Friday, June 12, 2009

Metal Inquisition Archives: Crossover



Back in the late 80s, my brother and I would head down to the local supermarket in search of the newest issue of Metal Hammer on a monthly basis. Metal Hammer was the only publication available to us which had anything to do with music aside from Menudo, although thinking back, Menudo were pretty rad and almost metal looking themselves.


Look, the colors on the pants might be a bit much, but the guys from Manowar have dressed in outfits that are pretty similar to this.


South America in the 1980s being what it was, the "newest" issue of Metal Hammer in the supermarket's newstands would always be two years old, had pages ripped out, and would cost nearly three times what a normal magazine would cost. Still, being able to see pictures of the bands that we listened to was so rare, that no price was too large to pay. It was a bit annoying to read articles written in Spanish from Spain (a bit different from that spoken in other countries), referencing the recording process of albums that had been out for nearly two years. Nevertheless, the pilgrimage to the local supermarket was part of our metal routine, and we loved it.

Having only recently unearthed the Metal Inquisition archives, seeing our large collection of Metal Hammer magazines was a pleasant surprise. Seeing those magazines was like welcoming an old friend back into your home during a snowstorm. As such, I welcomed these beloved Metal Hammer's back into my life, and began to flip through their pages. As I turned each page, I was amazed by how many of the pictures, articles and ads I remembered perfectly. I must have looked through each of those magazines millions of times, and thus I still remember details from every page. I remember perfectly that the article about Slayer came after the Robert Plant picture (the selection was iffy at best) and before the Uriah Heap concert review. Among all the articles and reviews that I remember perfectly, the one you can see above, detailing Charlie Benante and Scott Ian's love of crossover and hardcore music is perhaps the one that (as awful as it is to admit) had the most profound impact on me. Look, I've already opened up about my embarrassing past to all of you, and even shown you the horrible drawings I made as a kid, so sharing yet another stupid aspect of my life seems like no big deal. It's kinda' how the anthrax (not the band) scare seemed like no big deal after September 11. It's exactly like that...but kinda' different. Anyway, back to the article. Around the time I saw this picture, my brother and I had already heard Cryptic Slaughter and D.R.I., and loved them both. I had trouble placing such bands within the metal spectrum, but enjoyed the fact that some of the band members had short hair, and dressed kinda' like my mom made me dress back then. Yes, I certainly tried hard to rock a vicious mullet (and I did from time to time), but whenever my mom took me to the barbershop at the mall (the one in front of the ice cream place, by entrance #7) my mullet was chopped off, and with every snip I cried tiny metal tears. Like Samson, I too lost my powers once my plumage was removed. For that reason, seeing pictures of guys in bands with short hair made me feel empowered, I could now tell other kids at school that my look was planned out, and not simply as a result of my mother's overbearing, tyrannical parenting style (any latino readers, or jewish readers for that matter, probably know what I mean). In contrast to the more relaxed approach of crossover bands, seeing pictures of Venom made me feel rather disconnected from them based on their attire. I simply couldn't relate to what they were wearing. As an 11 year old, my only thoughts were "How do they get their mom's to let them wear those outfits?" and "Does Mantas realize how phallic those nunchucks look?"


Thigh-high red leather boots, phallic nunchucks and a spiked girdle. Wow, you have to love 80s black metal.


In contrast to Venom, bands like DRI and Cryptic Slaughter looked (at least in their early albums) more like me. I remember seeing the picture below in a Cryptic Slaughter album, and being amazed by the fact that this guy's mom also made him cut his hair and wear white t-shirts. Though it may seem silly and superficial to be drawn to a musical style for aesthetic reasons, please remember that I was 11, and most of these bands seemed to play as fast (if not faster) than most metal bands did at the time. Also, how could you not love the DRI mascot? Which reminds me, was I the only kid who would run and try to stop suddenly in order to hold the DRI pose? Hmm....maybe it WAS only me who did this.


Awful spiked up hair? White t-shirt? Yay! This guy looks just like an 11 year old version of me!


Now check out this picture of the Crumbsuckers at the beach, and compare it to Venom. What a fun bunch of guys!




