Gesturing Elsewhere the Identity Politics of the Balinese DeathThrash Metal Scene

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Gesturing Elsewhere: The Identity Politics of the Balinese Death/Thrash Metal SceneAuthor(s): Emma Baulch

Source: Popular Music, Vol. 22, No. 2 (May, 2003), pp. 195-215Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3877610Accessed: 21-12-2015 14:51 UTC

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2/22

Popular

Music

(2003)

Volume

22/2

Copyright

?

2003

Cambridge University

Press,

pp

195-215

DOI 10

1017/S026114300300312X

Printed

in

the

United

Kingdom

Gesturing

elsewhere t h

identity

politics

o

t h

a l inese

d e a t h

t h r a s h m e t l s c e n e

EMMA

BAULCH

Abstract

Thisessayexploreshepolitical ignificance f Balinese eath/thrashandom. n theearly1990s,the

emergence

f

a

death/thrash

cene

n Bali

paralleledrowing

criticism

of

acceleratedourism

develop-

ment on the island.

Specifically,

ocals

protested

he

increasing biquity f

Jakarta,

the

centre',

ast

as

threatening

o

an

authentically

low',

peripheral

alinese ulture.

Similarly,

eath/thrash

nthusi-

asts also

gravitated

oward ertain

fringes,although heyrejected

ominant otions

of

Balinese-ness

by gesturing

elsewhere,

oward

a

global

scene.

The

essay

explores

he

ways

in which

death/thrash

enthusiasts

engaged

with localdiscourses

by coveting

heir

marginality,

nd aimsto demonstrateow

theirarticulations

of

'alien-ness' ontributed

n

important ays

to a broader

regionalism.

Introduction

Throughout

the

1990s,

death

metal bands formed an

important part

of the Balinese

band

scene,

as became

publicly

evident

in

the mid-1990s when the island's first

regular,

pan-genre gig, Sunday

Hot Music

(SHM),

was established.

In

1994 and

1995,

SHM ran over four consecutive

Sundays

in

the month of

May. By

1996,

owing

to

increasing

numbers of bands

applying

to

perform

at

the

event,

SHM went

biweekly,

and

every

second

Sunday

it

showcased

a

varied

line-up

that included

reggae,

death

metal,

punk,

alternative,

and

Top

40 covers bands.

In

1996,

death metal

performances

at SHM were notable for the

pro-active

audience

responses they inspired.

Unlike the dumbstruck motionlessness that

greeted

Balinese

punk

bands,

death metal

performances

were

celebrated

by

scores

of

headbangers

who, bent over like a

rugby

scrum,

surged

and receded,

whirling

their black manes.

Certainly,

the two

genres

had roots

in

distinct

places.

Balinese

punk

was

spawned by

the

opening

of the Indonesian

recording industry

to invest-

ment

by

multinational

recording

labels

in

1994,1

and the

subsequent popularisation

of the US-based alternative scene. This was

considerably

aided

by

MTV's extended

global

reach and the

inclusion,

in

the

mid-1990s,

of

MTV Asia

in

commercial station

ANTeve's

daily programming.2

The Balinese

death metal

scene, meanwhile,

predated

the advent of

MTV

Asia

on the island. Fed

by

a

global

extreme metal

underground,

notable for its absence

on

MTV,

a death metal fandom

emerged

in

Bali as

early

as 1990. Over the course

of the 1990s, the scene was characterised by a series of discursive shifts, but it also

contained elements of

consistency.

For

example,

there

was an

enduring

stress on

archival

knowledge,

which enthusiasts

fetishised,

thus

revealing

their desire to hold

195

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/22

196

Emma Baulch

to

certainty

and known

truth.

For

this,

it was outwards to the

global

scene

that

they

looked,

as

if into a

mirror,

eager

to

get

a

fix

on their true

(onstage)

selves.

Although

death

metal

musicians

privileged

an

'unseen'

global

underground

over

present,

local

repertoires,

local texts

also served

as

important

indigenising

addenda.

Commonly,

locals

lay

claim

to

dominant cultural forms

by hybridising

them,

often

by

melding

'traditional'

sounds

with

foreign

musical

codes

(Lent

1995,

p.

5;

Appadurai

1996,

p.

7;

Lakha

1999,

p.

261).

Significantly,

however,

Balinese

death metal

musicians

did not

indigenise

the

genre

in

this fashion.

Rather,

it became

rooted to the

locale

by

way

of

'strategic

anti-essentialism'

(Lipsitz

1994),

by

which

the

death/thrashers'

gestures

elsewhere served

to

accentuate the conditions

of their

oppression

in

the

locale.

The

period

covered

by

this

essay,

1990-4,

parallels

the

emergence

of a

regionalist

discourse

in

Bali

which contested

accelerated

tourism

development

on

the island

(Warren

1994;

1998).3

It

also

parallels

the

popularisation

of

reggae,

com-

monly

identified with the

tourism

industry,

at

community-based gigs.

Balinese

death thrashers

echoed a

broader

regionalist

discourse

by fetishising

their mar-

ginality

in

opposition

to

reggae's

overwhelming popularity.

In

this

way,

the death

thrashers contested tourism

in

a

stylised

and

performative

fashion,

for

their

pos-

tures,

dress

and

dance

styles

strikingly

contrasted those

of

the

reggae

enthusiasts.

By alluding

to

local narratives

concerning

an illicit

underworld,

the death

thrashers

effected a form of

dread

(Hebdige

1973,

p.

11).

However,

whilst

they

contested

tourism

in this

stylised

fashion,

they

also

averted the

essentialising

tendencies

of

the

tourism

industry's

ideology

of market

'logic'.

Warren also

notes

(1998,

p.

94)

the

essentialising

tendencies

of a broader

regionalist

discourse,

which

'tends

toward

a

binary positioning

antitethic

to

the carnival-subversive

attitude of

popular

taste.'

In this

regard,

the

politics

of death/thrash fandom differed from the broader

regionalist

discourse. As

I

demonstrate

below,

death metal enthusiasts

refrained

from articulations

of

identity

which were

clearly

at

odds

with

the official

youth

ideal.

They

preferred

ambiguous,

affective modes

of

resistance,

and steered

well

away

from

the

binary positioning

Warren describes. For

example, by

orienting

themselves towards a

global

elsewhere,

they

conflated

established dichotomies

such

as

masquerade/essence,

East/West,

and

retained

carnivalesque

modes

of resist-

ance.

Territorialising the global scene

Denpasar's

death

metal scene had its roots

in

a radio

programme,

called

1921

in

reference to

its

twice-weekly

slot

(19

hrs-21

hrs,

every Saturday

and

Sunday),

and

broadcast

on

a

local

community

radio

station,

Radio Yudha.

Begun

in

the

late 1980s

as a

heavy

metal

show,

following

the

developing

tastes

of its announcer

Agus

Yanky,

and

many

of its

listeners,

1921

gradually

became dedicated to

thrash

metal,

and

following

that death

metal,

before

it was wound

up

in

1994.

