Jump to content

Moshing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 164.116.132.6 (talk) at 17:17, 28 November 2007. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Audience members at a Dillinger Escape Plan concert moshing in front of the stage.
For other uses, see Moshing (disambiguation).

Moshing refers to the activity in which audience members fuck brady guttu at live music performances aggressively push or slam into each other. Moshing is frequently accompanied by stage diving, crowd surfing, and headbanging. While it is commonly associated with heavy metal, it also occurs at punk, hardcore, Dance, ska punk, and hard rock concerts.

Moshing primarily takes place at live shows, though it can be done to recorded music, too.[1] In the 2000s, many variations of moshing exist, such as "thrash"[2], and the dance is practiced at concerts of many musical genres. Moshing is typically done in an area in front or the stage which is referred to as the mosh pit or circle pit.

Moshing has drawn some controversy over its dangerous nature. However, it is generally agreed that moshers follow a "moshing etiquette"[2][3] which promotes safety through behaviors such as immediately helping audience members that have fallen back to their feet to avoid them being trampled.

History

Origins of the term

Darryl Jenifer and H.R. (Paul Hudson) of the Washington, D.C. area band Bad Brains, regarded as a band that "put moshing on the map"[4], were partly responsible for the coining the term. Due to their affected Jamaican-accented pronunciation of the word mash in their lyrics and stage banter, fans in D.C. heard this as mosh instead. [5]

During the emergence of the American hardcore scene, the dance was frequently spelled mash but pronounced mosh, as in the 1982 song "Total Mash" by the Washington D.C.-based hardcore group Scream. Later, the term began to appear in hardcore fanzines of the time with its current spelling.

Origins of the dance

A precursor to moshing, called "slamdancing", can be traced back to 1970s punk rock shows [2] in the form of "the pogo" and was later developed into moshing by the hardcore punk subculture of the early 80s. [6][3] While many use the terms slamdancing and moshing interchangeably, distinctions can be made between the two. [1] Moshing tends to consist more of just running into each other and pushing each other whereas slamdancing people run and flail their arms and/or legs.

Moshing is thought to have originated in Los Angeles, California during the first wave of American hardcore in the early eighties. Violence and physicality characterized aspects of the movement and were manifesting on the dancefloors of shows. Slamdancing began as an audience response to the bands of the L.A. scene such as Black Flag, Fear and The Circle Jerks, whose more rhythmic and heavy form of punk rock was being called "hardcore."

To match the intensity and aggressive nature of this new music, fans would move frantically and engage in stage diving. Beyond audience and band members slamming into one another and leaping from stages into the crowd, slamdancing was defined by "strutting around in a circle, swinging your arms around and hitting everyone within your reach."[7] This aspect of slamdancing was termed the "Huntington Beach Strut" (or "HB Strut") after the neighborhood of Orange County where it originated. Author Steven Blush writes of the HB Strut:

According to lore, Mike Marine, a former U.S. Marine and star of The Decline of Western Civilization, performed the first slamdance in 1979. Marine created a vicious version of punk dancing. He'd smash the fucking face of anyone who would get near him--especially some Hippie, who'd get pulverized.

Marine and others in the Huntington Beach and Long Beach areas invented this violent dance and soon exported it to the San Francisco and Bay Area scene, where pogoing was still the prevalent form of dance. From there, it spread to the East Coast scenes through national acts such as Bad Brains and other D.C. area natives such as Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye who witnessed the HB Strut while traveling. [8]

Because the early American hardcore scene gave way to and coexisted with the burgeoning crossover thrash scene, it, too, became defined in part by slamdancing.

Controversy and anti-moshing stances

File:No moshing.jpg
Some concert venues do not allow moshing. This notice at a Pearl Jam concert prohibits moshing and crowd surfing in the venue.

Some bands such as The Smashing Pumpkins have taken a stance against moshing. At a 1996 Smashing Pumpkins show in Dublin, 17 year old Bernadette O'Brien was crushed by moshing crowd members and later died in hospital despite warnings from the band that people were getting hurt.[9] Billy Corgan was heard at another time on stage saying on behalf of his band:[9]

I just want to say one thing to you, you young, college lughead-types. I've been watchin' people like you sluggin' around other people for seven years. And you know what? It's the same shit. I wish you'd understand that in an environment like this, and in a setting like this, it's fairly inappropriate and unfair to the rest of the people around you. I, and we, publicly take a stand against moshing!