For the very reason that some kids were attracted to Slayer (aesthetics), I was attracted to these other bands. That, it would appear, was enough to make me like them at first. Yes, I realize that crossover amounted to little more than many bands sucking at two musical styles at once, instead of one. But hey, what can I tell you, I like pickle and peanut butter sandwiches too, and as far as I know, I'm not pregnant. In the end, it was no different from the people who were drawn to Venom because of their leather pants. Another aspect appealed to me was their lyrical content. Although I couldn't speak English at all back then (see my "welcome to the hell" drawing here if you need proof), I could make out some of their messages, and could easily see that the devil played no part in their lyrical content. Don't get me wrong, I too thought Eddie and Iron Maiden's visuals were cool as a little kid, but growing up in South America during an insanely violent time, songs about the devil didn't scare me or make much of an impression on me. Skulls, pentagrams, even Venom's whole thing on the back of Black Metal about raping nuns or whatever didn't seem all that evil. Real evil was the insanity that surrounded all of us in that area of the world back then. I had no proof that satan existed, but I did have proof that actual human beings had the ability of being insanely brutal and were murdering each other around me all the time in ways that Slayer and Sabbat could only dream of. Although I'm aware that many metal bands came from modest backgrounds in European and American cities, the levels of comfort they enjoyed were unheard of to most people in South American countries. Wealth and luxury, it would appear, afforded teenage minds the ability and time to wander and dream up these silly scenarios. Confronted with reality, South American bands (at least where I lived) largely sang about real topics, even if they looked a whole lot like Venom. Even having grown up in a comfortable setting, at just five years old or so, I saw a man's body after he had been shot in the face only minutes before. I remember his face and body being covered by a white sheet, as the sheet automatically soaked the blood from his contorted face. This happened outside a Chineese restaurant in the outskirts of the city, and I'll never forget how customers continued to stream into the restaurant, unfazed by the fact that a murder had just taken place. Similarly, for a short period of time during the mid 80s, the highway that my schoolbus took on its way to school would have bodies hanging from the trees along the route. Suicide was on the rise, and even six and seven year olds like me who were on that bus paid little attention to the bodies swaying in the morning breeze. When you see those things at an early age (and I saw way more, though in comparison to many I had a fantastic and easy life) Eddie was justy not as scary as it seemed to some American kids. Dead bodies, shootings, bombings, mass murder, these were the sort of things I had proof of. Humans, not the devil were way scarier to me...but I'm getting off topic.


You see, when I first came upon this article in Metal Hammer, I read it slowly, picking up every band name that was mentioned. I also made a mental list of the albums that were being held up in the picture, the ones that Scott was giving his decidedly positive thumbs-up to. Am I/was I a complete douchebag for taking musical advice from a godamned picture in Metal Hammer? Absolutely, but hey...as an 11 year old, it's not like I had that many other sources from which to derive musical suggestions. So with the list of albums from the picture, I would go on to buy every one of them (minus the Inferno one). I have to admit, it took me years to realize that the album which I thought was by a band called "The Wacky Hi-Jinks", was actually by Adrenalin OD. When I figured this out, I cursed Charlie for having hidden the band's name on the cover by not holding it at the very front. Had he held it up at the front, instead of the DRI album, I would have saved myself years of searching, and stupidly asking older dudes in my school if they liked the band "The Wacky Hi-Jinks". Oh well.




So over the years, I made my way through the list that was endorsed by these two metal titans. Much like I first listened to the Misfits purely because so many metal bands wore their shirts, I first listened to the Cro-Mags because of this picture. Unlike the first time that I heard the Misifts, which was a bit of a let down, most of these albums delivered the goods quickly. See, the Misfits were tough for me to like at first. I thought that if all metal bands liked them, and their skull looked so damn evil, they must surely sound like the fastest, heavist thing in the world. Having heard Napalm Death's Peel Sessions in 1988, I thought the Misfits were probably even faster and crazier. Imagine my surprise upon buying a Misfits cassette and hearing some mid-tempo music with a Jim Morrison impersonator singing. Sure, I grew to love it...but that first experience left a bitter taste in my mouth. DRI, on the other hand, delivered . Fast, short songs that came in bursts and made Metallica seem dopey and contrived.