As

Agus Yanky

(interview,

6

February

1998)

recalled,

when 1921

broadcast

songs by

thrash metal

bands

such

as

Megadeth,

Kreator,

Slayer

and

Metallica,

a

disparate, Denpasar-based

thrash fandom was unearthed.

This unearthing took place as increasing numbers of enthusiasts responded to

the new show

by

visiting

the studio at the

time of the

broadcasts.

In

this

way,

1921

did not

merely

link

otherwise

disparate

listeners

in

the manner of a

cyber

chat

room,

e-mail discussion list or subscriber-based

community

radio,

but

operated

as



4/22

Gesturing

elsewhere

197

a call to

prayer,

sucking

disparate

enthusiasts

from

family

compounds

scattered

all

over

Denpasar,

and

bringing

them

together

in

a

space

in

which

fixity

was achieved

through tape swapping,

information

exchange,

the

production

of

self-designed

black

tee shirts and

the

kind of

uniquely

Balinese

drinking

rituals

that serve to

knit

male

solidarity.4 It was

thus that a

death/thrash

fandom became

territorialised.

This attests

to the

importance

of

face

to face

interaction,

and

particularly

of

drinking

sessions,

in

the

way

in

which

products

of a

global

scene were

consumed

and

reproduced

in

Bali -

a

theme

which

later

emerged

among

Balinese

punks

(Baulch

2002B).

For

example,

that

enthusiasts

primarily

saw Radio

Yudha

as

a terri-

tory

rather than

a form of

media is evident from these

comments:

There was

a

radio

program

that

played

thrash

metal. We used to

hang

out

there,

and

after

a while all

of

us

had

formed

into

bands.

People

came there one

by

one,

after

hearing

the

show.

By

the time

we

left

the

place

would be

a

mess

because we would drink there. There

would

be

peanut

shells

strewn

around

everywhere.

(Moel

[Eternal

Madness]

and Hendra

[Epilepsy])

We

got

to know

each

other at

1921. At

Radio

Yudha,

we would

gather

there.

Talk

about

music,

exchange tapes. Pretty

soon,

we

had formed our

own band.

(Behead)

We

all

met

at Yudha. That's what

united

us,

1921. It

didn't

matter

where

you

came from.

It

just

matteredthat

you

liked

the music.

(Dek Ben)

The

importance

of

territory

was affirmed

by

the

way

in

which death

metal

enthusiasts

began

to

stake out

public

and

bodily

spaces

for the

display

of

symbols

of

death/thrash

fandom

once

they

had established

the Yudha

studio as

a

home

territory.

The

role

of the

Radio Yudha

hangout

in the

embodiment

of

death/thrash

fandom echoes

Hetherington's

(1998B,

p.

329)

observations

concerning

the

relation-

ship between space and youth identities:

The

history

of

youth

culture,

whether that be

spectacular

ubcultures

or

more

ordinary

and

conformist

practices,

has

always

had

an

element of

making space

for

oneself,

of

creating

a

turf and

finding

one's

place,

often

on the

margins

of

society

...

where

issues of inclusion and

exclusion can be

determined

by

establishingcategories

of

belonging

and

group

identification.

Categories

of

belonging

and

group

identification were

established

at Radio

Yudha when the

people

who

gathered

there

began

to

adopt

the

universal death

metal

aesthetic,

and

to

perform

this aesthetic

in a

public

arena. It was

by

way

of

this

uniform that the

genre

exhibited

itself

in

local

spaces.

The embodiment of death

metal

began

at

the

Radio Yudha studios with the

making

of tee

shirts which eventu-

ally covered the death/thrash mob in a uniform blackness. These tee shirts were

emblazoned with the

names

of

death

metal and thrash

bands,

unmistakeable for

their

illegibility,

thus

drawing

attention to the

practice's

desire

to

veil

literal mean-

ing

in

mystery.

The tee

shirts

served as

'performative vocabulary'

(Bell

and Valen-

tine

1995,

p.

143),

for

they

were worn as the death

thrashers

began

to extend

out

from their

'home

territory'

(Lyman

and

Scott

1989)

at Radio Yudha

to

stage

exhi-

bitions in more

public

arenas,

such

as

the

Kumbasari market and the

cassette

store,

Istana

Musik,

both located in

central

Denpasar.

Enthusiasts'

recollections are

particularly

revealing

of

the

significance

of this

performative vocabulary.

That black tee shirts

were meant

to demonstrate

pride

in

a marginal status is evident in Age's recollection of how, in the years between 1990

and

1994,

'others would be in their

trendy get-ups,

we'd be different. We'd wear

all black with holes

in

our clothes ... We didn't

care,

we'd come

together

en

masse,

ride

around

in

convoys,

en masse.

Maybe

it

was

a

kind

of

exhibition,

to show

that



5/22

198

Emma Baulch

we

were a

community'.

Indeed,

1921's Pied

Piper-like

capacity

to

pull disparate

listeners from

their

respective

solaces

to

a

snug,

communal home

territory suggests

a

common sense of

isolation,

and

it

may

not be

surprising

that

death/thrash

dress

style

was

primarily

a validation of difference and

marginality.

This

marginality

was

at

once

imposed

and

orchestrated. Unlike the

reggae, Top

40 and classic hits cover

bands,

many

of

which

had

contracts with hotels or tourist

bars,

thrash and death

metal bands had

no

such career

prospects,

and were

expressly

excluded from tour-

ism venues. For

example,

in

1992,

a

regular weekly

gig

was established

for

local

bands at

a

newly-built amphitheatre

in

the Nusa Dua hotel

complex

on

the

island's

southern

peninsula.

Two bands from the local thrash

metal

scene,

Slayer

cover

band,

Separatis,

and

Sacred Reich

cover

band,

Epilepsy,

were invited to

play

at the

inaugural

gig.

Not until

after

their

performances,

however,

did

the

organisers

become aware

that

they

were thrash metal

cover

bands

and,

consequently,

both

were

barred

from

future events.

As

Agus

Yanky

(6

February

1998)

recalled,

'they

didn't

get

hired

again

because their music

was

too

hard,

the

organisers

said'.

A

further sense of

marginality

was

imposed

as a result of

death/thrash

bands'

reliance

on

the double

pedal

which beats the bass

drum in

quick

succession.5

Because none

of

the

practice

studios on

the

island were

equipped

with

double

pedals,

the

death

metal musicians

had

to

supply

their

own,

and

the two

dozen-odd

drummers who

played

in

death metal bands

in

the

early-

to mid-1990s shared a

single

double

pedal.

The

scarcity

of this

necessary

piece

of

equipment

enhanced the

death metal musicians' sense of

marginality,

and made the need for interaction and

exchange among

them ever more

acute.

There aren't

enough

facilities here.

To

practice

we need

a

double

pedal.

That

often

makes

it

difficult for us. (Behead)

Of course the difficult

thing

about

playing

death metal is the double

pedal.

