Serve and Protect

The overview of "Serve and Protect", directed by S.W. Wilcox and Epic Muntzir reads: "In the future, justice is no longer blind. Or even human. The year is 2162. Mankind is still reeling from a cataclysmic crash from the greatest technological heights it has ever known. Advances in time travel and medicine were made, but at the price of faster advances in weaponry. The worst fears of the nuclear age were realized and the world was plunged into Atomic War. Now, there are only small pockets of humanity left. In one such city, cyborg police track a resistance fighter, speeding first through a neon city that gasps for energy-remnants and then into a desert showdown. The stunning 4k futuristic animation is achieved through expertise in Adobe After Effects. It details spinning tires, smoky streets and windblown hair to the finest detail, with song lyrics included as a final touch."

You're lying to yourself if you think you're free!
Corruption and power go hand in hand,

According to his director biography, S.W. Wilcox was certified legally blind in 2024, so he is "collecting my final video and scripts while I can still read for a few hours per day." He gives kudos "and horns up to computer-tech that allows breathtaking 4k illustrated videos...that add new life and enjoyment to even 50-year-old songs that millions grew up on." In his director statement he says: "Even those with law degrees are subject to human weaknesses. So no need to rant this is too controversial or disrespectful. Just cue the track in your car stereo and floor it! (Just kidding.)" He goes on to say that music "is a healthy type of chaos, a full three steps away from a destructive kind. Using lyrical phrases, music best introduces a topic for a constructive discussion...music, video, and book, rely heavily and healthily on symbolism..." He notes that "since the time of Gore's PMRC b.s., music and the related arts have been abused and downright stolen from the people of the world, IMHO. Perhaps, though, the Computer Age will help the people have their arts and sciences restored."

(You can read S.W. Wilcox's inspirational journey, including information about his book, Bards of Fantasia, HERE)

S.W. Wilcox mentions PMRC, The Parents Music Resource Center, an American committee that was formed in 1985. The group released a list of songs they found objectionable, including Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It". Dee Snider famously testified before the U.S. Senate to defend one of the band's songs. Years later, in his article "1985 PMRC/Senate Hearings: Then and Now" he wrote: "I did welcome the opportunity to show the PMRC and the Senate subcommittee how you should not judge a book by its heavy-metal cover. Their indignant reactions to my  '80s rock-star look and their dropped jaws when I proceeded to take every one of their arguments apart were priceless." He also pointed out that years later, "everything and nothing has changed. The ultra-conservatives still want to dictate to the masses what they deem acceptable for the general public to see and hear..."

Forget the laws that you've been taught
We'll lock you up and let you rot!
We are the protectorate and we control the game
You fit our profile now do the walk of shame!

In a 2018 article titled "Don't Get It Twisted: 'We're Not Gonna Take It' Can Be Anyone's Protest Song", Rachel Martin wrote that when teachers in Oklahoma went on strike, their message "was amplified by a song - one that, 34 years earlier, had been the sound of student rebellion...was once named among the 'Filthy 15' songs singled out for offensive content and brought before Congress by concerned parents in the 1980s." In that testimony, Dee Snider had said: "The beauty of literature, poetry and music is that they leave room for the audience to put its own imagination, experiences and dreams into the words."

Criminalizing our population.
Turning us into a prison nation
Corruption and power go hand in hand,
Sent to devour the deeds of the damned
SERVE & PROTECT!

https://youtu.be/ko5wCF57lEg?si=ZDrnsuXG2ljrbJXO

Interview: Dr. Nolan Stolz - composer of "Gravitation" (Part 1)

ROFFEKE: You have done a 2020 “COVID” version of your composition “Gravitation” which is “an open instrumentation piece for any 5 to 8 performers” but in the Covid version, you overdubbed all the parts and used video to present it “in a way impossible in live performance.” I’ve been trying out various artificial intelligence tools, including the ones that make music. I must say that I’m very impressed with them and at the same time, I am conflicted because it seems as though something important is being lost in the process. What are your thoughts on artificial intelligence? Would you consider an “AI” version of  “Gravitation”?  Why yes and/or why no?

DR. NOLAN STOLZ: It sounds like what's being "lost in the process" that you are not satisfied with is the algorithm itself, which is likely hidden behind an easy-to-use interface. Before AI became widespread, the term we'd use for composing music in this manner was "algorithmic composition." The art is in the creation and execution of those algorithms with a result that is satisfying to the composer. An early algorithmic piece that I composed required the user to type in four characters on the keyboard—letters, numbers, symbols—the user's choice. The program I wrote took the ASCII code of the characters that the user entered and set off a series of events, which were then converted into musical sounds. The particular program I wrote made it sound a certain way, but I could have made it sound simplistic—perhaps even "pretty-sounding"—with limiting it to a simple scale and limiting the rhythms to imply a simple groove; I could have made it microtonal to avoid it from resembling Western tuning system and with bizarre/random-sounding rhythms; I chose somewhere in the middle where it was atonal and had unusual rhythms—but nothing too crazy. I titled it "Love is a Four-Letter Word."

