To the Death!!!

Consensual violence. This one comes with a content warning for the squeamish as I am going to be unapologetically glorifying certain aspects of violence. I’m not likely to be partaking in the actual pugilism as I’m not as hard as my big mouth might suggest, but I am going to make the argument that violence deserves a place in our values and our free time. My level will likely remain where it has been for aggression, regular mosh pits and the occasional demo turned riot.




I haven’t had that much damage from mosh pits. I have taken a lot of bruise medals home but that’s nothing in the scheme of things. I was once in an audience of four people, also the most gymnastic pit I have ever been in, with one of us off the ground at all times! In the end a guy went over the top and ended up breaking his leg. It wasn’t the worst break in the world, more crackture than fracture, but a broken bone is a broken bone. I was partly responsible, but only as responsible as him. Apart from the injury and recovery for the damaged punk there were no further repercussions. When we all turned up at the next gig deemed loud enough to attend, we were all allowed in, and we weren’t scolded. We just told the story, or rather other people did.




The point being, it could have been my leg. In the same position I would have wanted the same response from the place (The Horseshoe RIP) as they gave my fellow mosher - ‘Don’t fuck with the venue’. When we started to tussle and thrash in front of an aggressive punk band we had mutually consented to violence. I was about sixteen at the time so I can think of a fair few more traumatic things I could have consented to.




Another kind of violence I experienced in my teens was “Grunger bashing”, which has a lot of different names around the country. This had a big crossover with “gay bashing” which is an even older tradition. Sometimes the person punching me would hate me for being queer and the other that was kicking me would hate me for being a grunger. In my mind at the time I was straight and a punk but semantics aren’t the most important things while you are taking knocks. This kind of violence would often leave me less damaged than the most aggressive gigs but it was certainly an experience I wanted to do without. That’s the point, the punch I am trying to land. Life is pain and violence happens. Preventions of consensual violence do not prevent violence, they just restrict our rights.




One of the times I was attacked, I tried to sell the idea of honorable combat to my attackers. I explained to them that they are in a group and if they want to have a fight so desperately they could fight each other. I didn’t get through to them.




The idea of consensual violence is not new or unexplored in history or popular culture. The duel allowed gentlemen to settle their scores in an orderly fashion at dawn with pistols. Duels also had the benefit of leaving very little to clean up afterwards. Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club being one of the most exquisite and fun to watch explorations of the role of violence in society and contemporary masculinity. Who didn’t love a bit of Celebrity Death Match on a Friday night? The 90s and early noughties claymation series pitted celebrities against each other in professional style wrestling matches that heavily featured gory violence and extreme injuries that only an animated figure could withstand. I also can’t help but think that if the football hooligans of the 80s and 90s had been given the stadium post matches to sort out their grievances, Britain and football would both have benefited. Families or those that would rather not clock in at the football factory could have left safely before the 2nd kick off of the day. Participants would have agreed to pay for the St John’s ambulance to be there to patch them up, and to mop up and take their litter with them. Gold cups all round.




If adults could consent to violence, we would still have bullies. There will always be those who would prefer to fight someone that is unprepared, because unlike their challenger, they have not gone out with the intention of fighting.




But what if the bullies were faced with a real challenge? If all those going out to pick a fight and throw their weight around to prove how tough they are got together. They could build a reputation through combat with others also wanting to be considered the toughest in town. There wouldn’t be an ongoing struggle to be top dog decided by who could take out the most aggression on the unsuspecting after the pub on a Friday night. People would know they are top dog because they would have proved it. Just as in boxing, the champions of the world in their respective classes would know their position and face challengers to defend it. There would be an ongoing series of challenges, rather than people notching up a reputation through random acts of violence. Those that took part would also have a recognised honour that they do not have now.




There is a precedent for this in bare-knuckle fighting. The original form of boxing matches would see contenders fight with their hands unbound and glove free. The difference between bare-knuckle fighting and a straight up street fight is the adherence to an approved set of rules. The longest bare-knuckle fight is recorded as lasting 6 hours and 15 minutes back in Victoria, Australia, August of 1855. Though a fight that long might challenge the attention span of a 21st century crowd, there has been the emergence of contemporary bare-knuckle promoters like the BKFC and the BKB where officially sanctioned bare-knuckle champions are still crowned. Nice one fellas.




While maintaining respect for bare knuckle champs past and present, I have my own vision of a way for the modern human to consensually have at another.




Wacken Open Air is a heavy metal festival that takes place in Germany. Fans and bands alike travel from all over the world to see all kinds of rock music. I would love to be one of the 85,000 attendees one day. It holds a special place amongst the metal community. It attracts great line ups and has an excellent representation of the eternally pleasing warlike gothic aesthetics associated with this kind of Rock and Roll. In 2016 they introduced Wasteland camping, which is a Mad Max style campsite in the middle of a festival. I know the metal gods must be pleased by that.




But I have a dream, one which could be very easily viewed as a nightmare by some. A dark dream of a place where the blackest metal known to mankind and consensual fights to the death would be celebrated under the most gloriously metal structure ever built.




My vision is to take Wacken’s beautiful wasteland campsite and add a centerpiece - a kind of epic heavy metal thunderdome. It could be spiky on the inside and would feature pyrotechnics. I think a colosseum shape would meet the crowds’ expectations and provide better disability access than a dome, but dome aesthetics would be ideal. A band could provide the warm up for the fight and the PA would play cult black metal throughout the fight.