On September 24, 2007, another fan died at a Smashing Pumpkins concert in Richmond, British Columbia in Canada. The man, aged 20, was dragged out of the mosh pit, unconscious, to be pronounced dead at St. Pauls' Hospital after first-aid specialist attempted to help him.[10][11][12]

In another incident, Jessica Michalik died of asphyxiation after being crushed in a mosh pit during the 2001 Australian Big Day Out music festival. The coroner's findings into her death criticized the crowd control measures in use at the time, and also criticised Limp Bizkit lead singer Fred Durst for "alarming and inflammatory" comments during the rescue effort.[13]

Cedric Bixler-Zavala of At the Drive-In had previously asked the Big Day Out audience to calm down and observe the safety rules. After the refusal of the crowd, Zavala told the crowd, "I think it's a really sad day when the only way you can express yourself is by slam-dancing!", followed by cries of, “You're a robot, you're a sheep!” and proceeded to baa like a sheep at the crowd several times before the band left the stage around 10 minutes into their set.[14]

Some other bands have expressed varied degrees of disapproval to mosh pits. Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater, in an interview published on his website, described mosh pits as a "problem", while expressing disapproving indifference:

I think our audience have become a little bit more attentive and less of that type of [mosh] mentality [...] I understand you want to release that energy... [but] once people start doing that during Through Her Eyes it gets ridiculous [...] So this time around we're consciously aiming at theaters that people can actually sit down and enjoy the show and be conformable [...] without having to worry about their legs falling off or being kicked in the face by a Mosh Pit. So [that] will probably eliminate that problem anyway.

Moshing is seen or spoken of in various media. The dance is mentioned in a large number of songs by many acts, even directly in the song title as seen in "Caught in a Mosh" by Anthrax and "Thank You For Not Moshing" (Originally "In The Pit") by Reel Big Fish.

Moshing has appeared in cartoons and television series such as South Park[15], Futurama[16], Mighty Moshin' Emo Rangers and The Awful Truth[17] as well as in video games such as World of Warcraft[18] and Mario Party 8[19]. In the WWE, superstars Mosh and Thrasher named their tag-team "The Headbangers" and had finishing moves such as the "Stage dive" and "Mosh pit".

References

  1. ^ a b Tsitsos, William (1999) Rules of Rebellion: Slamdancing, Moshing, and the American Alternative Scene Popular Music, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 397-414
  2. ^ a b c Nussbacher, Mike (2004) A Survivor’s Guide To The Mosh Pit. YPP.
  3. ^ a b Sacahroff, Reaz (1996) Music: Pit Etiquette. Tucson Weekly.
  4. ^ "Bad Brains biography". From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. Rolling Stone. 2004. Retrieved 2007-05-14.
  5. ^ "Bad Brains - History". peacedogman.com. 2002. Retrieved 2007-05-14.
  6. ^ Irvine, Martha (1996) Moshing Exciting but dangerous. Associated Press. at rockmed.org
  7. ^ Blush, Steven (2001). American Hardcore: A Tribal History.
  8. ^ Rachman, Paul (2006). American Hardcore: The History of American Punk Rock 1980-1986.
  9. ^ a b "Fan Crushed at Smashing Pumpkin's Show". MTV.com. 1996. Retrieved 2006-06-23.
  10. ^ "Man dies in Smashing Pumpkins mosh pit". yahoo.ca. 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-27.
  11. ^ "Man Dies After 'Crowd-Surfing' At SMASHING PUMPKINS Show". BLABBERMOUTH.NET. 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-27.
  12. ^ "B.C. man dies after crowd-surfing at rock show". cbc.ca. 2007. Retrieved 2007-09-27.
  13. ^ Weir, Ian (2002-11-8). "Findings and Recommendations by the Coronial Inquest into the Death of Jessica Michalik" (PDF). Venue and Event Management Services Pty Ltd. Retrieved 2007-03-14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  14. ^ [1] At the Drive-In at Big Day Out, 2001
  15. ^ "Clubhouses", South Park. Original airdate September 23, 1998. The character Kenny dies in a mosh pit at a party.
  16. ^ "Hell Is Other Robots", Futurama. Original airdate May 18, 1999. Moshing to the song "Super Disco Breakin" is featured when Fry, Bender and Leela enter a mosh pit at a Beastie Boys concert.
  17. ^ filmmaker Michael Moore attempts to get a presidential candidate of the 2000 primary elections to jump into a traveling mosh pit, with music by Rage Against the Machine.
  18. ^ World of Warcraft - Dancing - the undead male character model headbangs/moshes for its dance animation
  19. ^ The videogame features a mini game called "Mosh Pit".

See also
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moshing&oldid=174404598"