City of Metal: Helsinki

Lari, you are one lucky dude:



Has anyone of you guys been to a city/town which he would label as metal?

I watched the video. RANT AHEAD:

The store is called Yellow Icebreaker, not Yellow Submarine. My high school was a few blocks away, and I went to college 10 minutes away from it. Bought a lot of my collection from that very shop. My very first Skyclad CD. My first Iced Earth CD. It's not the best record store in town, but the location is convenient. Very nice owners. Always give a discount if you buy more than just one CD.

My favourite shop is Music Hunter. Excellent collection, even better service. They will hunt down rare albums for you. I don't know why he didn't go there, it's not such an impossible walk. They have massive amounts of rare OOP stuff on shelves. Used and sealed, autographed and imported, you name it. They know the value of every item though, so bring your credit card.

Back in the 90's the Spinefarm label official store was the best for metal. They had direct access to all the cool stuff, new and fresh, and would order anything that was metal.

Tavastia was shown there. A legendary venue. Been there dozens of times, can't remember my first time, maybe Amorphis late 90's. Stratovarius? Nosturi was shown in the video, being torn down. That is even more important to me personally. I went to college right next to it. Saw Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, Saxon... a lot of my all-time favourite bands there. Metal, women, beer, sex, everything. Sad to see it getting demolished. I think I spent New Year's Eve 2000 there. But they are moving to a different location, hopefully.

Gilbert wrote:

Lari, you are one lucky dude

Born and raised in Helsinki. Plenty of metal clubs, record stores and you can find a concert every night.

I moved to the suburbs once married and with kids. Still a walking distance from the border of the city proper. One mile.

One thing to be said about Finland and metal... it's not really underground. It's very accepted and not considered "dangerous" or anything like that. It's simply a form of music like any other. No stigma. It's a safe way to rebel for a teenager. So maybe for a foreigner it seems cool, but for a lot of locals it's... too mainstream? Not really the word I was looking for. But there's less of a brotherhood maybe compared to what I've seen elsewhere. If everybody likes something, it's not cool. You understand? Less connection, less of a community. You don't see another metalhead when you see someone with a Testament shirt. You think that's an ordinary dude/chick, who just might be a complete dick. A regular person. You're not special, nobody notices you. There is less of an instant bonding just because you like the same music. That's not what I've seen in Romania, for instance, when people come and talk to me if I'm out with an Iced Earth shirt, or Judas Priest, or Savatage. To a Finn, I would look like a regular bloke with a regular t-shirt. Nobody cares.

It loses its charm. Especially with pop music TV shows being overrun by heavy metal - a metal singer won the Finnish version of American Idol, doing Stratovarius, Iron Maiden and Scorpions songs. A Finnish metal band won the Eurovision song contest. The prime minister was there showing the devil horns with the band. How do you rebel listening to heavy metal in an environment like that? I think Marco Hietala said that if he was a teenager in today's Finland, he would probably not gravitate towards heavy metal.

Oversaturation is a danger.

But I don't care about all the extracurricular. At least not anymore. I like it for the music. Best music in the world. I can try other stuff, but I have to be true to myself - my love is heavy metal music. I don't have to follow trends at the age of 40, nor do I have to care about something being TOO popular either.

TLDR: Helsinki is pretty awesome for a metal fan. Clubs, goth metal chicks, live shows, record stores. Antisocial people.

I understand what you mean by oversaturation is a danger. But i'd rather take that over the complete absence of heavy metal and how hard/expensive it can get to hunt down metal albums.

That's it, i am moving to Helsinki.