I never expected to write a part 3, but here we are... (part 1, part 2)
Maybe something bad, maybe something good
4 years ago this month, I ventured with some friends to the annual "This is Hardcore" fest in surly, yet wonderful Philadelphia, PA, I went for the camaraderie and not to really see a specific band per se. The Jerry Only fronted version of the "Misfits" were headlining Saturday night, which had the most bands playing that I was interested in (Killing Time, Cro-Mags, and after the fact, surprisingly, Biohazard were a highlight) so I was kinda looking forward to that, especially when I saw they were going to play Earth AD in it's entirety. Alex, Milford and I had traveled to "Natefest" earlier in the year and it was a solid crew to be travelling with.
Alex, Milford and the Author.
The shows were what festivals always are: fun at times, but arduous at best. The Misfits came on late on Saturday and the Crowd was initially amped, but without a front man, the 39 song set just seemed to drag after like the 8th or 9th song. As the set steamed a long, Milford turned to me and said "I'd never thought I'd be so bored hearing these songs." I agreed. This line up was not BAD they played just fine and was certainly better than some of the late 90's and early 2000's shows I had seen, but it was unbelievably NOT captivating. If you watch the video of the set, it seems like they lose the crowd pretty fast.
After that, I pretty much thought I was done seeing the Misfits (again), why would I want to watch songs I absolutely love be so absolutely mundane? Not to mention, but I had seen the whole "Danzig and Doyle" thing twice and they absolutely crushed the 8 or 9 Misfits songs they did for those shows, plus they were sandwiched in between absolute classic Danzig material. On that 2005 tour, Danzig had his best post-John Christ era guitarist, Joe Fraulob, on guitar. Sad that he didn't make it longer, he could actually play the leads with the skill and feel they require. On the 2006 tour he had Kenny Hickey, another totally legit stand in for John Christ. Those dudes, plus Doyle, put the 2015 Jerry trio to shame. Not to mention in 2006, they did a bunch of Samhain songs too, apparently at Kenny's behest.
Joe Fraulob and the 'Zig 2005, by Maurice Nunez
Kenny Hickey, lifted from a Myspace fan page (lol)
Listen, I love Danzig... Misfits, Samhain and the eponymous band, it just strikes a chord with me. But this love comes with conditions. Danzig's last two records, Skeletons and Black Laden Crown were bargain bin fodder and the Misfits without him is so fucking spotty, it's really not worth the effort. But two weeks ago, tickets for the June 29th "Original Misfits" show in LA practically fell in my lap and I made plans to go and I am so glad I did.
Werewolf bar mitzvah, spooky, scary
I gave my spare ticket to Adrian, who plays guitar in Tuning on the condition that we take his car. It also worked out that we could stay at his brother's place in Ventura. The trip was planned and actualized fairly quickly and soon enough we were at the Banc of California stadium. We ran into, and then hung out with, Andy Coretex (who was responsible for the Tuning record even happening) and his family the whole day. The thing is, although we checked out where our far-away-from-the-stage seats were, we never actually sat in them, as there was a snack area, with a much closer view of the stage had a railing you could watch the show and eat at- and that's where we stayed for the whole show.
I'm having the time of my life here.
The Cro-Mags set was hit and miss, I'm not sold on this latest Harley incarnation, the Age of Quarrel songs sounded terrible, but the Best Wishes songs ruled. Anti-Nowhere League sucked, flat out and The Distillers were terribly uninteresting in this setting. Rise Against were pretty good, I really like their first few records and don't terribly mind the radio rock hits, plus Dead Hearts played with they when they were on the way up and they were really fucking cool. The crowd started to fill out 1/2 way through their set- by the time the Misfits took the stage, there were A LOT of people in that stadium.
The Misfits raged through 30 songs, all played with intensity and with 100% devastating effectiveness. I've gone over the set a hundred times in my head the past three day and it's been tough to really find the words to describe it aside from the typical- AWESOME! AMAZING! INCREDIBLE! But that's exactly what it was, awesome, amazing and incredible. I highly doubt the Misfits reunion shows that came before or that will come after will be as good. I think this is the prefect show to finally put the Danzig baby to rest, end on a high note. Especially considering there will be no higher note than the HILARIOUS $10 parking lot bootleg I got with a terribly drawn likeness of the current band on the front and the MICHAEL GRAVES era on the back! Bravo!
