially of band members
as compared to fans) attests to the metalheads’ ‘difference’.[11]
The authors do not observe non-metal Indonesians being genuinely hostile
towards or frightened by the metalheads; the most common attitudes are of
curiosity and tolerance. However, some interviewed metalheads suggest that this
is because the secular and religious communities in Indonesia are largely
ignorant of death-metal and its somewhat shocking lyrical content. Phillipov
(2014, pp. xviii-xix, 83, 89-90, 95, 96) makes this general point about the
lyrics of the leading western bands. The Detritivor guitarist Dimex says that
FPI (Front Pembela Islam or Islamic Defender Front) is beginning to
create some problems for the death-metal community but he did not elaborate
(group interview, Yogya, 13 October 2011) whilst the Jakarta-based guitarist of
a well-known power-metal band has also repeatedly expressed concerns to the
author about FPI. Others suggest that confrontation with religious groups has
not yet happened simply because the religious groups are blissfully unaware of
death-metal lyrics. This could be because lyrics only circulate through the
underground, are largely indecipherable on CD and at concerts, and western
bands’ lyrics available on the internet are in English only (see also
Phillipov, 2014). Spiky and indecipherable band logos on band tee-shirts help
the metalheads to ‘veil themselves in mystery’ (Baulch, 2007, p. 54) whilst
‘gesturing elsewhere’ (pp 60-2) to the west.
Indonesian metalheads state that the
gore-metal tee-shirt ‘uniform’ will not be worn to places where the atmosphere
or ethos would find them inappropriate, indicating that even teenaged
metalheads are adept at self-policing. Popo, vocalist of Demons Damn, also
states (personal conversation with first-mentioned author, Cibinong, 8 October
2011) that, if confronted by a member of the public about gruesome artwork on a
T-shirt, the metalhead would suggest it points to the talent of the artist and
does not reflect the ethical values of either the artist or the tee-shirt
wearer. Such arguments are consistent with the approach adopted by Cannibal
Corpse band members in the Fisher era that the gruesome lyrics are simply
‘fiction’ or ‘entertainment’ and are no different to a B-grade horror movie
(James, 2009; Phillipov, 2014, p. 97). However, Popo indicates that such
confrontations in Bandung society over T-shirt designs are rare. To comment
negatively upon another person’s clothing would appear rude to most Indonesians
because it is an obvious intrusion upon personal space. The death-metal
community also benefits from the public’s general ignorance of heavy-metal and,
more especially, of death-metal music. Although Yuli, the bassist of Jasad,
claims that the first metalheads existed in Bandung as long ago as 1975 (Jasad
group interview, Bandung, 10 October 2011), the year of Deep Purple Mark IV’s ill-fated
concerts in Jakarta, the death-metal sub-genre, even in the west, has only a 25-year
history (although the boundary between later
thrash-metal and pioneering death-metal is blurred as it was really a
transitional process which took place over the years 1985 to 1991). The first
full-length death-metal studio album could be held to be Possessed’s Seven Churches (1985), Death’s Scream Bloody Gore (1987) or even a late
entry such as Morbid Angel’s Altars of
Madness (1989).[12]
Furthermore, death-metal has never entered the
mainstream in the west or in Indonesia in the way that hard-rock, grunge,
hair-metal or metalcore have at various times in the past. Therefore, few people
in Indonesia society know what death-metal is. If non-metal people see death-metal
musicians or fans in a public space they will just think that they are ‘guys in
a rock band’ (Popo, personal conversation with James, Bandung, 9 October 2011).
At Man Jasad’s local Indonesian food cafe, 50 metres from his home in Cicaheum,
East Bandung, the shop proprietors do not know his identity as the vocalist of
Jasad (as Man told James on 12 December 2014).[13]
Band members told the author that
their parents generally support their being in death-metal bands as do the
wives and partners of older band members such as those in Bleeding Corpse and
Jasad in Bandung and Devo in Yogya. For example, the then 20-year-old art
student and vocalist of Yogya band Warhammer, Adin, states as follows in
personal interview:
Interviewer:
Adin, what does your family think about you playing in a death-metal band?
Adin:
For my family it’s OK. I want to prove to my parents I can be something with
death-metal music [personal interview, Yogya, 13 October 2011].
The following quote from the then 25-year-old
Glenn, vocalist of Bloodgush (Bandung), affirms that the parents of death-metal
musicians are often supportive of the bands in which their children play and
sometimes even attend the shows:
Interviewer:
What do your parents think about you playing death-metal?
Glenn: My parents support me; my father
sometimes listens to my songs and wants to see me when I play.
Popo of Demons Damn: Many parents here want
to see their children play in a show.
Glenn:
And they want to try to head-bang [laughs] [Bloodgush group interview with
James, Bandung, 10 October 2011].
