You've probably already thought about this throughout at least once throughout your life, or maybe you haven't. For those that haven't I need for your to listen up for just a bit.
Would you ever go to a restaurant, wine, dine, and enjoy your time then towards the end of your visit you get the check and do nothing but walk out? Would you tell a sculptor to sculpt you a beautiful monument and not pay them? These answer to these questions is 'no'. You should opt to pay for your meal and tip your server and you should pay the sculptor for the beautiful art work. The same applies to musicians. If you listen to an album and really enjoy it it's your duty to PAY your respects. And I emphesize on 'pay' because you should support it as much as you can. If you say "metal is your life" live up to it. Go to shows, buy shirts, cd's, pins, lp's, splits, 7", and donate to the, not so fortunate, touring bands when you can. If a shirt is $7 because they just really need the money to make it to the next couple of towns throw down two 5's. Down loading music has ruined touring for a lot of bands. Not only that but bands are starting to tour souly with shirts. I saw Mayhem this year and I was looking for a cd or vinyl, something, for my boyfriend. NOTHING. I was shocked. They headline festivals and play really big shows. But why would they tour with out music? I wanted to ask their touring guy but didn't want to bother him because I figured he just wanted people around that would buy stuff. They were serious about it too. Not touring with music merch is pretty big now, I learned. And to me that is very unfortunate.
Earlier this month I overheard a conversation on the plane between two friends, A&B. Friend A was saying Friend B is too much of a nerd and dismissing all of what Friend B was interested in. Because Friend A is in a semi-successful metal band he therefore "lives for metal", in a sense he dedicated more of his life and time to it. Friend B knows a lot about musicians, plays music as well, and listens to a lot of different music. Friend A thinks he is more metal than Friend B. Frankly I don't give a shit but I just wanted to show that Friend B loves it just as much, just because you play music doesn't make you superior. Fuck off for a while, eh? I know for a fact Friend B buys more cd's and see's more shows than Friend A. You sound stupid when you say you dedicate your life to it anyway. And I digress; I was just trying to prove a point.

FOAD forever. I wrote this so long ago I don't know where I was going with it. Fuu