Moshing
Moshing or slamming refers to the activity in which audience members at live music performances aggressively push or slam into each other. Moshing is frequently accompanied by stage diving, crowd surfing, and headbanging. It is commonly associated with concerts by heavy metal, punk rock, and alternative rock and rock artists in general.
Moshing primarily takes place at live shows, though it can be done to recorded music, too.[Tsitsos, William (1999) Rules of Rebellion: Slamdancing, Moshing, and the American Alternative Scene Popular Music, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 397-414] In the 2000s, many variations of moshing exist, such as "thrashing",[ and the dance is practiced at concerts of many musical genres. Moshing is typically done in an area in front of the stage which is referred to as the mosh pit or mach pit.]
While moshing is seen as a form of positive feedback or reflection of enjoyment from live audiences,[ and follow an unwritten "moshing etiquette",][ or pit hospitality, which promotes safety through behaviors such as immediately helping fallen audience members back to their feet to avoid their being trampled.]
Origins of the term
H.R. (Paul Hudson) of the Washington, D.C. area band Bad Brains, regarded as a band that "put moshing on the map",[Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal, by ian christie]
Origins of the dance
A precursor to moshing, called "acookie", can be traced back to 1970s punk rock shows[Nussbacher, Mike (2004) A Survivor’s Guide To The Mosh Pit. YPP.] in the form of "the pogo" and was later developed into moshing by the hardcore punk subculture of the early 80s.[Irvine, Martha (1996) Moshing Exciting but dangerous. Associated Press. at rockmed.org][Sacahroff, Reaz (1996) Music: Pit Etiquette. Tucson Weekly.] While many use the terms slamdancing and moshing interchangeably, distinctions can be made in that slamdancing is typically more frenetic, with body movements such as arm-swinging, while moshing is slower and more exaggerated.
Moshing is thought to have originated in Orange County, California during the first wave of American hardcore in the early eighties at the Cuckoos Nest.[http://jerryroachpresents.com] Early moshing can be seen in the film Urban Struggle. Violence and physicality characterized aspects of the movement and were manifesting on the dancefloors of shows. Slamdancing began as an audience response to the bands of the L.A. scene such as Black Flag, Fear and The Circle Jerks, whose more rhythmic and heavy form of punk rock was being called "hardcore."
To match the intensity and aggressive nature of this new music, fans would move frantically and engage in stage diving. Beyond audience and band members slamming into one another and leaping from stages into the crowd, slamdancing was defined by "strutting around in a circle, swinging your arms around and hitting everyone within your reach."[Blush, Steven (2001). .] This aspect of slamdancing was termed the "Huntington Beach Strut" (or "HB Strut") after the neighborhood of Orange County where it originated. Author Steven Blush writes of the HB Strut:
Marine and others in the Huntington Beach and Long Beach areas invented this violent dance and soon exported it to the San Francisco and Bay Area scene, where pogoing was still the prevalent form of dance. From there, it spread to the East Coast scenes through national acts such as Bad Brains and other D.C. area natives such as Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye who witnessed the HB Strut while traveling.[Rachman, Paul (2006). .]
Because the early American hardcore scene gave way to and coexisted with the burgeoning crossover thrash scene, it, too, became defined in part by slamdancing.
Crossover into mainstream music
By the end of the 1980s, the initial wave of American hardcore was over and had split off into other subcultures and movements. Of the many styles of music directly created by and indebted to hardcore, the Seattle based grunge movement was among them. In the early 1990s, the sound associated with bands such as The Melvins, Mudhoney, Nirvana, and the SubPop record label had crossed over into mainstream success, bringing with it the memes of the American hardcore culture.
