Bye Chi; Like Tai Chi, But Tragic and Depressing

Damn...  Two posts in a week about metal bassists dying.  Sorry if this has been a pretty bummer week, dudes and dudettes, but this is something I feel I need to post about.  Hell, I wish I'd posted about it the day it happened.

Five years ago, Chi Cheng, Deftones' bassist, was in a car accident that left him in a coma.  Just last year, he'd woken up, on the Fourth of July.  I thought that was it.  I thought, "I've heard of people recovering from worse.  He seems like a strong dude, has a lot of support.  Few years, and I can see the original Deftones and it'll be the best damned thing that ever happened to me."  Maybe it was naive, maybe it was uninformed, but goddamn it did I hope.  Just a few short days ago, he passed away due to related complications.

When I'd first seen Deftones, it had already been three years since the accident.  I was familiar with their music, though I wasn't nearly as big a fan as I am these days.  Until that day, I hadn't immersed myself in it, explored every crevasse, spent hours just listening to it, tried like hell to emulate it.

Just as I tried to honor Peter Steele with humor to complement the black tidings, something he was good at, I don't feel like I should mourn Chi's passing the same way.  He was a deeply spiritual man, a thoughtful man, a poet.  That's something I'd like to emulate, if just for a bit.

Again, in the extraordinarily unlikely event that any of the members of Deftones should read this (Chino Moreno, Stephen Carpenter, Abe Cunningham, Frank Delgado, Sergio Vega): I sincerely hope I did justice to the passing of your friend and brother.  You have no idea what your music has done for me.

So much more I want to say, and I'm afraid of not saying it well enough.  I know you shouldn't let your fear rule you, but for once, I'm going to take a step back from myself.  Chi was a greater wordsmith than I can strive to be.  So to close this off, here's one of his poems from his spoken word album, "The Bamboo Parachute".  It's called Braces, and... I don't know why, but I feel it's strangely appropriate.

It's cooler to be in your shade, easier to predict the future of plastic than to be the mess that is you.  It doesn't mean you don't shine, it's just... time isn't taking care of your wounds.  Faithfully with you, a plain pocket caught in turbulence.  Nobody knows what they mean to you.  I have no right to wonder, but I'd miss all my beautiful friends.  Pre-Christ lives, imitating, living.

Sunlight, Flashing on your Steele

Let us take this day to remember one of the unsung heroes of metal, one of the last torchbearers of the days of classic metal, a brilliant songwriter, a flame that burnt out and burnt bright rather than faded away.

Peter Steele.

I was going to write "Peter "Fucking" Steele" on that single-line epitaph up there, but if just for a moment, I want to find in myself some solemnity, the capacity to be serious.

Not saying this post is gonna be all white slavery and anesthesia.  I mean, look at this guy:

Or don't.  Either way, he's looking at you.

He was a goofball.  A towering, scary-looking, talented-as-fuck goofball.  So he'd want some humor in a post like this.  So Pete, if I think of anything good, I'll throw it in.

Imposing as he was, Peter Steele was, by all accounts (well... that I've read anyway), a wonderful man: a joy in the studio, on stage, at home, at the bar, in the workplace.  Speaking of the workplace, did I mention he worked for the NYC Parks Department?  Imagine a Peter Steele cameo in Parks and Rec.  Seriously.

Also, since there's weirdly no pictures of him actually working in a park, above is a picture of Peter Steele being sexy in a field.  Which is close enough to a park.

And that's not even touching on how this motherfucker could write a song.  Steele had a way of songwriting that captured intense emotion without being a "look at my problems" kinda songwriter.

Looking at you, bro.

He shared his world with us rather than dragging us down inside it.  More impressively, he accomplished this while filtering his life through the world of horror, using all things gothic and macabre as analogy.  Even more impressively, it's presented in a way that still makes you want to fucking move, that's still fucking metal and catchy as shit.  Even MORE impressively (ya see where I'm going with this?), he (well, they, because this is obviously more up to his band) managed to make this beautiful shit without a lot of studio fanciness.  Do I like studio fanciness?  No; I love it.  Do I think the minimalization of such tricks sort of held Type O Negative back in terms of not putting out stuff that the radio would devour, something they could have been done without sacrificing any sort of integrity?  For sure. But the music's great as is.  When all the paint's been stripped away and you still have a house you want to live in, that's when you know you have something truly special.

I know, Ten Guy.  I know.

So there you go, folks.  Peter Fucking Steele of Type O Negative.  Hope there's Halloween in Heaven, Pete.  Say hi to Dimebag for me.  Not that I knew him, but, you know, that'd be cool.  And like, all the other dead musicians.

No.

And to the rest of the guys from Type O Negative - Kenny Hickey, Josh Silver, Johnny Kelly - should you somehow read this blog (yeah fucking right), thank you so much for some twenty years of amazing music.  If there's any way I didn't do justice to you or the dearly departed, I'm truly sorry.

Also, this.  Fucking this.  Credit goes to VoodooHammer on deviantART.  If you run into this bro, real sorry I didn't actually get permission.  Hope you'll appreciate the usage though.

Plus a funny meme.