The End Of Days Is Near…RIP Slayer

Posted on January 27, 2018January 27, 2018 by Mike

I’ve been wondering for almost five years if they’d ever get a fucking clue and just call it a day. Then, this past Monday, Slayer made this bombshell announcement amid rumors of a huge summer tour lineup including Testament, Behemoth, Lamb Of God and fellow Big Four band Anthrax:

Well damn. There was just one thing for me to say….it’s about fucking time! In my opinion this should’ve been done nearly five years ago, as I said above. Why? Nothing against Paul Bostaph who’s currently in his second run with the band, but the band’s treatment and dismissal of Dave Lombardo – especially by Kerry King – was just fucking disgrace by all accounts. A few months later, guitarist Jeff Hanneman died of alcohol related cirrhosis of the liver. While they had already been touring with Exodus guitarist Gary Holt for a few years while Jeff was recovering from a near fatal spider bite, they should’ve stopped everything right there.

I’ve spoken about this in an article ripping Kerry for calling Jeff “worm food” back in 2015. Yeah, Kerry is a great rhythm player, he’s a really good guitarist, probably more technically sound than Jeff. But Jeff was the better songwriter, having written “Angel Of Death”, “Necrophiliac”. “Spill The Blood”, “Postmortem” and the perennial set closer, “Raining Blood”. Being that he was the one guy in the band that was more influenced by Punk than the others, his songwriting and playing style were far more reckless and chaotic than anything Kerry wrote. Same goes for his lead style, just pure balls to the wall ripping. It was never pretty and that’s why it was amazing. Here’s an example, go to the 1:42 mark for Jeff’s solo. By the way the music here is all his too.

I can spend this entire article kissing Jeff’s ass but here’s my point: like it or not Jeff was a KEY member of the band. With him gone, Slayer was officially nothing more than a tribute band. You know, that band that just goes out there for the money and play those signature songs they didn’t even write. Because every time they play “Angel Of Death”, their SIGNATURE song, it just does not look right seeing Gary on the left side of the stage – and by the way this is not to disrespect Gary.

But it’s like David Vincent and Tim Yeung going out on tour as I Am Morbid (I seriously cannot stop laughing at that name!). Yeah, David wrote almost all the lyrics to those classic Morbid Angel songs; but without Trey killing it on guitar it just sounds like a money grab before the tour even starts. From a non metal perspective it’s the equivalent of Aerosmith touring and recording without Joe Perry or Brad Whitford – BOTH of the band’s guitarists! – for five years. Who really gives a shit about Rock And A Hard Place? Certainly not I!

While it’s clear to me that both Kerry and Tom Araya are the two business partners of the band, Kerry most likely is the one that pushed and pushed to keep going. He’s much more shrewd of a business man. But there’s one problem. His songwriting style has changing DRASTICALLY since the earlier days, as he’s almost embraced shitty trends such as Nu Metal and it showed a little too much on 2001’s God Hates Us All. Wanna know why I’ll never give Repentless, a complete listen through? Because who in their RIGHT MIND wants to hear an entire Slayer record written by him? And if you say you do you’re just a fan boy and should go die – fucking slowly.

Tom, on the other hand, made it clear several times over the years that at his age he’s become homesick. He’s tired, and I think he’s kind of lonely without Jeff. Starting in the late eighties/early nineties, Tom and Jeff began a songwriting partnership that produced some of Slayer’s best tracks, including “War Ensemble”, “Season In The Abyss” and my favorite latter era track, “Eyes Of The Insane”. Jeff wrote the music but Tom wrote the lyrics. Here’s a statement Tom made to Loudwire in 2016:

“At 35 years, it’s time to collect my pension. [Laughs] This is a career move. I’m grateful that we’ve been around for 35 years; that’s a really long time. So, yeah, to me, it is. Because when we started off, everything was great, because you’re young and invincible. And then there came a time where I became a family man, and I had a tough time flying back and forth. And now, at this stage, at the level we’re at now, I can do that; I can fly home when I want to, on days off, and spend some time with my family, which is something I wasn’t able to do when [my kids] were growing up. Now they’re both older and mature. So now I take advantage of that.” Araya added: “Yeah, it just gets harder and harder to come back out on the road. 35 years is a long time.”