In 2000, I worked one day a week at Sit and Spin records on
Transit Road in Depew, NY. The two friends of mine who owned it, worked other
fulltime jobs and Friday was the day they couldn’t cover, so I would leave my
overnight hotel job at 7, sleep a little (like literally 45 minutes) then either
drive, get dropped off, or picked up and head there to ensure there was no lapse
in the wares they offered. It was usually pretty slow until after the High Schools let
out, when a few punks or hardcore kids would creep in and I would mostly spend
my time listening to CDs that had been traded in, or new release promos. I remember listening to the RancidSelf-Titled
album that I thought sucked, the one with the song where Lint sounds like Adam
Sandler’s “Cajun Man” on the song “Antennas”. I also remember listening to Leatherface and the No Justice demo (which later became
their 7”) shortly after The Control played with them. But the one thing that
sticks out is that Sit and Spin was the place where I fell in love with Avail.
on EVERY backpack circa '95
I had first heard Avail in the early-mid 90’s and, admittedly,
I didn’t “get it.” My roommate Mark liked them, my friend Heather loved them
and there was always an Avail patch, or shirt, at every show, it seemed, from ’94
on. I’m not a fan of what’s called “southern rock” so without hearing more than
like 2 minutes of what their recorded works had to offer, I dismissed them as the “punk rock Lynyrd Skynyrd”
and did my best to avoid them. I was at
shows they played as support in 95-96 but I didn’t pay attention.In the spring of 1997, No Reason played a
raucous show with Avail and Grade at the Rivoli in Toronto, and Beau was very
cool to us and showed us his Ian Mackaye tattoo, but I spent their set outside.
No Reasonxx at the Toronto show we played with Avail.
In 1999, I saw them again and thought,” huh, what a diverse
group of people going wild for this band” but, as I was “super mister serious
early 80’s hardcore thrash guy” at the time, them cracking jokes on stage and
looking like they were having a good time was the antithesis of my attitude; that
all changed a year later.
One day, while trying to stay awake at Sit and Spin (I didn’t
have a key to lock the front door, so leaving to go get a coffee was not an
option) I plopped a trade in copy of Dixie
into the CD changer, and by the time it got to the song "25 Years," I was HOOKED.
I listened to it the whole day. The Sit and Spin guys used to pay me in CD’s,
so I took that and Avail: Live at the
Bottom of the Hill as that week's payment. I was on my way into "Availdom," grabbed their back catalog, and
although I wasn’t jazzed on the recording of Satiate, the versions on the live record were incredible and they went from being dismissed to being one of my favorite bands; even if the record they released a few weeks later, One Wrench, really didn’t seem up to snuff.
My girlfriend at the time was HUGE into J Church, so it didn’t
take much to convince her to take a quick roadtrip to see them with Avail in
Pittsburgh on a weeknight in March of 2001. They were incredible that night and
I bought a “vanarchy” shirt, which stayed with me until the week before I moved
to CA in 2015, when I sold a huge lot of shirts that didn’t fit to my friend
Alex (don’t worry, I still have HUNDREDS of band shirts). I did love that shirt
though; it should have been one of the ones I held on to.
Front Porch Stories
was a much better record and when they announced a Buffalo show in January
2003, I was pretty stoked, plus they were playing with The Curse from Philly,
who were friends with my band. I went to the show even though I hadn’t been
able to hear out of my left ear for 3 days (I saw a doctor later that week, a
quick procedure and 90 days of recovery and it came back) and had a fucking
GREAT time. At the end of the show, Beau
was going through one of those “hotel guides” that you used to be able to get
at rest stops, looking for a cheap place to crash. I worked at a Days Inn at
the time (you know, the one I used to leave at 7 am to go to Sit and Spin on
Fridays) and told them I could give them two rooms for 25$ each, the employee
rate, as I was going to work RIGHT after the gig. They accepted and gave me a nice screen
printed tour poster, which I have no idea where it went, as I moved three times
from January 2003 to summer 2004.
I'm the "A" in AK press, looking like lurch, right behind the girl with immaculate make up.
