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AVANTGARDE-METAL.COM About The Cooperation With Metal.de Story online since: 17.11.2009 / 18:49:17 ......................................................................................................................................................... Avantgarde-Metal.com – where "Murky Black Avant Grimness”, "Bipolar Cheerleader Hard Noise” and "Assorted Early Progressive Death/Doom Ramblings” meet for five o’ clock tea... From a certain point of view both metal.de and avantgarde-metal.com, the online magazines this story is about, are opposed to each other: metal.de deals with basically everything deserving the label "Metal” (who would have expected that?), but is restricted to a German audience; in contrast to this avantgarde-metal.com addresses by its English approach a larger audience, but focuses only on a fraction of Metal-ish releases. An idea that immediately suggests itself from this comparison – if anything – is to connect these allegedly contrary approaches. Hence you will get the opportunity to read one or the other article right from the AGM universe…  …and to gain some insight into this very universe I took the opportunity to conduct a very interesting conversation with AGM-founder and editor-in-chief Chrystof Niederwieser, who supplied a lot of information about avantgarde-metal.com: Hallo Chrystof! Many thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. Could you tell us some details about the "history” of AGM.com? When did the idea, creating an online magazine dealing with Avantgardistic tendencies in Metal, arise at first? How long did it take to put this idea into practice? This idea formed in my head already in the early 1990ies. Back then it was almost impossible for ExperiMetal-bands to reach a larger audience. The scene’s structure with labels, distribution and magazines did not leave much room for artists who did not fit into conventional Metal categories. You could dig up some treasures only by tape trading in very small circles. AGM-fans without the necessary contacts had to be content with those few bands who had become popular with standard Metal and turned to Avantgarde Metal only later on (e.g. MR- BUNGLE/FANTOMAS with the help of FAITH NO MORE, CYNIC with their session activities for DEATH, late PESTILENCE with their early Death Metal releases etc.) Thanks to the internet you do not depend on conventional market structures, neither as a musician nor as a listener. Wherever someone is creating spaced out music and wherever someone wants to hear something like this – they can find each other, without countless doors’ keepers inbetween. What is more obvious than creating a platform such as avantgarde-metal.com? The preparations took about half a year from the very first concept to the finished site’s launch in July 2007. Could you give some statistical data regarding visits/clicks on your site? Did joining Myspace cause any noticeable effect? During the first weeks we did some advertising via Myspace which we joined simultaneously to the main site’s launch – without spamming, we approached specifically those bands, labels and fans who obviously would be interested in our magazine. By this we could annotate about 5000 visitors during the first month. In the meanwhile the figures have multiplied. Being an international magazine your editorial staff contains AGM fans and musicians from all over the world (at the moment I’m counting 25). Can you tell us a bit about AGM’s editors? AGM.com was designed as an international network from the very beginning. After all we wanted to cross borders in every possible meaning of the word and thus discover Metal-novaries as exquisite as possible. You have to swim across Rhine and the River Oder to do so. AGM features writers from America and Scandinavia to Israel or Pakistan. Still there is a backlog demand regarding internationality, especially in Asia and South America. The editorial team works as a self organized network for the most part. We have a crew forum where we discuss, finetune and organize every activity. Hence the page will work well even if I don't have any internet access for a while. This is only possible due to our great crew’s immanent engagement and to our most transparent procedures and decisions. There are some guiding principles, e.g. for the choice of bands and reviews: "Ask yourself: Is this band/this album really innovative and unique?” The rest is up to anyone’s own responsibility. Plus, there aren’t any obligations. You only write if you feel motivated and inspired, period. Beforehand there had been many voices saying this wouldn’t work out. Two and a half years of experience show: It does work out very well. This isn’t utopia, it is a very effective and modern form of self-organization. You have, in contrast to other magazines (metal.de for instance) no determined genres where you categorize the reviewed albums – admittedly this would be rather strange for an Avantgarde Metal magazine. Furthermore you go without a numeral spectrum to rate the albums you review, which certainly bears some disadvantage for readers who are impatient or do not speak English very well. Did you ever think about using such a numeral spectrum – and if so, what are your reasons to abandon this thought? We have the so called "avantgenre", which "lifts" the conventional genres according to a threefold dialectic principle ("lift” as in "lift up” from the ground, thus preserving them; "lift” as in "nullify” and as in "lift up” to a higher level). The "avantgenre” is to satirize the conventional categories and their uncontrolled growth in the Metal scene (e.g. "Symphonic Shoegaze Doom”, "Grand Orchestral Kamikaze Metal” or "Polymorphous Jazz-Crust Fusion”). On the other hand these avantgenres give a brief description of what the reader should expect from the reviewed album. We never seriously took the introduction of a numeral spectrum into consideration. As you rightly said, this would be a certain contradiction to the freethinking approach of our site. In addition we see our review section as kind of "Best of Innovative Metal”. The albums we choose to review would get 9-11 out of 10 anyway. Everything else is not worth an article’s work. Nevertheless we have one rating per year – the "Top 10 Avantgarde Metal Albums of the Year”, which are voted by our readers. This way AGM-newbies have a kind of pointer, helping them dive for pearls in the sea, giving them hints to (according to quite a lot of people’s opinion) great classics.  Next to the review section you have created a place on our site where bands, which truly deserve the term "AGM”, are presented. This is another difference between AGM.com and other magazines, which for the most part only feature interviews with some reviewed bands. Where do you see the advantages of such an extensive presentation? As you suppose correctly, it is mainly about emphasizing important artists and their work, with link to every related story, review and interview featured on AGM.com. This section is outstandingly attended – which proves that our readers appreciate this section. An important part of AGM.com is the forum, where most editors are quite active. Was the massive contribution of this forum to AGM.com’s success intended from the very beginning? Yes, the possibility to interact directly is very important to us. It also emphasizes the nature of Avantgarde Metal as a scene which is open in every direction. Unfortunately you can’t visit an AGM-bar in every city (as in the Gothic of conventional Metal scene). Thus it is even more important to us to provide a meeting place to AGM lunatics from all over the world. I am often very surprised by the huge range of fascinating and stimulating discussions. In this vein many of our crew are regular guests there. You may regard the "Freak Zone” as mixture of infamous pub, cabinet of curiosities and magical library, where Metal-freethinkers and freaks from all over the world meet for a thought exchange. Stopping by will definitely be worth your while! The discussion "What is AGM?” has been initiated in this very forum and has made its way to the main site. Could you depict the results of this discussion to our readers? Did you actually find a "definition” of Avantgarde Metal? The results of this intense discussion are a variety of most different definitions, and for every single one there is something to be said for that. It would take us too far afield and surely bore the readers to even go through the most important definitions. Actually, a specific result or a "universally valid” definition was not what we were aiming for. We excluded this possibility a priori by methodological considerations. The discussion’s aim was rather to intellectually stimulate everyone partaking. Its aim was to show different angles, different points of view, both to the readers and our crew.  We’re doing this interview for an AGM-special which will appear on metal.de. Background for this is the cooperation of AGM.com and metal.de – what do you expect from this cooperation? The cooperation with metal.de is an excellent opportunity to make the charme of wicked Metal-sounds accessible to a larger audience. In Metal there are truly delightful lucky bags full of fabulous creatures and otherworlds, only waiting to be discovered. On one hand we see the possibility to anchor those marvels of Avantgarde Metal in the scene’s consciousness more strongly, and by this to do ingenious bands a favor; on the other hand we would like to do good for the readers of metal.de by serving them some exotic tidbits. Third, we want to do good for the Metal scene in general – can it be that Metal got stuck in the 1990ies and only changes equipment and hairdresser?! We want to stir up a rebellion, just like Rock did in the late 1960ies or Death Metal did in the late 1980ies. metal.de is the ideal partner for this. After all you cover the whole range of Metal, you publish on a high level and are rightly one of the most popular German Metal sites. Sometimes you are even a little ahead, when I think about the DORNENREICH-DVD’s review . Last but not least: Of course I would not want to encourage any metal.de-editor to "change sides” , but let me ask nevertheless: If someone would want to join AGM.com’s crew, which qualifications are deemed necessary? We handle these things very unbureaucratically. If you are interested to write for AGM regularly or irregularly, send us a test-review for an AGM-release according to your choice. This we will check by means of linguistic and stylistic criteria on one hand, on the other hand we will check the personal approach to experimental music. If both aspects fulfill the basic criteria and the review additionally shows originality and individuality, welcome aboard! interview conducted by Falk  metal.de |
