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Why the new legal talk on Randall's personal site? The blurb went up shortly after Randall wrote a post ripping into local grindcore trio Magrudergrind for putting out their newest EP, Crusher, on Scion A/V. Shortly after publishing his thoughts, Axl Rosenberg, the co-editor-in-chief of the popular metal blog MetalSucks, posted a news item about Randall's rant.

"After we published our own piece, J. suddenly started tweeting about getting angry phone calls or whatever," Rosenberg says.

As my feature this week on Magrudergrind details, grindcore is a bit more hamstrung when it comes to breaches of the scene's so-called ethical code. Napalm Death set the political and musical tone for grindcore when it unleashed Scum in 1987. Just take in that album's first track, "Multinational Corporations," a short, thundering tune complete with simple, succinct lyrics: "Multinational corporations/Genocide of the starving nation."

Of course, Magrudergrind never followed that code. Sure, the music is loud and aggressive, but the aesthetic is off the grindcore map. "We take collages and pictures from here and there," says Magrudergrind singer Avi Kulawy. "I think a lot of people misconstrue our art and our aesthetic, and they see it as us being a socio-political band making a statement."

While Magrudergrind has taken its music in new directions, most of grindcore has stuck to Napalm Death's tried-and-true message and voice. By sonic nature, grindcore is so far outside the mainstream that an ethical code isn't unlike a badge of honor, a re-enforced status of being "outcast and proud of it," complete with a whole boatload of sanctimonious beliefs and baggage.

"There is really no change of grind ever being anything other than a niche market," Rosenberg says. "Since there's no real money to be made, everything becomes that much more DIY, and as a result, the people involved tend to really, really feel passionate about it, because there's no reward beyond the music itself. So that ethical code gets a big shot of steroids."

Which might explain Randall's response to Crusher, and the response of some within the grindcore community. Yet, that discussion is absent on Randall's blog post—it's just Randall's own words—sans one comment:

"I don't mean to whore out my video but I'd rather not re-type shit over and over. Here you go."

The comment comes from Keith Carlson, an Orlando-based graphic designer and illustrator and a co-founder of an online music community called The Apparatus. The link he posted on Randall's blog is for a confessional-style YouTube video Carlson made about his thoughts on Crusher. It tops seven minutes.

Carlson has been quite active in discussing the Scion controversy on The Apparatus, and was upset enough to post the YouTube video. "I was nervous and cussed a lot," Carlson says. "I made the video in hopes people would see a little more sincerity as apposed [sic] to just reading text."

Carlson's love for grindcore is certainly sincere: He capitalizes the "g" in grindcore during our AIM interview. He loves the genre's dark themes, aggressive tones, and raw instrumentation. Which he feels Magrudergrind does well. "They play all the standards of Grindcore," Carlson says. "I think they do it in a way that is so fluid and natural. They definitely have a 'rally up and mosh' groove that a lot of active Grindcore bands don't do as well."

But Crusher's Scion connection made Carlson feel uncomfortable. "I praise them in their hard work and strong DIY ethic but at the end of the day I don't think it entitles them to a dirty freebie," Carlson says.

While the grindcore scene is known to be rigid–as seen with the Crusher controversy–Carlson is a fairly open-minded fan. He also thinks he's on the losing side of the coin. "From what I've seen, I'm in the minority on this issue," Carlson says. "It's interesting that people are getting upset about fans like me questioning the situation as apposed [sic] to forming a thorough opinion about it from any perspective."

Sure, Magrudergrind got a ribbing from Randall and others in the grindcore community. But it wasn't before long that Randall got a healthy helping of complaints from impassioned grindcore bands, and fans like Carlson felt they were losing a battle. The back-and-forth in grindcore only seems natural. Soon enough, the arguing may as well stop completely.

"The good news, all the sound and the fury never amounts to much," Rosenberg says. "In other words, I have a difficult time believing this will have any negative affect on Magrudergrind in the long-term."

Still, the fury concerning Crusher—no matter what side fans took—is as much a part of grindcore as the music. Agree, disagree, whatever: For fans like Carlson, open conversation is part of what makes grindcore so great.

