All Known Metal Bands - Hardcover

This volume contains the names of over fifty thousand metal bands. If one presumes that each of these bands had an average of four members, and multiplies that by the bands, one might figure that at least a quarter of a million humans have pledged allegiance to one of these groups of wandering beasts. Never has a music relegated to the underground of a civilization had so many devotees; no radio need transmit the power of this music, for it is sought fiercely and freely by the doomed and the dispossessed, whose ears are never touched by songs of love and weakness. These names are invisible tokens to be spoken aloud, each representing a human quest for superhuman spectacle: shaking floorboards and quivering walls, split ears leaking blood, with faces painted and ornaments pointy, voices uttering eternal truths shunned by woman and man alike.Praise for All Known Metal Bands:'The best bathroom book ever.' Rolling Stone

Dan Nelson was born in Massachusetts in 1972. In his early years, he worked primarily with unpainted wooden blocks, moving on at age five to photography. After a teenage period of reading Jean Cocteau, dyeing his hair, taking more photographs, and drumming in the basement, he attended Saint John's College. He then became a sailor, visiting several countries on various continents whose shores are lapped by several oceans. He returned to the U.S. to become a photojournalist in 1999, and again donned the mantle of artist after a ten-year hiatus. In 2002 he moved to California in a sedan, pausing in Indiana to pick up a drum set. His current art projects include illustrations for a Schubert song cycle and "140 Ways to Make a Cassette Unlistenable".