I want to start reviewing EPs, albums and demos from new and upcoming metal bands for my blog. I’ve reviewed CDs in the past for my college radio station and have even conducted interviews for my old show including L.A. band Cerberus (I’m mentioned in the thank you credits of their 2007 release Dispute The Truth, great album!)and ex-Venom guitarist Mykus; I want to start doing that again and just maybe help out some real good bands. Are you out there?
If you are reading this and know of any good underground bands worth listening to or are in a band and want me to check you guys out hit me up! I’m looking for anyone playing Death Metal(especially the really brutal shit!), Black Metal (nothing symphonic or with any keyboards please!), Thrash, Sludge, Grindcore or anything with a crust influence. Bottom line: I want it Extreme.
I’ll also need whatever links you can give me so I can use them to promote the bands, should I choose to review them.
Had a damn good leg day this past Thursday. It was very energetic, I feel myself getting stronger all the time. 5/3/1 is the shit!
2/11/16 Training Log:
Squat
95lbs – 1 x 5
115lbs – 1 x 5
140lbs – 1 x 5
180lbs – 1 x 3
205lbs – 1 x 3
225lbs – 1 x 6
Leg Press
190lbs – 3 x 10, 10, 10
Dumbbell Side Bends
8lbs – 3 x 10, 10, 10
This was all followed by six Prowler Sprints using 90lbs. I’m looking to slowly increase up to fifteen sprints on Squat and Deadlift days.
I owe part of my energy to this!
I’d also like to thank the site of the red headed FAGGOT piece of shit that trains at my gym for getting on my nerves just by being there. Long story short, this asshole decided to be rude with me all because I didn’t realize last week that the dumbbell section was no longer crowded and I could move my duffel bag. “It’s just…common knowledge”, he blurted out like a jerkoff. If you’ve got nothing nice to say to a guy you don’t know from a hole in the wall then don’t say shit because that guy might just kick your ass. I decided to be the better man because I wanted to get my work in but the next time he opens his dumb fucking mouth I might just fuck him up or at least give him a nice warning. Although I’d love to see someone just shoot him is his face repeatedly – now THAT would be awesome!
The International Powerlifting Federation…you guys seriously need to get over yourselves, leave your office and go get some air, go meet a girl, buy a plastic doll that you all can share, something. Is attending the seminar of a guy who’s banned from the IPF for life really considered a form of association with the guy?
Quick back story: Ed Coan, considered the greatest powerlifter of all time, failed three drug tests with the IPF, the most prestigious powerlifting federation in the world, between 1985 and 1996 before finally being banned for life from the fed. So when Ed was getting ready to host a series of seminars in Sweden the IPF issued a really pathetic statement reminding both IPF lifters as well as their own staff members that they were not to attend Ed’s seminar or they would be banned for life/fired.
I don’t care what anyone says – that’s the dumbest fucking statement the IPF could give. So, as someone on YouTube said, should Silent Mike from Super Training Gym be banned from USAPL, which is affiliated with the IPF, because he and Mark Bell interviewed Ed for Power Magazine? Hey how about Stronglifts creator Mehdi Hadim? There’s a video of him training squats with Ed – should he not be allowed to lift in the IPF should he ever choose to compete? He’s banned because he fucked up – he wasn’t some junkie pro wrestler who killed his wife and kid, and then hung himself on his lat pulldown machine in his basement. Oops.
It’s been a few weeks since this show happened but I took awhile to finally do this blog partially because of time constraints, partially because of the fact that a lot of things happened at this show, partially because I was sure some drunk piece of shit blatantly sabotaged one of my video of the Black Breath set but as I now know she failed. But I’ll get to her. I’m doing this post a little differently than my other posts because there was a lot to cover so I’m going to recap this as quick as I can and then list the bands and I’ll add their pictures and videos that way.