That Tuesday in 2003 was the last time I saw
Avail, and my love for them has only grown. I listen to them constantly: hell,
I even named my current band,Tuning,
in part because of the Avail song by the same name. Two days ago they announced
their first show in 12 years and a new online merch store. Even though I don't think I can Fly across the country again this year (I just went back east for 10
days in February) I can finally, after 4 years of not having one, get myself a
shirt and revel in the memory of the path that lead me to loving one of my
favorite bands.
Yes, you can see me in the lower left of this video getting aggro with Hatebreed in my old white Blitz shirt. I REALLY loved that shirt, but after this show, it had so many boot and sneaker prints on it that wouldn't wash off. I tried to dye it gray, but then it just looked like a GRAY shirt with shoe prints all over it.
The author, part of the mayhem
This set was just a part of what destroyed my beloved Blitz shirt. The true set of the night was the Slugfest reunion. Slugfest were near and dear to my heart my senior year of high school (1991-92) and I saw them many times from 91-93. Hell, there's even a picture of me getting kicked in the face in their 1992 demo.
Lower Right- OUCH!
I literally joined Halfmast because they sounded like a Slugfest ripoff. Even though the undisputed "kings" of Buffalo Hardcore was Zero Tolerance, those guys were older and kind of unapproachable in a way. You could talk to the Slugfest guys, they were my age, they had a long haired metal guy in the band! Funny enough the first time I met the guitar player Jay in 1991, he was "shot gunning" stolen beers in a bathroom stall at the Tonawanda American Legion before the band he was playing bass for, Against All Hope, with Scott also on drums went on. I bought the Slugfest "Music to Dance to 92" demo at a show at Randall Studios and got home, brimming with excitement; only to find that it was blank! I called Tim Redmond, the drummer and arranged to exchange the cassette at a show at a short lived club in Clarence called the Toybox. Even though the recording quality of the demo left a lot to be desired, the songs were great. I also remember really loving the song Chuckidoo's Flight when I first heard it at a show they played with my old band Childish Intent. I went off for that song at every show after.
Slugfest didn't make the flyer for some reason.
By 1993, the line of Slugfest had changed a bit, Jay and the long haired guys were out, replaced by Tim and Flipowitz from Agaisnt All Hope. But man, they were STILL good. The last weekend of August 1993, they played a matinee show with Integrity in Rochester and there were limited cover versions of their 7" for sale. I picked one up and poured over the lyrics to learn them all for the show the next night that they were playing in Buffalo with Shelter and 108.
Sadly the show on Monday 8/30/93 was their last. I'm not sure why the band fell apart, though I heard at the time it was due to Tim joining Snapcase, who knows? All I know is by the point, I loved Slugfest and couldn't stand Snapcase, so I was pretty bummed.
But, there was unfinished business. In 1996, Slugfest recorded 4 songs written before their break up and paired them with the 7" for a CD on initial records, who was now home to Scott's then current band, Despair. It stoked the flames, that's for sure and in April 1997, Slugfest did their reunion, we all went and enjoyed, and my poor blitz shirt suffered.
Rest in Peace you incredible shirt and Rest in Peace Slugfest.
As a whole, I am not fond of music
festivals. Particularly big (or small) open air stages filled with overpriced
food and beverages and sound akin to a loud tin can falling into a puddle. That’s
not to say I haven’t had positive experiences attending one, it’s just that, as
a whole, at some point you realize you’re standing in a field, or a parking lot;
baking in the hot sun, or having rain pissed on you. I often think, “Have
conditions ever been 100% exactly perfect for a festival in North America?”
After going to Punk Rock Bowling in 2016 to see Dag Nasty, I SWORE I’d never go
to another outdoor gig. Yet since, I’ve still found myself at them, either
wishing I had a jacket, or a bag to put stuff in, or maybe something I would
actually want to eat while I’m fucking locked inside the fences; is that too
much to ask?
