After a year away, This Is Your Afterlife is back! One of the highlights of my year, creatively and culturally, was dipping my toe into black metal. The extreme music genre inspired my performance art installation, Black Metal Rooftop, which I expanded into a talk show called Black Metal Patio. My house band and musical guest for BMP was Genital Shame, a trans black metal artist from Pittsburgh who now lives in L.A. Real name: Erin Dawson. Genital Shame's Chronic Illness Wish was one of the records that cemented my interest in black metal. In between discovering her music last year and doing Black Metal Patio together in July, my friendship with Erin really began with recording this episode of TIYA, making it an ideal first episode for the podcast's relaunch.

We talk about: black metal lyricism, evangelical Christian upbringings, creative process guilt, breakup memories, undermining the toxic positivity of trans coming out narratives on social media, very specific tastes in art and dating, Erin's favorite Cincinnati nickname joke.

Support the show and get the TIYA After Dark feed on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thisisyourafterlife

Follow Genital Shame:

https://www.instagram.com/genitalshame/

https://genitalshame.bandcamp.com/

Follow/contact This Is Your Afterlife:

https://thisisyourafterlife.com/

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All music by This Is Your Afterlife house band Lake Mary:

https://lakemary.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/chaz.prymek/

Artwork by Matt Sage:

https://www.instagram.com/matthewjsage/