Friday, November 7, 2008

Cassettes I owned in 1992

As most readers know, all of the Inquisitors are big fans of cassettes. It just seems like the natural format for genres like thrash, generic death metal, and crossover. I mean, can you imagine listening to Master or Desultory on vinyl or CD? Of course not! These days I'm more likely to listen to Forever The Sickest Kids or Miley Cyrus remixes, but here are some cassettes that I owned in 1992, for better or worse.



The Accused - Grinning Like An Undertaker
The Accused had pretty much the perfect formula for getting a 14 year old kid stoked. You could put the poster of the infinitely detailed monster from the album cover on your wall and bounce around your room moshing to the mosh parts and thrashing to the thrash parts, then go see them at some crappy VFW hall and get high in the parking lot with them before the show. What could be better?! Although this record had that regrettable rap song on it (I chalk that one up to signing with Nastymix), it is overall their most consistent release, including some of their best songs like the title track, "Tapping The Vein," and "When I Was A Child." They were one of the first bands where it really wouldn't be possible to classify them as punk or metal. I liked that a lot as a kid since I didn't feel comfortable in either scene, and I liked them even more since they were a local band. Too bad Tommy ruined the band by quitting to start Gruntruck, who were absolutely awful.



Forced Entry - As Above, So Below
As a youngster growing up near Seattle, I was fortunate enough to see Forced Entry many, many times. I won't be "that guy" who goes on and on about the old days, but I will say that one of the most memorable shows I ever went to was Forced Entry and The Accused for free at the amphitheater under the Space Needle, I think it was 91 or 92. It was the day they filmed the video for "Macrocosm, Microcosm," and I'm pretty sure I'm in the video for a split second- I was wearing a black and white plaid shirt, buttoned at the top in my best Mike Muir impression.

Anyhow, their brand of technical thrash was really ahead of its time, and in my opinion still sounds great. They were definitely white trash retards, like everybody else from Mountlake Terrace back then (these days it's much fancier than it was at the time), but their music was much more cerebral and avant garde than their peers. They weren't a bunch of faggoty eggheads, though- they knew how to fuckin' party!! In case you didn't believe them, they proved it with their version of one of the best elements of thrash: the goofy party song (Exodus were good at this too). Forced Entry had not one, but TWO of these on "As Above, So Below": "We're Dicks" and "How I Spent My Summer Vacation," both of which had awesomely retarded lyrics about bongs, blowjobs, and booze.

I could go on about Forced Entry for a long, long time. For example, I could talk about how Brad Hull almost got to be the replacement for James Hetfield when he got burned (he got beat out by the dude from fellow Seattle band Metal Church), how jealous I was that my friend in Himsa got to skate on the singer's ramp back at Brier High, but I'll leave it at that. If you are a fan of weird, angular thrash like Voivod or Coroner, or even progressive death metal like Broken Hope or Oppressor, do yourself a favor and check this album out.

Biohazard - Urban Discipline
We have already discussed Biohazard extensively on Metal Inquisition, so I won't repeat it. Suffice to say that, as one of our readers commented, this album and its accompanying videos were indeed a wiggerish arm movements instructional video, and I loved it!



DRI - Thrash Zone
My friend Kevin gave this to me in gym class in 1990. He said "Here, you can have this, it's too thrash metal for me." His favorite bands were Bad Religion and Red Hot Chili Peppers, although now he plays in western swing bands. I had only seen the video for "Suit And Tie Guy" on a Seattle-area show called Bombshelter Videos, but I knew I was in for a treat! This album is a chopaholic's dream come true: every song goes "chop chop choppa choppa chop" like a well-tuned machine. Also, it's a little funny that DRI pioneered the concept of short songs, yet succumbed to the common 80s practice of making their songs way, way, way too fucking long on this album. I mean who really needs five goddamn minutes of songs like "Gun Control" and "Abduction"? Nonetheless, "Thrashard" is without a doubt one of the best crossover songs ever written and if there was an Academy Award for retarded punk lyrics, it would most certainly win! It was one of the highlights of my life to sing this verse with half a dozen people on a boat before Lucho Metales' bachelor party a couple of years ago:
Thrashing and slamming
Like hell in the pit
Tomorrow they know
May not come
Banging and moshing
Like they don't give a shit
To the rapid beat
Of the drum

A boot to your forehead
A knee in your face
Your nose and lips
Start to bleed
Like a wild Indian
From outer space
Drunk and
High on weed
Your turn
What were your favorite cassettes in 1992? Don't cheat and list stuff you had on vinyl or CD!!