At the grassroots level then death-metal is something
that does yield significant mundane sub-cultural capital which is even
acknowledged by parents of the musicians. These parents are probably ‘ordinary’
working-class or middle-class Indonesians who do not belong to any form of
societal, political or religious elite. They have no specific reasons to hold
strong opinions either way about death-metal beyond simple parental pride in their
children’s achievements. Similarly, Baulch (2007, p. 172) mentions that Balinese
villagers seemed to be less offended than professional concert organisers by
black-metal bands’ ritual onstage sacrifices.
One key recent event in Indonesian
popular culture was the court case involving the Indonesian pop singer ‘Ariel’ (Nazril Irham, the vocalist for Peterpan) regarding an
internet sex tape. Ariel was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison in
January 2011 (Brenhouse, 2011) and his band’s name has since been changed to
Noah. There were two opposing protest camps at the Jakarta court case: the
liberal-democratic protest camp which was for Ariel and the hardline Islamist
protest camp which was against Ariel. Then there was a third protest group
which was made up of one person only. That person was Man, the vocalist for Jasad.
Man carried a placard which read in its entirety: ‘Peace. Do not fight
each other, motherf***er’ (written in Sundanese, the market-place language of
Bandung) (Jasad group interview, Bandung, 24 February 2011). The present authors argue that Man’s protest was essentially
‘mundane’ rather than ‘transgressive’ because he was simply calling the warring
factions to tolerance and peace. The transgressive aspects of his protest, in
addition to the fact that he was there, were his long hair, his black death-metal
clothing, his use of Bahasa Sundanese rather than Bahasa Indonesian, and the
word ‘mother***er’ on his placard. Man was clearly trying to forge a ‘third-way’
because he was part of neither the liberal-democratic protest camp nor the Islamist
protest camp. We might then suggest that the ‘Bandung spirit’ of the non-aligned
nations lives on through Man.[14]
Man’s wearing of a black leather jacket in the Jakarta heat can certainly be
viewed as a case of ‘suffering for metal’. Man’s protest is consistent
with Baulch’s (2007, pp. 60, 180, 181) assertion that Balinese death-metal
scene members do not directly oppose the government but, because their
political positions are ambiguous and hard to read, are much more resistant to suppression.
However, we also see Man, as scene representative, using his sub-cultural
capital accrued over many years in
Bandung to protest in Jakarta in
a much more direct (albeit humorous and tongue-in-cheek) way than younger
anonymous scene members might be expected to attempt.[15]
We should also note here that some younger Bandung death-metal musicians have
joked about Jasad being part of a rock-hierarchy in Bandung (more on this
later).
 |
| JASAD band (February 2011) |
 |
| JIHAD band (2012) |
Bandung metalheads do not want to
upset the police or other authorities because they want to be able to hold
shows at preferred venues and on preferred dates without having to pay
exorbitant fees to the police. In 2014 Bandung
Biersik and Hellsound were both
held in Cimahi rather than Bandung because a large venue was obtainable at
reasonable cost and the local police were relatively accommodating. The scene
members police themselves and others within the scene so that the scene does
not get a bad image especially as far as the police are concerned. What in the
post-Enlightenment west would be labelled as ‘shocking police corruption’
appears to work fairly well in the Indonesian cultural context and it leaves
the death-metal community, more or less happily, policing itself and its wilder
members. The first-mentioned author has witnessed metalheads quietly and calmly
leaving a metal show after it was shut down at the mid-way point by police in
the Soreang countryside. This was a 1 April 2012 festival headlined by
Disinfected and Jasad and featuring Outright (Bandung hardcore) and Tcukimay
(Bandung punk). After delivering the message that the festival must end to the
event organisers the 20 or 30 police stood watching at a distance of 15-metres
from the building at one rear corner of the building compound. Very charitably,
they allowed the metalheads to retain their ‘face’ and self-respect by allowing
them to pack up and leave at an unhurried pace (whilst not invading personal
spaces). Even the punk-rockers present (around 20% of the crowd) departed
quietly as it is always better to live on to fight another day. We do not
expect a repeat of the church-burnings, murders, and arson attacks associated
with the early Norwegian black-metal scene any time soon. As Wallach (2008, p.
249) concludes, the Indonesian underground has ‘had little impact on either
family relationships or religious belief or practice’ at least not in any
outward, obvious or immediate sense (as Wallach later goes on to qualify his
own statement). The band members of both Saffar and Jihad, for example, thank
‘Allah SWT’ and ‘Muhammad SWA’ inside their album booklets (Mandatory El Arshy and Origin of the Rebels Angels respectively). [17]
The number of musicians who have renounced Islam in their personal lives is
extremely tiny. In fact, death-metal in Indonesia, and heavy-metal more
generally, brings together people from diverse religions. For example, in Devo,
Roy and Sofyan are Muslims whereas Oki is a Catholic (and is conversant with
the main bands and albums of the Christian metal scene in the west).
