The Big 4 cd.dvd boxset

With the release of the Big 4 dvd and the dvd/cd boxset in October, I thought it was a good time to get a little nostalgic. I passed on the opportunity to see it in the theater as watching a metal concert in a theater is just a little too weird for me, still I was eagerly awaiting the release of the dvd boxset. I must admit I was a little skeptical, as I don't really like the term big four, especially when it excludes a band as great as Exodus. Although, having said that, I realize Exodus were not as stable over the years and did not have the longevity and staying power as these 4 bands, it just seems wrong.

The biggest surprise upon viewing was Anthrax and Megadeth who I expected the least from. They were both great and I ended up enjoying their sets more than Slayer's and Metallica's. Anthrax displayed their usual lighthearted and fun hardcore type approach, but with the return of Joey Belladonna they were in great form. Maybe it was the nostalgia, I don't know, but it was a blast watching their set. I was especially pleased with Metal Thrashing Mad since in my humble opinion, "Fistful of Metal" is the best Anthrax album. Dave Mustaine and the latest version of Megadeth also were in top form, despite the over dubbing and vocal criticisms out there, I also found their set to be very enjoyable, but wish they would play a few tracks off their legendary first album, which is also my favourite Megadeth album.

Next up Slayer. Slayer delivers exactly what you expect from Slayer. A ferocious blast of intense riffing and soloing that rarely lets up long enough to catch a breath. Tom Araya looked a little stiff after his surgery, but who cares? It is Slayer for christ's sake! Sadly, both Slayer and Megadeth did not take advantage of the occasion to bust out some tracks off their first two albums. Metallica were perhaps a little more average than displayed on their recent Nimes release, but still in great form. My only complaint, is that the narrative in between songs has become very predictable and safe, but at the end of the day it should only be about the music and Metallica delivers as usual.

In celebration of the release of this dvd/cd set, your narrator will show a few interesting artifacts from his own personal collection:

Anthrax (rare megaforce promo)

Megadeth flyer for their 1st show, Slayer fans take note that this show featured Kerry King on guitar with Megadeth, oh and I would have loved to see Trouble back then)

Live for Metal - Die for MEGADETH!!!! 2nd, 3rd and 4th shows, also featuring Kerry King on guitar. (Please Note:These are all genuine, and no they are not for sale, so please don't ask)

Slayer (This was my second Slayer show and was the second time I saw Testament, I honestly don't remember much about Testament at this show, but when I saw them at the Paramount in New Westminster, BC approximately a year or so prior, they were absolutely amazing)

A photo I took of Kerry King at the show with Testament.  This was my first attempt at concert photography and I took it with a disposable camera... none of this digital camera shit every robot waves around at shows today. I remember the floor was absolutely mental, so it was hard to get good photos, but it was much calmer than the South of Heaven tour when they opened up for Priest!,  enjoy!

Metallica (rare and authentic flyer for first Metallica show ever, featuring Dave Mustaine of

Megadeth and Mr. Ron McGovney of the underrated Phantasm)

The Devil's Music: A personal history of the beginnings, illustrated by the forgotten cassette tape

"Those records are the devil's music and no son of mine's going to listen to them" -SNFU

AC/DC

My first tapes were AC/DC tapes given to me by my brother (The classic shit, Back in Black, Highway to Hell and Dirty Deeds) and I seemed to really take to them compared to the other music he listened to. I remember many a morning being awoken by the sound of bells coming from my brothers room as he put side one of Back in Black on his turntable and feeling excited by the sounds that came up from my heater vent. Still, I for some reason preferred the Bon Scott stuff as it seemed more real, less forced and even a little funny at times. He was always singing about booze, tattoos, women, balls and being a rocker. All this new information was sort of shocking to my young fragile mind (I was only in about grade 2), but it was also intriguing due to the fact that it seemed dangerous, wild and free. I have no idea why my brother gave me those tapes and he does not remember himself, but I played those tapes almost everyday for about a year or so, mesmerized by the music and the lyrics.  AC/DC became the foundation to build on.

I'm on a Highway to Hell!

