The No Outsides featured event series is part of the No Outsides: Metal in an Era of Contagion ISMMS 2023 conference.

The 6th meeting of the International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS) will be held at Concordia University (Montreal) from June 6-9, 2023. Six decades from its counter-cultural inception, what remains of metal’s relation to the outside forces of extremity, abolition and transformation? The conference, which will be hosted by an interdisciplinary team of scholars, students and artists, will explore this question through a series of talks, artistic interventions, panels and workshops. Oriented toward the question of metal study’s relationship to the outside in an era of contagion, this conference will explore questions related to themes of urgency and emergency, extremity and enclosure, contagion and containment, plurality and polarization, queerness and ecological outsides, and futurity and fatality. Read more about the conference here.

Check out our FREE featured events here and on Facebook!

Last updated Wednesday May 17.

Tuesday June 6

Keynote: “The Rez Dogs”: An Outsider/Indigenous Punk-Life Story from the Street with William Lindsay 

Tuesday June 6, 930am-11am, De Seve Cinema 

 “How punk were we? Let me count the ways…” So begins the chapter ‘True Punks, Strong and Free’ in William Lindsay’s book ‘Rez Dog Blues & The Haiku: A Savage Life in Bits and Pieces’. With its honest depiction of Indigenous and “outsider” 1970s street culture, Lindsay notes, “We didn’t choose the punk life. It chose us.” This street-based life ended up with an electrifying soundtrack, one which permeates ‘Rez Dog Blues & The Haiku’. With its mixture of proto-punk, punk, heavy metal, and rock, this soundtrack of a generation played out in real life time and circumstance. This music didn’t direct life, it was life. In fact, the argument is made that Indigenous people were, indeed, the first true punks, created as such by history and a colonialist society. The soundtrack, created by others, came later. 

Please join us for the 2023 ISMMS keynote address as we imagine and explore themes of “Indigenous outsider”; punk and metal as the soundtrack to a life on the street; how much punk, heavy metal, and rock meant to the author’s street-savvy generation; Indigenous interpretations and applications of such music; the meaning of it all with the passing of time, and in the author’s case, some modern applications as a result of the book. With allusions to and readings from the book ‘Rez Dog Blues & The Haiku’, it will make for a unique and informative Q & A presentation. 

Facebook event link:  https://www.facebook.com/events/972791164083848/

Roundtable: Revealing Representations: Identities in Metal Music  

Tuesday June 6, 2pm-330pm, De Seve Cinema 

Moderator: Nykkie Lugosi
Panelists: Leila Abdul Rauf, Dan Butler, Nelson Varas-Díaz 

During this moderated discussion panel, we will think through the multiplicities of representation in metal across different venues such as music, film and visual art. Panelists will explore the connections, contradictions and paradoxes that emerge when we bring to the forefront people, topics and issues that society at large aims to discard and ignore. This conversation between scholars, filmmakers and musicians will explore themes that aim to critically engage tensions between cultural appreciation and appropriation, between the conscious and unconscious reproduction of stereotypes, and the possibility, but also limits, of understanding metal as a non-conformist counter-cultural site of resistance. 

Facebook event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1390559148460782/

Art Installation Opening: STREET STUDIO MUSEUM NATURE by Juan Pablo Macías 

Tuesday June 6, 330pm-430pm, 4th Space

STREET STUDIO MUSEUM NATURE gathers works of different periods by Juan Pablo Macías that relate through the constant use of extreme music and its relation to space. Over the years, music has accompanied Macías’ research on anarchism as a critique of representation in terms of image-making and mainly as a structuring of thought and its materialization in the social realm and institutions. 

Facebook event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/6235213893193372/

Film Screening + Conversation: Stepping Into Halka 

Tuesday June 6, 430pm-6pm, De Seve Cinema 

Presenters: Veronica Mockler, Kendra McDonald, Hunnayna Hemed, Kaymarie Sutherland 

Follow the experiences of teenagers Hunnayna Hemed, Kaymarie Sutherland, and Kendra McDonald as they document the work and world of Halka, a media performance collective composed of university professors, visual artists, world-famous metal musicians, music therapists, academic researchers, and touring DJs. Throughout the course of an alternative internship conceived and led by collective member Veronica Mockler, the three young women share their unique perspectives on Halka’s latest creative manifestation, which includes a two-night public performance in Montréal and the recording of an album. Standing on the outside looking in (with the camera), Hunnayna, Kaymarie, and Kendra navigate the ethics of their inclusion in the inner workings of art, research, and academia. Follow them as they take up the complexity of intersectional documentary representation.

Facebook event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/284933333979036/

Workshop: Abstract Turntablism Workshop with Maria Chávez

Tuesday, June 6, 7-9pm, Research-Creation Space, CSLP

Join abstract turntablist, sound artist and DJ, Maria Chavez as she leads this hands-on workshop using turntables and vinyl records as instruments in their own right. This workshop includes a demonstration from the artist followed by opportunities for participants to try their hand at some abstract turntablism of their own!

