Scott Burns Deathcrush Manifesto
the origin of a thousand patches
First Published: 2025-02-05| Last Updated:
Status: finished(?)| Audience: black metal history nerds| Confidence: aficionado
Scott Burns
Scott Burns is a legendary producer in Tampa, Florida, who is a pivotal figure in the early development of USDM. From his desk at Morrisound Studios, he produced many of the landmark albums of the early days of Florida death metal.
the original J-Card reverse, before Deathlike Silence turned it into a flaccid branding play
In March of 1987, a then obscure band from Viken, Norway released a demo tape entitled Deathcrush. The reverse of the tape J-Card had an image of Scott crossed out, and the statement that would become the manifesto of second wave black metal:
no fun
no core
no mosh
no trends
That band was Mayhem, and that epigraph would go on to be the tagline for Deathlike Silence Productions, the record label run by Øystein Aarseth (a.k.a. Euronymous) who was murdered by the tiny nazi gnome and noted Tolkien fanboi Louis Cachet (neé Kristian Vikernes) on August 10th, 1993 for not releasing Vikernes’ shitty basement dungeon synth records (because apparently guitars are not sufficiently aryan but keyboards are) on his label.