Ethics,
values, and the self-policing of the scene
Sub-section
introduction
Oki of Devo says about his band’s deceased vocalist
Agung (1977-2000) that he was a ‘death-metal guy who lived the death-metal
life’ (personal interview, Yogya, 13 October 2011). Interview quotes from
death-metal musicians in James (2009), and especially the quotes from the
former Suffocation drummer Mike Smith, give us some insights into the applied
and evolving ethics and values of death-metal. We explore this topic in
relation to the Indonesian scenes in this fourth section.
The
self-policing of the scene as a death-metal value
In terms of the self-policing of the
scene, Oki of Devo says that, in the early years of the ‘Jogjakarta Corpse
Grinder’ death-metal community people would identify other members of the
community by the community T-shirt.[18]
The scene strongly policed itself in the early years (late-1990s) by senior
people telling other people wearing, for example, Suffocation T-shirts that
they should not wear the band’s shirt until they had heard the band’s music.
This self-policing of the scene was to protect the scene from ‘posers’ or what are
termed in Yogya, according to Oki, abal-abal. Baulch (2007,
pp. 55-6, 61-2 and see also the Agus Yanky quote on p. 56) reports Balinese
metalheads policing their own scene in a similar way noting the chronological
point, after the 1993 riot at the Metallica concert in Jakarta, when Megadeth
and Metallica began to be rejected by the scene ‘police’ as being too
mainstream. They were then replaced by Bolt Thrower, Cannibal Corpse, and
Obituary in the canon (Baulch, 2007, pp. 61, 62). Furthermore, after 1993, Guns’n’Roses
tee-shirts could no longer be ‘tolerated’ (Baulch, 2007, p. 62). As Phillipov
(2014, pp. 83, 103) points out, following Baulch (2007, pp. 52, 61-2) and Kahn-Harris
(2007, p. 122-3), fans display mundane sub-cultural capital by demonstrating
their possession of extensive knowledge about scene history, band names, and
album names. Mundane sub-cultural capital invested in knowledge of Megadeth and
Metallica was then devalued in the Balinese metal scene overnight at that
precise historical juncture after the Metallica riot mentioned above. As Baulch
(2007, p. 55) writes, the Balinese scene ‘constantly shed commercialized forms’.
Oki states that the Yogya scene does not police itself as strictly as it once
did because death-metal has rapidly increased in popularity among young people
who enjoy wearing metal T-shirts as fashion items. Old-school informal scene
policing may not be considered feasible or desirable any longer.
Female musicians, female fans, and the scene
Although Wallach (2008, p. 17) correctly points
out that Indonesian popular music scenes are ‘dominated by men’, women are not
absent from death-metal. There are female death-metal musicians in Bandung and
elsewhere. The most well-known of these is 25-year-old Popo, the vocalist of Demons
Damn (Bandung).[19]
In interviews and conversations with James, Popo carefully distinguishes
herself from female ‘groupies’ who are attracted to band members but have no
genuine interest in the music or knowledge of the scene. It appears that Popo
feels a need, if only at the subconscious level, to demonstrate her authentic
death-metal lifestyle and history to the author and others. Popo does not want
to be mistaken for a groupie. In fact her presence produces an interesting
subtle shift in dynamics among the male metalheads. Both Popo and the author were
on the Bleeding Corpse tour bus for the Bleeding Corpse headlining show in
Cibinong on 8-9 October 2011 (departing from Bandung). Popo was the only female
among the fifteen or so present for the entire trip. The author believes that
her presence slightly and subtly altered the dynamics of interaction. At one
level the metalheads respected Popo as one of them and treated her basically as
they would a male metalhead (including affectionate touching of arms and
slapping of shoulders). However, they were obviously aware, at times only
subconsciously, of her feminine power and sensuality, and this made them
probably slightly self-conscious and more polite than they might otherwise have
been. The light touching of arms to make a point or to attract someone’s
attention had a vague sexual aspect when Popo was involved (although studied
nonchalance was the only attitude of the male recipients visible to the author).
We see here what Wallach (2008, p. 196) refers to as the ‘respecting’ (menghormati) of female power in the
traditional Indonesian patriarchal code which is exemplified at dangdut clubs
when male audience members give cash gifts to female dancers whilst adhering to
the ‘no-touching’ rule. No-one on the tour-bus appeared to resent Popo’s presence
and she definitely has strong personal relationships with everyone in the group
including now the author. Her relationship, and now marriage (from 12 November
2011), to then Bleeding Corpse and now Hydro vocalist Bobby Rock clearly gives
her some sub-cultural capital she may not otherwise have had.