33 comments:

  1. Shit son, this is easy!
    Carnivore - Retaliation
    Body Count - S/T
    (Both of which I got in a lot of trouble for with my parents, there's some irony for you)
    Napalm Death - Death by manipulation
    Endpoint - In a time of hate
    Anthrax - Persistence of time
    Face Value - Price of Maturity
    Brutal Truth - Extreme Conditions
    Circle Jerks - Gig
    Motorhead - No remorse

    That's pretty much my play list for my freshman year, on tape. I still have tons of tapes in my car.

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  2. my trade cassettes full of crappy and none crappy bands; nihilist, morbid angel, master's hammer, beherit, rotting christ (when they were hardcore), necro shizma, necromantia, incubus (w/ mike browning), autopsy torment, sorcery (swedish death metal), morbid, mayhem, impiety, sabbat, carnage, etc etc etc

    + tons of really crappy demo's from around the world, but especially the netherlands; anathema, shub niggurath, sinister, m5, gorefest, thanatos, necro shizma, lethargy, delirium and lots of stuff i can't remember.

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  3. I grew up in Mountlake Terrace, the thrash capital of moshington as Brad called it. I remember the skate ramp well. I lived just on the other side of that gully/park that they lived next to (53rd). Christ on a crutch, aspirin feast, forced entry, dumpt, face first, brotherhood, accused, coven, death squad, hell trout, fitz of depression, minor threat, jesters of chaos, blah blah blah.

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  4. Wow.. D.R.I's Thrash Zone is pretty much the most spot-on summary of the cassette era for me. Reminds me of sitting in the back seat of bus on the way to school, walkman blaring, sneaking tokes out of a one-hitter. Those were simpler times my friends. I also had copies of Agnostic Front Live at the CBGB and the Misfits Earth AD that I played so much that they got all warped out and slow sounding in spots.

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  5. dead horse, 'peaceful death and pretty flowers'

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  6. hehe, i grew up in Indonesia but around that time my family lived in Malaysia and i remember my favorite tape at the time was Napalm Death's "Harmony Corruption". i also remember around that time going into a "metal cassette store" and getting a bootleg tape (the cover was xeroxed!) of Sacred Reich's "Surf Nicaragua"! (they didn't have it anywhere else in the whole country :-D )

    btw i remember seeing Gruntruck opening for Megadeth @ the Paramount Theater in Seattle, December 2000. that was the first & last time i've heard of them actually, and i remember thinking how boring they were :-P

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  7. Napalm Death-Harmony Corruption
    Entombed-Left Hand Path
    Morbid Angel-Blessed are the Sick
    Godflesh-Streetcleaner
    Grindcrusher-Comp.

    Tons more I never really bought CDs until after HS. Now I have my IPOD you guys might hate me for this but it's the greatest invention. I can take all the metal with me in one small device.

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  8. Entombed "Left hand path" is the first classic cassette that comes to mind. I bought it in 1991, but later I gave it to a mega-busty girlfriend...

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  9. casettes were really the ideal medium for me since at that time i didn´t own neither a cd nor a record player (which didn´t stop me from buying and stealing (...) loads of lps and cds...). i still have a bag full of hundreds of copied tapes lying around in my parent´s house´s attic. some original ones i bought were:
    grave - into the grave
    massacre - from beyond
    darkthrone - soulside journey
    devastation - idolatry
    xentrix - shattered existence
    gang green - can¨t live without it
    realm - suiciety
    sadus - a vision of misery
    d.r.i.-definition
    paradise lost - gothic
    toranaga - god´s gift
    and a couple of dozens more. the joke was that here in germany, in many shops the casettes were more expensive than vinyl albums.
    and since i just remembered them: what about doing a feature about gang green? i really loved them as a kid, i am sure a couple of you guys did so as well.

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  10. I didn't know that the guy from The Accussed was in Gruntruck....i used to love my Gruntruck tapewhen I was a grungey kid, but maybe it was because I was a clueless Euro as you call us!!! now they sound quite cheesy but in that moment they seemed great

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  11. it was maybe a year or two earlier than 1992, but the soundtrack to my older brother and i driving to to go skateboarding most nights was definitely:
    AGNOSTIC FRONT - live at cbgb's
    LEEWAY - born to expire
    D.R.I. - dealing with it
    DEAD KENNEDYS - give me convienence
    and a dubbed tape that had REAGAN YOUTH on one side and CIRCLE JERKS on the other...
    the cassette player in our mom's minivan would often foul up when you tried to eject a tape and it would get stuck halfway between being in and out of the player so that you could neither listen to a tape or the radio but would only hear a loud clicking sound which would drive us absolutely bonkers until one night when my brother kicked the stereo as hard as he could WHILE DRIVING and it was magically fixed for several months.
    also, my first vehicle i ever owned was a van i bought for the first tour my band ever went on, i got MISFITS - evilive stuck in the tapedeck and that was the only thing i could listen to for six months. i still hear that tape in my sleep.