So I’m wondering if either certain business/contractual matters were finally resolved or Tom finally let Kerry know that he had enough. I personally think that at 56 years old he’s burnt out. It probably take it’s physical toll to scream like that every night at his age. Or just maybe he has enough common sense to understand that things can NEVER be the same with Jeff gone. Either way, the band has finally made the right call because at this point they’re more than beating a dead horse. I almost want to see this farewell tour. The lineup is fucking sick, and I can almost guarantee Anthrax is on there because they’ll probably have both bands on stage together at the end of every show to play a few songs together and it’ll be one big party as 2/4 of the Big Four. Hell, even Dave Mustaine said he’d like to put together one last Big Four show as his way of sending them off. Sounds actually really cool, considering the interband relationship between his own band and Kerry (Kerry was in Megadeth for five seconds before he got sick of Dave’s dictator-like approach). But will they agree to it? However, as I’ve hashtagged on Instagram posts for a while now, #nojeffnoslayer.

No Jeff, no Slayer. He’s not there and I’m not interested. Kerry and Tom, congratulations. You’ve had an amazing career, creating a legacy that’s UNDENIABLE. But please, after this is all over, make sure it stays that way. Don’t be like that pro wrestler that retires then almost as quickly comes back because they can’t stand to be away – or need the money. Here’s one of THE most fucked up songs the band ever released, written by Jeff:

Random Thoughts

Posted on January 11, 2016March 8, 2016 by Mike

See this guy? This guy is the man. Fuck that – he’s my hero. If you don’t know who he is Jim Wendler is the COO of Elite FTS, making him CEO Dave Tate’s right hand man. But what makes in more important than even that is his awesome training program he developed for all kinds of lifters from bodybuilders to athletes to powerlifters, 5/3/1.

On paper it seems as annoying to decode as any other powerlifting program with calculating percentages, etc. But what makes this program so unique, at least to me, is that Jim takes the guess work right out of everything. It’s real simple; in one 4-week cycle you will perform three sets of your main lift for 3 working sets of 5 reps during the first week, 3 sets of 3 reps the next week, and then for the last week you will perform 3 working sets of 5 reps, then 3 reps and then 1 rep or more if you can. After your main lift, you will perform two or three assistance lifts, followed by light or hard conditioning (he likes to push prowlers and run up hills a lot) depending on the day. After all that you will enjoy a deload week as your fourth week as a way to recover while still staying active before going back into the heavy stuff.

I like this a lot because in short the name of the game of long term gains. This isn’t some eight week program you read about in mainstream bodybuilding magazines. This is about making new gains and breaking new PR’s every cycle, regardless of what that PR is. If during a cycle you bench 155lbs for 5 reps during the third week and then in the next cycle your benching those same numbers for 8 reps, it’s still a PR. You’re still getting stronger.

I’m pretty sure this program has been real good to me since I began using it back in October because as of today I finally Deadlifted 305lbs for the first time. I’d like to thank Motorhead’s badass track “The Hammer” for giving me the energy to do this! I probably should’ve gotten there two cycles ago but instead of increasing the weights every cycle by ten pounds I increased them by five. Oops. I’m beyond grateful that my gym in Clifton, New York Sports Club, actually has a deadlift platform with bumper plates because I refuse to deadlift with those shitty octagonal plates EVER again. In fact, I hope who ever created those plates gets shot in the fucking throat repeatedly because they make TRUE strength training such a hindrance.

Week 3: Day 2 – Deadlift Day!

Deadlift

125lbs – 1 x 5

155lbs – 1 x 5

185lbs – 1 x 5

245lbs – 1 x 5

275lbs – 1 x 3

305lbs – 1 x3

Hyperextensions

35lbs – 3 x 12, 12 10

Ab Core machine

20lbs – 3 x 20, 20, 20

I wanted to use the ab crunch machine and do three sets with 105lbs but some middle aged bitch was occupying it, taking her sweet ass time. You know the ones, they sit on the machine for 10 minutes, while socializing, and they even stop DURING THEIR SETS to yap some more. Why are they even in the gym? Shouldn’t they be in the beauty parlor with their other middle aged friends gossiping about some worthless piece of shit reality show they probably rush home for every day because they have NOTHING ELSE to live for??