When I was in junior high school I went to some gigs, concerts. Someone
took me to some gigs, I just wanted to know [more]; I went by myself. I saw
those [bands] on the stage, I didn’t know who is he or which band but I just
saw and knew people in the same school; they introduced me, I hung out in the
music shop. I asked them about the scene, I was fourteen-years-old [Demons Damn
group interview, Bandung, 10 October 2011].
Popo speaks about her personal goals as far as death-metal music is
concerned as follows (and here also we can see her need to demonstrate her
death-metal authenticity):
For myself and Demons Damn we have different goals. For me I want people
to know death-metal is not only for the boy or man; it can be played with the
women inside. I learnt much about the metal, I’m not a follower. I have stayed
in Ujung Berung for a long time. I [have] played death-metal [since] 2008 [Demons
Damn group interview, Bandung, 10 October 2011].
Popo’s next interview response is also important as she is quick to
acknowledge the help offered to her early on by Man and Ferly of Jasad:[20]
Interviewer: What is the response of the fans to a female vocalist in
death-metal?
Popo: The first time they are shocked that a girl plays in a death-metal
band. People don’t know about some bands with women because they can’t promote
their bands. I’m very lucky because my friends from Ujung Berung helped me very
much to promote my band. Ferly [guitarist for Jasad] asked me to feature in one
Jasad show. I had two performances, in Bandung and Malang, just me and Jasad.
Man introduced me on stage. After I give the best performance what [else] can I
do for death-metal? I showed them I don’t just follow the death-metal [Demons
Damn group interview, Bandung, 10 October 2011].
Bobby and Popo explain to the interviewer their mutual attraction and
both are quick to point out that neither one was influenced by whether their
prospective romantic partner played in a band:
Interviewer: Bobby, how do you feel having death-metal vocalist as
girlfriend?
Bobby: It is something like ... whether a singer or not it is the same
thing. I don’t like her [because] she is onstage as a vocalist. I like her
because of her attitude.
Popo: I knew Bobby before. [The relationship was two years old as at
October 2011.] I don’t care that he is the vocalist for Bleeding Corpse. I just
know he’s kind, he doesn’t like to play with a girl, he can take care of me, it’s
very important [Demons Damn group interview, Bandung, 10 October 2011].
In the author’s interview with Glenn, the vocalist of Bloodgush, the
following interesting conversation with Popo shows clearly her attitude towards
female groupies and suggests that she does some policing of the scene in order
to minimize the disruption which groupies might cause. Male band members are
less willing to talk about the topic of groupies, perhaps preferring to keep
their options open:
Glenn: Many, many chickees, many young
girls here are more and more interested to become the girlfriend of a vocalist.
Popo: But they are afraid to get near Bobby
because they are afraid of me [laughs]. In the underground in Indonesia the hot
chicks just want to be a girlfriend of a member of the band, they are just
groupies. It looks like they understand the music but if I ask them about the
music or the members of the band they don’t understand about it.
Glenn: They are listeners...
Popo:
The boys feel happy if there are many hot chicks in there but some think they
also disturb too much’ [personal interview with Glenn of Bloodgush, Bandung, 10
October 2011].
Weinstein (2000, p. 221) commented that female
metalheads are ether ‘sex objects to be used or abused’ or they ‘must renounce
their gender and pretend to be one of the boys’. The first quote does not apply
as the author only observed Popo being treated with respect. Male metalheads
might share porn and sexualize women online or outside of the metal scene but
at metal gatherings such behaviour has no room to operate and mutual respect
prevails. Popo’s marriage to Bobby and her reputation as Demons Damn vocalist
have raised her sub-cultural capital to unassailable levels where unambiguous disrespect
would rarely occur.
The second quote from
Weinstein (they ‘must renounce their gender and pretend to be one of the boys’)
minimizes female metalheads’ ability to existentially create their own workable
syntheses of death-metal culture and femininity (more on this later). To be
involved deeply in the scene is for Popo and others freely chosen and so the
cultural and dress norms of the scene are not in any way repulsive to them.
When asked by the author, Popo sidestepped the issue of the standard lyrical
theme of violence against women but her face briefly registered disappointment
and sadness as the topic was mentioned. She knows she is powerless to change
that aspect of death-metal culture in the same way that a Christian metalhead
might feel powerless in the face of black-metal’s ideology and lyrics.
