PROPOSED: YOU CAN’T STOP THE ROCK.

Q: Is the rock actually completely unstoppable, a permanent fixture of the universe, unstoppable by any force or movement and impervious to the passage of time?

A: Short answer: “no”; long answer “yes.” More on this later.

Q: Have people actually been trying to stop the rock? Have they had much success?

A: Some people said they were but they were just saying that to get attention. People who make a big deal about how they’re going to stop the rock once and for all usually mean “I am going to play some rock.”

Q: What the hell are you talking about, anyhow? This doesn’t have something to do with that wrestler guy, does it?

A: No, no, Christ no. Rock and roll is what I mean. I do not acknowledge wrestlers who call themselves things like “The Rock,” anyhow. Everybody knows that wrestlers should have real names like they did back in the good old days. “The Sheik” or “André the Giant,” for instance.

Q: So why do some people often start telling other people that the rock can’t be stopped, least of all by the likes of you, right, when these people hadn’t even asked whether the rock could be stopped or not?

A: What these people mean is, “I don’t know about you, but as for me, I have been completely unable to stop the rock.” In fact these people have tried to stop the rock and the whole experience was somewhat distressing to them. They put the rock into the CD player and it did something to their brains. It felt good, but so does getting beheaded, according to a popular and uncomfirmable rumor.

Q: What evidence is there that the rock can in fact be stopped, contrary to the claims of the non-rock-stoppers?

A: Well, there’s Toto, to begin with, and if that wasn’t enough, there’s also Nickelback. But really these only stopped the rock for a few minutes and then it turned out that the rock hadn’t really stopped at all but had only made a sharp left as soon as it saw that it was about to run directly into Toto and Nickelback if it wasn’t careful. So such evidence as we have has been inconclusive at best.

Q: What evidence is there that the rock can’t actually be stopped at all?

A: As investigators of the paranormal are fond of saying: the evidence is strictly anecdotal. With that in mind, though, some of the anecdotes fairly demand that one remain open to the proposition.

Q: The way I figure it there’s got to be a record that you’re about to come around to, right? And that’s the whole point, right, that because there’s this record that’s proof that you can’t stop the rock?

A: No, actually, you cynical bastard, you. I mean yes it seems obvious that we’ve got to test out our hypothesis but I do not have a particular record in mind yet. I just thought I’d grab something from the big stack of stuff that’s now gotten completely out of control since I am hardly ever in town for longer than a day or two any more.

Q: Are we supposed to feel bad for you or something?

A: Yes.

Q: So have you picked out a record?

A: Yes, I have. If I hadn’t’ve started to worry that I was going completely insane with the record-buying yesterday in Berkeley, it’d probably be the new album by a black metal band from Texas called Absu. But I wound up not buying the Absu album. So the first randomly selected can-you-stop-the-rock-or-not album is...ummm....here we are, it was waiting for me in a manila envelope when I got home this afternoon: The Odyssey by Symphony X.

Q: Sounds to me like somebody already stopped the rock.

A: Don’t get smart.

Q: Is is “Symphony X” as in “Symphony Ten,” by the way, or “Symphony X” as in “Malcolm X”?

A: While we relish the thought of a power-metal band having named themselves after Malcolm X, we’re pretty sure that all similarities here are coincidental. They play power metal: clean, expertly played guitar parts that speed up or slow down when the time signature changes, as it does several times per song. Quasi-operatic vocals that favor phrases that end in words with long vowels so that they can hold the note.

Q: Like, say, the word “fire.”

A: Exactly. Or “desire.”

Q: Awwwww, yeah!

A: Fire/desire rhymin’ in the house!

Q: Eye/cry in full effect, boyeee!

A: Adjectives like “moonlit” to the break of dawn, yo!

Q: You’ve been reading “Get Your War On,” haven’t you?

A: Ok that’ll be about enough of that.

Q: Hey, Symphony X — aren’t those guys from Jersey?

A: Hell yes they are.