Oh! Speaking of Motorhead…

My girlfriend told me two days ago that Dingbatz was going to host the streaming of Lemmy’s memorial service in L.A. using Motorhead’s YouTube page, so of course we went. It’s awesome knowing I’m literally a driving distance of ten minutes from the place. There weren’t as many people there to watch it as we figured there would be, which was fine by me because we actually got seats at the bar giving us a great view of the brand new flat screens that the management just had installed, with the much older “tubes” now sitting outside of the bar.

It was held at a chapel, there was no way in fuck that this would be held at a church. Nope nope! Next to a podium was a table with a few souvenirs, if you will; Lemmy’s pirate hat which covered his urn – I had no idea he was cremated! – something from the WWE with their logo on it, always tacky guys, you never learn, do you? His cowboy boots were on it along with some speed…a parting gift from Motorhead guitarist Phil Campbell, who surprised all of us by NOT being there. I repeat: PHIL CAMPBELL was NOT at his own bandmate’s FUNERAL. Surrounding both sides of the chapel? Lemmy’s Marshall “MURDER ONE” Full Stacks. FUCK. YES.

Not many people there in suits, maybe one or two people. But the difference between those two people was all too clear: one guy probably wore a suit out of respect, like I would, and Triple H wore a suit because he has a corporate image to uphold. Yeah, I said it. There were a lot of people there to speak about Lemmy as well as one or two people I know I sure didn’t expect. Did any of you truly expect GENE SIMMONS to be there? Since when the fuck does GENE FUCKING SIMMONS care about anyone BUT himself?? Geezer Butler was also there, which was cool of him. Of course Ozzy and $haron were there, I mean $haron only screwed him out of potentially MILLIONS in royalties for writing classic songs on both No More Tears and Ozzmosis by giving him flat rates. Cunt.

Among the speakers were various people, from random friends from Germany, to Lemmy’s somn Paul, to the band’s management and road crew (You know what song came to my mind every time!), to celebrities we all know. Just like that the theme of this service was all too clear: friendship. As much of a modern day pirate as he was, Lemmy was everybody’s friend and those people who were invited to speak were obviously those he made the most impact on from a personal level. A surprisingly emotional Mike Inez of Alice In Chains spoke, as well as Slash, who spoke about the time he spent with Lemmy in the hospital after he was fitted with a pacemaker, being by his side everyday until he was released. I had no idea. I’ll never be a fan of Slash’s guitar playing and I LOATHE Guns N Roses but he always comes of like that guy you can hang out with for hours.

Triple H (most boring wrestler EVER) told some funny stories about Lemmy. Remember, before he became a corporate sellout he was a metalhead who would often do interview segments in a battle jacket with either one of his own shirts or the Motorhead England shirt. In that regard he was for real. He had the honor of having Motorhead play him to the ring for two Wrestlemanias. Luckily for me he lost both times. He mentioned that when that happened Lemmy said to him: “You can’t win a match to save your life, can you? That’s why you’re good for us!” But after talking of Lemmy the ballbuster he spoke of Lemmy the gentleman.

He and his wife went to see Motorhead backstage at a festival show. He went backstage and he found Lemmy with two towels on, topless girls and coke on the table. He was about to come in until Lemmy noticed Stephanie. “Whoop! Close the door!”, he yelled as Trips waited outside. When Lemmy reopened the door he was now dressed, the girls were dressed and the coke was gone, which Trips could only assume Lemmy snorted all of – and all because Stephanie was there. Sure sounds like a gentleman to me, even though not too long ago Steph actually had double implants.

All of us in the bar were VERY surprised when Rob Halford came up to speak. I had no idea he’d be there but it shouldn’t be too much of a shocker. Like Lemmy, this world is Rob’s life and even after all the decades he’s been doing this he’s still a fan. He told everyone: “When I was in the presence of Lord Lemmy, I was a bit overwhelmed …” Yeah? Well, so were the rest of us bud. Points for calling him “Lord Lemmy”, by the way. After Rob left Lemmy’s girlfriend came up. She was clearly drunk, slurring her words the entire time. No denying she’s in a major panic right now, trying to figure out what to do next.