Baulch (2007, pp. 16, 26) mentions how in Bali by
1996 the male, working-class image of the rock-concert attendee, still in place
at the time of the Metallica riot three years earlier, had given way to the new
image of rock concert attendee as middle-class consumer. At this time the
concert fan became feminized. In Bandung, several female musicians adhere to a standard
underground death-metal identity in terms of dress and outlook such as Maya (Mortality
guitarist); Nenx (Girlzeroth guitarist); and Wong Die (Ascention
Beauty/ ex-Girlzeroth vocalist). Maya wears a hijab in
conjunction with black death-metal T-shirts and hoodies. These women refuse to
accommodate, even to a small extent, the look or lifestyle of the
fashion-conscious Indonesian woman. Consistent with dress, Popo’s vocals are
harsh, deep, and masculine, which is a ‘less sexualized’ (Wallach, 2008, p.
290, n. 7) vocal presence except to those people who find aggressive and deep female
vocals sexually interesting. In contrast to Popo, Deana of Youthfull Aggression
(who worked as a sales assistant at the former Rockstar shop in Bandung which
sold only licensed merchandise) and the female members of Malang band Sister
Murder attempt to marry the death-metal look with a more fashion-conscious
attitude and appearance.[21]
These women became metalheads via the influence
of brothers, fathers, and friends and are as committed to the music and to the
lifestyle as male scene members typically are. They did not simply and
stereotypically ‘follow a boyfriend’ into the scene. By contrast, Mini (name
changed), one-time girlfriend of the Dajjal guitarist Zulf, was once accused of
becoming interested in metal ‘only because of Zulf’ (Mini’s online conversation
with James, 27 June 2014). Where tension may lie in future is whether female
musicians should be given more camera and online media attention than male
musicians. Presently this does not seem to be happening overly much. In global
metal we have seen this issue arise with the widespread attention given to Arch
Enemy due to its female vocalist and to Babymetal (Japan).
Popo speaks also about the members of Bleeding
Corpse and how they support their families through death-metal activities and a
variety of other jobs, businesses, and projects. It is not possible to survive playing
death-metal only (Bleeding Corpse group interview, Cibinong, 8
October 2011). However, Inna, the Bulgarian
wife of Addy Gembel (Forgotten vocalist), has put the Bandung scene members’
behaviour in a less flattering light in a personal online communication to the
author. She argues that Bandung musicians frequently take advantage of and
exploit their wives by using the wives’ jobs to support their musicianly
activities. She also claims that when her husband wanted to spend evenings with
his young family and not drinking with scene members he was ridiculed. This
second incident references the ‘ethic of sociality’ stated by Wallach (2008, pp. 20, 106, 138) to characterize
Indonesian music scenes more generally. Inna’s first point is disputed by Popo
and it is difficult to get conclusive evidence (beyond anecdotes) on the points
she raises.
The collegiality of
the scene as a death-metal value
Wallach (2008, pp. 135-6) writes that: ‘paying attention to basic habits
of sociality and to fundamental orientations toward physical space, the presence
of others, and the burden of responsibility [are] part of an ethnographic
perspective that is frequently missing from [popular music] studies’. In
Bandung, Dada and Daniel of Turbidity acknowledge the mentoring and
encouragement provided to them by the more senior metalheads from the
pioneering, first-generation Ujung Berung bands Bleeding Corpse, Burgerkill,
Disinfected, Forgotten, Jasad, and Undergod:
Interviewer:
What do you think of the Bandung death-metal scene?
Dada: Solid...
Daniel: Huge community, we support each
other; all of the genres in Bandung support each other. There are good
relationships between the genres.
Interviewer: Who helped you the most when
you were a young band?
Daniel: All of the friends in the community
who hang out together. We help each other because we have the same vision
[Turbidity group interview, Bandung, 10 October 2011].
The vision extends to the metal community which includes
not only one band but all bands and hence the ethical obligation extends beyond
one’s own band to the community. Similarly, LaVey
Pewthers (guitarist) of Bandung death-metal band Devormity states as
follows:
LaVey Pewthers (Devormity): Yes, we really enjoy playing music
Death Metal in Bandung. Because the band members of ... Jasad, Bleeding Corpse,
Turbidity, and Jihad are very friendly, they were never ashamed to mingle with [smaller]
Death Metal bands like us. Sometimes they also provide inputs for the
advancement of Death Metal bands in Bandung [online personal interview with
first-mentioned author, 28 November 2011].
