Veloshitty vs. Dead Child

The math-rock-loving hipsters and critics who worshipped Slint might have been shaken to their clunky-black-glasses core, but inside the indie- and alt-rocker was a stifled metalhead with a childhood dream of becoming a horror makeup artist. Why not start a thrash metal band? someone in the van suggested. Why not, indeed? "I was so young when I was into all this stuff," said Pajo, who, in addition to Slint, has played with Tortoise, Zwan and Will Oldham.

Pajo has also been in heavy Louisville bands that owe quite a bit to heavy metal, such as Maurice and Solution Unknown. But don't let the facts get in the way of your "Louisville loves indie math rock!" theory.

Metalheads like Metallica's Lars Ulrich -- unabashed macho meatheads, basically -- seem the antithesis of Louisville's music history, from Slint to My Morning Jacket. Even the Louisville hardcore scene in the 1990s mostly eschewed the metal mentality.

Again: complete ignorance of Louisville music history. Louisville has had more than its share of testosterone-fueled aggression in the music scene -- Erchint and Kinghorse come immediately to mind as two of the more prominent 1990s examples. Has Joseph Lord even listened to 1990s Louisville hardcore? Would anyone familiar with the era argue, for example, that Endpoint was completely uninfluenced by metal?

I know that asking Velocity to hire writers who are either familiar with their subjects or willing to do a little basic research is asking far too much. Nonetheless, let this be the inaugural post in a series that we'll name "Veloshitty."