"It’s lyrics like 'it’s not a revolution but a life of strive [sic]' [from Magrudergrind's "The Price of Living by Delinquent Ideals"] that encourage me to speak up and try to get other people talking," Carlson says.

Magrudergrind's Chris Moore, left, Avi Kulaway, and R.J Ober

Magrudergrind singer Avi Kulawy doesn’t want to talk about Scion, the Toyota brand that controversially released the group’s recent EP, Crusher. Kulawy would rather chat about the years his band spent toiling in D.C.’s underground music scene. He’d rather discuss how the trio brought its unique spin on grindcore—an aggressive sound that combines elements of hardcore punk, death metal, and just about anything and everything that makes an abrasive noise—to Europe and Asia thanks to years of hard touring. Kulawy would rather talk about Magrudergrind’s history because it says so much about its present.

But that would be burying the lede. Bona fides didn’t matter when Magrudergrind struck its deal last year with Scion Audio/Visual, the marque’s appeal-to-the-cool-kids promotional wing, which works with up-and-coming musicians, filmmakers, and visual artists. Since 2006, Scion has released free music from a slew of dance artists and garage rockers, and has recently begun opening its coffers to bands it identifies as metal. Funded entirely by Scion, Crusher was released as a free download in November. (It’s still up, but if for some reason you want to buy the EP on iTunes or Amazon, beginning this week you can do that, too.)

Free for download doesn’t mean free from baggage, according to some of Magrudergrind’s peers. Since Magrudergrind announced its Scion partnership, fans have fiercely debated the band’s ethics on message boards like The Apparatus. Notable metal and grindcore bands with bigger profiles than Magrudergrind have denounced the band as sell-outs.

You’d think that 17 years after Dischord bands Jawbox and Shudder to Think signed to major labels—and in an era in which licensing songs to car commercials no longer carries a stigma for many independent acts—debates over the slippery-to-define notion of “selling out” would finally be extinct. Or, at the very least, acts not comfortable with corporate sponsorship would have little to say about acts that are.

But not so within metal and hardcore’s most extreme niches, where strict integrity and independence still matters, according to Axl Rosenberg, the co-editor-in-chief of the popular metal blog MetalSucks. “If you stray even a little bit from the code, or, maybe more accurately, are perceived as having strayed from the code, there’s a portion of the community that will crucify you.”

—

Kulawy started Magrudergrind in 2002, when he was a sophomore at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, and his friend Chris Moore joined the group soon after. (Disclosure: I was also at Walter Johnson at the time, but didn’t know the band’s members well. I didn’t hear about Magrudergrind until 2007.) The band cycled through several guitarists before settling in 2007 on its current lineup: Kulawy on vocals, Moore on drums, and R.J. Ober on guitar.
When the group first began playing in D.C, it wasn’t exactly welcomed. “We would play shows with hardcore bands and metalcore [bands], and I guess screamo metalcore was really big in D.C. then,” Kulawy says. “People would look at us with their jaw dropped and kind of like, ‘What is this?’”

Grindcore isn’t exactly known for its accessibility: You can often measure the songs in seconds; belly-aching growls tend to obscure lyrics about death, disarray, and radical politics; instrumentation combines pulverizing speed with ear-shattering heaviness. Some critics complain grindcore hasn’t evolved much since the British band Napalm Death defined the genre with its debut album, Scum, in 1987, but the fans don’t seem to mind.

Though the D.C. area has produced grindcore acts like Enemy Soil and Pig Destroyer, Magrudergrind didn’t exactly fit into a local scene mostly centered on hardcore punk. “We knew that outside of the D.C. area there is a scene and a demand for grindcore music, so I think it really pushed us to tour more, or to try to tour initially,” Kulawy says. “We wanted to get out there and play and meet grindcore bands and see what kind of scenes there were other than the D.C. scene.”