So I arrived at the bar a good half an hour before the show was supposed to start and within maybe ten minutes of my being there I recognized the woman I was standing next to during the Crowbar show just a week earlier. She had checked on me after the psycho fanboy kicked me in the back of the head and she now revealed to me that her legs at that moment we were talking were still bruised all over from that night. We both spoke for a bit about the crowd as a whole that night, how brutal that show in general was because that pit wasn’t really a mosh pit – it was one big fucking fight! See the video on my post about that night see what I’m talking about!
The first band of the night was a band called Theories, who are out promoting their latest album, Regressions. I recorded the first few songs of their set which I will post. They weren’t bad. I don’t know that I’d buy their stuff but but I’d definitely see them again. I’d say that their singer should definitely work a little more on coming out of his shell with his stage presence. I imagine it will happen over time.
Ringworm were next and all I can say is…OW!! There’s a reason James Bulloch is the “Human Furnace”. Damn. The band as a whole were absolutely brutal…so much so that that this where the circle pits and even some idiotic dancing began! I stood to the side of the room while filming to avoid getting hit but some retard who was dancing around like a spaz threw himself in to the guy next to me, who obviously bumped in me, hitting me right in the ribs and forcing my thumb to turn the camera off. Within a minute or two of starting over I knocked into again twice, tailbone first in to the wall both times so this time I just got out until the band finished. Again…OW!!! By the way as of this writing my tailbone STILL hurts.
Black Breath…where shit went down. What’s in a name? That’s what I need to remember when it comes to Metal bands because these guys shattered all my expectations and fucking killed it! I couldn’t even use the word brutal to describe their intensity on stage. They were PERFECT!! So what was the problem? I had gotten a brand new Droid Maxx just a few days earlier so I was unaware when filming that there was an automatic light that I had to remove. So while I was filming there was a light on the whole time so I was a little confused when the woman in front of me began giving my phone the finger and then gave me the finger. Of course I gave her the finger back. She then turned to me and told me that the light on my phone was really bothering her and I was “making everything suck”. I understood and kindly asked her to give me a minute so I could find a place to move and I guess that wasn’t good enough for her so she pushed me.
I didn’t do anything only because I assumed she was a bit drunk but the fucking bitch did it again! When I was done filming she and her much calmer boyfriend thanked me. I politely approached her and told her that there was no reason to push me. “Well I tried to reason with you and you wouldn’t listen so I’ll push you all I want!” was her immature reply. I called her out on it and she declared “I’m not afraid of you!”. I never threatened her. She then tried to insult me again and gave up. It’s incredible, how tough women act when their boyfriends/husbands are around, although part of me thinks that this drunk bitch wears the pants in the couple. And by the way you dumb twat, if you’re reading this I hope you get shot repeatedly in your fuckin’ head! I do have to acknowledge the guy behind me, who saw everything and offered to lend me his spot so I could continue filming, but I was already finished at that point. If you happen to be reading this, thank you bro, it obviously wasn’t forgotten.
After I took a few deep breaths in amazement that I didn’t punch the drunk bitch in her throat I got ready for Goatwhore. I slowly got more in the mood the longer I heard Venom’s song “In League With Satan” blasting through the speakers…so bad but so good! I was getting ready to film again and when I saw the guy in front of me looking up at my phone I decided to stop and look at the problem. That’s when I discovered the light and turned it off – it still doesn’t justify some dumb bitch pushing me.
Goatwhore got on and they fucking tore it up! I personally feel that leaving Crowbar was the smartest move Sammy Duet ever made; he’s a totally brutal, loud, heavy guitarist. Let’s face it – he never would’ve been able to truly express himself had he stayed. That’s no disrespect to Kirk Windstein, but when the band you’re in is the product of one guy’s sole vision you’re not going to have an easy time getting your ideas out there. The good news here was I was in a spot were I was able to avoid injuries this time and STILL see the band!
This is actually the third time I’ve seen them in the last eight years and the second time I saw them while on tour for their latest album, Constricting Rage of The Merciless, an album I recommend HIGHLY. Someone once said that Goatwhore is exactly what Venom would have sounded like if they weren’t such a joke and I couldn’t agree more. The place really came apart near the end when the began their song “FBS” (right….I don’t know why they didn’t just label it what it is.), of the new CD. At the end of the night everyone knew what is was to get Fucked By Satan…and they loved it.
