STRICTLY GLOBAL

How's this for a new theme?  I go on Wikipedia, hit random, and whatever country the article takes place in, I blog about their music scene.  And lookie lookie, this week I landed on Bergen, Norway (on an article about the Bergen International Festival to be exact) thus enabling me to blab on about either traditional Norse music, the ever amazing genre of black metal, or the struggle of Ida Maria's recent dibacle on the Perez Hilton tour in the U.S.  Spare you on that last bit, as I did get a chance to catch her at her DC performance (touring with New Zealand's Ladyhawke!!!) and though she was as sloshy as your average Shane MacGowan (the Pogues), she didn't lack in entertaining the crowd.  So kudos Ida, we <3 you.

Now, the first band that pops into my mind when I think Norwegian black metal is Darkthrone.  {Wow.  I never thought I'd blog about Darkthrone and Ida Maria in the same span of sentence spacedom.}  Not actually from Bergen, but the Oslo area, these dudes originally formed as a death metal band in 1986 under the name Black Death, and then went full on black metal back in 1991, donning the signature corpsepaint seen amongst all the faces of black metal bands.  Not familiar?  Imagine KISS make-up, but wicked eviler.  Heck yes.  Anyway, they are still around, and though their roots are still with black metal, some of their latest stuff has teetered on crust. 

But let's get back to Bergen, proclaimed cultural capital of Norway, cause that was the whole point of the random country music blog...  Every year, the city holds a two-week long event called the Bergen International Festival, and within that hundreds of Norwegian and international musicians from various genres perform throughout the city.  Oddly enough, from the 2008 roster of artists, I only recognized one band; Matmos.  Check out the list and see if you can beat that. ;P  We missed this year's fest, but the next  is slated for May 26th-June 9th of 2010.