Of course, every death match needs contenders. I have chosen Wacken as the hallowed site for my vision to be realized because metal band Mayhem have been performers there several times. Mayhem have the most dramatic history of any rock group. Fleetwood Mac? Sex Pistols? Not even close! There are excellent tellings of their story out there so I will give you the Frankenstein Jones summary.




Mayhem are among the founders of the black metal scene and genre. Formed in 1984 in Oslo, Norway, they played their groundbreaking, extreme metal all over EuropeMetal that is still considered extreme to this day. In 1991 their death obsessed singer, known as Dead, committed suicide. Euronymous, the founder of the band had been bullying Dead. He had manipulated Dead, pushing him into more and more isolating situations, wanting Dead to make good on his threats to end his life. He saw this as a way of fulfilling his bleak elitist destiny for a band that was representative of his worldview.




“What do I think about Dead in Mayhem? Well, what can you possibly say about someone who can starve himself to death for days, just to see how his body will look like? I've always wanted someone like that in my band.”

Euronymous




Dead was found in the practice space with his wrists and throat cut. He had killed himself by firing a shotgun into his forehead.




Euronymous found Dead’s body. Then he went shopping for a disposable camera and took photographs of the death scene, which he interfered with to create the best shots. The drummer Hellhammer developed the photos which went on to feature in the grizzly album art for the live bootleg Dawn of the Black Hearts, a collection of live performances by Dead. The emotional outpouring of resentment and spiteful encouragement can be heard coming from an audience who were not only experiencing a brutally loud band, but also witnessing Dead inflict wounds on himself with glass or knives.




Pieces of Dead’s skull, pilfered from his suicide scene by Euronymous were given as gifts to other members of the black metal scene that he deemed worthy of such a morbid trophy. Because of this behavior Necrobutcher, founding member of the band and bassist who features in the present line up of Mayhem, decided he had had enough and left the band. Dead’s suicide note reflected the influence of poet Edgar Poe. “I am not a human being, this is just a dream. Soon I will wake.”




A new singer and bass player stepped in called Occultus, who left after receiving a death threat from Euronymous. By now this was common behaviour for Euronymous. Members Count Grishnackh, Attila Csihar and Blackthorn joined and work began on the Album Die Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. Count Grishnackh and Euronymous had started to amass explosives and intended to use them to blow up Nidaros Cathedral, which features on the album art. Count Grishnackh, Euronymous and others had already committed arson attacks on other churches in Norway so this was not a fluke or empty gesture on their part.




Depression, bullying and hatred were still a big part of the band. Count Grishnackh had learned that Euronymous had been trying to recruit people in the black metal scene to kidnap, then make a snuff film of him being tortured to death. Grishnackh was driven from Bergen to Oslo by Blackthorn to confront Euronymous. What happened next is a grey area as Count Grishnackh insisted he acted in self defense. Euronymous was found dead outside of his apartment with 23 laceration wounds. Count Grishnackh was arrested and given Norway’s maximum sentence of 21 years for murder, posessetion of illegal explosives and the church burnings.




What a ride! What a mess!




Euronymous does not seem to be missed by anyone, neither those within his inner circle or the authorities who wanted to suppress his music and scene. When Necrobutcher was interviewed by Consequence of Sound in 2019 he stated:




“I wanted to kill that fucker in the end. He ... Imagine that somebody you think is your friend coming home and finding your other friend killed themselves and took pictures of their dead body. Who the fuck in their right mind would do anything like that?

"Everybody should have the little bit of intelligence to know that, that's gotta be somebody completely stripped from empathy and normal emotions. And really a bad fucking person. But now he's a fucking hero! And it's like, OK, I've always talked good about him, never wanted to talk bad about the dead, but this has gone too far now.

He's the big hero? No, he's the big fucking asshole, that's who he is. The betrayal — he betrayed his friends and the bad karma in the end came and took him. I never cried a tear for that guy.

I can't help it. Anything that wronged me has to be right."

So, we have our first contender! Necrobutcher was prepared to kill Euronymous. I don’t know if he hates Count Grishnackh as much as the majority of metal fans but he is not squeamish about killing people, and there are certainly many wrongs in the history of Mayhem he would have the opportunity to put right with violence.

Count Grishnackh was released from prison in 2009 and has been spreading vile, unscientific white supremacy, antisemitism, authoritarianism and all around hateful nonsense in the whining tones of a disgraced yoga instructor. He loves wearing full camo gear and looks like Timothy Mcveigh if he had paid the best lawyers on the planet. Step up our second contender!

So the scene is set. The dome is erected. The metal is loud. Our contenders are ready to draw blood. In order to generate the most honour for the occasion, the weapons should be medieval close combat weapons. Knowing Necrobutcher and Count Grishnackh, they will definitely have their own to bring from home, and if not I am sure a fan would be happy to gift them a suitably grimdark implement.

If Tina Turner is not available to MC the fight, then I would be honoured to host the event. Though I am telling you now, I will not be able to resist announcing the Count as Cunt Grishnackh. It’s the nicest introduction I can think of for a white supremiscist like contender number two. I look forward to placing a bet on his decapitation, doubling my pleasure at the sight of it.



Maybe I’ll see you on the wasteland - snakebite and black in hand, war-painted and thirsty for blood and a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. I mean, if two adult black metal musicians with a litany of grudges are not able to consent and accept the risk of a gladiatorial contest to the death under a dome on the gothic wastelands of Germany, then what rights of body autonomy do any of us have?