In the summer of 2003, Kulawy scheduled Magrudergrind’s first tour using a website called Book Your Own Fuckin’ Life, and over several years, the band built a reasonable following within the national grindcore scene. In 2006, the band released a split with Shitstorm, a grindcore side-project from Torche drummer Rick Smith. The band’s first official full-length, Rehashed (Six Weeks Records), caught some ears, but a sophomore release, 2009’s Magrudergrind (Willowtip), was a breakthrough. According to Rosenberg, the self-titled album “really cemented them as being at the forefront of modern grind.”

Produced by metalcore icon and Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou, Magrudergrind is remarkable because it challenges grindcore’s conventions. Certainly, the tunes come loud, hard, and fast, but the record’s overall aesthetic is different. Songs like “Bridge Burner” fester and swoon with a lumbering, heavy beat; audio samples, like a speech about gentrification from Boyz n the Hood and a Yiddish song, populate the record alongside Kulawy’s ambiguous and arty lyrics. Most notably—and to some, most jarringly—there’s a smattering of hip-hop. Most grindcore fans aren’t in the market for break beats, but they may well have brought Magrudergrind to a bigger audience.

“They have this hip-hop aesthetic that goes through all of their songs, and I think people latch onto that,” says Fred Pessaro, who writes about metal for Brooklyn Vegan, a popular music blog. “It’s a really unique thing in that scene, whereas grindcore is so anti-capitalist, anti-fascism, such a political music, and hip-hop is pretty much the polar opposite in a lot of ways...Maybe [that’s] where they’re coming from with this whole Scion thing, as well.”

—

Crusher wasn’t the first time Magrudergrind worked with Scion. The band performed at a couple of free shows hosted by the brand, including last year’s Scion Rock Fest in Columbus, Ohio.
Representatives from Scion A/V didn’t speak to the band’s marketing strategy, but it’s clear they think they can sell more Scions—whose image is meant to appeal to a hipper, younger crowd than Toyota’s—by penetrating certain subcultures.

Inking a deal with Scion isn’t like signing with a typical label. Instead of an advance, Magrudergrind got a lump sum which it could spend however it wished on recording, artwork, and manufacturing. It doesn’t have to split its cut of digital sales with Scion (Magrudergrind also released limited-edition physical versions on LP and CD for free, plus shipping and handling). The band kept the masters, and after a year, gets full control of the recordings.

For Magrudergrind, that meant no risk (Kulawy wouldn’t say how much Scion gave the band to make Crusher) and one trade-off: the Scion logo, displayed prominently on the EP’s cover.

The group was prepared for some backlash, and released a statement explaining why it felt working with Scion hardly mattered. “We have always been, always will be and currently are very deeply involved in the band processes and the scene we are involved with,” they wrote. “We still take care of all the day-to-day tasks of this band and would not have it any other way.”
The band wrote that it made the deal so that it could release the EP gratis. “We decided to take up this offer in order to give out a 100% FREE, high quality record to everyone, at the expense of a Scion.” Later, the statement went on, “If Scion covers the expenses of this record and say no one buys their product, who really gains? Us and every single person who got a Magrudergrind record for free.”

To the band, it wasn’t being co-opted by Scion; it was taking advantage of the brand’s new-found taste for harsh sounds.

Others didn’t buy it. Jay Randall, vocalist for prominent grindcore act Agoraphobic Nosebleed (whose bandmate Richard Johnson appears on Crusher), wrote a blog post calling the Magrudergrind/Scion deal not just an act of whoring, but a pointless one: “Hey Scion you get what you pay for -no ding dong is running out to buy one of your hipster crap wagons because you did some metal/hardcore showcase, your just publicly outing some poor band as your whore.”

Justin Foley, frontman of the metal act The Austerity Program, refuted Magrudergrind’s statement in an op-ed for MetalSucks, writing that it “comes across as a rationalization, not an explanation.” Foley advanced an argument that found purchase among message-board users who also debated the ethics of Crusher in November: that displaying the Scion logo was tantamount to appearing in a commercial, and that taking Toyota’s money was avoidable. Or, if the band wanted Scion to foot the bill, “why not go for a car and a fat paycheck and free Scion tattoos and your own Scion branded sneakers that say Magrudergrind on the tongue-pump?”