You can learn

it,

but it's difficult. (Arwah)

For

their

part,

death metal enthusiasts offered

the

defence

of

priding

them-

selves

on their

marginal

status,

supporting

Weinstein's

(1991,

p.

117)

assertion

that

'the

metal subculture follows black and

Chicano

movements

in

making

a

strong

sense of

negative marginality

a

badge

of

honour'.

But more than

simply

a

badge

of

pride,

death/thrash

marginality

was

increasingly

fetishised as

the

Balinese scene's

access

to a

global,

extreme metal

underground

broadened. This became evident as

the scene

constantly

shed commercialised

forms

as

a

way

of

averting

recuperation.

According

to Ari, bassist for death metal band Phobia, 'when Phobia was formed

in 1993

there were

many

death and thrash metal bands.

People

were bored

with

heavy

metal

-

before that Halloween

and Iron

Maiden had been

big.

We

wanted

something

more

climactic,

something

really, really

hard'.

After

their Indonesian concerts

and the

mass enthusiasm

they

generated,

Bali-

nese enthusiasts

also

came

to

see

Sepultura

and Metallica fandom as

instances

of

inauthenticity. Agus Yanky

(6

February

1998)

remembered how

When

thrash

was

all

the

rage,

like

Metallica,

Anthrax,

we

wanted

to

do

something

different.

Indeed

it

was we

who

popularised

the likes of

Anthrax

and Sacred

Reich,

and then

when

a

lot of

people began

to

copy

the

style

and

play Sepultura

t becamekind of

trendy

and we

startedplaying grindcore.

Similarly,

Dek Ben

claimed

the

genre's

absence on television as a source of

pride:

Death

metal

has a

very

specialised appeal.

All

of

us,

including

death

metal

enthusiasts rom



6/22

Gesturing

elsewhere

199

the

West,

feel that

only

a

certain

kind

of

person

can

enjoy

this

music. That's

why

it's

part

of

the

underground,you

can't

see

it

but it

has a

vast

network,

it

receives a

lot of

information

from outside but

it's

invisible,

you

can't see it on TV.

Community,

then,

was

performed

by

means of

a

uniform aesthetic

-

a

'per-

formative

vocabulary'

which served as both 'a

marking

of difference

(from

hetero-

sexual

hegemonies)

and as the

marking

of

sameness

(creating

a

cohesive

group

identity

essential

for

the

formation

of

recognisable

"communities"

and so

on)'

(Bell

and

Valentine

1995,

p.

143).

But

death

metal's

performative vocabulary

does not

automatically qualify

it

as an

instance of

the

genre's indigenisation.

Whilst

death

metal enthusiasts were

eager

to

identify

the

genre

as

oppositional

and

marginal,

use of

terms

such

as

'underground'

and

'anti-trendy'

did not differentiate

the

Bali-

nese version

from the

global

extreme metal

scene.

Indeed,

and

in

spite

of

its

terri-

torial

bent,

the

Balinese

scene

seemed

preoccupied

with an

elsewhere,

as became

evident

in

its

hierarchies

of

authenticity

which

gestured

towards a

global

scene.

Before

expanding

on

this

point,

I

offer a

brief review of

the

existing

literature

on

various

forms of

metal,

and establish some

aspects

of the Balinese

scene's

unique-

ness,

due to its

specific

historical context.

Blue collar backlash?

For the

most

part,

this literature

is

located

in

the context of metal's

demonisation

in

the

US. As a

result,

it

is

primarily

concerned

with

demonstrating

that

metal,

too,

has

its

own

codes

of

morality

or,

alternatively,

attributing

its

emergence

to societal

failures

(Epstein

and

Pratto

1990;

Weinstein

1991;

Walser

1993;

Harrell

1994;

Arnett

1995;

Roccor

2000).

Following

Weinstein's

(1991,

pp.

13,

107)

argument

that

'heavy

metal was born amidst the ashes of a failed revolution' and that 'the ...

fragmen-

tations

(of

the

1960s counterculture

in

1968)

was the environment

in

which

the

metal subculture

surfaced',

Harrell

(1994,

p.

97)

asserts that:

Clearly,

death

metal

presents

a

consistent moral

standardto its

audience,

a

standard

argely

inherited

from

the sixties'

counterculture,

but

with

a

unique

twist

... Death

metal

rockers

say

the

appeal

of

their music is

its

anger.

Ratherthan

naively calling

for

utopian

peace,

it

speaks

to the

frustrations

elt

by young people

as

they

struggle against

the

inherent

weak-

nesses of

institutional,

highly

managed

societies.

But

Harrell's characterisation of American

death

metal as the

'unofficial

expression

of

industrialism's emotional isolation and

violence'

does

not

ring

true for

the

Bali-

nese scene, which did not pose a pessimistic and slurring addendum to a hopeful

1960s

counterculture,

for

Balinese death thrashers

were

most

optimistic

about

the

prospects

of

their

participation

in

global

capitalism.

There

may

be two

reasons

for

this.

Firstly,

unlike

Weinstein's

(1991,

p.

115)

heavy

metal,

the Balinese

death/thrash

scene was not

'steeped

in

blue collar ethos'.

Nor were the

death thrashers

people

who found

'an

ideological

home

in

nostalgic

utopia

as a

response

to

declining

econ-

omic

opportunities'

as were Weinstein's

(1991,

p.

110)

heavy

metal

fans.

The

enthusiasts

cited here were

distinctly

bourgeois,

and

for the

majority

of

them,

the

future

seemed

relatively

bright.

Most of them

were

university

students

whose

par-

ents had

helped

them to

buy guitars

and

approved

of their

music-related

'hobby'.

But neither was metal exclusively the property of a bourgeois or 'new rich'

class in Indonesia. It

frequently

served as a site of

class

struggle,

and

death

and

thrash

metal

enjoyed

popularity among

workers and

bourgeoisie

alike. When

I

met

Dede in

1996,

he was

living

in a

luxury housing

estate

in

Yogyakarta.

He

purchased



7/22

200 Emma Baulch

via mail order

many

of the cassettes which were

subsequently

copied,

recopied

and

circulated

in

the Balinese

scene.

However,

many

of the death metal albums

that

could

be

bought

from ad hoc roadside

stalls

in

Surabaya

had been

brought

into the

country

by

Javanese

migrant

workers

returning

home from

Malaysia,

where eso-

teric death and thrash metal titles

were

more

easily

accessible.

Domestically,

this

music also fed a

working

class fandom.

In

Bali,

for

example, Sepultura

fandom

was

rife

among

Javanese

construction

workers on

the

island,

suggesting

that

workers

may

have also

played

a

significant

role

in

the transmission of death metal

to Bali.

Unlike

Balinese

punk,

which was

sparked by

the concomitant state

deregulatory

policies

and

rising cosmopolitanism among

'new

rich' Indonesian

youth,

the

emerg-

ence of a

death/thrash

fandom was therefore neither

totally

reliant on

government

policy

nor

on

the

growth

of

a

metropolitan bourgeoisie.

