A mosh pit....
Have you ever considered what makes a mosh pit so desirable to start or to be a part of at a rock concert. Now granted on any normal day you will not find me having the desire to be in a small room with 500 shirtless guys sweating and bleeding on me but for some reason when you are at a concert and get into the music you suddely have the bright idea of shoving other men around. Let's take a look at where it came from and what the origins are.
Origins
The term "mosh" probably came from the term "mash" or dance (as in "monster mash"). In the early eighties, it was frequently spelled "mash", but pronounced "mosh", as in the 1982 song "Total Mash" by the Washington D.C. based hardcore group "Scream", on their "Still Screaming" album. Later, the term began to appear in fanzines of the time with its current spelling. The Jamaican pronunciation is likely due to the influence of ska and reggae on punk rock, as in the song lyric "Mash it up in Zimbabwe" in the song "Zimbabwe" on Bob Marley's 1979 "Survival" album.
The term "mosh" has often been credited to Vinnie Stigma of the hardcore group Agnostic Front as an acronym for "March Of Skin Heads", but most authorities cite either Darryl Jennifer or H.R., respectively bass guitarist and Vocalist for Bad Brains as the term's originator, from his Jamaican-accented pronunciation of the word "mash", in "Mash down Babylon", referring to the Rastafarian religious idea of the corrupt world-system and the track "Mash It Up". Many early punk scenes referred to this type of dance as 'thrashing', and the term 'moshing' gradually gained significance during the hardcore metal crossover days.
This fusion was created by bands like D.R.I.. Slam dancing originated in Southern California during the west coast second generation punk movement. It began as bands like Black Flag & The Circle Jerks started playing extreme hardcore punk. The kids from the beach cities began attending shows and took the pogo to the next level of physical contact.
History
Mosh pits (or Circle pits) appeared in
1981, if not earlier, at a number of
punk rock concerts. The dance form later spread to the
heavy metal music scene, where
headbanging and
crowd surfing were incorporated. In the mid-1980s, when
thrash metal bands like
Slayer,
Megadeth, and
Anthrax were still playing club venues, mosh pits were a regular part of the concert experience. By the time of the
Woodstock 1999 music festival, moshing had been described as a full-scale riot. To solve these problems, venues that expect moshing now typically provide crowd control, including having concert rules, removing problem-causing audience members, and a "T-barricade" that separates the pit into two halves as well as from the band.
Although The Smashing Pumpkins played a problem-causing show that made headlines for moshing, it was revealed that the death of Bernadette O'Brien (a 17-year-old fan from Cork) by way of trampling was actually due to crowd-surfing at the show. The concert ended early and the following night's performance in Belfast was cancelled out of respect for her. Due to the media's false portrayal of mosh pits being synonymous with stage diving and crowd surfing, her death was wrongfully blamed on the mosh pit.
Moshpit: The Violent World of Mosh Pit Culture is a book about moshing by Joe Ambrose[1], anarchist writer and collaborator with, amongst others, Iggy Pop, William Burroughs, Lydia Lunch, Sol Melendez, and Richard Hell. Ambrose's book contains a history of moshing and first hand reports from a variety of mosh subcultures, plus interviews with young moshers and members of Slipknot, Sepultura, ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Soulfly, and Bullet For My Valentine.
On July 30, 2006, a violent fight broke out in the mosh pit at a Korn concert in Atlanta, GA, resulting in the death of Andy Richardson, age 30, on August 1, 2006. No one present at the show has been able to give police a good description of the assailant(s). Lawyers representing Mr. Richardson's family say they may file civil lawsuits against Korn and the show's promoters. Mr. Richardson's mother, Gloria Richardson, said "... There needs to be more security or they need to not have these concerts at all ...", in a statement to Fox News Service.
My Conclusion
As a musician I feel that expression is a powerful tool that we must never take for granted, but with this tool we must harness our positive energy to make an impact on our audience. Moshing isn't bad or wrong but murder or harming others is. So my feeling is let the kids mosh let people have fun but when people start getting hurt the artist should step in and help the situation by saying something from the stage or helping if need be.
R.I.P Officer Williams thank you for your service,
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