Monday, February 16, 2009

"I totally hung out with that dude!"

Glen Benton shows these amateurs how to hold an imaginary, highly evil grapefruit.
(Please note that Glen is wearing a shirt with a swastika on it. A kid in my high school wore this shirt often. It features multiple one-armed Jesuses which make up the swastika. Just to let you know, I had to look up what the plural to "Jesus" is)



Back in 1991, my brother's friend showed me a picture of him and Steve Souza from Exodus hanging out. At the time, I thought Exodus were one of the coolest bands in the world (I hadn't heard their cover of "Lowrider" yet) and as a result, the concept of getting to meet Steve was beyond my wildest dreams. Overtime, I got a clue...but not before seeing other such pictures from multiple people, and having to endure the lengthy stories that usually go along with such pictures. "Man, David Vincent totally invited me into their bus and we hung out. It was awesome."

Looking around the internet, I was able to find many such pictures...fleeting moments in the lifes of different losers who thought this was such an important moment that it simply had to be documented photographically. Now I should tell you that I'm not completely above this, since I have pictures with both Glenn Danzig AND members of Unleashed, but I was like 14 then. These fools look like they should have known better. Let's take a closer look, and try to see things from the eyes of the low-level superstars that were photographed.



If you ever dreamed of being in a hugely succesful band for the sake of getting ladies, think again. For nearly three decades Steve Harris has been chin-deep in an ocean of fat turds who look like this lady. Rose-tinted Sally Jesse Raphael glasses? Check. Peg Bundy approved ensamble? Check. A depressed Steve Harris wondering if he would be getting higher quality poon had he stayed working at the oil change place? Check.




Never has the gap between performer and fan been more obvious. While one individual rocks out on his reverse-headstock axe, the other is wearing David Koresh safety glasses, and has such large teeth that his lips can't contain them. One guy is wearing the latest denim tanktop, the other takes great pride in his Kiss patch and Monchichi haircut.


Anyone who knows me will tell you that I HATE shirts with stretched out necks, and the man cleavage they bring about. Simply seeing the two shirts in this picture is making me angry. With that out of the way, we can focus on more important things. Is that Charlie Benante holding an imaginary metal grapefruit? Look at Trevor's face...if that's not an expression of extreme excitement, I don't know what is. Can you imagine spending years in your room learning how to play the guitar and practicing in order to meet girls...then you end up in a band and it's guys like this that want pictures with you? Jesus...you'd be depressed too.


Why does James look so upset? Because if the whole "my lifestyle determines my deathstyle" line turns out to be true, his death will consist of hugging a balding Euro.




When even a douche like James Heatfield is so repulsed by you that he barely agrees to be in a picture with you, you know you've hit an all time low. Why? One word. Neckerchief.




Nothing says "rock" quite like a white, Miami Vice sport coat. Based on this picture, you would assume that the looser with the chipmunk teeth and horrible facial hair is the biggest looser in the bunch. You'd be wrong. Remember that Richie Sambora is now the size of an oil tanker and has to put up with Heather Locklear (who is herself roughly as old as the american constitution) and her kids.* Ooof.

*Information courtesy of US Weekly




Unlike the other pictures, this one at least features two guys that had something in common and could carry on a lengthy conversation as a result. The topic? Rogaine. Why did Kirk make that face you ask? He was simply brushing off the last bits of remaining self worth off his shoulder.




Are you one of these idiots that wants to go back in time to the heyday of thrash metal? Do you miss how things were before Metallica put out the black album? Think again. This is what it was really like. Back then, it was all about guys in Def Lepard shirts and daisy duke shorts, as well as ladies wearing fuchsia spandex pants which reveal a physique that looks like bags of guacamole that were left out in the sun. Oh, and don't forget a lady that looks like your aunt Martha posing with an unenthusiastic James Hetfield. If I were you, I'd put the keys to the Nocturnus time machine down right now. Don't waste the trip.