 |
| BLEEDING CORPSE band (2011) |
Apart from Inna’s comments, other negative suggestions
the author received pertaining to the Bandung metal scene were from Lucky Luke,
guitarist for death-metal band Hellbeyond, who claims that it is hard for his band
to get gigs in Bandung compared to elsewhere in Java. He ponders aloud whether
he has offended anyone in the Bandung scene. Abah Supri also points out that it
is relatively difficult for black-metal bands in Bandung to get gigs, relative
to death-metal bands, because there is a slogan in Bandung: ‘Black-metal has no
crowd’. This perceived outsider status, coming from members of two relatively
senior bands in Bandung, resides in the black-versus-death divide in Warkvlt’s
case but may be a result of issues of personality or behaviour in the case of
Hellbeyond. Lucky Luke suggests that the reason for marginalization may be the
fact that Hellbeyond’s members ‘rarely hang out and mingle [nongkrong] with the others’, suggesting
again the vital importance of maintaining and being seen to maintain Wallach’s
(2008, pp. 20, 106, 138) ‘ethic of sociality’.[22]
Wallach (2008, p. 20) explains his concept of ‘ethic of sociality’ with
reference to the ‘largely masculine culture of “hanging-out” (nongkrong)’ which he claims ‘cuts across
class lines’. He (p. 106) defines the ‘ethic of sociality’ as the situation
where ‘the noisy presence of others is not only tolerated but valued’. He (p.
92) gives the example of when ‘hanging out’ (nongkrong) at the recording studio is perceived as equally
important as the functional task of recording songs and he notes that nongkrong is still valued at times when there
is no recording to be done. For its part, the Bandung black-metal scene
arranged its own black-metal festival called Rise of Darkness on 24 August 2014 (featuring 28 bands) as a part
of its goal to come out of the shadow cast by death-metal. It should be noted that
Edo aka Edz, Hellbeyond guitarist, stated to the author that the lack of gigs
being due to absence of nongkrong was
‘Luke’s perception only’. He went on to add that “‘introvert” is a more fitting
word for us’ (rather than ‘people unwilling to nongkrong’). Edo suggests (personal interview, 11 December 2014,
Bandung) that the lack of Bandung gigs for Hellbeyond may be more due to the
facts that Luke lives 130 kilometres away in Jakarta and that he has three
other bands including the popular Godless Symptoms (Cimahi).
There is definitely a
rock-hierarchy of bands in Bandung and bill line-ups reflect rigid social
stratification so that young and talented bands without connections (sub-cultural
capital) often find it difficult to progress up bills or become headliners.
This seems to be truer in Bandung than in provincial cities such as Cibinong or
Depok. By contrast, bands with legendary band members (such as the supergroup Kaluman)
are parachuted into prominence and do not need to ‘pay their dues’ in ways that
younger unconnected bands have to.[23]
Demi Rialdi from Sukabumi,
the founder of Grim Death Reviews, complained via Facebook about Burgerkill
headlining Bandung Biersik 2014 for
the millionth time: ‘They already became the headliner so many times! They don’t
give small band a chance at all to grow!’ Bands from outside Bandung are often
placed very low down the bills at Bandung festivals. For example, progressive
death-metal band Cranial Incisored (Yogya) was 17th on the bill at Bandung Biersik 2011 and this band is
perhaps second only in significance to Devo in its home-city. Above it on the
bill that day were Bandung bands Burgerkill (first), Jasad (second), Forgotten
(fourth), Disinfected (eighth), Bleeding Corpse (10th), and
Turbidity (14th).[24]
The following
humorous exchange during the Dajjal band interview shows that Popo is keenly
aware of the Bandung rock-hierarchy. Despite or perhaps because of the fact
that she has personally benefited from its existence and activities, she does
not feel a need to repress discussion of the topic:
Interviewer: Why didn’t you tell me about
Dajjal ha? [smiling]
Popo: I always tell you that Bandung has
many good bands but why you always ask me about Bleeding Corpse and Jasad? [all
laughing]
Popo: Don’t write about the bands Jasad and
Bleeding Corpse! [smiling] [Dajjal group interview, Bandung, 22 January 2014].
As occurs very often in Indonesia, humour is used to cover feelings of
embarrassment when discussing sensitive topics.
The young college student Sendy, of melodic
death-metal band Nemesis, replies in very humble and characteristically
Indonesian fashion to Popo’s question in the Nemesis interview (below), and
both question and response attest powerfully to the presence of a
rock-hierarchy in Bandung death-metal:
Popo: Now the metal scene in Bandung always
plays the same bands. Even Event Organisers and people making gigs always play
the same bands. Do you think there is regeneration?
Sendy: I don’t know about that. For me I
just always say to myself: ‘Our turn is not now’ [Nemesis group interview,
Bandung, 22 January 2014].
Some Bandung musicians, such as Sendy of Nemesis, Karkash of Amora
Savage (thrash-metal) and Dajjal (death-metal), and Edo of Hellbeyond
(death-metal), have made a decision to maintain separateness from the scene and
just to pursue their own creative and artistic efforts not in opposition to the
scene but with a less dependent attitude. These musicians respect the
pioneering bands but they want to keep an element of separateness. They also increasingly
look to outside the country for promotion and recording opportunities and for
validation and they are closer to the tormented-artist cliché inhabited in the
past by people such as Richie Blackmore and Yngwie Malmsteen (an idol for
Karkash). As Wallach (2008, p. 137) states ‘[s]olitary creation is not highly
valued [in Indonesia], though it is admitted as a possibility’.
