Funny music memoir from late 1991

This piece of memoir is about Suffocation. Yeah.

Back in late Spring / early Summer of 1991 I had received a tape copy of Suffocation's "Human waste" mini album, debut release - and to put it shortly, that miniLP blew my mind. I listened my first tape copy  of it to pieces, literally. I had just turned 17 years old when "human waste" was released and I got it pretty soon after it came out. There was this certain "ion" thing going on around those times, for example Suffocation, Immolation, Incantation, Malevolent Creation, ... etc. I knew beforehand that what I was going to hear, Suffocation, that it was going to be something labelled as brutal death metal, I think some mate described it as "the sound of getting beaten" (like we would had known, ehh!) but I still didn't know really what to expect with Suffocation until I heard and ... BANG! It was addictive listening to that "human waste". There was definitely same kind of "something magical is happening" thing going on than back when I first heard releases which became massively meaningful to me - albums like Death's "Leprosy" or Napalm Death's "Scum" or Bolt Thrower's "Realm of chaos" or some other early releases (those were just first three that came to mind) ... at first it felt like what is this chaos I am listening to? Those vocals too, holy cow ... at the same time the feeling of something magical, curiosity growing amidst that chaos, there is something new here, I have to listen more to it, get to know it, dig a little deeper ... and yeah, that's how it went.

'Human waste' by Suffocation

It went actually so far with me listening to "human waste" that when Suffocation's debut album "Effigy of the forgotten" came out in late 1991, at first I didn't like the production at all (yeah!). That feeling diminished bit by bit, but even that the album grew on me big time and I learned to love it, the magic of "human waste" and its' soundscapes never faded. It always remained as the ultimate Suffocation release to me, kind of. Each song was amazing and I really loved that primitive, pummeling production of it, too.

And finally the funny music memoir related to "human waste" which the topic of this post is all about; late summer 1991, when "effigy" album was still in the future and "human waste" was all I had - I was listening to "human waste" like a nutcase. For some reason one listening session has sticked to mind so clearly, as if it happened just yesterday. It was late summer 1991, and my godmother was visiting our family for a week or so (she lived at the other side of Finland so she wasn't visiting us all the time, more like once in a year or two or so). I always had very good relationship with her and so on - but well, I was having my "Suffocation listening session" ... 

I had curtains closed in my room, and I was lying on my bed in my darkened room, walls filled with extreme metal band posters and so on. The room was pretty dark, and I was just lying there, being relaxed and blasting "human waste" through big stereo system ... taking it all in, lying and listening, enjoying and relaxing. Yeah, with "human waste". :) ... so this memoir of my mom coming to my doorway with my godmother (who happens to be my mom's twin sister) and I see their shapes in the doorway from my bed while listening to "human waste" ... (the lights were on elsewhere in the house while I was lying in a very dark room) and my mom goes on saying to my godmother, that "just take a look, do you think that is sane, huh? he's just lying there and listening to that ... that disgusting soundscape which he calls music, and to make it worse he says it's death metal!" ... I am laughing a bit at that comment, and next my godmother says "well, ummmm, I don't know, I guess it's not that insane either? I mean, I do not like this 'music' at all either, to me this is not MUSIC, but I guess your son just has his own taste?" ... I was genuinely surprised with that comment. Perhaps that's why this exact event sticked so clearly to mind, who knows.

Actually my parents were surprisingly openminded about my (or siblings') heavy metal tastes in general, considering they were born in the 1930s, they never tried stopping us from enjoying the music we wanted to enjoy and I can only say hats off for all that.

In any case, that is sure quite a funny but also a heartwarming memoir to me personally. :)

EDIT: I have another Suffocation memoir which is equally funny, just that back when it was happening I didn't think it as fun at all. More like punishment and extremely annoying thing to happen. It was around November 1991, I had bought "effigy of the forgotten" as CD as soon as it came out, around late September - and as usual back in those days, I had taped the CD, so that I could listen the album on my way to school with portable music player, Sony Walkman (how else) ... but at home, of course I would had wanted to listen to the CD, instead of tape. I had taped the CD just fine, and I think I had managed to listen the CD somewhat (but not many times though, it had been just some weeks with me) and suddenly that SuffoCD started acting weird in my massive stereo system; while songs were playing, it was randomly jumping backwards and forwards, or sound pausing completely for short moments, it was really crazy. At first I of course thought the CD had somehow been scratched (but how? I was really careful with my CDs!?) but after careful examinatin I found nothing at all. The CD looked perfect, the backside was shiny and not a single scratch. No explanation there! I kept trying to play, and the same thing went on. What made it more mysterious, was that no other CDs did the same. So I never thought it was about faulty CD player itself, that didn't cross my mind. So, what happened, was that I gave the CD for my bigbro's good friend for "pro examination". He soon reported that there is nothing physically wrong with the CD, but that he can wash the CD, he has professional cleaning liquid from music store for washing dirty CDs, is it ok that I try to solve the problem by completely washing the CD? Sure, I gave him permission because I wanted to be able to listen to that CD so badly. So the guy washed the CD, several times and ... the end result was that it never started playing in my stereo system. The end result was pretty sad; the CD simply sat in my growing album collection, I admired the front and back cover, but I kept listening to the tape copy I had. A lot. It's pretty hilarious thinking all the things that poor SuffoCD went through in the process of trying to solve the mystery. But back then, I sure was not laughing. CDs were precious and it was Suffocation's debut album, ... ! I only bought really important releases as CD in those days, as CD cost about twice more than LP back then. Buy expensive product and then you can't really use it. I couldn't return / swap it either, because there was "nothing physically wrong" with the CD. Ouch ... yeah. :)

PS: I'm working on writing a "tale of Cauterized" ... which is going to be a very long post, with some pictures as well as some audio, too. It's quite a side story to Aeuk's "metal tracking career".