Nor was the Balinese scene born from the failure of a 1960s counterculture.

In

1968,

rather than

hopefully

anticipating progressive change,

Bali

was embroiled

in

a violent

counter-revolution.

By

the time American

youth

were

flowing

into

Haight-

Ashbury

to celebrate the Summer of

Love,

an estimated tens of thousands of

people

had been killed on the island

during

the

1966-8 holocaust which marked the

tran-

sition from the

regime

of Sukarno to Suharto's

'New Order'

(Cribb 1990).

When a death

metal scene

emerged

in

Bali

in

the

early

1990s,

this authori-

tarian,

order-obsessed

regime

had been

in

power

for

twenty-five

years.

In

the

few

accounts of the

emergence

of alternative

and

underground

music scenes

in the final

years

of Indonesia's New Order

regime,

these

practices

have

been

described

as

oppositional

and resistant. For

example,

Pickles

(2001,

p.

62)

describes Indonesian

punk

collectives as 'a mirror

opposition

to the

hierarchical, centralised,

bureaucratic

Indonesian state'. As

I

shall

argue

below,

the Balinese death thrashers did not

resist

in this 'mirror

image'

fashion. In

fact,

and

especially

in the

early

1990s,

they

tended

self-consciously

to

obscure

any aspect

of the

practice

which

may

have been

con-

strued as

'oppositional',

or antithetical to official discourses of

identity.

Their

modes

of resistance were much more

ambiguous

-

a fact which rendered them almost

irrepressible.

Such

ambiguity

becomes evident

in

the death-thrashers' hierarchies

of

authenticity,

which

gestured

elsewhere.

Harris'

(2000)

essay,

one of the few

scholarly writings

on death

metal,

is

more

aptly applied

to the current

study

than

any

of the above-cited studies of

heavy

metal. He

explores

the

implications

of Brazilian

death metal band

Sepultura's

career

for the

way

in

which the local is maintained

within

global

scenes,

and

characterises

the global extreme metal scene as a 'flexible, loose kind of space', which

...

began

to be circulated

through

etter

writing, tape trading,recordings

on small labels and

fanzines.

From a

very early stage

'The

Underground'

..

was

always highly

decentralised.

Many

of its

recipients

never met

anybody

from it face to face and it was never relianton local

scenes.

Moreover,

bands from countriesoutside

of the traditional

Anglo-American

core'

of

the

recording industry

were influential

in

its

development, including places

as diverse as

Chile,

Malaysia

and Israel.

(Harris

2000,

p.

14)

There are some

aspects

of

the Balinese scene which accord

with

Harris' charac-

terisation.

In

the first half of the

1990s,

the sources

supplying

the Balinese

death/

thrash scene

with

albums were

many

and

varied,

and attest to the decentralised

nature of the global extreme metal scene Harris describes. Initially, in the late 1980s,

the Balinese

death/thrash

scene's links to a

global

underground

were via Indone-

sian

commercial

distributors such as Indosemar Sakti and Suara Sentral

Sejati

which

distributed

albums on

underground

labels Nuclear Blast and

Earache,

respectively.



8/22

Gesturing

elsewhere 201

It

was

via

these

distributors that

much of

the thrash

music that

supplied

the

Bali-

nese scene

reached

Denpasar-based

cassette

store,

Istana

Musik,

and

Agus

Yanky,

who

had a

contract

with

Indosemar Sakti

to

promote

their new

releases on his

show.

In

the

early

1990s

the

Denpasar

scene became more

directly

linked

to

the

global

extreme

metal

underground

when

the

show attracted the attention

of

a

Surabaya-based

death metal

merchandiser

Nia,

who

heard

it while

holidaying

on

the

island.

Subsequently,

Nia

visited the

studio,

met

Agus Yanky

and offered

to

share

a

range

of

her own

material,

obtained via

mail

order from a

Malaysia-

based

distributor,

VSP. On her return

to

Surabaya,

Nia

began regularly supplying

Agus Yanky

with

pirated

albums 'from

Nuclear Assault

and

other labels

you

couldn't

get

in

Bali'

(Agus Yanky,

6

February

1998).

Eventually,

the Balinese

fans

solicited the

help

of a

well-financed

fellow

enthusiast, Dede,

in

purchasing

albums direct

from

VSP's

catalogue,

and

making

them

available

for local enthusi-

asts to

copy.

All three sources

obtained

their

cassettes from

the mail order

catalogues,

which

linked

disparate

scenes all over

the

world to a

global

under-

ground.

The

diffuse nature of the

global

extreme

metal

scene

which fed

Balinese

youths'

enthusiasm for death metal

supports

Harris'

suggestion

that

it

was not

reliant on

an

Anglo-American

core.

Specifically,

that the

global

extreme metal

underground

reached

Bali,

seemingly

via

regional

and national

underground

cores

in

Malaysia

and

Surabaya,

is

testimony

to

Harris'

(2000,

p.

20)

thesis

that the

global

extreme metal

scene

was a

'truly

global

space,

within

which location

was

musically

and

institutionally unimportant'.

To

the Balinese

enthusiasts, too,

in the

early

1990s,

location

did

seem to

be

musically

unimportant.

But

Harris describes how this situ-

ation

gradually

changed

over the course of the

early

1990s, as

Sepultura

increas-

ingly

attended

to

Brazilian

issues,

and the Balinese death

metal

bands did not

follow

Sepultura

as

the band

increasingly

attended to

'locality'.

Unlike

Sepultura's

Chaos

AD

(1993)

and

Roots

(1996)

albums

which contain

a

number of

tracks

in

Portu-

guese,

Balinese death

metal

musicians started their careers as cover bands and

always sang

in

English.6

Challenging

Harris'

contention

that scene

members

across the

globe

interacted

on an

equal

basis,

the flow of death and thrash metal cultural

products

to Bali was

decidedly one-way.

The Balinese enthusiasts' relative

inequality

was accentuated

by

a

poorly

valued

rupiah.

If

it

had not

been for

widespread pirating,

the vast

majority of fans would never have been able to afford any of the albums that were

circulating

the scene

in the

early

1990s.

Moreover,

the

political implications

of metal

fans'

demonic status

within the

official

Indonesian discourse

also

suggest

that

inter-

national

equality

is

a

myth,

for

national fandoms

engage

with

discursive contexts

that are

unique

to each locale.

The

way

in

which Indonesian

people incorporated

universal

metal

symbolog-

ies into local discourses became evident

in the

election

campaign

of 1992. In

that

year,

supporters

of

the

PDI

(Partai

Demokrasi Indonesia:

Indonesian

Democracy

Party)

claimed the

universal metal

symbol

(fist

raised,

thumb,

forefinger

and

pinkie

extended,

other

fingers

clenched

in

an

approximation

of

devil

horns)

as

a

show of

support for the party. The associations between metal symbology and the PDI were

to some

degree

coincidental,

but

they

also

highlight

the

importance

of

punning

and

word

play

in

strategies

of

resistance and

critique during

the New

Order

period.