Through the mainstream success of these acts, the dance and word mosh entered the popular American lexicon and spread to many other types of music. according to They Might Be Giants' John Linnell, it reached a point where "it didn’t matter what kind of music you were playing or what kind of band you were; everybody moshed to everything. It was just kind of the enforced rule of going to concerts."[http://gothamist.com/2008/01/22/john_linnell_th.php The Gothamist, Interview with John Linnell of They Might Be Giants]
Controversy and anti-moshing stances
Among the first musicians to publicly take issue with moshing was longtime punk singer and songwriter Ian MacKaye, founder of Dischord Records, frontman for such seminal bands as Minor Threat, and early promoter of the straight edge lifestyle. Beginning in the late 1980s, during his time with Fugazi, MacKaye became well known for his opposition to "violent dancing" at shows.
In the 1990s, bands like The Smashing Pumpkins also took a stance against moshing, following some especially tragic incidents. At a 1996 Pumpkins show in Dublin, Ireland, 17-year-old Bernadette O'Brien was crushed by moshing crowd members and later died in the hospital, despite warnings from the band that people were getting hurt.
More recently, on September 24, 2007, another fan died at a Smashing Pumpkins concert in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The man, aged 20, was dragged out of the mosh pit, unconscious, to be pronounced dead at St. Pauls' Hospital after first-aid specialists attempted to help him.[ ][ ][ ]
In another incident, Jessica Michalik died of asphyxiation after being crushed in a mosh pit during the 2001 Australian Big Day Out music festival. The coroner's findings into her death criticized the crowd control measures in use at the time, and also criticized Limp Bizkit lead singer Fred Durst for "alarming and inflammatory" comments during the rescue effort.
At The Drive-In also began to speak out against slam dancing at their shows, and their frontman Cedric began to become famous for his anti-mosh rants at the Big Day Out 2001 incident in which he Bah'd at the crowd as if they were sheep.[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi2PjcXO7Zc]
Other bands have expressed varying degrees of disapproval regarding mosh pits. Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater, in an interview published on his website, described mosh pits as a "problem":
In popular culture
Moshing is seen or spoken of in various media. The dance is mentioned in a large number of songs by many acts, even directly in the song title as seen in "Caught in a Mosh" by Anthrax, "Milano Mosh" by Stormtroopers of Death, "Megamosh" by Hyades, "Circle Pit" by Refused, "Thank You For Not Moshing" (Originally "In The Pit") by Reel Big Fish, and "Into the Pit" by Testament.
UK indie extreme metal/hardcore label Earache Records always used the word "mosh" as catalogue number signature, while Norwegian black metal label Deathlike Silence Productions used 'Anti Mosh' in their catalogue IDs.
Moshing has appeared in cartoons and television series such as South Park,["Clubhouses", South Park. Original airdate September 23, 1998. The character Kenny dies in a mosh pit at a party.] Futurama,["Hell Is Other Robots", Futurama. Original airdate May 18, 1999. Moshing to the song "Super Disco Breakin" is featured when Fry, Bender and Leela enter a mosh pit at a Beastie Boys concert. Leela hated it, and ended up using martial arts to violently knock nearby moshers unconscious.] Metalocalypse,["Religionklok", Metalocalypse. Original airdate November 19, 2006. Dethklok goes to a Christian rock concert featuring fictional band Prayer Bolt when Toki Wartooth starts a "Christian Rock mosh pit," killing Prayer Bolt's lead singer.] Mighty Moshin' Emo Rangers and The Awful Truth[Filmmaker Michael Moore attempts to get a presidential candidate of the 2000 primary elections to jump into a traveling mosh pit, with music by Rage Against the Machine.] as well as in video games such as World of Warcraft[World of Warcraft - Dancing - the undead male character model headbangs/moshes for its dance animation] and Mario Party 8.[The videogame features a mini game called "Mosh Pit".] In World Wrestling Entertainment, superstars Mosh and Thrasher named their tag-team "The Headbangers" and had finishing moves such as the "Stage dive" and "Mosh pit".
During an episode of American sitcom Frasier, Daphne persuades Niles to see Billy Joel, but Niles proclaims "as long as I don't have to go in any mosh pit."
See also
 Hardcore dancing
Skanking
External links
Berger, Tom (2004) In the Pit - How to survive mosh pits and bodysurfing!
Coalition Against Moshing at Ska Shows - Because ska is for skanking.
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