Well SF0, it's time to get real. As Captain Cutthroat begins to encroach on my Everyday Life, I can feel his personality beginning to eclipse my own. Sometimes I catch myself talking in his voice without the mask on, sometimes, the reverse. Dueling identities came to a head in this latest task, but we've come full circle now, and the mask is off. And now, to the task at hand.

Art
–noun
1. the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.
[[from Dictionary.com]]

Although stuffy and very much impressed with itself, the above definition of art seems to cover the overall cultural space art seems to occupy in our minds and hearts. But allow me to suggest another. To me, art is Interaction; the interplay between artist and audience, between expression and experience, and between private and public. It is the intense conflict of these ideas that draws me to art and shapes what I like and dislike.

Music, in particular, has always been my favorite form of art, because it represents in a literal sense, the dichotomy of harmony and discord and the conflict (or balance) of projection versus revelation . I have always been captivated by music in all its forms, but nothing moves me like heavy metal.

I grew up in a fairly rural area of Northern California. The mining industry that fueled the initial economic prosperity that caused the towns to sprout was moving away, agribusiness was slowly putting local farmers out of business, corporate chains were choking the life from Mom&Pop stores, and methamphetamine manufacture was growing like a malignant tumor. For those of modest means, growing up there meant staying there and turning into a methmonster or dirtfarmer. I wasn't a genius or an athlete, I hung out with the unpopular kids, got marginal grades and always got notes like "Has trouble applying himself in class," on my report cards. Music was my way out, my glimpse of the outside world, my refuge when life seemed like some awful nightmare.

I turned to the darker side of music as a sort of catharsis to keep me sane. Loud, fast, and angry, or slow, deep and heavy, it didn't matter to me as long as it made me feel. I started singing in punk rock bands when I was 15, furiously scribbling juvenile lyrical gems like "I Think Your Girlfriend's A Whore" or "No Time for Jibba-Jabba" and doing my level best to embarrass myself and the music I worshiped.

Time went by, bands broke up, tastes changed, eventually our time was over. I left my homeland and ventured south in search of... well, I wasn't quite sure, but I knew it involved College.

Many things happened to me over the course of the next few years, but many of them can be attributed to what have consistently shown themselves to be two of the driving forces of my life experience.

Music.
... and drug use. :)

I feel it is some strange sort of Kismet that has caused "Art Under the Influence" to occur within the era of "Everyday Life", the first age of SF0 which I have experienced. I am a heavy metal vocalist and lyricist. To say my music feels the constant effects of chemical influence is completely redundant. What follows is a documentation of those effects.

WARNING: TURN YOUR SPEAKERS DOWN FIRST
Yes, the sound quality is terrible. If you're interested in hearing better recordings of our music, go to our website

NOTE: For some reason, I cannot upload the final video or link to it. So instead, I will just embed the video here. But please, for continuity's sake, watch the others first. This is the final proof of the task.