Facebook event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1480953195774367/

Wednesday June 7

Screening and conversation: Documenting Metal’s Outsides: A Conversation Between Filmmakers 

Wednesday June 7, 930am-11am, De Seve Cinema 

Moderator: Jason Wallin
Panelists: Vivek Venkatesh, Nelson Varas-Díaz 

Join your host Jason Wallin and filmmakers Nelson Varas-Diaz and Vivek Venkatesh for a panel discussion on documenting metal culture in contexts as varied as the Global South and Norway. Nelson and Vivek will share some of their perspectives on the ethics of documenting underground cultures and their varied approaches to filmmaking. Their discussion will be accompanied by clips of some of their films including “Enslaved 25” and “Acts of Resistance: Heavy Metal Music in Latina America”.

Facebook event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1006261050749957/

Keynote: The Topography of Sound: From PVC to Marble with Maria Chávez 

Wednesday June 7, 430pm-6pm, De Seve Cinema 

Facebook event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/577685851118460/

Workshop: Rainbow Corpsepaint

Wednesday, June 7, 7pm-9pm, EV 2.645

Workshop Leaders: Daniel Lukes, Jaci Raia, Stanimir Panayotov 

Black metal has a long history defined by black and white aesthetics, but the times they are a-changin’. “Rainbow Corpsepaint” is an interactive session that re-imagines corpsepaint for a new era of pluralistic and diverse black metal. Watch, as the spectrum of colors contained with the black is liberated and expressed upon the canvas of the human face in new and unexpected ways. This workshop will engage participants in a process of re-thinking, queering, remixing, reconfiguring what corpsepaint can do. Utilizing a mix of images, sound and interactive participation, including the opportunity to paint your own faces with provided face paints, “Rainbow Corpsepaint” will bring together artists, musicians, scholars, fans, in a moment of critical reflection and active re-evaluation of the classic black metal practice of corpsepaint design and application. The session will explore what playfulness and experimentation with colors in the context of black metal corpsepaint can tell us about contemporary cultural politics, and examine terrains of crossover between corpsepaint and clown culture, black metal, drag and the carnivalesque, plus other historical and cultural forms of face painting. We will also be announcing and celebrating the winners of the Rainbow Corpsepaint online competition. Come along and let’s get messy together!!!

Facebook event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/141351025589644/

Thursday June 8

Roundtable:  Teaching Metal in the Era of Contagion: Approaches for the College Classroom 

Thursday June 8, 930am-11am, De Seve Cinema 

Moderator: Bryan Bardine
Panelists: Ross Hagen, Joe Diaz, Jeremy Swist, Charlotte Naylor Davis 

This roundtable examines five unique ways to teach Metal Studies in the college classroom. Presenters will examine the Metal Studies classroom from a variety of perspectives, including how Metal is a pedagogical tool to help students question who owns texts, to help to teach interpretation and criticism of primary and secondary historical sources, as a way to contextualize Metal within a music theory course, to examine the history of the music and culture, and to locate and analyze Metal studies and culture as the “Other” in society.

Facebook event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/118400474559947/ 

Thursday June 8 & Friday June 9

Performances: No Outsides band 

Thursday June 8, 430pm-6pm, 4th Space 

Friday June 9, 1100am-1230pm, 4th Space 

Band members: Vivek Venkatesh, Annabelle Brault, Leila Abdul-Rauf, Dan Butler, Jessie Beier, Owen Chapman, Nik Forrest, Jason Wallin 

Facebook event link: Thursday  https://www.facebook.com/events/1186242215374931/ and Friday https://www.facebook.com/events/140630892330802/ 

Friday June 9

Workshop: Inclusion through Exclusion: A Workshop with Members of the No Outside Band

Friday, June 9, 930-11am, 4th Space

Join our No Outsides band members Leila Abdul-Rauf and Dan Butler for a unique hands-on workshop on vocal techniques as well as discussions around lyrical inspirations in the extreme metal genre. Leila and Dan are members of Oakland, California’s death metal stalwarts Vastum and their unique brand of extreme music touches upon themes of abjection, eroticism and psychoanalysis. All conference attendees are welcome to try their hand (or rather diaphragm and throat!) at growling, screeching and creating guttural vocals at this specially-curated event!

Facebook event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/598598755701862

Radio Station: No Outsides Polymorphous Radio Station [NOPRS FM]

Ongoing – 4th Space 

The No Outsides Polymorphous Radio Station (NOPRS FM) will present a stream of audio content to conference attendees (and other local radio tuners) through the creation of mini-FM broadcast zones during the three days of the event. NOPRS FM will feature musical tracks suggested by conference participants, interviews, field recordings, No Outsides Band jam sessions and Vox-Pop style contributions. Our aim, following renowned radio artist Tetsuo Kogawa, is to consider radio in its extreme possibilities through the practice of free narrowcasting. Conference attendees can tune in by using the small portable radios provided to No Outsides participants when they register. 

Facebook event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/195257043391847/