Report: Headbangers From Iraq, Thrashing And Waiting
May 22, 2008Melena Ryzik of the New York Times reports: It was already an unlikely story: Around 2000, a group of Iraqi school friends weaned on bootleg METALLICA and SLAYER tapes formed their own metal band with an imposing name, Acrassicauda (derived from the name of a species of black scorpion),and an appropriately do-or-die attitude.
They rehearsed in a basement in Baghdad and dreamed of playing Ozzfest and having long hair. Though their kind of music was essentially verboten under Saddam Hussein's regime, they managed to perform a few times for several hundred fellow headbangers and considered themselves a center of the (deeply) underground hardcore scene.
When their country was plunged into war a few years later, they lost a lead singer he fled to Canada but gained a new audience in Western journalists eager for some local color. Vice magazine, the downtown bible known mostly for its sneering outlook, profiled the band in its January 2004 issue, drawing attention to its perseverance in the face of increased security risks; no matter what, it seemed, ACRASSICAUDA was committed to rocking out.
Read the entire article from the New York Times.
Watch the "Heavy Metal in Baghdad" trailer below.
For more information, visit www.heavymetalinbaghdad.com.
Prev 
Comments Disclaimer And Information