The
first outdoor “music festival” I attended was Lollapaloza in Barrie, Ontario in
July of 1993. I went with a group of friends who I had graduated with a year
earlier. It was really the last “big thing” we did before two of them decided
to head off to the army. It was a hot day, you weren’t allowed to bring
anything in and food and water was pretty expensive. Then again, alternative
rock was pretty big business by the point, with bands and labels making money
hand over fist. I went wearing an Inside Out long sleeve shirt and HUGE ‘X’s” on my hand, with the
intention of getting on top of the crowd during Rage Against the Machine and
giving the middle finger to Zack de la Rocha for “selling out” straight edge. I
made my way to the front, near the barrier and waited… The opening bass line to
“Bombtrack” started and when the drums kicked in with “UHH!” I was lifted from
my feet by the surging crowd and toppled over. I have been in fights at shows, foolishly
dived off stages, but in that instance, I truly feared for my safety; I had no
control as to where I could move to as more and more people fell on top of me.
After what seemed like an eternity, I pulled myself up and fought my way out of
the densely packed crowd. I walked far up on the lawn and watched RATM level
the place. I saw a lot of bands that day, even fell asleep on said lawn during
Dinosaur Jr. but that Rage set was something so great that (last minute) I went to see the same
show 2 weeks later in PA. I honestly don’t remember RATM’s set from the second show, just
falling asleep on the lawn (again) to Dino Jr. I also bought a copy of the Bhagavad
Gita and a Youth of Today “Youth Crew 88” shirt (right off the back) from a
Hare Krishna guy in the parking lot.
Lifted from a google search
A
couple of weekends ago, I’m hoping that I went to what will be my last outdoor
festival, not that it was terrible, I just don’t like experiencing music this
way. Anyway, I took a chance on
something called “Burger Boogaloo” in Oakland. Mostly, the lineup consisted of bands
that seem far too “hip,” or something, than my “I grew up in the suburbs in the
80’s” taste. It seemed like it was mostly stuff for people who live in
gentrified areas of a city and stay out late drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon on a
weeknight. I arrived in the early
afternoon, waited an hour in line and pleasantly ran into my friend Mike, whom
Dead Hearts (my old band; Mike happens to be an uncle of another member, but is
my age) had stayed with a bunch on tour. Mike drove a long way (Olympia, WA) to
get to the show. We caught up and tried to watch Mudhoney but they were as
boring as I’d remembered. I was never
much of a “college rock” or “grunge" guy, so no surprise there. Some other bands
played, but I barely watched any, until The Mummies came out and wrecked the
place. Now, seeing a band in broad day light in not optimal and I think most
people can agree that seeing a band in a dark, packed club is always the ideal.
I saw Dimmu Borgir once in the middle of the day at an outdoor gig in 90 degree
heat and high humidity: it did NOT work on any level. I actually felt bad for
those guys having to do their evil black metal shtick while slowly melting on
stage. Anyway, the Mummies came out and
after one of the greatest introductions I have ever seen, ROCKED. Their gimmick
works at 6:45pm as well at it would at 11, so I was pretty into it.
The Mummies, photo by the author
I had
made my way upfront long before The Mummies in order to secure a spot for the
reason I came: DEVO. A band I had discovered/ liked in 1981, fell in love with
in 87 and never looked back. I wasn’t a completest, but I had the Freedom
of Choice and Are We Not Men? LPs and Greatest
Hits on cassette, which I listened to on my Walkman riding the bus to and from
high school in between blasts of thrash metal and hardcore. At the time, I didn’t
have a copy of Duty Now For The Future, so on the extra blank space on side two
of said cassette, I dubbed “The Day My Baby Gave Mea Surprise,” my favorite song, off of the We’re
All Devo Vhs tape I had. I wasn’t cool, and even though they acted like
they weren’t, Devo certainly was.
John Waters came out and did a
stumbly, odd-paced introduction and then we were off to the races. Devo sounded
EXCELLENT and exceeded all of my expectations: Girl U Want/ Whip It/ (I Can't
Get No) Satisfaction/ Secret Agent Man/ Uncontrollable Urge/ Mongoloid/ Jocko
Homo/ Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA/ Gates of Steel/ DEVO Corporate Anthem/ Gut Feeling
(Slap Your Mammy)/ Beautiful World/ The Girl Can't Help It/ Come Back Jonee. It
was really incredible, with the only song TRULY missing from the set was Freedom
of Choice and seemed to be the only complaints fans had while I was leaving. It
only took me like 37 years from when I first heard “Through Being Cool” to
finally see them, I had been kicking myself for the many times I missed them
over the years, but now that box is checked and I’m REALLY hoping that this is
the last time I have to go to another outdoor festival gig, unless of course, I
can sleep on the lawn during Dinosaur Jr.