The Crumbsuckers were perhaps my favorite among the bands I discovered because of the Metal Hammer article . Although my love affair with the Cro-Mags (who I also first listened to because of this picture) has lasted longer and been more intense, the first time I heard "Trapped" by the Crumbsuckers, I nearly pissed myself. That's not saying much, since I had a propensity for pissing myself back then at the drop of a hat. Unable to get their album, I first heard and saw them on the Hardcore video compilation, which was put out by Jettisoundz Productions. My friend Nicolas had a beta dub of it, so my brother and I made a dub of his dub. Our beta machines didn't have RCA connections, so we hooked up the two machines via coaxial cable, resulting in a dub of the poorest quality. You can see the tape below, complete with dot matrix printer song listing (circa 1988).



Although most of the bands on the tape were decidedly punk, The Crumbsuckers stuck out, as did their look. Like the singer from Cryptic Slaughter, Chris Notaro rocked a haircut I knew well, the very bowl cut that my mom had forced me to wear for so many years. The intensity of the video seemed crazy to me and as a result, upon visiting New York City for the first time I tried to look for CBGBs right away. Sadly, when I first went to New York City, I was 12 years old and my mom and grandmother wanted to go to Bloomingdale's and Saks Fifth Avenue instead of looking for CBGBs....what a bunch of posers! But let me get back to crossover, as this could easily go down the path of hardcore and punk...and this is neither the time or the place. I'll simply say that it's a bit embarrassing to admit that you first listened to the Cro-Mags, not because you saw them at CBGB's at an early age, but rather because you saw Scott Ian holding up one of their records. Oh well, such is life.



Look, this is by no means a definitive post about the subject of crossover, which was such a hot musical topic back in the day...but merely a quick exploration about my first exposure to the genre. A more thorough post will have to be made one day, one that follows the fallout of this type of music (Pro-Pain, Biohazard, Scatterbrain, Downset etc) as well as the use of skateboards as photographic props by bands like Anthrax and Metallica. Crossover was a way for bands to show their street cred, and was something that punks and metalheads could both hate. Who knew that this musical style would later on create an entire sub-genre filled with denim vest-wearing hipster douchebags (complete with ironic haircuts, guitars, backpatches etc) that would basically add up to a Civil War reenactment.


So where does that leave me? I'm not really sure. I'm getting older, and thus find blending my enjoyment ("love" would be a bit much at this point) for this type of music with my mature lifestyle to be a bit of a challenge. Luckily, DRI has just released this very tasteful polo-style shirt, which is equally at home on the golf course, or in the pit at a Ritz matinee (sweet Lalapolooza tribal armband not required). Why let the guys in the IT department have all the fun? Along with an nice pair of pleated Dockers, you'll be representin' your metal roots, and pleasing your boss all at once. Everyone wins!

65 comments:

  1. I totally bought COC's "Animosity" because the COC toxic symbol/ skull was on the inner sleeve of Anthrax's "Spreading the Disease". A couple of days later I went back to the same record store and bought MDC's "Mutli-Death Corporations" and DRI's "Violent Pacification". Soon after that, I got up the nerve to see COC at a CBGB's matinee. Before I knew it, my head was shaved, my leather jacket became a flannel shirt and I was a hardcore punk. Now I'm a middle aged dude three beers into a Thursday night, commenting on a webpage. Normally, I blame Dan Lilker for this kind of thing, but yeah...maybe it is Scott Ian's fault.

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  2. Reader's Digest version of that post is mandatory.

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  3. God do I wish more metal bands would make polos. I could keep my metal cred and still look nice at a jazz bar on a date.

    Lucho, I was somewhat in the same boat as you as far as the metal look went. I went to private Catholic skills my entire life, so no matter how much I wanted long hair, I had to keep it clean and short. When I graduated from high school, I let it grew out. Unfortunately for me, my hair is so thick that it resembled Shane Embury's do from the FETO sessions as opposed to Dorrian's, the look I really wanted. Needless to say, it's been short ever since.

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  4. skills should be schools. Private Catholic Skills would be a good name for a white-boy hip-hop group, though.


    My word verification was sperm.

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  5. I remember that article really well. It was just after they released the SOD album I think.

    Made me go a check out all the bands as well and getting disappointed that the production was so awful on most of them (apart from Crumbsuckers).

    Funny thing is that these days with pro-tools and flawless sounding albums I actually like think the old ones which sounds like a mess are a lot better.

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  6. lucho, given what you've said in this post, i'm interested in your opinion/musings on bands like saecofago, sextrash, hadez, holocausto, etc etc.

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  7. actually that DRI shirt is pretty bad ass....gonna have to check their site or see where i can order one! lol..