Firstly,

as a

symbol

of

support

for the

PDI,

metal's devil horns were transformed



9/22

202 Emma Baulch

into those of the buffalo

-

the

party's symbol.

Secondly,

the associated battle

cry

'metal'

was meant

as an

acronym

for merah

total

(totally

red)

-

red

being

the

colour that

distinguished

the

PDI

from the

yellow

of

ruling party

GOLKAR

and the

green

of

Muslim-aligned

PPP

(Partai

Persatuan

Pembangunan:

United

Development Party). Thirdly, the three raised fingers signaled the PDI's order

on the ballot.

In

1992,

the

metal

salute

thus evoked the red

buffalo,

and not

Satanism

-

a

transformation

generated by supporters

of

the PDI who embraced

the

party's

defiant

populism.7

In

1993,

riots took

place

when US thrash

band, Metallica,

performed

in

Jakarta.

The dominant

analysis reported

in

the Indonesian media was that

the

riots,

in

which

fans who could not afford tickets

to the concerts

destroyed luxury

items

and

prop-

erty

in

an elite

quarter

of the

capital,

resulted from

a

growing

rich-poor

gap.8

In

the

truly

oblique style

demanded of the

press

in

the New Order

period,

Tempo

(1993,

p.

22),

noted the local connotations of Metallica's

popularity

among

Jakartan

youth: 'Many of those attending the concert were well familiar with the metal

symbol

Metallica

displayed

as a

way

of

communicating

with their

fans,

for it was

adopted by

one

of

the

political parties

as a

symbol

of their

campaign

(in

the last

election)'.

The official

response,

however,

viewed the riots

in

law and order terms

(Thompson

1993).

Blaming

them

on

'irresponsible

gangsters',

the

government

ref-

used to issue

permits

for rock

performances

for over

a

year.9

In

the official

discourse, therefore,

demonic metal fans were

aligned

to unlaw-

ful,

well-organised preman (gangsters),

who

provided

an antithesis to

the

officially

idealised

patriotic,

well-educated

youth. Notably, seeking

a

scapegoat

for

increasing

rates of crime

in

the

early

1980s,

the

military

conducted

an

operation

aimed at the

elimination of alleged gangsters, supposedly identifiable by their tattooed bodies.

As the

military initially

concealed

its role

in

the

killings,

the

operation

was

popu-

larly

dubbed Petrus

(penembakan

misterius:

mysterious

killings),

and

it

resulted

in

the execution

of between five and ten thousand

people

(Bourchier

1990,

p.

193).

The

link between tattoos and

criminality re-emerged

in

the official

interpretation

of riots

which occurred at the Metallica concert

in

Jakarta.

As

Thompson

(1993,

p.

6)

observes,

unlike the

media

reports

in

which the riots were cast as a

consequence

of

a

growing rich-poor gap,

in the official

response,

'the

causes of the disturbance

were

put

down to the

criminality

of

...

"people

whose bodies are covered

with

tattoos

and who do not own

identity

cards"',

thus

cementing

the official link

between the premanand thrash metal fandom."1

The

political

implications

of metal fandom

in

Indonesia therefore demonstrate

the

institutional,

if

not

musical,

importance

of

location,

and

suggest

that the Bali-

nese scene

may

offer a different

spin

on the

way

in

which

locality

is maintained

within

global

and diffuse scenes to the

example Sepultura provides.

If

Sepultura's

repertoire

became

increasingly

'Brazilian'

as the band moved

away

from

that

country,

the Balinese enthusiasts remained

on the island where

knowledge

of a

global

scene,

and not the creation of

an

original repertoire,

was a

primary

source

of

authenticity.

Rather than

following Sepultura's example

of

lyrical

and

linguistic

indigenisation, they

moulded this

global

repertoire

into a form of 'localness'

by

using it to illuminate and accentuate the ways in which they were marginalised

from tourism.

In

this,

the

death/thrash

fandom resounded

with a broader

regionalist

discourse which

began

to

emerge

in

the

early

1990s,

contesting

acceler-

ated

tourism

development

on the island

(Warren

1994,

1998).



10/22

Gesturing

elsewhere 203

Gesturing

elsewhere

In

line with the

equality

conveyed

by

the

death/thrashers'

uniform

aesthetic,

tan-

gible

resources were

relatively

equally

distributed

-

album

fetishisation

was

scorned,

as

was that of

guitars. Ensuring equal

distribution of

cassettes,

and

dis-

couraging individuals from amassing personal collections, was indeed one of the

functions of the

gatherings

at

Radio

Yudha. As

Moel

recalled,

after the

scene

extended its

links to

Malaysia,

enthusiasts

formed

a

death metal

organisation

to

help

formalise

distribution

channels:

We used

to

gather

at the studio and

make

tee shirts

...

Then,

a

friend

from

Malaysia

came

to

visit.

In

Malaysia,

they

had a

[death metal]

organisation

o maximise access to the infor-

mation

they

received. To

prevent

individual

people

from

amassing

personal

collections,

we

also formed a death metal

organisation.

But

maintaining

a

coherent deviance

requires

at

once

exclusion

and

unity,

and

whilst

tangible

resources

appear

to have been

shared,

intangible

ones became

the

basis

for

exclusion

and

hierarchy.

In this

way,

rather

than

being revealing

of

mean-

ing,

sartorial

aspects

masked

politically significant

modes of

distinction

within the

scene. For

example, contrary

to Straw's

assertion

that

'to

be a

metal fan

... dis-

sociates

masculinity

from

being good

at

archival

learning'

(1997,

p.

368),

power

and

seniority

within the Balinese

scene

were based on

virtuosity

and archival knowl-

edge.

In this

way,

the scene

actively

sought

to

maintain

a

marginal

status

by

employing exclusionary

tactics.

This

hierarchy

of archival

knowledge

and

virtuosity among

Balinese

death

thrashers was

bolstered

by

the

increasing

volume

of

material to enter the scene

as

its access to

the

global

extreme metal

underground

broadened.

Thus,

the

predomi-

nance of cover bands in the

early-

and mid-1990s was due to their role as a realm

for

necessary

skill

enhancement and

a rite of

passage,

for

newly

formed

bands

who

attempted

originals

were scorned as

upstarts.

For

death/thrash

enthusiasts,

therefore,

authenticity appeared

to

lay

in

an absent

elsewhere

which could

only

be

reached

by

diligently rehearsing foreign repertoires.

In

this

quest,

the

present

and

the locale became

secondary

concerns,

as the authentic self

was

determined

by

an

absent truth.

I

hate to see

people

starting

new

bands

just

because

they

want

to

show

off,

not because

they

are

particularly

nterested

in

music.

They

want to look

tough,

cool,

and

only play

death

metal

because

they

think

it's

trendy.

...

It

takes a

long

time to write a

song.

It's

not as

easy

as

people

think.

If

they just

write

their own

songs straight

off the

bat

without

going

through

the

initial

steps,

they

have no

hold

on

an

overridingconcept

for their music.

