The 300 page book All Known Metal Bands is a simple listing of every heavy metal band name that exists or has ever existed, in every genre, that I could find, in what turned out to be a year and a half of research. Where a name was used by more than one band, the name is listed once for each band. The pages are black, the type is silver, and it will make you want to do naughty things. Of the 51,000 bands listed, the most commonly used name is Legion. There are 24 bands named Legion. There are 20 bands named Genocide, and 20 called Requiem. There are 2 called Cryptic Stench, but there is only one Black Darkness.

All Known Metal Bands is directly descended from two as yet unrealized projects: the memorization by myself of the entirety of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, followed by a public recital; and a month-long performance wherein, for forty hours a week, I would count grains of sand.

As I added bands to the list and the search moved from a relatively easy cataloging of the well-known to a quest for the most obscure small-town bands of past and present, the project began more and more to resemble counting grains of sand. In fact, it felt like searching for grains of sand amidst other small particles, separating them, and then counting them. Soo maybe I can skip the sand-counting altogether. I think someone's done it already anyway.

A hardcover of All Known Metal Bands will be on shelves in late May 2008, courtesy of McSweeney's. Available at lots of book stores, record stores, even Urban Outfitters. File under Anthropology/Poetry.

(photo by John Casey. Thanks, John.)