TWISTED SISTER

When I bought my first tape with my own money it was like I had discovered the holy grail. I stood on the grass that day dumbfounded why on earth someone would want to sell something so valuable. I was not bothered in the least bit when the older kid asked me with clear resentment, "why do you want this crap anyway, no one likes this crap anymore".  I was puzzled why this older kid had suddenly decided that this tape stood between him and his new found hip status, especially since the tape had not been out long, but it didn't matter because all I knew was: this was definitely not Wham, Culture Club, Phil Collins (*no offence Phil, early Genesis is cool), Platinum Blonde, Michael Jackson or any other garbage my classmates were listening to, it was something different and when Dee Snider sang "you're going to burn in hell" I really thought he meant it and it was exciting! Even though Twisted Sister took a back seat to the much better AC/DC tapes, it ended up on steady rotation for about a year.  True metal or not, I am no longer embarrassed to be a Twisted Sister fan. Truth is they were a pretty decent rock 'n' roll band, and I like that rock 'n' roll and I don't care what some fat kid that lives in his mom's basement in Norway thinks about it. As funny as it may seem now this shit was pretty scary and hardcore to me as a forth grader. Luckily, Dee Snider looked like a clown on the cover which some how lightened the impact a bit, otherwise I am not sure I could have taken it (no pun intended).

See No Evil?

Here are a few ticket stubs from shows I went to where Dee Snider palys Twisted Sister tunes. Great times were had by all, except unfortunately a shitty band named Nickelback opened up for one of the shows. Nickelback were in their, "Pearl Jam" phase because you know it was still cool to be grunge if you had hopes as a paid musician. I don't like to talk shit about working bands normally, but they were horrible and even condescending and I remember everyone in the venue booing, yawning, sleeping and wallowing in their beer until they finally left the stage. They even had the nerve to talk a little shit on stage about Twisted Sister which i'm sure didn't help win over the crowd or me.

IRON MAIDEN

Anyway, after discovering Iron Maiden's, Self titled album and Number of the Beast, I sort of forgot about Twisted Sister (for years and years actually). Maiden took it to a whole new level for me, intelligent lyrics, solid musicianship and amazing artwork. I used to stare at the cover of Number of the Beast for hours. Even though that album was the first one I heard, I always sort of liked the first album the best. In addition to their own great music, Iron Maiden also opened the doors to the NWOBHM scene for me and I also checked out other great English bands like Judas Priest, Saxon, Tygers of Pan Tang and Diamond Head. It is probably largely due to Iron Maiden's musicianship that I later became interested in Rory Gallagher, Thin Lizzy and other great bands that were before my time.

Children of the Damned!

BLACK SABBATH

My buddy and I were going on a camping trip and he brought along Ozzy Osbourne's Speak of the Devil cassette for us to listen too. He bought it the day before and told me I should check it out. I was absolutely stunned by what I heard. We had discovered something beyond words that I still have trouble defining, it simply sounded like hallucinatory, drugged out hymns to the devil. Combine that with Ozzy's rants about starting riots and getting high, I sincerely thought that maybe I should not be listening to this shit if I want to lead a normal life, yet the next day I went out and bought Sabbath's Self titled, Paranoid and master of Reality albums anyway. Obviously, I found that the songs were even better in their original context, but minus Ozzy's ranting. Sadly, I no longer have the first Black Sabbath album on cassette, so I put the LP in the photo instead.  Black Sabbath are one of the most important bands in the history of rock and roll period.   

Satan's coming around the bend!

MOTLEY CRUE

I resisted Motley Crue at first, it did not do anything for me when I first heard it, but one night at my neighbors birthday party (we are talking grade 4 here, give me a break), her older brother pulled out Shout at the Devil and something clicked. I was really impressed with their imagery and sound, it had the danger of AC/DC, but the music was very different. They really had their own thing going on, it was heavy metal or maybe better termed party metal, but one thing is for sure that album kicks ass. Mean riffs, thundering drums and nasty attitude. I don't really consider Shout at the Devil a glam metal album, but this is what glam metal should have been. I soon found out that Too Fast for Love was a great record too. Though, they eventually found bigger commercial success, it is too bad that beginning with Theatre of Pain they began to lose most of what made them great. That record is decent, and really isn't as bad as the masses would have you believe.  However, I can't really listen to anything they put out after that album.

He's the blood stain on the stage...

VENOM

Discovering Venom later that year was like discovering Satan himself. Every time I played Black Metal I turned the volume down and when Buried Alive came on, I turned it down to a whisper, I was worried my parents would hear it and put me in a mental institution. I am not kidding, Venom scared the shit out of me and other kids, but we loved it! At some point, I got a Venom Black Metal shirt, but it went "missing" in the laundry one day. My parents were pretty laid back and cool about my music choices, but I think my mom was genuinely concerned about that Venom shirt possessing me one night in my sleep or leading me down a path into hard drugs and suicide. Instead, Venom with the help of Banzai Records led me towards the extreme metal underground.

Lay down your Soul to the God's Rock 'n' Roll!

