Female, Mosher, Transgressor: A 'Moshography' of Transgressive Practices within the Leeds Extreme Metal Scene

Authors

  • Gabrielle Riches Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
  • Brett Lashua Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
  • Karl Spracklen Leeds Metropolitan University, UK

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5429/652

Keywords:

Moshpits, spectacle, embodiment, transgression, performance ethnography, extreme metal music

Abstract

This paper examines and reconceptualises transgression in the Leeds extreme metal music subculture through theories of performance, embodiment and spectacle. The spectacle, for Debord (1967), is a social relation that is alienating and mediated by images, visuals, and technology. At a live extreme metal concert fans subvert social norms, challenge gendered expectations, and disregard norms of etiquette and decency. Moshing is the most visible and sensuous example of transgression within the extreme metal scene. It is an aggressive, physically demanding performance which embodies resistance to the impersonal and disillusioning world of the spectacle (Halnon, 2004). The pit is a transgressive space that is itself transgressed by women who participate in this masculine, chaotic space, disrupting the homosocial bonds of male solidarity (Gruzelier, 2007). This paper offers an ethnographic account of a female metal fan participating in the transgressive practice of moshing within the Leeds metal music scene – a moshography.

Author Biographies

Gabrielle Riches, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK

Gabrielle Riches is a doctoral candidate at the Research Institute for Sport, Physical Activity and Leisure at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK.

Karl Spracklen, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK

Professor of Leisure Studies Secretary of the International Society for Metal Music Studies Editor of Metal Music Studies

References

Alim, H. S. (2007) Critical Hip-Hop Language Pedagogies: Combat, Consciousness, and the Cultural Politics of Communication. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 6(2): 161–176.

Ambrose, J. (2001) Moshpit: The Violent World of Mosh Pit Culture. London: Omnibus Press.

Bataille, G. (1989) The Tears of Eros. Paris: City Lights Books.

Bataille, G. (1986) Erotism: Death and Sensuality. New York: Walker and Company.

Berger, H.M. (1999) Metal, Rock, and Jazz: Perception and the Phenomenology of Musical Experience. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press.

Bertrand, M. (2000) Race, rock, and Elvis. Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois.

Bogue, R. (2004) Deleuze’s Wake: Tributes and Tributaries. USA: State University of New York.

Bramham, P., and Wagg, S. (2009) Sport, Leisure and Culture in the Postmodern City. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Broek, M. (2012) Hawthorne, Madonna, and Lady Gaga: The Marble Faun's Transgressive Miriam. Journal of American Studies, 46(3): 625-640.

Cohen, S. (1993) Ethnography and Popular Music Studies. Popular Music, 12(2): 123-138.

Cooley, T. J., and Barz, G. (2008) Casting Shadows: Fieldwork is Dead! Long Live Fieldwork! In G. Barz and T. J. Cooley (eds.) Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology. 2nd Edition. London: Oxford University Press: 3-24.

Dawkins, M.A. (2010) Close to the Edge: The Representational Tactics of Eminem. The Journal of Popular Culture, 43(3): 463-485.

Debord, G. (1967) Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books.

Denzin, N. K. (2002) Reading Race: Hollywood and the Cinema of Racial Violence. London: Sage.

Denzin, N. K., and Lincoln, Y. S. (2007) Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. London: Sage.

Diversi, M. (1998) Glimpses of Street Life, Qualitative Inquiry 4(2): 131–147.

Driver, C. (2011) Embodying Hardcore: Rethinking ‘Subcultural’ Authenticities. Journal of Youth Studies, 14(8): 975-990.

Duffy, M. (2005) Performing Identity Within a Multicultural Framework. Social & Cultural Geography, 6(5): 677-692.

Duncum, P. (2009) Toward a Playful Pedagogy: Popular Culture and the Pleasures of Transgression. Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research, 50(3): 232-244.

Flannery, M. C. (2001) Quilting: A Feminist Metaphor for Scientific Inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 7(5): 628-645.

Gilman-Opalsky, R. (2008) Guy Debord and Ideology Materialised: Reconsidering Situationist Praxis. Theory in Action, 1(4): 5-26.

Gruzelier, J. (2007) Moshpit Menace and Masculine Mayhem. In F. Jarman-Ivens (ed.), Oh Boy! Masculinities and Popular Music. London: Routledge: 58-75.

Halnon, K.B. (2004) Inside Shock Music Carnival: Spectacle as Contested Terrain. Critical Sociology, 30(3): 743-779.

Hjelm, T., Kahn-Harris, K., LeVine, M. (2012) Heavy Metal as Controversy and Counterculture. Popular Music History, 6(1-2): 5-18.

Holman Jones, S. (2002) The Way We Were, Are, and Might Be: Torch Singing as Autoethnography. In Y. S. Lincoln & N.K. Denzin (Eds.), Turning Points in Qualitative Research; Tying Knots in a Handkerchief. Blue Ridge Summit USA: Alta Mira Press: 105-118.

Hutcherson, B. (2009) Moshing and Thrashing and Headbanging (Oh My!): Gender, Genre and Authenticity in the Extreme Metal Subculture. Thesis Presented for the Masters of Arts Degree. University of Mississippi: USA.