These kinds of debates aren’t uncommon for the grindcore scene: As much as the sound is known for its creative inflexibility, the same can be said for the scene’s ethical boundaries.

The band didn’t respond to the criticisms. While Magrudergrind came up in the grindcore scene, Kulawy says it always saw itself as an outlier. “A lot of times, you get lumped in as like a straightedge, vegan, completely socio-political, left-of-center band. But, in reality, each of us do have our own political beliefs,” Kulaway says. “We don’t have any lyrics or imagery that’s really saying that we’re anti-anything.” Often, Magrudergrind’s songs are meta-commentaries on the band’s subgenre. Take the song “Lyrical Ammunition for Scene Warfare,” in which Kulawy sings: “I refuse to live by what’s expected.”

Magrudergrind isn’t a full-time job for its members, although it probably could be. But that would mean touring for most of the year, Kulawy says, a stress he doesn’t want. “We have lives outside of the band,” he says. The Scion deal helped Magrudergrind make a record without worrying about paying for it. And they were never hung up over politics, anyway. Meanwhile, the increasingly visibile Scion A/V site means more listeners. “We have gotten exposure to certain people that may have not heard our music and may have not even heard this style of music because it is just underground in its nature,” Kulawy says.

And, predictably, the message-board furor eventually cooled down. The EP got positive buzz. Recent shows, including one last Friday at St. Stephen’s Church in Columbia Heights, have been packed.

Even the dankest, darkest corners of independent music can get past the old indie debates. It just hurts a little more.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery.

So that was fun. Festival organizers estimated that some 2,700 people attended this year's (incredibly well-run) Maryland Deathfest. I missed the first day, but will post more about Saturday and Sunday of MDF VII later. For now, here are a few photos and my thoughts in superlative form, after the jump.

• Favorite performances: Crowpath did not disappoint this fanboy. Kill the Client was ridiculously amazing. Singers that crowdsurf and mosh = big fun. In the more traditional death metal vein, Bolt Thrower's two sets (they headlined on Saturday and then played an impromptu 45 minutes on Sunday to fill in for Pestilence, who were no-shows for visa reasons) were both crushingly awesome.
• Worst performance: Despise You, whose music might have been ok were it not for the vocalists. Their female vocalist was shouting into the mic in a voice that sounded like your little sister whining at you at the top of her lungs, only amped to maximum volume by the sound system in a 1000-capacity rock club. No thanks.
• Biggest surprises: Weekend Nachos, holy shit. The singer had a completely crazed look on his face for the entire set, which was a 15-minute blowout of epic hardcore intensity. Destroyer 666, who effectively headlined Sunday – wasn't familiar with them beforehand but they put on a pretty amazing show.
• Biggest disappointment: I was really looking forward to Brutal Truth, not having heard much of their stuff but knowing they are classic grindcore right up my alley. But they just seemed a little off and the sound was really muddy. Too bad.
• Best theatrics: It's hard to top Mikannibal of Sigh breathing fire to close out the entire fest (that's the headline photo above). But Kill the Client's singer crowdsurfing constantly was up there, or General Surgery's bloody lab coats (with the fake blood reapplied twice during their set by women in bloody nurse costumes), or Birdflesh's absurd costumes... there's some competition here.
• Coolest experience: Getting to watch Napalm Death perform (and rant against torture, Dick Cheney, homophobia, fascism etc) outdoors at dusk, with the sky turning a deep blue. See photo below.
• Potentially great shows I was too fried to appreciate: Devourment, Wolves in the Throne Room, Antigama, Trap Them.
• Most popular T-shirt color: Black.

More to come!

Maryland Deathfest is about to kick off its first day in a couple hours, but better late than never, right? I'll be covering Saturday and Sunday, but for anyone still thinking about heading up to Baltimore (tickets are still available, but not many of them!), here is my absolutely non-comprehensive and subjective preview of select bands I want to see. Keep in mind that my knowledge of classic 90s death metal is limited, and I'm more into the modern grindcore and experimental stuff.