Lars Ulrich and Robert Trujillo of Metallica came up and that’s when I got interested. Upon walking up to the podium, Lars looked…different. I don’t mean the homeless guy beard he had but his vibe was different. He was clearly shaken up there…even vulnerable. Metallica are dead to me after …And Justice For All, but there would be no Metallica without Motorhead and Lars made it painfully obvious in every interview he’s ever done. You knew it when he spoke of opening for Motorhead in 1982, the year before Metallica were even signed to Megaforce Records, and Lemmy recognized him from their meeting in Denmark not too long before that. The theme of his speech was that Lemmy always treated him as an equal. I’m sure Lars could’ve said much more…if he wasn’t still shaken. It must’ve finally hit him that his idol is gone. That has to really suck for Lars, knowing that the reason he is the drummer for biggest band in the world is no longer here.

Dave Grohl was the last person to speak, which is what everyone was waiting for. You know his general history: drummer for extremely overrated grunge band turned frontman/guitarist for middle of the road rock band. But those who REALLY know ANYTHING about the guy know too well that he’s nearly as big a Motorhead fan as even Lars! He occupation as guitarist for his middle of the road rock band basically finances his love of all things hardcore, crust and metal. If you know ANYTHING about Dave Grohl you heard his metal side project Probot, which featured several different metal vocalist, including Lemmy, with whom he recorded the only good track on that CD, “Shake Your Blood:, in which Lemmy also played bass.

Over the years Dave and Lemmy truly developed a bond with a each other. The two of them got together many times and were clearly the best of friends for years. Watching him up there you can tell he was truly humbled to be friend with the guy. What sucked was when the mic got cut off and we couldn’t hear shit for about ten minutes, and went right back on before he finished. He mentioned their love of Little Richard, which plays and important part here. Right before Lemmy died Dave got Little Richard to autograph a bible pamphlet for him to give to Lemmy, but Lemmy died right before he could give it to him. So right before he let the podium Dave recited a few lines from Little Richard’s song “Precious Lord Take My Hand”, before raising a toast to Lemmy.

After it was done Lemmy’s tech plugged in his Rickenbacker signature “Rickenbastard” bass, leaned it against his full stack and let that shit feed back forever. THAT is how you hold a memorial service. Let’s celebrate the guys life – I think he’d make fun of all of us for mourning him, I know he wouldn’t want us to, although the woman sitting across from us was in tears the entire time. The world is still a shittier place without you though pal.

All Hail The King

Posted on January 1, 2016April 12, 2016 by Mike

Remember this?

Well…unless you were under a rock or in a coma over the last few days you already know that the most unimaginable actually happened. God himself died this past Monday. What a shitty way to end the year, losing the legendary Lemmy Kilmister, the Metal world’s King Badass, as the year is coming to a close as well just four days after the son of a bitch celebrated his 70th birthday.

My girlfriend read the news while I was playing my guitar that night. She came over to me and told me to take a deep breath, that’s when she told me the news. I initially outright refused to believe it, like I’m sure everyone else did. Lemmy Kilmister? Dead? Yet Keith Richards still lives?!?! As Mike Portnoy said on his twitter account, this was without a doubt the moment everyone feared would come yet never thought would actually happen.

For those of you who really were under a rock or in a coma; Lemmy thinned out at an alarming rate in the course of the last year, maybe even more than that, clearly a result of his lifestyle. The guy only did speed for decades and he even told Rolling Stone in April 2014 that he still was doing it – he just lowered the dosage after being fitted with a pacemaker. He also decided to switch out the Jack Daniels for Vodka because “vodka has less sugar”. Oh Lemmy, you funny guy. But you still had to respect the motherfucker because even with his declining health he still kept a grueling tour schedule with Motorhead. No one else would do that now.