Some Bandung musicians (and not necessarily the three people
named above) have even been known to joke about the hierarchical nature of the
Bandung death-metal scene as well as the rock-star image of some of its senior
individuals. These musicians imply that the leading bands have reached the
point of reification (the concept is present but not the word), and they appear
freer to make such jokes in public outside of Bandung (for example in Jakarta).
In the capital city there is no longer the feeling of someone looking over your
shoulder or listening in on conversations as can be the impression in Bandung. In
Jakarta the hierarchy and reputations of the Bandung scene do not seem to be and
cannot be fully operational. In Foucauldian terns the Ujung Berung faction’s “secret-police”
are now present in people’s consciousness when not physically present in
reality (for example in a deserted suburban nasi-goreng stall in the early
morning hours).
Conclusion
 |
| TURBIDITY band (2011) |
This paper has explored issues of values, ethics, and sub-cultural
capital within the death-metal scenes of Bandung and Yogyakarta. Using
Kahn-Harris’ (2007) concepts of transgressive and mundane sub-cultural capital,
the Bandung and Yogyakarta scenes are in an interesting position where their
seemingly mundane acts of congregating in public places en masse wearing the
black gore-metal tee-shirt ‘uniform’ (Baulch, 2007, pp. 54, 60, 62) are
interesting, transgressive, and even slightly threatening within the context of
a socially conservative Islamic society. Furthermore, because of the importance
of the Ujung Berung-ESP death-metal faction, we have argued that death-metal is
hegemonic in the Bandung underground ahead of black-metal, hardcore, punk, and
power-metal (which has a negligible presence in the city). Therefore, to use
the Japanese-language terms used in Condry (2006), we see aspects of both shinjinrui and otaku operating in Bandung.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the two anonymous referees and all of our
interviewees and language interpreters. Special thanks are due to Popo (Demons
Damn), Bobby Rock (Hydro), Butche (The Cruel), Man and Ferly (Jasad), and Zemo
Cabalero (Homeless Dawg Merch) in Bandung; Oki and Sofyan (Death Vomit), Corna
Irawan (former Death Vomit manager), and Nilu (Jogjanews.com) in Yogyakarta;
Dimas Bramantyo (Valerian), Samier (Tengkorak), and COLOR 87.8FM in Surabaya;
Willy Damien (Umbra Mortis) in Jakarta; DHOHO TV in Kediri; and Jason
Hutagalung of Xenophobic Worldwide (Melbourne).
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[1] According to Kahn-Harris (2007) the
extreme-metal ‘scene’ is such that an individual metalhead spends part of
her/his life operating within the scene and the rest of her/his life operating
outside the scene. For example, when Mr Corna Irawan, the former band manager
of Death Vomit, works in his day-job at the bank he is operating outside the
scene but when he is involved in metal-related activities he is operating
within the scene.
[2] In our count of 61 we included bands based in the satellite-cities
of Soreang and Cimahi. Smaller Bandung bands not listed on the site include
Ascention Beauty, Bloodgush, Girlzeroth, and Pandemonium. Hellbeyond is listed
as ‘status unknown’ whereas the author confirmed with Hellbeyond guitarist Edo
that the band is presently active (personal interview, 11 December 2014,
Bandung).
[3] Another Bandung death-metal compilation Brutally Sickness Orgasm Mutilation (Extreme Souls Production)
features tracks from each of 26 death-metal bands. However, this CD is
different in that it includes previously released tracks and some non-Bandung
bands.
[4] Jasad and Undergod specifically incorporate Sundanese cultural
themes into their lyrics (see Jasad’s Rebirth
of Jatisunda album from 2013) while Man Jasad’s other band Karinding Attack
combines death-metal vocals with traditional Sundanese instrumentation.
[5] Warhammer was called Genital Cavity at the date of the interview
(13 October 2011).
[6] Pictures from Bandung Death
Fest #6 held on 29 September 2012 can be viewed at the following link: http://busukwebzine.blogspot.com/search/label/BANDUNG%20DEATH%20FEST%20%236
[accessed 15 July 2014].This #6 Fest
was notable for the appearance of new band Dismemberment Torture featuring the
ex-Jasad drummer Dani aka ‘Papap’ and the Bloodgush vocalist Glenn. Papap had
just recovered from injuries sustained in a 2011 motorcycle accident. His
hospital costs were paid for in part by a metal community-administered fund
which the first-mentioned author contributed to.