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  12. 1992 i was a senior in high school and had transitioned into full on HC mode at that time, but i still have a bunch of cassettes as there was a record store just up the street and i would ride my bmx up there and get my metal tape purchasing on. some of my favorites around that time were
    sacred reich-who i did see with forced entry on the american way tour with obiturary
    death angel-in retrospect act III is really bad.
    sepultura-yes i still like arise.
    slayer-remember seasons in the abyss and souls in black came out the exact same day? which one do you still listen to?
    nevermore-not the seattle version, but the NY version. anybody else have this?
    and a bunch others have already mentioned.

    rockon

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  13. Michael Jackson, Bad

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  14. The Mask Original Soundtrack and Thriller.

    Mmm. Elementary school.

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  15. I listen to "Seasons in the abyss" really frequently, and "Souls of black" is maybe the Testament record I like most!
    Back to cassettes...
    Autopsy "Fiend for blood"
    Brutal Truth first album
    Sepultura "Schizophrenia"
    Sepultura "Beneath the remains"
    Death "Leprosy" (I own it on all three formats!)
    Iron Maiden "No prayer for the dying" (someone stole it at the supermarket and gave it to me...I'm almost embarassed while saying I liked it for a couple of weeks before understanding it seriously sucked compared to "seventh son...")

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  16. Slayer - Reign In Blood
    The Accused - Martha Splatterheads Maddest Stories Ever Told
    Possessed - Seven Churches
    Kreator - Terrible Certainty
    Corrosion Of Conformity - Technocracy
    Voivod - Dimension Hatross
    Excel - The Joke's On You
    Exodus - Fabulous Disaster
    Believer - Sanity Obscure
    Testament - Practice What You Preach
    White Zombie - Make Them Die Slowly

    These were my favorite cassettes right around 1989. I held on to the Kreator and White Zombie ones 'til well past 2005 (!?!) These days I'm mostly about the death metal/brutal death metal, doom and beardo stuff you guys hate. It's likely due to my "metal vacation" in the 1990's where I only listened to power pop (Teenage Fanclub) and indie rock (Superchunk) and played in a pop punk band. O.K., I was in a grindcore band called Swallowing Shit for awhile, but I only appear on the horrid first demo (They got WAY better after I left surprise, surprise). I also owned Forced Entry and "Thrashzone". Forced Entry were cool, "Thrashzone" not so much.
    Hey, how about a hate filled rant/surprisingly tender reminiscence of everyone's favorite Pope bashing Christian Crossover Thrashers, The Crucified? Their self titled cassette was a must have up in Canada's Bible Belt back in the day. C'mon guys, you know you want to!

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  17. 1. i also listen to lots of pop punk (so does lucho metales)

    2. i definitely remember swallowing shit

    3. the crucified are great. i'm pretty sure we covered them in our round up of Jesus metal back in may:
    http://metalinquisition.blogspot.com/2008/04/praise-christ-brief-overview-of-jesus.html

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  18. This may be a bit off the topic, but is there anybody from clevo that remembers a hardcore band from the early 90's called Arms Length? I had a 7" by them that I dubbed (badly) to a cassette and promptly wore it the fuck out.

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  19. Callpastorbob - Yay...another Winnipeger. I'm guessing you're either Mike Koop or Steve Dueck.

    Anyways...my favorite tapes from that era that were played waaaay to much:

    Excel - The Joke's On You
    The Accused - Grinning Like An Undertaker & Martha Splatterhead's Maddest Stories Ever Told
    Morbid Angel - Blessed Are The Sick
    Believer - Sanity Obscure
    Napalm Death - Utopia Banished
    Neurosis - Souls At Zero
    Brutal Truth - Extreme Conditions
    Deicide - Legion
    Exhorder - Slaughter In The Vatican & The Law
    Confessor - Confessor
    Cannibal Corpse - Tomb Of The Mutilated
    Malevolent Creation - Retribution
    Entombed - Clandestine
    ...and tons and tons of others. All of the above owned on cassette or lp.