Look at poor James' face...that's the look of a guy that just realized that this is the best looking lady he'll be able to take back to the hotel room tonight. After another full night spent at the meet-and-greet tent, and it has once again come down to this.... a gender neutral being with pink-tinted welding goggles. Come on, you'd be bummed too.




Why is Kirk wearing gloves? If you had to touch a fat version of Sally Jesse Raphael whose entire body is filled with gravy, you'd wear gloves too.



Jason is saying "I now present to you yet another douche with a neckerchief, and huge glases which make him look like a Greyhound bus." Because I'm a classy guy, I will make no mention of Jason's horrific sideburns.


Closing Note:
Throughout this post I have spelled the last name of Metallica's singer in different ways. I'll be damned if I'm going to look it up on the Googles to figure out the correct spelling. Does it even matter? Answer: No.

41 comments:

  1. "This is what it was really like" - so true. I wish you could see how Italy's metal scene was in the Eighties... these guys look like Sadistic Intent in comparison.

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  2. Trevor Peres: real zombie or just a very good imitator?

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  3. The guy in the Def Leppard t-shirt was Metallica's tour manager I thik. A shame that picking up Hetfield's run-off consisted of said pink legged lady.

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  4. 'If you had to touch a fat version of Sally Jesse Raphael whose entire body is filled with gravy, you'd wear gloves too.'

    This fucking kills me! I used to get autographs from bands back in the day. A pen was cheaper than a camera otherwise I would also have several similarly dodgy looking photos of me standing next to Dave Lombardo or Dave Vincent. Having said that,I did recently get a photo of me and Brant Bjork together at one of his recent gigs here in Reykjavik. But in my defense it was for a mate, rather than for me...

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  5. DENIM AND LEATHER AND PEGGY HILL

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  6. Isnt that dude from impetigo, never saw the white leisure suit in any band snaps though!

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  7. "Anyone who knows me will tell you that I HATE shirts with stretched out necks"

    hahaha, I'm the same way. Anyway, Martijn is right. Have you ever seen a pic of Trevor were he looks he's not planning on cutting his wrists with a toothbrush?
    I never realized how much Kirk and Michael Jackson look alike until I saw Kirk's pic wearing gloves, and it's not just because of the gloves.
    I remember the first time I saw hot girls in a concert was around 1993 in a Bad Religion concert. Metal concerts were just terrible at that time.

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  8. The guy in the neckerchief is definitely the better man in both of those pictures and is definitely at the top of my short list of potential frontmen for my Electric Light Orchestra / MX Machine mashup cover band.

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  9. say what you will, but lucho and i took a photo with manowar in then last few years. so there, lucho! you are STILL not above it. and make no mistake, if i were to run into any of the dudes from gothic slam outside a construction site where he was selling tacos, i'd totally snap a flick of us throwing the horns!

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  10. I always thought the plural of Jesus was Jesi...looks like I'm wrong...but the plural form of loser is losers, not "loosers".

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  11. Jesi!!!! LOL! That's the funniest thing I ever heard. One Jesus, two Jesi! Haha!

    Oh, an I think the saddest picture I have is with a guy who told me he was Momento Mori in the Milwaukee Metal Fest in '93. I didn't even know who they were and I still don't know if the dude really was in the damn band.

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  12. the plural form of loser is losers, not "loosers".

    english is not lucho's native language, and despite living in this country for nearly two decades, he still makes LOL-worthy mistakes like this. ask him about "manhole" some time!

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  13. I once shaked hands with Alex from Entombed, and said "Hello!" to Greg from Paradise Lost.
    My contacts with the "V.I.P." world end here.
    Laughable pictures and comments, anyway!

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  14. i shook mike muirs hand because i didnt want to "burden" him with an autograph...like he gives a fuck.

    i also made fun of my ex-girlfriend back in 1992 while she tried to molest rob zombie. he wasnt having it.

    finally, after an exodus gig in 1990 for which pantera opened (no one knew who these tools were yet) i was out back and Rex (the bass player) was doing some sort of jump-ball contest between these 2 greasy heshers and he was using a cowboys from hell cassette. as it was tipped in the air, it flew off to the side and i grabbed it. they were all yelling at me and i took off. i still have it.