[7] See http://blackhammerwebzine.blogspot.com/2014/11/news-bandung-biersik-29-november-2014.html
[accessed 19 November 2014].
[8] Band genres were cheeked via metal-archives.com and the bands’
Facebook pages. The results were then cross-checked against the results of an
‘advanced search’ on metal-archives.com for ‘Indonesia [country]’ and
‘black-metal’.
[9] See: http://busukwebzine.blogspot.com/2014/05/news-no-grunting-no-corpsepaint-no-gore.html
[accessed 8 June 2014].
[10] Death-metal musicians in Indonesia often pose for band pictures
western style with excessively large empty spaces between the personnel.
Examples would be the Jasad band picture at metal-archives.com (as at 16 December
2011) and Disinfected’s band picture inside its Aku Akan Bunuh Kami CD (Rottrevore Records). If Indonesians really
walked down city streets in the manner of Disinfected’s picture many
pedestrians and motorcycles would literally travel in the gaps between the band
members. Western death-metal bands have for a long time used excessive empty
gaps between band members to communicate the alienation, aggression, and
defensiveness usually associated with people with abnormally large ‘personal
spaces’. Interestingly, one other situation where large personal spaces exist
is in late nineteenth century pictures of slum areas in England where residents
in street-scene pictures stand defensively just inside their respective front
doors thus simultaneously guarding those entrances from intruders and providing
themselves with quick means of escape should developments on the street turn
nasty (see, for example, the cover picture of Tales of Liverpool by Whittington-Egan (1985) and the classic 1901 Living London picture of street women
and children in Flower and Dean Street, Whitechapel, East London, reproduced on
p. 40 of Clack and Hutchinson (2009)).
[11] See previous footnote.
[12] Alex Webster of Cannibal Corpse states as follows (interview dated
15 May 2006): ‘The thing is that death metal as a genre is only about twenty
two or twenty three years old. It was started by young people and there's never
been a tradition of guys in their thirties or forties playing death metal --
that tradition is being written as we speak’
[http://www.chroniclesofchaos.com/articles/chats/1-921_cannibal_corpse.aspx,
accessed 9 November 2011]. Our comment is that the May 2006 interview date
means that Webster puts the beginning of death-metal as in 1983 or 1984 which
is extremely early.
[13] Man Jasad and Popo of Demons Damn’s parents presently (as at 12 December
2014) live within a kilometre of each other in the inner-eastern suburb of
Cicaheum, rather than in Ujung Berung itself. The major arterial road
connecting central Bandung with Ujung Berung in the outer eastern suburbs is
Jalan Jendral A. H. Nasution (which changes its name from Jl. Jendral Ahmad
Yani around Cicaheum) (Source: Popo / Google Maps).
[14] The Afro-Asian Conference of
Non-Aligned Nations was held in Bandung from 18-24 April 1955. It included
those nations aligned with neither the United States nor the Soviet Union and
hence it represented a third-way.
[15] A main reason for Jasad’s high sub-cultural capital is that it is
signed to Sevared Records (Rochester, NY, USA) (Zulf, Dajjal Guitarist, Dajjal
group interview, Bandung, 22 January 2014).
[16] The first-mentioned author owns one of
the original posters advertising the 9 October date.
[17] Both Saffar and Jihad are part of the secular Bandung scene rather
than the Islamist metal scene (centred in Jakarta) which is non-existent in
Bandung. The important topic of the relationship between Islam and heavy-metal
in Indonesia may be pursued further in a follow-up paper by the authors.
[18] This is the organization for the death-metal community of Yogyakarta.
[19] Popo’s age is at the date of first interview 8 October 2011. Two
younger female death-metal vocalists in Bandung are Widdy (Girlzeroth) and Wong
Die (Ascention Beauty/ ex-Girlzeroth) and in Surabaya (East Java) there was
until recently Niza of Climaxeth and Osiris. In the first half of 2014 Niza quit
both her bands and pulled down her Facebook profile so that she could devote
herself more fully to her university life and Islamic self-development. For a
book-chapter on the female Malaysian heavy-rock vocalist Ella, see Thompson
(2002).
[20] We include this quotation not to demonstrate that ‘women need men’
but to show how the senior bands in Ujung Berung take proactive steps to mentor
and support the junior bands.
[21] See Youthfull Aggression interview and band picture at the
following link: http://busukwebzine.blogspot.com/search/label/YOUTHFULL%20AGGRESSION
[accessed 9 June 2014].
[22] Similarly,
Baulch (2007, p. 149) notes that the death-metal band Phobia refused to join
the then Balinese death-metal community organization called 1921.
[23] It is very
common for Bandung scene identities to play in two, three or even four bands.
[24] Source: Original festival flyer sent to the first-mentioned author
by Abah of Warkvlt on 13 November 2014.
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