It is in the newspapers that you get to read the most crazy things. Casually, I open the Sunday paper "Proto Thema" (First Issue) (for those who may not know, this particular newspaper is one of the most readable in Greece even though it counts only a few issues from its maiden appearance) and I come upon an article the main title of which("Music teaches us beauty") intrigued me to read it. Especially since this article was signed by a scientist (the columnist Yannis Vasiliou is a neurosurgeon). The introduction was most ideal. "The evolution and enrichment of the neuro circuits of the brain, that relate to the hearing and the performance of music, are influenced by the exposure and the education of the developing brain in musical stimuli and techniques" and for a minute I believed that the arrows that were thrown from the quiver of mr Vasiliou chose their target beyond the trivial and usual destinations. After that he continues: "I believe that the frequent contact of the young -mostly- with Beauty, as it is defined by the rules of harmony of the Universe and is delimited by the common acceptance and admission, has as an adjoining result the firing of such emotions that rule out, as a rule, aggression, hate and violence". I don't think that anyone disagrees with him up till now. However, straightaway, the columnist sees it necessary to determine how he interprets himself the meaning of Beauty and if a listener wants to capture this vague Beauty he needs to:
- "Abolish the radio stations, the censored musical programmes of which, serve the financial interests of their owners and tv stations that are slaves to the profit of commercials"
- "Force society to take a step forward, to what we call culture"
- "Make the community in which he lives take under serious consideration his musical preferences and create spaces that will serve its listening"

With these comments, along with some others, we come to the infuriating conclusion in hand which was the cause for this Inveditorial (that, by the way, appears inexcusably late) to deal with it: "Who is going to point out to us what is Beauty?" But, of course, "the opinion of the experts of the area, the music critics." as the dear -from every other aspect- scientist is stating boldly. So, from now on, rebel against the opinion of the specialists and redefine your hearings if they don't agree with their own. As if the particular caste of people came to the front by a parthenogenesis, moving into a parallel non corrupted universe that meets with ours only when this profound team of experts carries to common mortals the true light of the value of art. As if these "experts" (the more I use the term the more I get annoyed by its meaning) do not move under the beckoning of characteristic interests. As if they don't get paid by radio or tv stations, a moment ago were banished to the fire of hell by mr. Vasiliou. The questions that rush whizzing in my head are many and they refute the infallibility of the "experts". How are the experts created? Who is the one and what is the reason they are characterised as such? Who are the ones that reap the presumption of the "experts"? How can it ever be possible, the ones characterised as experts, not to have come in contact with the music itself, but, on the contrary, stand above it, decorating it with many decorative adjectives? Who are they to abolish the meaning of the subjective taste replacing it with the objective Beauty? That is, the Beauty around of which they are creating a myth till another, more beautiful Beauty comes along (always according to their opinion) and so on. I know these guys pretty well. They are the same that in every opportunity they remember their glorious rock past as a distant carefree memory that is justified by their youthful ignorance. They are the same ones that get pale when they refer to heavy metal, that are smiling slyly when they learn about the coexistence of metal and classical music, and so many different idioms that in the past were a forbidden place. They are the guys that when they realised that heavy metal is not dead as they once cried, they changed their tactic crowding tv panels, offering their knowledge and speculations freely (side by side with the familiar crackpots of obscurantism, prominent of which are the loveless clergymen who are never absent from that kind of discussions) regarding what was that caused the ever increasing turn of listeners to hard music.
Comparing the -according to the "experts"- musical Beauty with a different approach, I'm borrowing an extraordinary text of Liana Polichroniadou from her book called "Music and psychology," dedicating it, at the same time, to the deluded know-alls:
". One can listen to music as:
- A sense that often allows a kind of release from our much rational world.
- A means of daydreaming (we create images, we play with them, we assemble stories.)
- A technic of expression, with its tradition and strict rules.
- An aesthetics, that can be compared to other artistic espressions and be felt as something beautiful with reference to an ideal.
- A drug.
- A sensational power (regarding the influence of certain rythmes mostly).

. The touching answers to the hearing of a musical part, are the resultant of various factors, the most important of which are the characteristics of personality, the temperament, the education and the social -cultural and hereditary environment, but also the musical play itslef. Even the emotional disposition of the person at the time of the hearing. For example: the desperation of a tortured soul is mirrored better in a play with big rythmical fluctuations than in a peaceful musical part with a gentle rythme..".
So, each one of us perceives, experiences and "listens" to the music he loves differently and woe if he replaced his personal sensory organs with the experts of every part of the world. As for this crazy group that composes this electronic form of magazine, we dismiss the title of the "experts" and the professionals. Away from us characterizations of this kind. We are amateurs with longing, because if this longing and passion with which each one of the editorial team supports his/her personal hearings were missing, our website would never reach the point in which it is today.

www.metal-invader.com

If in the past I congratulated the previous webmaster, then I really can't find the words to describe the contribution of the extraordinary Stefanos Zachariadis, who, in the brief time period that he took the whole site upon himself, he literally transformed it. So aside from the functionalism (that even the ignorants regarding internet -as the writer himself- can see) the tremendous changes that have happened are obvious (and all that thanks to the boundless knowlegde of Stefanos). I am not the most expert to guide you through the site (someday the webmaster will do that in detail, if he ever takes a breath from the succesive updates!) but the thing you must have discovered is obviously the effort done so the visitor can get informed on time and reliably in our index page regarding the continual outflow of news, read about live happenings that take place in various parts of the world, read about most of the new releases, study the interviews that oftenly escape from the narrow "musical" boundaries, get informed about the names of tommorow from the beloved "Headbanger's Pit" column (the volume of which is growing more and more and one day we are hoping it will outnumber the corresponding of the official releases) and after he will ramble for as long and wherever he wants, he can go to any other website through our links.
This webpage, as a galatian village, insists on resisting and existing, with its many flows, but with abundant spontaneity and profuse freedom of expression, because we don't care at all for the opinion on any other person directly correlative, apart from the visitors of this site.
As to the questions of procedure, the present update is the last of the summer, so you may expect the next one roughly on the 1st of September, if things go well, in weekly basis we will prepare for you an update that will be most complete.

Andreas Stasinopoulos

P.S. 1 Approximately a month has passed since I saw TWISTED SISTER live and I still cannot realize that I haven't imagined the whole happening, and that it really happened. Of course the photo belongs to Dee who that magical night at Malakasa, along with the rest of the fucking sisters, treated us in the best way.

P.S. 2 "But the Desert listens, even though people don't, and someday it will be transmuted in a Desert of sound" Miguel Hugo.