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  15. @ Alex Sotheran: Ha! 2 years ago I went to a Brant Bjork show, and just as I entered the club he came out of the backstage room, ready to go on stage. He told me that I wore a "cool t-shirt, man" (Jimi Hendrix, Axis: Bold as Love), and I said something like "You´re the man, Brant". We then shook our hands soulbrother-style, and he proceeded to the stage. I like to think that Brant is my mate now... I also shook hands with John Garcia, and got stoned with Los Natas, Asteroid, Bible of the Devil and a couple of others. It is called Stoner Rock after all.

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  16. @anonymous I actually saw Brant in a bar the night before his gig in Reykjavik. I was coming out of the toilet and asked him if he was Brant Bjork, then proceeded to tell him how much my mate was into him. I think we bonded over that. I would call him a very close friend now. OK, so he doesn't return my calls and he has that whole 'restraining order' thing going on, but yeah, we're cool.

    I once shook hands with Shane Embury just after I'd been to the toilet and I hadn't wash my hands. Rock and/or Roll. True story.

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  17. alex, did shane's hand feel gross? could you feel the guacamole and gravy running through his veins?

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  18. It felt like a lizard's claw. But covered in grease. Really weird. I sometimes think about it now and then...

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  19. Fuck! I just remembered I once waved at Barney from Napalm Death from across a room!! And my brother nodded at Matti Kärki from Dismember, whilst wearing a General Surgery shirt (My brother, not Matti Kärki. I don't remember what he was wearing.)

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  20. i saw Tommy Davidson at Barnes & Noble in Newport, Kentucky twice in the last 2 years. and Bill Bellamy.

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  21. My favorite claim to fame? Elbowing Axl Rose in the gut after he threw an empty Jim Beam pint bottle at someone else haeckling him at a Metallica 'And Justice..' show. That and going to a Samhain show when I was 13 or 14 and I was refused a poster before the show by a 'metalhead midget' that turned out to be Danzig. Now if I had been stupid enough to offer to BUY it...

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  22. Good job skid, but you should have also kicked him squaar in da nuts.

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  23. WOW you dug way in the back of the "obscure reference drawer" for that Monchichi reference.
    A recent meeting I just had was with Vinni Stigma from Agnostic Front. Man that guy is really old now. Come to think of it all of them are old now.

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  24. Mine would be that I shook hands with Greg Mackintosh after a Paradise Lost concert and I told him that the concert was ok, but it was much better when I saw them in 1995. He did like he was gonna hit me and then shook my hand.

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  25. i'm glad someone enjoyed the monchichi reference!

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  26. I met Dave Mustaine at an in-store in 1985, right when the 1st Megadeth album was released. It was like 2 in the afternoon & Dave was completely hammered, I mean totally gagged. he could barely finish a sentence. Later that night he was opening for Slayer at Lamour & he was horrendous, forgetting the lyrics & starting songs over while whining & babbling like an idiot. It was quite the memorable & hilarious evening.

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  27. My most surreal moment, was being at theJAMBA JUICE in DOWNTOWN DISNEY with MARTIN ERIC AIN.

    believe it or not, its in my blog.

    I got to be celtic frost's roadie for a day at their anaheim show,and when i went to their autographs signing 2 days later in hollywood they gave me tix to that nights show.

    So it was either eating ribs and salad with martin, drinking all the beers in the bands fridge as they watched me, or being the only one in the sound check were all cool moments.

    On a second note, their roadie Stonie was the coolest dude ever. he was a roadie on over 50 tours and had a briefcase full of just about godly metal tour in the 90's. He was even a roadie on that DEATH tour that took place WITHOUT chuck.

    "FUCK CHUCK" is what he said they kept shouting during each set of that tour.