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  20. This is what I think I was listening to on cassette back then: Neurosis-Souls at Zero,Doom-Total Doom,Gangsta NIP-South Park Psycho,Trouble-st album,Sedition-2nd demo,Peaceville-Vol.4 comp?,GG Allin-Hated in the Nation,Assuck-Anticapital with Amebix-Monolith on the other side,anything in the Earache catalog that had been released at the time,everything by Beherit or Impetigo!! and surely a few classics that were on Wild Rags Records...Mike

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  21. MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, Candyman, and my sister's Motley Crue tape.

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  22. candyman was brutal

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  23. honest huh?
    ok: ugly kid joe (though no drug rug)
    motley crue
    kreator
    metallica
    megadeth
    pestilence
    anthrax
    ...was slowly getting spoonfed into real metal...after i got off of viewing headbangers ball. riki was a real poseur and tool. that fuck started playing green gay and the offspring when headbangers ball was putting the final nails in its coffin

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  24. Lemmesee....

    Megadeth-Peace Sells...
    Cannibal Corpse-Tomb Of The Mutilated
    Carcass-Necroticism
    Napalm Death-Harmony Corruption
    Defiance-Void Terra Firma
    Sepultura-Beneath The Remains

    Lots of other stuff I can't remember..(cough, cough).

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  25. Man I have/had a ton of tapes because it was the "new cutting edge media".
    But there were a few that come to mind that got played to the point of sounding bad. That's right kids if you played a tape too much it starts to sound bad.
    The list is:
    Metallica - Ride the...
    VoiVod - Dimension Hatross
    Exhorder - Slaughter in..
    Nuclear Assault - Game Over
    Anthrax - Spreading and Among
    Sacred Reich - Ignorance
    These are a few stand outs that have been since replaced by a better(and more durable) form of media. I also remember a pile of mix tapes that were recorded from the college radio station. Every week in Atlanta they had/have a metal show. There I was introduced to stuff like Kreator, Destruction, and Venom. I would love to have all those tapes now. Now I just starting to sound like an old geezer, "back in my day son we made mix tapes and traded them with our friends". "Oh grandad you are such a crazy old man, now go take your pills and leave me alone. Everyone knows the only way to play music is with an MP3."

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  26. it's too bad some people listened to Thrash Zone and decided it's just ok, mostly because they liked the video for Suit & Tie Guy, then they never bother looking at DRI's past records like Dealing With It because it wasn't on MTV or the RADIO wasn't playing any songs from it. This was one of the things that always bothered me about most American metalheads no will to discover things on their own, if it's not on headbangers ball it probably sucks right? oh well atleast they're over their metal PHASE and are now functioning members of society that just like to look back at those crazy days of their youth while they play smooth jazz on their satellite radio....

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  27. dude, i couldn't even begin to list the ones we had in 92. sarg, you saw our collection, we stopped numbering them after 450 or so, BUT i can tell you the first 5 tapes we bought when we got to the US in 1989 were anthrax 'im the man', misfits 'walk among us', DBC 'dead brain cells', dri 'crossover' and sacred reich 'surf nicaragua' i'm proud to say all of those tapes, along with 200 or so more, are safely being kept in rubbermaid bins in a temperature controlled storage unit outside of rivelrdale in the bronx, ny.

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  28. thank goodness! it would be a tragedy worse than a thousands 9/11s if a sacred reich tape was warped in the summer heat of the eastern seaboard!!

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  29. Who's your friend in Himsa? I've known most of those guys for a long time.

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  30. i know KC and josh, kind of know john but not as well

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  31. 1992? Ouch, thats gonna be hard. I definitely had the Accused thats for sure. How about St. Vitus (ha!)? Soundgarden? Jesus Lizard 'Goat' and 'Head' definitely. 'Widowmaker' ep tape by the Butthole Surfers too.
    ...And Slayer!

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  32. Suicidal - Lights, Camera, Revolution
    Anthrax - Among
    Vandals - Fear of a Punk Planet
    Pantera - Cowboys from Hell
    Death Angel - Frolic Through the Park
    Testament - New Order
    alot of NYHC

    I still like the above albums but I hated this period in music...I was a punk/HC kid in my early years and now this was senior in high school time and my hair was getting long..... Anthrax spawned the rap metal (Mordred).... RIP magazine was telling me this was cool......and MTV was just starting to ruin things with grunge bullshit...what happened to the "BOX!"?

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  33. "i know KC and josh, kind of know john but not as well"

    that's cool. I knew both of those guys marginally during their time in Everything Went Black, and while Josh was in Trial. An old band of mine also did a bunch of shows with Himsa in Portland circa 2001-2004.

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