That alone leads me to speculate about his “sudden” cancer diagnosis. According to the press he was diagnosed with aggressive brain and neck cancer just two days after his birthday and was given “two to six months” to live…only to die two days later in front of his favorite video game which the guys at The Rainbow were generous enough to transport to his condo that night. I don’t buy it. I think he knew “two to six months” ago that he was fucked and decided to pull a page out of Freddie Mercury’s book and keep the truth under wraps for as long as was feasible, but not for the same reasons Freddie did. Freddie was to be the Rock world’s first ever AIDS casualty – that clearly had to be pretty scary to admit back in the late 1980’s.

So why would Lemmy choose to keep this under wraps if my theory is right? Simple (while still stupid!)…he didn’t want us to worry about him. Lemmy was a warrior, his home was the stage and he couldn’t be Lemmy fucking Kilmister and NOT go out with a fucking bang! He was a man of no regrets and he knew his lifestyle had finally caught up with him; he must’ve known “two to six months” ago that there was no way chemo was going to help in anyway so he probably just said fuck it and finished what he started. You can’t do that from a hospital bed with your hair falling out, right?

That’s why we will always remember Lemmy. He ALWAYS delivered for the fans no matter how fucked up he was. He ALWAYS delivered for the fans when he “peers” didn’t want to be bothered hanging out with fans after a show or on the street somewhere. Honestly…I don’t think he really had any peers. I was going to write about this in a future post but I got the honor of meeting Lemmy almost eleven years ago when my friend’s band Arctic Flame opened up for Motorhead and he invited me to go with him. What did that mean to me? Well…I got to see the band do their soundcheck….holy shit they were LOUD. The fucking PA monitors were tied together and the floor was shaking! I was deafened instantly and the actual show wasn’t to start for another two hours. It was beautiful. When they finished their acoustic encore of “Whorehouse Blues” I cheered them enthusiastically along with this 15 year old kid who was with us. Lemmy thanked us and when I yelled out “Lemmy you’re a fuckin’ GOD!!” his reply had me dying. “No no no – God’s a lot taller!”.

Lemmy was a pioneer. His bass tone is undeniable and will most likely NEVER be duplicated. Thanks to him Motorhead was most likely the first ever crossover band bridging the gap between Punk and Metal, they were fast and they were so loud. Even the punks wore Motorhead t shirts and had patches on their vests. If it wasn’t for Lemmy no thrash metal band would EVER exist. This especially goes for Metallica, a band you won’t always see me refer to here. But if there’s one thing I’ll always be grateful to Metallica for it’s introducing us all to Motorhead. If I never bought their covers album Garage, Inc., I would’ve never heard “Overkill”, “Damage Case” or “Stone Dead Forever”. If you were a kid in the 90’s like I was you probably didn’t know who the fuck Motorhead were until you bought that CD – and don’t you lie and say otherwise. Lemmy also wrote amazing songs with other people outside of Motorhead. Remember “Mama I’m Coming Home” by Ozzy? Ozzy just wrote the title, Lemmy wrote all those beautiful lyrics. Just too bad Ozzy and especially $haron decided to shit all over him and just give him a flat rate instead of just royalties.

But more important than any of that….Lemmy NEVER did what other people wanted him to do. He was a trailblazer and when you’re trailblazer you listen to no one. He lived his life on his own terms. No one could drink like him or handle the effects of speed like he could. Even more important than that, no one before or after him kicked ass like he could. Scott Ian said that his death leaves a huge hole that will “never be filled” and he’s absolutely right. It’s also a bit of a financial loss for the Rainbow. Oops.

So in ending this all I can really say is thank you Lemmy. Thank you for the gift of your music. Thank you for the gift of your badass attitude which will NEVER be duplicated. Thank you for Motorhead. Thank you for the influence you’ve had on EVERY true metal musician worth a shit including myself. If you call yourself a metalhead in any way and you aren’t a Motorhead fan you’re just a phony and should go fist yourself while listening to Adele or the faggot bitch who sings “call me on my cellphoooooone” or whatever that shit song is. Your music and your life will NEVER be forgotten Lemmy. I dedicate this song – which was my pre-workout song just yesterday – to you and everything you stand for. Thank you Lemmy!