They're ust playing

so that

it

sounds

'brutal',

they

have no

concept.

(Cak)

This

quest

for

authenticity

in

an elsewhere

is different to

fetishisation

of the

Other,

and does not

conform to the

idea,

expressed

by

Indonesia's

first President

among

others,

that

performance

of

foreign

repertoires

was

a form

of

masquerade

which

obscured an

authentic,

local

self. As

cited in

Sen

and Hill

(2000,

p.

166),

in

an

Independence

Day speech

in

1959,

Sukarno referred

to

rock and

roll as a

form

of

cultural imperialism. In spite of vastly changed conditions, similarly anti-imperialist

sentiments can be found

in

the Balinese

reggae

musicians'

Othering

of

death

metal.

According

to

Gus

They,

vocalist for

the

reggae

band

Fatamorgana,

for

example:

I

don't think it's

really appropriate

for Balinese

people

to be thrash musicians.

Thrash



11/22

204 Emma Baulch

enthusiasts are hard

people, they might

be free

but

they

are too

free,

that's what leads them

to

headbang

...

They

are

just blindly following.

Apart

from

not

being appropriate

or

young

Balinese,

that

kind

of

heavy

music has been

banned

in

Bali. After the Metallica

riot,

heavy

music was banned

...

You can see that when

Sepulturaperformed

n

Surabaya,

here was a

riot,

and cars were burned

...

Because hrash

music is big on whipping up peoples'emotions.What'smore,all of them have long hair,so

that

people

see that and

they get

scared

that

there

will be a riot. Thrashmusic is not

appropri-

ate for our

culture

because it

is, indeed,

heavy

and hard.

(Gus

They)

But enthusiasts did not

agree

that

death/thrash

fandom was

a form of

masquerade,

at odds

with

their true Balinese selves.

Their own views on the

genre's appeal

distinguishes

death/thrash

from

alternative

music,

as

portrayed

in

Indonesian

teen

media

in the mid-1990s. Such media

depicted

alternative

fans

as

people

who

described their dress

styles

as

nyentrik

(weird)

and

expressive

of a desire to

tampil

beda

(appear

different).

By

contrast,

in

the view of the Balinese death'

thrashers,

death metal

appealed

to their true

selves,

to their souls

(mewakili

iwanya).

When I started

getting

into death metal I had been

looking

for

something

that connected

with

my

desire for

freedom,

something energetic.

I

had been

looking

for a

long

time.

I

heard

this and that

kind of

music,

none of them seemed

right,

not

right

for

my

ear.

I

got

bored

quickly.

After

hearing

death

metal,

only

then did

I

feel that

I

had found the

right

kind of

music. That's

why

I

want to

keep playing

death metal

until

the end. Because

it is the

right

fit for

our

soul,

our desire for freedom.

(Dek

Ben)

The

music

gives

us

spirit.

Most

people

like slow music.

We are different.We've been into

death metal

since we were

teenagers.

It's the

right

kind of

music for

us.

(Behead)

When we hear the

guitar

and the drum we want to

headbang

(goyangkepala

lit.

shake our

heads).

Then we want to

express

whatever

it

is that's

in

our

soul,

jump

around,

crash into

our friends.

(Agus Yanky,

29

March

1996)

I

like death metal because it's

very energetic.

You can

sing

about

feeling

mad and

angry,

you

can

sing

about

feeling hopeless.

(Ari

Phobia)

This is the era

of death

metal,

because life is

getting

harder.

Many people

now look

for

the

kinds of music that is

in

accordance

with

their

reality. (Age)

Thus,

Balinese enthusiasts' death metal

repertoire

also linked them

to a

perceived

'essence',

but without

lyrically evoking

a

nostalgia

for

place.

The idea that death

metal referred

primarily

to an elsewhere is

supported by

the musicians' hesitance

to

pen

lyrics

in

Indonesian or

Balinese,

reasoning

that

'it

would seem

funny

to use

Indonesian

lyrics'

(Dek

Ben,

Arwah).11

Unlike famed Indonesian folk

singer

Iwan

Fals' lyrical celebration of local underclass identities, such as the gangster of the

bus

terminal,

the crossroads'

newspaper

seller and the evicted slum

dweller,

Bali-

nese

death/thrash

musicians

did

not write

lyrics

that

referred

to the

locale.

Thornton's

(1995)

study

of

English

club culture examines distinction and

hier-

archy

within 'low' culture. As a

point

of

departure,

she

critiques

(1995,

p.

10)

studies

of

popular

culture

in

which

'[h]igh

culture is

generally

conceived of

in

terms of

aesthetic

values,

hierarchies and canons while

popular

culture is conceived of

as a

curiously

flat,

folk

culture',

and demonstrates how

in

fact

popular

culture contains

its own subcultural

capital.

This was also true of the Balinese

death/thrash

scene.

Above,

I have discussed how the

death/thrash

uniformity

that came to be

per-

formed in public spaces such as Kumbasari market and the local cassette store

veiled

an

existing hierarchy,

for

seniority

was not

symbolised by

a

particular

'look'.

This is not to

suggest

that tee shirts did not

play

a role

in

determining

who was

'in' and who was 'out' of the

death/thrash

scene. Guns N' Roses tee shirts

played



12/22

Gesturing

elsewhere

205

a role

not unlike

Thornton's

handbags

-

clear sartorial

signs

of both

the

absence

of

authenticity

and the

spectre

of its

popularisation.

Whilst

Guns N'

Roses

tee shirts

could not be

tolerated

-

thus

revealing

the

importance

of aesthetic

uniformity

-

lack

of

virtuosity

and

archival

knowledge

was

forgiven,

as the

scene

operated

as a train-

ing ground

in

which

ingenues could, supervised by

their

elders, progressively

attain

authenticity by

playing

in

cover bands.

By

gesturing

elsewhere,

the death thrashers refrained from

associating

core

values

with

specific

geographies, recalling

Hebdige's

(1979,

p.

120)

characterisation

of

English punk's

signifying practices

which

'gestured

towards

a nowhere

and

actively

sought

to

remain

silent,

illegible'.

In

Hebdige's

work

on subcultural

style,

tensions

emerge

between his

much-critiqued

denotative

and

demystifying urges,

and

his

assertions

that

subversive

spectacularity

is based on

the

deferment

of mean-

ing.

One can

find

this

argument

in

his examinations of

the

link

between

deep-rooted

social

anxieties and the

politics

of

marginal groups' spectacularity

in

successive

writings

on Rastafarian

styles

in

Jamaica

(1973)

and subcultural

styles

in

England

(1973,

1979,

1988).

In

addition

to

the above-cited

quotation,

in

The

Style

of

the Mods

(1973,

p.

5)

he cites

Laing's

description

of

how

'the

mods

...

looked

alright

but

there

was

something

in

the

way they

moved that the adults couldn't

quite

make

out',

and in

Hiding

in the

Light

(1988,

p.