 2018 SC Upstate Research Symposium: Nolan Stolz Rock Orchestra

I would love to create an AI version of Gravitation or have someone create one. The score for Gravitation provides quite strict instructions for timings, loudness, and frequency, but the sounds themselves could certainly be AI-generated. In other words, instead of choosing guitars and keyboards as the instruments used, AI would create the timbres. Some of the sounds are supposed to be wood against wood, metal against metal, and wood against metal, so perhaps AI could be used to control robotics physically hitting those materials. At least the timing would be incredibly precise!

ROFFEKE: You have authored “Experiencing Black Sabbath: A Listener’s Companion” and have also written many scholarly works on rock, specifically, progressive rock. With all the “more” important subjects that need to be researched – climate change, a cure for cancer, world peace – why spend so much time, energy and resources doing research on progressive rock and Black Sabbath?

DR. STOLZ: The simple answer would be is that I wasn't trained as a climate scientist, a cancer researcher, nor in politics. I began my music studies very young, and I knew that's where I was headed. Those things are important to me, but we live in a world of specialists, and I doubt I'd have enough impact on those issues with my skill set. However, I can certainly use my skills to point others to think about those issues, and maybe those with the right skills can make a bigger impact than I ever could (directly, I mean). For example, I talk about how a song such as "Into the Void" (1971) is about pollution, how "War Pigs" (1970/1) is still relevant today, and so on. 

 

There are many Black Sabbath songs that would have a large impact on listeners if they knew what the songs were about. So, if I can do my small part by pointing them to songs that addressed these issues over 50 years ago and yet are still relevant, then I think that's using my skills for the greater good in the only way I know how. 

 

The Emergence of Heavy Metal and Progressive Rock in Black Sabbath's Music from 1969 to 1971 (Stolz)

There are other issues that are also important to me that I believe I can make an impact, which hopefully inspires others to do the same, and, after time, I hope will make a significant impact. For example, poverty, hunger, and homelessness are issues that have always been ones that tug at my heart. If I can do a small part by buying some school kids some basic necessities and provide food, clothes, and personal hygiene items to a homeless shelter, it's wish others will follow suit. For example, just last week, I emailed all my colleagues at work to see if anyone else would like to buy some backpacks for students at my wife's school. Many of these kids come from families that cannot afford one, or if they have one, they are taped together and falling apart because they cannot afford to get a new one. I live in a neighborhood that suffers from poverty, so I see it on a daily basis.

ROFFEKE: Your About page on your website https://nolanstolz.com says you are a “Composer, Scholar, Percussionist/Drummer, and Music Professor.” One could be criticized for not focusing on one career or lane. How do you juggle the different hats you wear? What are the advantages of being involved in diverse aspects of music/creativity? (Check out Dr. Nolan Stolz's answer in part 2 of the interview).

                     "Gravitation" Teaser Trailer

Acts of Resistance: Heavy Metal Music in Latin America (#HumanRightsDay online screening)

 Youtube premiere of "Acts of Resistance: Heavy Metal Music in Latin America" on #HumanRightsDay 10th December 2020, 8am (Kenyan time).

"Metal music in Latin America is simply unique. It has tackled head-on the ongoing aftermath of coloniality (poverty, dictatorships, neoliberalism) like very few other musical genres. Few people have documented it as consistently as Dr. Nelson Varas-Díaz, a Professor at Florida International University’s Department of Global and Socio-cultural Studies. This documentary film follows him as he continues his trek through Latin America, documenting the varied manifestations of metal music in the region. In this, his fourth film on the subject, he documents how metal fans and musicians use the power of music to change their societies. Whether inspiring support for rural schools in Guatemala, engagement in environmental activism in Ecuador, or work for memory and peace in Colombia, metal music has become a form of decolonial activism in Latin America. This is what happens when the music’s extreme sounds and lyrics are combined with local concerns with un buen vivir (a life well-lived). Metal has taken to the streets, and is a force to be reckoned with beyond the stage."

Youtube link

#aorrockumentary

Review: Songs of Injustice

Reviewer: Mutendei Writes

Songs of Injustice is a film that can be summed up through an anecdote of my own creation; “a seed planted in soil produces a plant that blooms in accordance with the properties and characteristics of the soil it germinates in.”

Songs of Injustice is a film that captures the emergence of Rock music or Metal within South America, focusing on the organic adaption of a foreign musical genre, and its transformation into an independent art form with a unique purpose and significance to the people of Latin America.

Every art form and artist seeks to establish an independent identity and Metal in Latin America is no exception. However as Songs of Injustice narrates it’s about the journey and not the destination.