METALLICA

Metallica were the band that sort of cemented everything together, as overused as the saying is, they became the soundtrack to my life. I first discovered Metallica when I took a summer job selling chocolate bars for a charity. One of the older kids that worked there was cool and into metal. He wanted to show us some of his tapes and one that stood out immediately was Ride the Lightning on Banzai records. The image of the electric chair and the lightning really made the tape stick out from all the others scattered around his room and I could not wait to hear what it sounded like. When he put it in the tape deck I was in absolute awe of the powerful riff that kicked in after the acoustic intro, it sounded like no metal I had heard up until that point. To put it into as few words as possible, Fight Fire with Fire was a musical revelation, I had no idea music like this existed. Sure, Venom were fast and similar, but this was something different. Faster and heavier than Iron Maiden, but more talented and serious then Venom. I soon bought both Ride the Lightning and Kill 'em All and the latter became my favourite tape in my growing collection. This dude also introduced me to Slayer and a few other bands. Sadly, he also told me that Metallica were playing in Vancouver soon and that he was going, but I had to miss the show as my mother made sure that I was not allowed to go to any concerts until I was in high school. Thus, I never got to see Cliff Burton play, and I also had to miss the Master of Puppets tour. I had tickets to this one and was planning to sneak to it, but my Mom found out I had tickets and made me sell them or she was going to throw them in the garbage. Anyway, I still am proud to say that Metallica are my favourite band and they have my respect forever even if I do not always agree with some of their unusual career decisions.

The leather armies have prevailed, the phantom lord has never failed

Okay, so I tell you all this not because I think my story is more important than one anyone else has to share, I just would like to share items from my collection with others that have the same passion for the music and share a few stories and provide context for the blog along the way.  I am not here to brag about my connections with so and so or bloat my own self esteem, I'm just a regular fan.

It Started Here....

The purpose (You mean there has to be a purpose?!) of this blog is to share some stories, photos, music and even some metal artifacts that have been dug up along the way. I don't claim to be an expert, I don't have many contacts and I don't care about trends in metal. I am just a geek that has been listening to metal since 1984 and I want to share some of my own personal stories and reflections with other people who may have grown up similar. Or perhaps you are younger and you are interested in the ramblings of a middle aged man about growing up a metal head. There is so much pretentiousness on the online metal scene today, everyone is more "metal" than the next guy and blah, blah, blah. I just want to offer an honest and more personal side.

By the way, on a related note. Anyone else notice how in 1987, there was maybe two-three guys in the entire town who liked bands like Sodom, Kreator, Hellhammer and Celtic Frost, yet today everyone was a huge fan since day one. Though my friends and I were a little young to catch the first wave of bands like Priest, Maiden and NWOBHM they still were the first bands we were exposed to. However, we really found our place with the more extreme next wave of metal very early. Bands like Sodom, Kreator, Hellhammer, Celtic Frost and Destruction were all introduced to us via Banzai records and inspired us to form our own bands.

Anyway, let's get started!

The year was 1984 and I was in grade 4. I bought a Twisted Sister tape, and by the time I discovered Motley Crue, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Metallica a few months later that Twisted Sister tape became passe. Motley Crue you cringe? Poser you say? Maybe, but remember, I was probably metal before you and I still think Too Fast For Love and Shout at the Devil are great rock'n' roll records. I guess my generation was the second wave of bangers, at the time it wasn't cool to be into metal, you were into metal because you were a misfit and a geek. We were hated by jocks, punks, parents and even normal people. Funny thing is by the time we got into the more extreme forms of metal, we were probably more punk than the punks because we really didn't belong anywhere, even the other metal guys hated us! Oh wait, I forgot... everyone into metal appreciated Hellhammer and Sodom back then!! Of course we realized that we had a lot in common with the punks later, but more on that another time.

After seeing the video for Aces High on local much music, I realized that there were people out there that I seemed to have more in common with, someone other than my pink wearing, Corey Hart and Platinum Blonde listening classmates. I did not realize what a life altering moment it would turn out to be when I begged my mom to buy me a shirt the next day. Thanks mom! You can see by the photograph below that I had clearly not discovered Hellhammer yet though, as I still looked like a happy young lad here. Anyway, I did not realize when I got this shirt that my life was to change forever. It became a war everyday and it was Us vs Them. I don't want to sound like a self righteous old fart wallowing in my own nostalgic glory, but kids today really don't fucking know.

Circa 1984: I might be a geek, but I was probably metal before 90% of the "true" crowd 
and I was just a kid