MDF takes place at Sonar, 407 East Saratoga St Baltimore, MD 21202, today through Sunday, on the main stage inside as well as an outdoor stage. Tickets will be available at the door for varying prices depending on the day.

FRIDAY (today!)

• Cattle Decapitation – outside – 6:35-7:10 – Pretty good modern grindcore. Their latest album throws some curveballs, including the inclusion of Jarboe and Grayceon cellist Jackie Perez-Gratz, but I still like their old stuff best (Karma Bloody Karma etc). Listen at Myspace.
• Mayhem – outside – 8:30-9:30 – Mayhem was at the center of the violent early-90s Norwegian black metal circus, with two original members murdered by other musicians in the scene. Somehow they're still going and still scary. Expect fake human heads impaled on stakes onstage. Listen at Myspace.
• Cephalic Carnage – inside – 12:40-end of night – My favorite song of theirs is indicative: "Black Metal Sabbath," a tongue-in-cheek spoof of black metal's tremolo riffing and screeching vocals that then transforms into an equally tongue-in-cheek but totally awesome Sabbathy sludge riff. Listen at Myspace.

Check out my Saturday and Sunday picks after the jump. Photo above of Bolt Thrower (playing Saturday) courtesy their Myspace page.

SATURDAY

• Crowpath – inside – 2:10-2:40 – probably my most anticipated band on the bill. Avant-garde death metal from Sweden and one of the more genuinely experimental bands in the extreme metal scene. Their latest, One With Filth, topped my best-of list from last year. Listen at Myspace.
• Misery Index – inside – 6:15-6:50 – Baltimore/DC grindcore; I hear they're Caps fans. Listen at Myspace.
• Pig Destroyer – inside – 8:10-8:40 – Unquestionably DC's most famous grindcore outfit, and for good reason. Live shows are a rarity for Scott Hull's flagship band, and not to be missed. Phantom Limb was at the top of many critics' best-of-2007 lists. Listen at Myspace.
• Napalm Death – outside – 8:40-9:25 – Arguably the father of the entire grindcore genre, the UK's politically outspoken greats are on a lengthy tour of the States, having played at Jaxx earlier this month. Amazing that a band this intense is still releasing music just as great as their classic-period stuff. Listen at Myspace.
• Bolt Thrower – outside – 9:40-11:00 – This is the main draw of the festival for many. Classic UK midtempo death metal with lyrics based on the Warhammer 40K universe. Nerdy enough for you? Listen at Myspace.
• Wolves in the Throne Room – inside – 12:40-end of night – Yes, hipster black metal exists, and none embody it better than Wolves in the Throne Room, with their creepy, soundscapey forest music. Don't tell them that, though. Listen at Myspace.

SUNDAY

• Kill the Client – inside – 2:55-3:25 – My bet is on this Texan grindcore band for the title of most violent, whiplash-inducing music at MDF. As you might expect, that's quite a distinction. Listen at Myspace.
• Yakuza – inside – 5:10-5:40 – This Chicago death metal group initially came to my attention because of their collaborations with avant-jazz saxphonist Ken Vandermark. Another of the more experimental groups on this bill, they haven't released much new music in the last couple years and it'll be interesting to see what they have up their sleeves. Listen at Myspace.
• Krallice – inside – 7:10-7:40 – Ridiculously proficient tech-death musicians play black metal, with dizzying, complex results. Don't miss. Listen at Myspace.
• Antigama – inside – 8:10-8:40 – Polish technical grind; one of those bands that drives purists crazy by drawing all kinds of weird influences into their music. Hell, they prominently feature a tribute to Goblin on their Myspace page. Listen at Myspace.
• Sigh – inside – 11:50-end of night – Classic Japanese black metal featuring a relatively new band member, "Dr. Mikannibal," who holds a Ph.D in physics, plays sax, screams, dresses provocatively, eats worms, drinks blood, and records in the nude. No surprise that she tends to hog all the headlines. Listen at Myspace.