Ian Fraser Kilmister

December 24th 1945 – December 28th 2015

The Rock Carnival…And The Biggest Parking Lot Fuckjob Ever.

Posted on September 26, 2015October 21, 2015 by Mike

This past Saturday my girlfriend and I went to Day 2 of the three day Rock Carnival put together by WDHA and WRAT at Oak Ridge Park in Clark, NJ. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to go to this because the only bands I’d give a shit about at all were King’s X, Sevendust and especially Black Label Society, hell, Anthrax wouldn’t be playing until the next day and the lineup for that day was shit compared to what we saw the day we went; but Courtenay REALLY wanted to see King’s X and she REALLLYYYYY wanted to see all the food trucks. So we went.

It was a nice day out, especially with it being the last day of summer. First off – I call absolute BULLSHIT on having to pay $20 to park on the field for the day. Second, it looked real nice when we got there; they had a ferris wheel, four stages tents everywhere, a beer garden and of course, food trucks. But the set up was so fucked up and unorganized. We felt like we had to go through a fucking maze to go from one stage to another, or from the beer garden back to the one of the two main stages. Fucking stupid!

The first band that was on when we arrived was this shit emocore band called Bad Case For Big Mouth. Someone should tell them the they a real bad case of playing some really shitty music. I also think anyone with whinny vocals should just chop their balls off. Hell…whoever the first fuckface was who decided it was ok to whine like a bitch should just fucking go and kill himself now – you reading this Morrissey???? So after seeing that shit we ditched their asses immediately to check out the rest of the carnival.

While walking around we saw a tent. The closer we got I remember seeing that Game Changer Wrestling was on the bill. The closer we got after that I noticed someone a little too familiar to me. Yeah…it was Jaka…

My little backstory with him is something I’ll get into another time. The important thing is if I saw him I knew before he even told me that was definitely going to see this guy…

Chris Dickinson…wrestler turned drummer turned wrestler again. I actually played guitar in his very first band but that was about eleven years ago now. Around the time he had gone back to wrestling he and Jaka were feuding but now they’re part of Team Pazuzu and the two of them will actually be wrestling The Steiner Brothers in Manville, NJ on October 16th. Anyway, I decided to stick around to see Chris wrestle since I hadn’t since I was a ring announcer in a no holds barred match he had against Jaka six years ago.

Here’s the match:

I caught him for a few minutes after the match ended before he and the rest of Team Pazuzu had to drive off to Connecticut for another match that night. So we walked around a bit more until 5pm when Skid Row were about to go on. I personally could give two flying fucks about them without Sebastian Bach but Courtenay was curious to see what they sounded like with their brand new singer Tony Harnell, who sadly used to sing for TNT. New Jersey is the band’s home town so the old school crowd that probably saw them in bars turned up for this shit. They were not that bad but dude…their singer was in TNT. Done. Over.

After they got off they were setting up for Sevendust while methhead led Puddle of Mudd were on the other stage – I’m surprised Wes Scantlin even made it out to the gig without getting arrested again! Too bad you still sucked ass. Courtenay, being a towering 5 ft wanted to get as close to the stage as she could before anyone showed up or she knew she wouldn’t be able to see Sevendust, since she could barely see Skid Row; so there we were, standing there, subjecting ourselves to Puddle of Shit until Sevendust were to come on. The most entertaining part of the wait was the way the crowd cheered as Skid Row’s banner was being brought down. Puddle of Meth took FOREVER to finished their lame as fuck set. Of their entire catalog most people only know of one shitty CD and they just dragged it out to death.

Then…a REAL band came on:

Lajon Witherspoon? Corey Glover on steroids. The guy is still a BEAST on the mic, one of the best singers of my generation, criminally underrated. Morgan Rose…I want his drum kit…now. I lost my way with Sevendust for a long time and it’s not their fault. Starting with their 1997 debut – which I have on cassette – they were pretty much lumped in with the nu-metal movement, most likely because of their grooves but in reality they thankfully are nothing like that. Sometime in between songs Lajon decided to talk about how he’ll always be the guy that talks to all the fans and how grateful the band are to us because they’d be doomed without us. When I hear people say things like that I automatically assume they’re just full of shit. Or was he?