Below is from my journal from 2001, after I saw the Bad Brains totally disappoint a massive crowd at the Showplace Theater in Buffalo, NY. Although I has seen Human Rights 10 years prior and the Brain's twice, this was the only time I saw them with HR on vocals. I saw them at CBGB's a few years later with JJ Bloodclot from the Cro-Mags singing and that was pretty good. The show mentioned below, was not.
"Herod sounded like mush
Three Below sounded like mush wearing leather pants.
The sound at the Showplace is mush...
But the Bad Brains somehow managed to change that... they
sounded phenomenal and every note and musical delivery was flawless... but wait
something's fishy here...
HR the once proud frontman of the bad brains has taken a
trip to the stars- where his body remains on earth and his mind is somewhere
else in the universe. To understand what I am talking about check out a few x
men comics when professor x's brain takes a vacation.
HR lives in his own little world. in this world, the
audience is laughing with him and his love for Jah. Unfortunately, this is NOT
the case. They’re laughing AT him ... his ridiculous banter and wacked out
creepy guy at the bus station mannerisms speak more for the thousands of mentally
ill homeless than for the purveyors of hardcore punk. it's amazing how
disconnected he was. What is also amazing is that the band was completely
raging around him, almost equally disconnected; disconnected in the sense that
they didn't seem to pay any mind what so ever to their "frontman".
the band as a whole truly mimicked hr's mental illness. it
was like the body functioned normally ( Dr. Know, Earl Hudson and Daryl Jennifer)
but the mind controlling it (HR) was leading this visage towards bizarre
madness and utter destruction.
The quotable HR:
"We are not earth wind and fire"
"Don't you ever forget my name"
"Jesus Christ was not god, he was the son of god"
"I like your knockers"
He also said "I love you all" more than Ozzy does
on the Randy Rhoades tribute album.
HR came across as the crazy uncle who shows up at the family
reunion gropes all your female cousins, eats your food, talks about the bible
and tells dick and fart jokes until he asks you to give him a ride home...
I stood in front of Dr. Know the entire time, basking in his
masterful playing...
Wow... I can't believe the contrast from the first two times
I saw the Bad Brains. Granted they had Chuck Mosley singing the first time and Joseph
I singing the second but they stilled ruled and it wasn't that the band didn't
rage... they did... it was just that before the singer's voice may not have
been dead on with HR's BUT they went off... I think this is the first time I've
ever seen a band where the band goes off and the singer just doesn't care...
strange."
A good friend of mine has been doing a podcast for about a year now and asked me to talk about my experiences with music and the bands I've been in. So, I thought I'd treat him with an opening rant about how the most recent Danzig sucks and talk about a new band I tried to do that didn't end up happening.
I know this has been in my blog before, X-mas 89, dress shirt open to reveal Sacred Reich shirt
It’s never been a secret that my first love was heavy metal
and that the first “scene” I truly felt apart of was the trash metal scene. I
went to A LOT of thrash shows from 1989-91 (and beyond!) and this past Saturday I
went to see one of my favorites: Sacred Reich.
I first discovered Sacred Reich in 1988 through the Best
of Metal Blade Volume 3 Cassette I bought at Cavages, in the long since defunct
Summit Park Mall in Wheatfield, NY. The song Death Squad was better and heavier
than anything else on that tape, mostly because what would’ve otherwise been
the best track, the live version of Die By The Sword by Slayer, I
already knew. Shortly thereafter, Surf Nicaragua
came out, and I considered Sacred Reich to be on par with all the other thrash
bands I loved; Slayer, Metallica,
Anthrax, and Exodus. The American Way was released in 1990 and it was my favorite album that summer.