Q: Does that explain why their new album concludes with a twenty-four minute song based on Homer’s The Odyssey, a song divided into seven parts which on the album sleeve are numbered “I” to “VII” with individual subtitles like “Part IV: Circe (Daughter of the Sun)”?

A: No. Jokes about New Jersey are too Catskills and anyhow nobody even knows what the Catskills were all about any more. South Carolina is the new Catskills.

Q: Yeah but Nile are from South Carolina.

A: You’re God damned right they are, and I am not going to listen to this Symphony X album one second longer. [sound of computer CD drive opening]

Q: But you haven’t even gotten to the title track yet.

A: Wherefore we conclude that God is merciful and kind. We were just getting to the violin/piano duet.

Q: Didn’t you already talk about Nile, just, like, last week?

A: No, that was Chris Matthews. Who, incidentally, has been unable to stop the rock no matter how hard he tries. But Nile was just a cheap transition. What I actually wanted to throw in World Domination IV. It’s on a French label called Osmose Productions. France is the new Norway.

Q: Defend that ridiculous assertion or we will conclude that the rock has in fact been stopped.

A: Gladly. World Domination IV is a double CD that’ll set you back all of fifteen bucks at either http://www.aquariusrecords.org or http://www.blackmetal.com and will let you investigate a lot of this black metal stuff you’ve been curious about only you didn’t know what album to start with and you didn’t want to commit yourself to a full album by any bands you didn’t know much about. You can say what you want about label samplers but I defy you to remain unmoved by Osmose Productions’ absolute commitment to savagery.

Q: Can label sampler compilations stop the rock?

A: Yes, actually, they can. But World Domination IV will not stop the rock, because it is the rock.

Q: No, Jesus is the Rock.

A: You need to read your Bible more. Jesus said that Peter was the rock. This is why the Catholic Church claims Peter as its founder. All of which is very interesting but cannot stop the rock. Not when the rock comes in the form of bands who give their albums titles like “Cut Your Flesh and Worship Satan.”

Q: What band is that?

A: Antaeus. If the ready availability of one’s albums corresponds inversely to the opposition’s ability to stop the rock, then Antaeus are fighting the good fight, since it’s a bear getting ahold of their stuff. They’re French. They’ve got one song on World Domination IV.

Q: Will that song all by itself prevent anybody from stopping the rock?

A: Short answer, no. Long answer, yes, with reservations. What Antaeus have going for them is purity, the kind of thing that makes those records on the Northern Heritage label so great: one gets the feeling that this horrible squall from which no melodious sound could ever emerge uncharred is a creation birthed entirely from some love which dare not articulate its own true nature.

Q: Can fits of flowery prose stop the rock?

A: Yes. The reason you should watch Antaeus is that they’ve got the doing-this-’cause-we-wanna spirit: the one that the White Stripes and the Strokes generally do a serviceable job of faking, but which you suspect nobody actually really feels. The opening eight bars of Antaeus’s one song on World Domination IV sound like the full glorious flowering not just of a wasted youth, but of a youth wasted on purpose. It’s not just how focused they are: it’s that they sound like they couldn’t unfocus even if they tried. The song in question, “Blood War III,” gets more and more addictive every time you play it: as with the best black metal, and indeed with all great rock music, you begin to feel like this must be the whole point of everything — the reason why we struggle to complete our daily rounds, and the reason why we bother going on — and the feeling deepens to a truly ridiculous point if you’re willing to let your guard down. That such engagement should happen while listening to a black metal band from France only sweetens the pot.

Q: Is Antaeus actually completely unstoppable, a permanent fixture of the universe, unstoppable by any force or movement and impervious to the passage of time?

A: Probably not, since black metal bands love breaking up almost as much as punk bands do. But in the short run, the answer is yes: Antaeus are more evidence that you can’t stop the rock.

Q: Not even with symphonic power metal.

A: Precisely.

RESOLVED: That even big warbly-voiced power metal cannot stop the rock, since there are French double-CD label sampler compilations that feature obscure French Black Metal bands with a real gift for album titles and a flair for that playing-in-a-barn-just-to-frighten-the-neighbors feel.

The motion passes without objection.