After Sevendust finished up I immediately took Courtenay by the hand and rushed us to the other main stage to see Black Label Society. This was going to be the seventh time I saw them and I wasn’t going to miss shit. Zakk Wylde is GOD. There was no one else that night that could play worth a shit compared to Zakk Fucking Wylde, not Slash, not the Skid Row guys, not even Ty Tabor – no one. The band’s set were intense as usual, hell, ever since he got sober the band’s shows have been like religious experiences and this was no exception.

Here are the first two songs:

Considering each band had just fifty minutes to play I found it amusing that Zakk managed to fit a brief solo section into the set. “Now this is just meedly meedly stuff”, said Courtenay. Me? It’s the best meedly meedly you can get here. After we finished watching Zakk pound his chest like Captain Caveman we relaxed a bit before we walked over to the “Birch Hill” stage to see King’s X. No way we were seeing Stephen Pearcy. Fuck him. Fuck him and every single washed up glam rock asshole that was there. But while hanging around I noticed a tent with a bunch of middle aged metalheads raffling off bass drum heads signed by 80’s thrash bands as well as selling some nice rarities. Oh shit is the Old Bridge Metal Militia really back from the dead as a result of mid life crisis? I think so! But I have to admit, it was nice to see them out. No, I didn’t talk to them. I wasn’t even born yet when they were giving Metallica a home when they came to Old Bridge from California. What was I going to say to them??

They even made an attempt at being slightly relevant by making a webpage. Aaawwww! Check them out at http://www.oldbridgemetalmilitia.com

After Ratt’s washed up ex singer finally shut the fuck up we walked to the stage. That’s when I noticed dUg’s bass cabinets and had a real bad Beavis and butthead moment:

Huh huh, hey Beavis, look at the letters on his amps, huh huh.

This was going to be my first time seeing King’s X, what an honor…just too bad Eddie Trunk had to announce them on stage. Ok we get it, you were there for everything that happened…a million years ago. I used to love listening to him but he caters way too much to his age group. The band came on…dUg Pinnick looks really good with a goatee, makes him look a lot younger than 65…it’s good to see Jerry Gaskill still doing this after enduring two heart attacks and the loss of his home to Hurricane Sandy. Ty Tabor is an incredible guitarist and he showed his ability to keep up with dUg and Jerry during some long jams.

As I was filming their set Courtenay pointed out to me the back of someone’s dreadlocked head. “Lordy lordy!!!” he yelled out with a big excited smile as he was talking with other people during the show. It was Lajon Witherspoon; I thought he was just bragging for the sake of image when he spoke about his love for the fans and not being afraid to go out to the crowd but there he was in the flesh. In fact he was standing right next to me at one point and when I said the band were amazing he talked to me about them. Wow. After King’s X ended their AMAZING set I approached Lajon, told him I’d be honored to take a picture with him and Courtenay. “Let’s do it!” was his immediate response. Amazing guy, very down to earth, more people should be like Lajon Witherspoon.

Then there’s that parking lot bullshit. We tried to leave after our selfie with Lajon but it wasn’t happening. In fact there was a line that just didn’t move. At one point Courtenay just parked her car all over again to save gas because we were going nowhere. People were increasingly enraged, drunk, both. So I walked to the nearest parking lot attendant and asked him what the fuck was happening. “None of this would be happening if the police just listened to us.” was his answer so I realized that the police were directing traffic JUST one way. This was absolutely disgraceful. It was over two hours before we finally got the fuck out of there. Hell, my friend Maureen from Brooklyn said fuck it and took car service back to her hotel and left her car in the lot just to avoid the bullshit. I also know there were a lot of complaints the next day and I also know that I’m not going back until WDHA and the Clark Police Department figured out how to safely organize and run an event like this.

The show was nice…just really fucking disorganized from start to finish.

Confessions of an Angry Metalhead

Tag: Anthrax

The End Of Days Is Near…RIP Slayer

Random Thoughts

All Hail The King

The Rock Carnival…And The Biggest Parking Lot Fuckjob Ever.