Metal in Latin America is undoubtedly a tool of resistance against decades of past and ongoing political oppression, marginalization and dictatorship, the very soil in which Metal, planted as a seed grew into something organic and independent of its point of origin.
This by itself is a success in its own right when evaluated on the basis of the opening credits quote from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the 1982 Nobel Prize winner for literature.

“The interpretation of our reality through patterns not our own, serves only to make us ever more unknown ever less free, ever more solitary.”
Metal is not constrained by the original valueless form of rock, inapplicable to the environment of Latin America. A fact that the documentary film alludes to, highlighting the reality that music cannot be removed from the life it exists in.

The style and tempo of the documentary focuses more on the reasons and motivation behind the music and adopts a mostly historical focus when discussing the featured musicians throughout the featured Latin countries, Peru, Mexico, Argentina and Chile.

This focus, while positive is also a bit of a downside as it doesn’t showcase the artistic development of the groups, their background and personal bios and with them the organic music within Latin America, outside of the messages around which their music is constructed.
How they came together and how they began to associate are vital segments that the film misses and either excludes intentional or unintentionally.

Because of this the film beyond the halfway mark of its one hour and thirty minutes run time starts to feel very repetitive. In addition, Songs of Injustice as a documentary film would have been better segmented, by clearer demarcation between the switch of focus from country to country, perhaps by use of the different names of counties or their flags as a transition.

It’s clear that Metal is to Latin America what Reggae is to Jamaicans, however it also misses the opportunity to get the reaction of the fans to the music and provide a perspective on the inspirational aspect to everyday persons, who are not musicians; everyday persons living in the environment that the music and its messages stems from and seeks to create awareness and historical education.

Given that the term “Aguante” which characterizes the musicians’ motivation to create metal, stands for “strength, resistance, support”, and a “yes we can” attitude, songs of resistance fails to provide a voice to the fans who the music is made for and sung to.

Despite missing this segment, the documentary film Songs of Injustice is a body of work that cannot be overlooked when seeing to understand the purpose an value of Metal within Latin America and the heavy history it is tied to.

The film closes smartly with a call to attention encouraging people to be aware or by modern lingo, “woke” to the reality that there is a vital need to pay attention to and embrace Metal as a form of resistance and means to be in tune with the reality of the day.

(Written in March 2019).

Mutendei Bio

Mutendei Writes (Elias Nabutete) a Kenyan writer, with Kenyan & Canadian life experiences, writes & performs under the penname Mutendei Writes. As an artistic writer, using original, creative & structured writing, covering unique, genre inspired material, moving beyond the limiting modern day mainstream spectrum of content has been Mutendei Writes. Interweaving modern & cultural inclinations, with vivid storylines, Mutendei Writes artistically creates written & Spoken Word Poetry, along with short stories. With four unique books; The Poetry Express, The IdeaBankisms, Shadow Walkers & Everything Mutendei. Mutendei Writes has also maintained monthly website releases on mutendeiwrites.wordpress.com, adding to his works, while enabling others to pursue their literary goals.

#Freeconfess Metal band from Iran arrested for...just being a metal band

ROFFEKE's motto is "Friendship, Fun, Freedom". Freedom. ROFFEKE supports freedom in any part of the world because when we protect freedom in some place, we protect freedom in our space too.

Here's a link to a petition that every freedom-loving rock fan should sign. Let's help our brothers in metal.

SIGN PETITION HERE

"Help Free CONFESS they were arrested by the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution and are facing charges of blasphemy, advertising against the system, running an illegal and underground band and record label promoting music considered to be Satanic writing anti-religious lyrics and granting interviews to forbidden foreign radio stations."

(words from Metal injection)

ATTENTION KENYAN/AFRICAN ROCKERS AND FILMMAKERS!

John Canciani, from the International Short Film Festival Witnerthur (http://www.kurzfilmtage.ch/) contacted me with this information:

“For the 15th edition, taking place from 9th of November till 13th, we are planing to present several programms of Short Movies from the African continent and I'm programming a special evening with the Theme "Heavy Metal" and thats where I would like to ask you if you could help me. First if you can recommend me any short movies from kenya, any genre and films with something to do with heavy metal (or near to this theme) from any country or even from kenya oder african continent.

Besides that, we also have an international competition at the festival. If you know filmmakers in Kenya feel free to ask them to reply at our festival.

If you have any films (less than 30 mins) released during the last two years, we'd be glad if you register for the competition on our website [http://kurzfilmtage.ch/default.aspx?ID1=26&ID2=43].

The International Short Film Festival Winterthur is Switzerland's largest and most important short film festival. The festival takes place each year in November. It is a popular audience event and an important platform for short films and professional exchange.

For detailed information visit our Webpage

http://www.kurzfilmtage.ch/ "