Well, with anti-commercialism and -consumerism being a big thing with Euronymous's idea of black metal, seeing the "commercialization" of death metal at the time, he felt it was a good idea to start badmouthing it, to make people flock to him even more. Pick a famous band member of the early Norwegian scene and the odds are that before 1991, they were playing death metal, not black metal. It's important to remember that Euronymous was older than most of the members of that early Norwegian scene so all these kinds of things might've been just ways for him to gain influence within that scene and build himself up as an important figure.

And, of course, it's important to remember that all of this is just guesswork based on... Well, not even secondhand, but third or fourth hand information.

I think it's also relevent to mention that the hate for Death Metal did not extend to all Death Metal bands. I can certainly remember reading interviews where Morbid Angel and Deicide were discussed as "worthy" because of their Satanic stance. I think the antagonism came when the "social consciousness" elements of thrash and grind crept into DM - "world demise" springs to mind for example.the DM bands of the time who were ideologically somewhat aligned with BM's satanic agenda seemed to be spared the spleen.

I read an interview where Enslaved said that Cannibal Corpse was the only death metal band which most of the black metallers respected.

Here is an interview where Obituary bashes black metal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4CXvAMFtUM

The plain fact of the matter is that Euronymous and his band could not compete technically or musically with the top tier Swedish and US death metal bands. Therefore he chose to strip down his formula with pure speed and violent aggression taking the reins from Sarcofago, Hellhammer, Bathory, early Sodom, etc. All bands who admittedly weren't the most skilled musicians during their early stages. By marketing himself and Mayhem in that direction and promoting that only raw music is true, he created a niche for Mayhem. He then convinced a lot of others that that formula was the only true black metal way. For example at the time of Darkthrone’s conversion from dm to bm they were a far superior band musically to anything Mayhem could have done, but Euronymous convinced them to take his formula. Personally I'm glad not all black metal went that route.

Heh, they're one to talk switching from playing awful death metal influenced by Celtic frost to playing jumpdafuckup riffs with Tardy's awful voice. Screw Obituary, the whole washed up lot of them.

You have to be extremely biased to claim Mayhem didn't record better music than any of the early USA/Sweden death metal bands. And we're talking extreme metal there, Euronymous isn't some Petrucci getting pissed he can't shred like Yngwie, he didn't give a fuck about technical abilities, he was (mainly) pissed by death metal's commercial attitude. Hellhammer was very skilled drummer anyway.

Trying to lump them in with the rest of the black metal bands was misleading, I think.

That's odd. Later he would say he was never into Cryptopsy's music that much; that he was always more a black metal guy.

There's a Cryptopsy rehearsal video from 96 where Worm is wearing what appears to be a Burzum t shirt

Here's one from Billy Milano to Charlie Benante, though this could be a bit more tongue in cheek (?):

Well, with anti-commercialism and -consumerism being a big thing with Euronymous's idea of black metal, seeing the "commercialization" of death metal at the time, he felt it was a good idea to start badmouthing it, to make people flock to him even more. Pick a famous band member of the early Norwegian scene and the odds are that before 1991, they were playing death metal, not black metal. It's important to remember that Euronymous was older than most of the members of that early Norwegian scene so all these kinds of things might've been just ways for him to gain influence within that scene and build himself up as an important figure.

And, of course, it's important to remember that all of this is just guesswork based on... Well, not even secondhand, but third or fourth hand information.

To continue with Billy Milano. Can't remember where i read or heard this, but he supposedly punched Warrel Dane of Nevermore in the face for whining about his missing/dead girlfriend. Kind of a dick move but don't really know what else may have been said.

Also, probably common knowledge but, there is a video of Glen Danzig getting knocked out by a dude from the North Side Kings. Search it on youtube, there is definitely a vid.

I do wish Euronymous would have soloed more; this is where I think some of the criticism toward early Mayhem stems from. He was an absolute master of tremolo picked speed riffs, nobody could touch him, but I can only name two or three (out of eight) songs on "De Mysteriis Dom Satanas" which have any sort of lead guitar solos in them-. That is a fatal flaw of that album for me. So to take a balanced view, no I don't think Mayhem or Euronymous were the greatest, most technical musicians ever, but I blame the songwriting on that, partly. And I also don't think it was a deliberate cop out to try and sound that way simply because he couldn't match the mucicianship of the death metalers.

Oh yeah, the girl that Dreaming Neon Black was based on. It seems like that whole situation really traumatized Dane, and only fueled his hate for organized religion (she apparently was taken away by a cult or something similar). If such a thing is true, and happpend the way that I imagine, then yeah, that's a serious dick move for Milano to make.

That is literally the first time I've ever heard of Dane being the offender. The story has always been Dane was whining about his girlfriend and so Billy Milano punched him in the face because he's an asshole. Considering that Warrel is known to be both a dick and a whiner, and Billy is a well known cunt, I believe both version are possible, but I'll stick with the one that everybody knows.

About Mayhem I dunno, Blasphemy were already there way before them doing their back-to basics hellish black/thrash metal thing, just like southamerican acts like Sarcofago and Pentagram were already pushing the boundaries to some death/black extent.