35),

he

reiterates

the

view that

The

politics

of

youth

culture

is a

politics

of the

metaphor:

t deals

in

the

currency

of

signs

and

is, thus,

always ambiguous

...

Subculture orms

up

in

the

space

between surveillance

and

the evasion of

surveillance,

t

translates

he

fact of

being

under

scrutiny

nto

the

pleasure

of

being

watched.

It is a

hiding

in

the

light.

One

example

of

hiding

in

the

light

can

be

seen

in the texts

(band names)

that

adorned the Balinese death thrashers' tee shirts. Not only were they English words,

incomprehensible

to most

locals,

but

they

were also concealed beneath webs of

stylisation,

as if

to state

'herein

lies a

mystery',

and to

provide

the

practice

with

a

form

of

dread,

defined

(Hebdige

1973,

p.

11)

as

'capable

of

inspiring

fear and

awe'

-

the

Rastafarian

form

of

metaphoric currency

so

coveted,

in

Hebdige's

(1979,

p.

64)

view,

by

the

English punks:

Dread,

in

particular,

was an enviable

commodity.

It

was the

means with

which

to

menace,

the

elaborate

ree-masonry hrough

which it was sustained and communicated

on

the

street

...

was awesome

and

forbidding,

suggesting

as

it did an

impregnablesolidarity.

Following

Hebdige,

then,

it would

be

possible

to

argue

that

the Balinese death

thrashers evoked ambiguity and effected 'dread' by blurring distinctions between

assumed

opposites,

for the conflation

of

masquerade/essence

and

West/East

dichotomies is evident

in

the death thrashers'

gestures

towards an elsewhere

which

they

understood

to be

expressive

of their true

selves.

But the

death-thrashers'

ambivalent

allusions to identities

officially

cast as

morally

demonic

-

the

preman

and

devil

worshipping

cults

(aliran

sesat)

-

also served as

important

tools

to

state

their

presence.

In

spite

of

their

bourgeois

status,

the death thrashers seemed

intent

on

invoking

the

spectre

of

the

preman

by

way

of

long

locks,

as

important

to

the

death/thrash

uniform

as

black tee

shirts,

and

stereotypically

associated

with

the

preman,

as Gus

They's

above-cited comment

shows.12

However,

both these

refer-

ences were stylised and obscured, and any explicit association with an illicit under-

world was

quickly

denied.

This

suggested

to me

that

masquerading

as

preman

and

alluding

to aliran sesat was

meant,

like

Hebdige's

dread,

as a

powerful

tool of com-

munication.



13/22


14/22

Gesturing

elsewhere 207

widespread corruption.

Some

of

Fals'

songs

served as

anthems,

sung

at

rallies

organised

by

the

growing underground campus-based opposition

movement.

Furthermore,

at the same

time,

Bali

spawned

its own

opposition

movement,

which

attended,

overwhelmingly,

to

issues

of local

urgency.

In

1988,

Governor Ida

Bagus

Oka issued a decree which

departed

from

the

original highly regulated 'cul-

tural tourism'

model,

which

endeavoured

to

protect

Balinese

culture from tourism's

potentially negative impacts,

and

ushered

in a

very

much

deregulated

model,

popu-

larly

known as

'mass

tourism'.

Deregulation

attracted a

barrage

of

Jakarta-based

entrepreneurs

to invest

in

Bali,

setting

off

a trend

of land

speculations

and

resort

development,

and

resulting

in

massive

increases

in

land

values.

By

the

early

1990s,

tourist areas

in

Bali had become havens of

malls and

designer

labels associated

with

a

metropolitan superculture,

and the

island

was

attracting

an

increasing

number of

Jakartanese

'domestic'

tourists.

Furthermore,

the

increasing

land values saw the

passage

of Balinese-owned

agricultural

land

into

the hands

of

Jakartanese

investors

and

developers.

As a

result

of these

changes,

a

'regionalist

discourse'

began

to

emerge,

which

polarised

notions of 'Bali' and

'Jakarta'

(Warren

1994,

1998),

centre

and

periphery.

In

this

context,

the

death

metal

enthusiasts' characteristic

obscurity

can be

seen as a conscious

turning

away

from more overt

articulations of anti-New Order

sentiment,

rather than a result of

repression.

Such

turning

away

is

evident

in

the

way

in which

they

fetishised their

marginality.

At

the same

time,

their allusions to

illicit

symbols

did

challenge

the official

narrative,

and the above-mentioned fate of

the

preman,

to whom the death metal

aesthetic

alluded,

illustrates the

very

real

possibility

of

violent

repression

with

which

the

enthusiasts chose to

flirt.

Moreover,

in

spite

of their

obscurity,

death/thrash

enthusiasts nonetheless echoed broader

concerns about the locals'

marginalisation

from the

development

process

due to the

tourism

boom,

evident

in

the above-mentioned

regionalist

discourse. The nature of

this

echoing

both linked and

distinguished

death/thrash

from a

broader

regionalist

discourse,

and allows us

to

discount

Gus

They's

charges

of

cultural

imperialism,

cited above.

Death metal as

'regionalist

discourse'

Above,

I

have

argued

that the death

thrash

dress

style,

and

the

way

in

which it

was

performed

in

the

public

arena served

as

statements

and

validations of the

genre's 'difference'. But from what, precisely, it begged to differ remained indeter-

minate,

for when

asked,

enthusiasts

only

identified themselves as

'anti-trendy'

or

'underground',

labels which derived

from

the

global

extreme metal

scene,

rather

than local

contexts.

In

enthusiasts' recollections

of

the

gigs

at

which

death/thrash

bands

performed

in

the

early

1990s, however,

the

genre's

local salience becomes

clearer.

At

these

early

gigs,

death/thrash

bands

were forced to share a

stage

with

reggae

bands,

which

provided

them

with

an Other

against

which the

death/thrash

self was defined.

In

this

way,

the

gigs

served

as

symbol-rich

realms

for

stylised

forms of discursive

engagement, through

which

a more

sharply

focused

death/

thrash

marginality

came into view.

As described above, death metal bands were unwanted in tourist bars and

hotels,

which

were reserved for

reggae

and

Top

40 bands.

Thus,

in the

early

1990s,

it was

infrequent campus gigs

and,

more

frequently,

local

community anniversary

celebrations known as bazaar

banjar (village

bazaars),

organised

under the

auspices



15/22

208 Emma Baulch

of

community youth groups

known as sekehe teruna

teruni

(STT),

which

provided

space

for the earliest death

and thrash

metal

performances.

This

too, however,

was

reluctantly

accorded,

and

musicians recalled how

they

often had to

'go begging'

for

opportunities

to

perform

and

how,

even

then,

they

were

frequently

listed

last,

so that much

of the audience

had vacated

the

hall before the

death/thrash

bands

began

their sets.

(Prior

o

1994)

death

metal

and

thrash bands would

play

in

the

banjars

..

There

were a lot

of these events at which we

performed.

It seemed like

every

month there would be

a

gig.

At

most,

there would

be two

death or thrash bands

performing usually

Debtor or

Separatis.