In August 1990, I ventured to see a HUGE show at the Skyroom
in Buffalo: Forced Entry, Obituary, Sacred Reich and local heroes Cannibal
Corpse. It happened to be the record release show for Cannibal Corpse’s debut Eaten Back To Life. Phil Rind from SR
took the time to talk to me before their set and sign a couple t shirts; I’m
not big on autographs, but as far as I was concerned at the time, he was in the
best band I had ever heard. I found him to be funny and down to earth. On stage, and clearly in the middle of a
largely Cannibal Corpse/ death metal crowd, Phil made a comment about how SR “sung
about real stuff” and not fantasy. CC seemed to take exception to this, and
with a straight fucking face their singer announced on stage that they “sung
about real shit, LIKE ZOMBIES!” That has stuck with me for 27 years, how
fucking cool Sacred Reich were and how ridiculous Cannibal Corpse are. Later that
week, as I was walking down Main Street in Tonawanda, NY, I happened to notice a
poster for the American Way hanging in an office window with Atrie Kwitchoff,
the show’s promoter, taking it down. I knocked on the window and asked him for
the poster, which he was happy to do. Artie was always really cool to me and
giving me that poster was one of those perfect moments of adolescent synchronicity.
That poster hung in my bedroom until 1995, when I moved into my first apartment, as it didn't survive being removed from the wall.
A few days shy of a year later, Sacred Reich played Buffalo
again on the “New Titans on the Block” tour. I had seen Sick of it all and Napalm Death
earlier that year and was really anticipating seeing the great Sepultura, but
NOTHING, I mean NOTHING could bottle my excitement for the Sacred Reich set. The whole
show was awesome and I even mustered up the courage to do my second stage dive
ever during Napalm Death, but the venue’s stage was just too high up to really
enjoy the show from upfront, so I watched most of the gig from the back seated
area.
I bought the A Question single shortly after this
and LOVED it. It was heavy, with a groove (the way the music scene started to
turn at the time) and had lyrics I could really jive on. Sacred Reich could do
no wrong, until, well, they did.
The day after my 19th birthday in 1993, I saw Sacred
Reich for what would be the last time until 24 and ½ years later and it fell
pretty flat. They were two years removed from the A Question single and touring
on a new record that, aside from the title track, I really didn’t like. Plus,
they played with Malhavoc, who were a shadow of the insane band I had seen in
1990 and 91 and Snapcase, who were rising fast. It was one of those occasions
when the local opener smoked the headliner and the support act. The next album, Heal, I didn’t even
bother with, content to listen to The American Way over and over for the next
20 plus years.
Eventually, I grew to like Independent and tracks
off of Heal, but they really sound like a band lost. I think if A Question had
made it on to Independent and had they dropped a coupled of the weaker tracks,
the album may have fared better with fans, including me. The early 90’s, post
alternative rock, was such a bad time for metal and the bands with careers on
the line made poor and sometimes desperate choices that probably seemed sound at the time. Sometimes
bands collectively struggle with their identity and I think it became really
apparent during the decline of the trash metal scene. I mean fuck, even
Metallica cut their fucking hair and wore makeup and eyeliner, could you
imagine them doing that in 1989? Not on your life. The big difference is that
Metallica had the Black album under their belt and money still pouring in when
their peers and smaller bands were struggling to stay afloat creatively and financially.
Thankfully, metal in general had a huge
resurgence in the post Nu Metal climate; leading to a renewed interest in
metal across the board since the early 2000’s.This is what lead to me being
able to see Sacred Reich again in 2017.
I was not impressed by the tour’s support acts, but gave
them both a chance. By the time Sacred Reich came on, I was hungry for great
fucking tunes and they did NOT disappoint.
Jason looks thrilled.
Ignorance/ Administrative Decisions/
One Nation/ Love...Hate/ Victim of Demise/ Violent Solutions/ Crimes Against
Humanity/ Who's to Blame/ I Don't Know/ Free/ Independent/ War Pigs/ The
American Way/ Death Squad/ Surf Nicaragua.
Now that’s a setlist! Dave McClain,
their second drummer, joined them on stage for the songs from Independent. Dave
is a tight fucking drummer, but he lacks the aggressive swing that Greg has. It’s
like the difference between and analog and digital recording, both deliver
sound and can be excellent, but have very different nuances. Still, I enjoyed
seeing them both on stage. I would have liked to have heard Draining
you of Life and A Question, but the seltlist was concise and well
delivered and MUCH better than the show in 1993. What a great band.