    Pics for anyone who cares.

    Martin @ jamba juice:
    http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b276/Cthulhupal/DSCF0496.jpg

    evil raccoon that broke up the band:
    http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b276/Cthulhupal/DSCF0707.jpg

    stoney the coolest dude ever. (note six feet under tank top):
    http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b276/Cthulhupal/DSCF0510.jpg

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  28. uh. I got high in the tour van with this band called Demicrious. pretty cool guys.

    also got to meet Dave Mustaine during a video shoot. He was allright, but I wished he was totally high or drunk or something, since thats when all the zany stuff goes down.

    I also met brian Poeshn @ the Whisky A Gogo, when I went to catch an exodus show.

    uh, I got high with Steve-O and some big black guy when I was on an episode of his ill-fated t.v. show dr. steve o. painful memories. I did it for the 650$

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  29. Ha ha ha... "He was simply brushing off the last bits of remaining self worth off his shoulder." Great call!

    By the way, hanging out at L'amour in '85-'86 was pure eye candy for 17 year-old me. Hottest leather pants I ever saw, in every direction!

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  30. Oh, and Wendy O. pinched my ass sometime around '88 at a Motorhead & Wendy gig, I think at the Ritz. Still remember that day, mmm...

    Other claim to fame is being in "The Beat," a 1988 film starring John Savage during the live Cro-Mags portion. If you type "cro-mags movie" in youtube it'll come up (Hard Times + It's the Limit). That's me, my acting debut, sitting in the flannel passed out on the toilet (pretty cool that the "still photo" from that take is my 1-second cameo!). The slam scenes are pretty decent takes, I think. We were there all day, some dude got f***-ed up diving off the rack, but we were all hyped and nobody left without bruises.

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  31. MI staff, I think you should do a post with the lamest meetings of Metal Stars that your readers can come up with. It seems like there is a lot of them. Like the time I was puking my guts up at the bar whilst standing next to Bill Steer.

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  32. In the threat of you guys moving on to doing a "I totally hung out with that black metal duesche." I shoot myself in the foot right about here...
    http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=1377963&albumID=254928&imageID=10950664#
    But in all fairness I was only 15 at the time.

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  33. Alex, good idea. I have a post about meeting some odd people...that could serve as a good post for that purpose. that's when i'll finally post my picture of me and danzig.

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  34. I met David Wayne from Metal Church. He was in dire need of a drug store about 2 hours before their show - he didn't say why...but it seemed urgent. Also met Barney fron Napalm but he was pretty sick so he didn't say to much. The promoter of the local Napalm show just finished bringing him back to the venue from the hospital where he was getting some meds.

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  35. Thank you for not finding any of my pics with aged metal folk.

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  36. @ Alex Sotheran: My Brant Bjork story continues as well. After the show, approx. 4 liters of beer and 3 joints later, I went to get an album signed by Brant. As you might imagine, I was not very coherent anymore and told him loads of bullshit. I think Brant was a bit...let´s say "surprised" by my..ehm..pushiness. But still, he´s my mate.

    Other than that, somewhere on the internet exists a picture of me getting my dick signed (...) by the member of a unknown band. I don´t care to explain the circumstances, and I am not gonna tell you where to find it, but if anyone ever sees it, that´s me.

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  37. My brush with metal greatness was when a very drunk John Araya of Bloodcum tripped and fell on me prior to a Bloodcum/Slayer show in 1986. He slurred something to me and scurried off back stage, probably to grab another beer...

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  38. Hetfield in the first pic looks like a pissed off NASCAR fan. He's all like "What you say about Dale Jr., motherfucker?"

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  39. http://www.kingsize-usa.com/uploaded_images/MIke-Patton-&-Matt-SF-RTB-705498.JPG

    Lucho, you have to see this pic, it just screams for your trademark captioning.. besides I don't think you've ever done one on this particular icon....

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  40. These dude captured photos are wonderful .

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