We would share the

stage

with

reggae. They

were all

mixed

gigs.

Only

unlike

the

reggae

bands,

we

weren't invited

to

perform,

and

we would

have to

beg

the

organisers

to

get

a

chance to

perform.

We asked

them for some time

on

the

stage.

But

you got

a lot

of people o

to

see deathmetaland thrash

bands

perform

t

these

banjar

gigs?

A

few.

If

a hundred

people

went

to

see

a

banjar

gig,

surely

one of them was

a fan

...

(but)

most of

the audience

would leave before

we came

on,

because we would

always

be listed last.

Rarely

did

we head the bill

...

we

were

thought

of as a kind

of

litter,

garbage. Reggae was the trend. We were thought of as those who made trouble for

reggae. (Age)

We used to

get

a

spot

at

banjar

gigs

because

it

was

thought

that we

could add

variety.

Usually,

it

would

just

be a

whole

lot of

reggae

bands

playing.

We would be

presented

as

some kind of weird attraction.

Agus Yanky,

6

February

1998)

At

this

time,

reggae

was at the

height

of

its

popularity,

and a local

reggae

scene centred on the Bruna bar at Kuta

beach,

where local

youth

mixed

freely

with

domestic and

foreign

tourists

alike.

Reggae

was

a

highly

sexualised realm which

serenaded and

celebrated

the

lifestyles

of

Balinese

'beach

boys',

and the abundance

of

reggae

cover bands

playing

at

banjar

gigs signaled,

to the

death/thrash

fans,

the

genre's bright prospects

on

the tourist bar circuit. In the context of these

banjar-level

performances,

the dominance of

reggae

and its sexualised

dandyism provided

a

backdrop

for the

death

thrashers'

stripped-back

state

of

dishevelment and

a-sexu-

ality,

for the

black,

intensely

clustered

headbanging

audiences

that

performed

at

these

banjar

gigs

filled the

empty

spaces

left when

reggae's

slow,

laid-back

jig

and

multi-coloured aesthetic

receded.

In

this

way, reggae

served as the Other which

affirmed

and

shaped

the

death

metal

self,

for

the

banjar

gigs

accommodated

a

per-

formative

dialogue

between the two

genres.

For

example,

reggae

musicians

responded

to the

death/thrash

phenomenon by

casting

it,

in

keeping

with the

official

view

of

metal,

as

dangerously

inauthentic,

as evident

in

Gus

They's

above

cited comment. On the other hand, in the view of death metal musicians,

reggae's

Otherness

lay

in

its

palatability

to tourists.

Our network extends to cities

in

Java,

where

there are

more facilities for death and

thrash

metal bands and fans. There

are more

magazines,

and

they

have better instruments

there

too.

Why

do

you

think

hat

s?

Perhaps

because

in

Bali,

because

of

tourism

in

Bali,

the

kind of music that

gets popularised

here are

happy

kinds of

music,

music

like

reggae

has an

easier

passage

to Bali

[than

death

metal].

There

are

many

facilities

for

reggae

bands

in

Kuta,

whereas death metal bands

are

reliant

on

practice

studios to

provide

a double

pedal.

Mostly,

we have to

provide

t

ourselves.

That's the main

problem,

there's

no facilities

for death

metalin Bali.

(Behead)

Death metal doesn't

get played

in

hotels.

Why?

Because tourists

prefer reggae.

It's laid back

and relaxed.

Death metal is not

appropriate

there.



16/22

Gesturing

elsewhere 209

Deathmetal s

not

relaxed,

ou

mean?

No Tourists come here to

relax

...

People play reggae

songs

in

hotels.

To

make sure the

atmosphere

there is relaxed.

(Angel

Head)

Has

your

band

played

n a

bar?

We tried to

get

a

gig

in

a

bar.

But the

people

in

the bar said

that tourists

in

Kuta

don't like

thrash metal

because

they

come

for a

holiday, they

don't like

hard

music.

(AriPhobia)

In

contrast

to

reggae,

which

they

saw as a

form

of

pretence

and

opportunism,

death/thrash

musicians viewed their own

genre

of

choice as a

channelling

of a life

force,

a

spirited expression

of

the

soul

which,

in

their

view,

conflicted with tour-

ism's

demands.

Therefore,

death/thrash

bands'

exclusion from tourism

stages

was

seen

as a factor which

served

to enhance

genuine

and

authentic

self-expression.

In

this

way,

the

dialogue

that took

place

between

reggae

and death metal

at these

banjargigs

contributes to

analyses

of

the

relationship

between

the

tourism

industry

and Balinese

identity

politics,

different historical

aspects

of which have

been docu-

mented

by

Picard

(1990,

1996,

1999)

and Warren

(1994,

1998).

Picard's

(1999,

pp.

16-17)

concern

is

with how the 'the

Balinese,

enjoined

to exhibit their

identity

in

reference

to the

outside world's view

of

them,

have come to search

for

confirmation

of their kebalian

(Balinese-ness)

in

the mirror

held

up

to

them

by

tourists'.

This,

he

argues, provides

an

instance

of

'reflexive

essentialisation'

-

'a

Balinese vision

of

themselves

generated

by

their

dealings

with

powerful

and

significant

Others'.

Warren

is

similarly

concerned

with

the role

of

'powerful

Others'

in

the

generation

of Balinese

self-perceptions,

but the

Other of her work is not tourists and tourism

per

se,

but an

encroaching

metropolis,

which

provides

a

centre

against

which Bali-

nese

began

to define

their

peripheral,

regional

nature

in the

early

1990s. Warren

demonstrates

how

local

debates

concerning

tourism

development projects

and

mediated

by

the local

press

reveal an

emerging regionalist

discourse which dicho-

tomised

notions of

'centre'

(the

Other)

and

'periphery'

(the We).

There are

significant

differences

between the reflexive

essentialisation

Picard

mentions and the

peripheral

'We'

discussed

by

Warren.

The

former refers to the

emergence

of elite

discourses

of Balinese

identity

in

the

1970s in

tandem with the

development

of

tourism,

which

depicted

Balinese-ness

as

refined,

orderly

and hier-

archical.

Both Picard

(1990)

and Vickers

(1989)

agree

that this

'touristic

image'

was

created

by foreign

anthropologists

and

perpetuated

in

state

nostalgia

for the

glories

of former

Hindu

Javanese

kingdoms,

said to

underpin

the modern

Indonesian

polity,

and which Bali

allegedly

resembled

(Geertz 1980).

By

contrast,

as evident

in

cartoons in the local press, the Balinese 'We' of the 1990s was replete with subvers-

ive

irony

and

humour,

and

celebrated

the low and the

grotesque

(Warren 1998).

The

emergence

of

a

regionalist

discourse

thus

challenged

preceding

elite

discourses,

and

no

longer depicted

Balinese-ness as

a

remnant

of a

Java-based

centre of

powe

Documents

Gesturing Elsewhere the Identity Politics of the Balinese DeathThrash Metal Scene