The Big Shiny Prison : Ryan Bartek

The popular misconception that heavy metal, and indeed rock music of any variety, is exclusively the preserve of boneheaded, hormone crazed adolescents and their leather jacketed fathers (or perhaps more significantly nowadays, by teens sporting haircuts straight from the pages of Tony and Guy catalogues) is an enduring one, and though as most misconceptions do it touches upon a degree of truth, for heavy music listeners with a sharp mind and conscience, which I would argue is the majority, it’s rather infuriating at times. For every clueless prick that daubs swastikas across his chest in preparation for a gig or digs out his knuckledusters for some ‘brutal mosh pit action’ there are ten thoughtful, discerning people who love and truly appreciate this music for what it is; intelligent people who find that for whatever reason this music makes them happy, or gets them through the day, so on and so forth. Detroit writer Ryan Bartek’s latest work ‘The Big Shiny Prison’ is many things; a chronicle of a journey across America, a socio-political tract of mighty proportions, a living novel with Bartek playing the dual roles of author and protagonist... but as an exploration into the bizarrely captivating world of underground music (death, punk, crust, tech metal, noise, industrial, plenty more)it penetrates deeper than the vast majority of literature on the subject before, and the metallic intelligentsia nods its head in bemused satisfaction, not to mention vindication.

It’s near impossible to condense a 315 page beast of a work into a humble piece such as this, so I will not attempt to explain the narrative of Bartek’s work, interested readers are guided to the link at the bottom of this page for that. Bartek’s jarringly honest account of his time travelling across America in the company of an assortment of misfits, freaks and musicians (definitions not mutually exclusive) analyses ¾ of a year in withering detail, incorporating interviews with artists such as Brutal Truth, Dwarves, Pig Destroyer, Kylesa, RATT and numerous others into the narrative throughout. Certain to offend some and captivate others, ‘The Big Shiny Prison’ defies categorisation in so many ways that it can only be described as, yes, ‘truly original’ though whether this is a good thing or not we’ll let you decide. Opening section ‘The Fringe Design, A Preliminary Dissertation’ serves as a potentially stand alone introduction to the worlds of punk and metal for the uninitiated, succinct and humorous, and worth a look for those seeking more substance than traditional analyses of such the musical realms. Constantly scrutinising himself and the world around him, the worldview that Bartek presents may strike some as nihilistic or cynical, others as pretentious and ridiculously self absorbed; for my money it’s the voice of a true outsider, the insistent whisper into the ear of complacent American society, put forth with refreshing honesty and erudition. In the spirit of the work I suggest you look below to make up your own mind; characteristically Bartek defies convention even in the distribution of his book, spreading a free PDF across the net on sites such as this for any interested parties to download. Not for those of a week disposition, the work, three years in the making, portrays an America away from the glitz and glamour of the popular media, away from the whitebread, repressive conformity of the middle class consciousness, a place of alienation and absurdity, the world of the counter culture. These things need to be shown in troubled times such as we live in, and you’ll rarely find an account of such caustic poignancy outside of Bartek’s work. We wish him all the best, a link to download the book in PDF form is below.

www.mediafire.com/?fyjzycckydd