What a week it’s been for Morbid Angel, because in a matter of just a few days, the band lost…everyone. It all started when founding guitarist Trey Azagtoth announced that bassist/vocalist David Vincent was out of the band and back in the band has non other than Steve Tucker – the very guy who replaced David when he first quit the band back in 1996. Trey even said they were working on new music together. Then came the drama; a few hours later David responded saying his basically had no idea what anyone was talking about and that he never the band or was asked to leave.
But wait, this gets better! With the next two to three days drummer Tim Yeung quit the band, saying he left over financial reasons, which is not too much of a surprise, and then co-guitarist Destructhor (his real name is actually Thor. That is fucking awesome!) announced that he was out because he wanted to go back home to Norway to focus on his other band Myrkskog. What I find funny about this already is that both Tim and Destruthor decided to leave Morbid Angel after their most recent European Tour ended in December 2014. I imagine that they both left because of money and their both too professional to say anything, although according to Destructhor the band wanted to work with someone “more local”. Already sounds a bit fishy.
Then, just two days ago, David reversed his initial statement and announced that he too was in fact out of Morbid Angel. He said that he Trey had a long conversation and they both agreed that they had some “incompatibilities” in regard to them working together any longer. Of all the band departures this is the one that was the lightning rod. David Vincent is the vocalist you hear on those first four classic albums. He left the band in 1996 to join his wife’s bondage themed rock band The Genitorturers. There was some dispute over the creative direction of his last album with them, Domination. David thought at the time that it was sonically their best album to date due to their upgraded production values and the fact that they tried a few new things. Trey, on the other hand, said a few years later that he found the sound on Domination to be so sterile that it pissed him off. He also didn’t like that David wrote all the lyrics this time around and that they strayed very far away from the themes of the previous three albums.
Steve Tucker came in and did three albums with the band and then something happened in 2004. Trey and David started talking again, which led to him doing a few surprise gigs with the band…which led to him rejoining the band altogether due to the positive reaction from the fans. There’s been a bit of controversy ever since the band released their 2011 album, Illud Divinum Insanus, an album so techno sounding that David was given the blame for the musical direction. Hell, look at the guy. Really – look at him, even in the picture on this post! God damn if he doesn’t look like something out of a sex shop or Hot Topic before they were bought by the Gap! Some of you call him David Sixx, which I think is hysterical. Given that along with his Genitorturers past and his big influence on Domination twenty years ago it’s easy to make a martyr out of David.
So I wonder like everybody else what happened because Trey obviously isn’t ready to talk yet. He might never be because he doesn’t like to talk…which is probably why he kept David around – he’s very social, I met him so I know as does anyone else who met the guy. Some people are saying that this is Trey cleaning house and regaining control of his band because David was once again too strong when fighting for creative control. Some are a little bummed that he’s gone again and some are REALLY happy that he’s gone and Steve’s back in. And remember I mentioned David not knowing he was gone? Sounds like Trey didn’t really have the balls to tell him he was gone, kind of like when Warrell Dane of Nevermore discovered through Blabbermouth.net that Jeff Loomis had quit the band. Pretty scummy if you ask me.
So where does Trey Azagtoth go from here? Does he hire all naive rookies in order to pay them less than guys like Destructhor and Tim were already getting? Is Trey ever going to discuss what happened? Is this new album he’s doing with Steve Tucker going to blow Illud Divinum Insanus out of the water? Only time will tell but if Trey ever talks he has a lot of explaining to do because a whole band leaving in or announcing their gone in just a matter of days raises a few red flags. I’ll always be grateful that I got to see Morbid Angel with David Vincent during last year’s Summer Slaughter Tour at Irving Plaza in Manhattan. Great show and no songs from Illud! Here’s a short video I made of the band playing “Fall From Grace” off their second album, Blessed Are The Sick. It’s not even two minutes long though because my phone was dying after a long day out.
Confessions of an Angry Metalhead 