Hutcherson, B., and Haenfler, R. (2010) Musical Genre as a Gendered Process: Authenticity in Extreme Metal. Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 35: 101-121.

Hutton, F. (2006) Risky Pleasures? Club Cultures and Feminine Identities. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Janesick, V. J. (1998) The Dance of Qualitative Research Design: Metaphor, Methodolatry, and Meaning. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry. London: Sage: 35–55.

Kahn-Harris, K. (2007) Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge. Oxford: Berg.

Kellner, D. (2003) Media Spectacle. London: Routledge.

Klypchak, B. (2012) ‘How You Gonna See Me Now’: Recontextualizing Metal Artists and Moral Panics. Popular Music History, 6(1-2): 38-51.

Krenske, L., and McKay, J. (2000) ‘Hard and Heavy’: Gender and Power in a Heavy Metal Subculture. Gender, Place and Culture, 7(3): 287-304.

Lashua, B.D., and Fox, K.M. (2007) Defining the Groove: From Remix to Research in The Beat of Boyle Street. Leisure Sciences, 29(2): 143-158.

Lau, T. J. (2005) Jump!: Aggression, Dance and Gender Roles - A Reading of Mosh Pit Culture. Candidate Thesis for Department of Musicology. University of Oslo: Norway.

Leblanc, L. (1999) Pretty in Punk: Girls’ Gender Resistance in a Boys’ Subculture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Lemish, D. (2003) Spice World: Constructing Femininity the Popular Way. Popular Music & Society, 26(1): 17-29.

Lucas, C. (2010) White Power, Black Metal and Me: Reflections on Composing the Nation. In R. Hill and K. Spracklen (eds.) Heavy Fundametalisms: Music, Metal and Politics Oxford: ID Press: 43-53.

Maffesoli, M. (1996) The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in a Mass Society. London: Sage.

Morton, F. (2005) Performing Ethnography: Irish Traditional Music Sessions and New Methodological Spaces. Social & Cultural Geography, 6(5): 661-676.

Oldfather, P., and West, J. (1994) Qualitative Research as Jazz. Educational Researcher, 23(8): 22-26.

Overell, R. (2012) ‘[I] Hate Girls and Emo[tion]s’: Negotiating Masculinity in Grindcore Music. Popular Music History, 6(1-2): 198-223.

Palmer, C. T. (2005) Mummers and Moshers: Two Rituals of Trust in Changing Social Environments. Ethnology, 44(2): 147-166.

Purcell, N. J. (2003) Death Metal Music: The Passion and Politics of a Subculture. London: McFarland & Company Publishers.

Revill, G. (2004) Performing French Folk Music: Dance, Authenticity and Nonrepresentational Theory. Cultural Geographies in Practice, 11: 199-209.

Riches, G. (2011) Embracing the Chaos: Mosh Pits, Extreme Metal Music and Liminality. Journal for Cultural Research, 15(3): 315-330.

Roberts, T. (2011) Michael Jackson’s Kingdom: Music, Race, and the Sound of the Mainstream. Journal of Popular Music Studies, 23(1): 19–39.

Schlit, K. (2003) “A Little Too Ironic”: The Appropriation and Packaging of Riot Grrrl Politics by Mainstream Female Musicians, Popular Music & Society, 26(1): 5-16.

Simon, B.S. (1997) Entering the Pit: Slam-Dancing and Modernity. Journal of Popular Culture, 31(1): 149-176.

Sparkes, A. C., and Smith, B. (2012) Embodied Research and Methodologies and Seeking the Senses in Sport and Physical Culture: A Fleshing Out of Problems and Possibilities. Research in the Sociology of Sport, 6: 167-190.

Spracklen, K., Lucas, C., and Deeks, M. (2012) The Construction of Heavy Metal Identity Through Heritage Narratives: A Case Study of Extreme Metal Bands in the North of England. Popular Music and Society, 37(1): 1-15.

Spracklen, K. (2010) Gorgoroth’s Gaahl’s Gay! Power, Gender and the Communicative Discourse of the Black Metal Scene. In R. Hill and K. Spracklen (eds.) Heavy Fundamentalisms: Music, Metal and Politics. Oxford: ID Press: 89-102.

Spry, T. (2010) Call it Swing: A Jazz Blues Autoethnography. Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, 10(4): 271-282.

Stoller, P (1997) Sensuous Scholarship. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Thrift, N. (2007) Non-Representational Theory: Space, Politics, Affect. London: Routledge.

Tomlinson, A. (2002) Theorising Spectacle: Beyond Debord. In J. Sugden and A. Tomlinson (eds.) Power Games: A Critical Sociology of Sport. London: Routledge: 44-60.

Tsitsos, W. (1999) Rules of Rebellion: Slamdancing, Moshing, and the American Alternative Scene. Popular Music, 18(3): 397-414.

Williams, P. J. (2011) Subcultural Theory: Traditions and Concepts. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Downloads

Published

17-11-2013

Issue

Section

Popular Music Performance: Articles