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  8. Speaking of Adrenalin OD... anyone who hasn't seen Fenriz rockin' the AOD needs to see it NOW. (Skip to about the 8:00 mark.)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bh2-MeMuDuI

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  9. As a hardcore kid in the 80s, it's funny to me to see how metal kids considered these bands to be too punk. I mean, look at Cryptic Slaughter's name and logo. That's metal.

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  10. Matt, I completely agree. The one guy in Cryptic Slauther who was "punk" was almost like characature of a "punk" with perfectly creased jeans that were bleached and said "Sex Pistols" in neatly written out letters.

    Jared, I don't know the bands you mentioned really well. Holocausto freaked me out because they wore swastikas, and i have some jewey blood in me. how dark skinned brazilians could wear swastikas is beyond me...but whatever. what i hate are current bands, particularly made of of white people, who now try to sound like the badly produced bands from south america in the 80s. it's like slumming, and i equate it with wearing black face. don't try to talk me out of that belief. i'm sticking to it.

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  11. haha, i'm not sure that i would go so far as to say that total emulation of a very specific style of underground metal is like black face, but i understand your point and perspective.


    in a similar (death) camp with holocausto are a few japanese bands like mein kampf and rommel. they thought satanism wasn't evil enough, so they moved on to an equally-if-not-moreso offensive and scandalous subject for their image/lyrics: nazism.

    i'm pretty sure neither the brazilians nor the japanese really meant anything behind it, much like venom really didn't mean anything behind their satanic lyrics. but i'm sure it sure pissed off and scared a lot of people!

    also, your mom sucks lucho! i was about 11 or 12 when my mullet was in full bloom...

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  12. This brought so many memories to me! I always remember reading Metal Hammer and Rip magazines made in Spain, and I remember that tons of times I didn't understand if they were saying something was good, bad, or they were being ironic or what. I remember that still in 1991, 1992, they were promoting glam bands, and that used to piss me off. Telling you how good the last Blackie Lawless album was when you had Entombed, Dismember, etc putting out their seminal work. Anyway, I also had the same feeling with the Misfits when I listened to Legacy of Brutality, and I also looked for the albums because I loved their imagery way before I knew their music. I used to write their logo even before knowing how they sound, which sounds stupid, but I'm sure I wasn't the only one doing this. However, I'm sure what I first thought about the Misfits would have been completely different if instead of finding Legacy of Brutality first I had found Earth AD.
    Misfits.

    PS: Thanks for the tip about the DRI polo shirt. Finally a band thinking about their fans in their 30s!

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  13. jared,
    you're completely right about the swastikas. it's shock value, and boy does it work!

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  14. dude...that polo shirt has gotta be photo-shopped. ever heard "suit and tie guy"? theres no way brecht would allow this! nice try!

    it always bugged me (and still does) that it seems like metal heads have to justify their roots with punk. i love metal and i always will, but the average mentality of a metalhead is almost unbearable.

    enough already! stop trying to be "punk" or appear a certain way. admit you are metal! ie: anthrax having the NYHC logo on their shirt.

    PS~ dan lilker is a total knob.

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  15. I'm totally ordering that DRI shirt, haha. Thanks!

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  16. the DRI shirt is from Amazon. nothing says "class" like a nice polo shirt.

    http://www.amazon.com/D-R-I-Rotten-Imbeciles-Crossover-Thrash/dp/B0021X1HLA/ref=sr_1_23?ie=UTF8&s=apparel&qid=1244822381&sr=1-23

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  17. Best fucking post yet. I am serious about that.

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  18. Have you seen the bassist of Cryptic Slaughter lately?!?! He's actually one of Affliction's main models. He also manages In This Moment and a few other group and plays bass in Ozzy Osbourne's band.

    Look at him here: http://cdn.afflictionclothingstore.com/emimgs/ad043009/101.jpg

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  19. ugh...he looked better back then.
    i interviewed their drummer a few years ago. very nice guy, but he now plays for some rockabilly band, yikes.

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  20. Good piece, as usual. There's nothing wrong with taking musical advice from a picture in a metal mag. I got into the Dead Kennedys by seeing the DK logo on Jeff Hanneman's guitar on a poster I got out of a Metal mag, which mag I forget. I then saw the logo on the 'Bedtime for Democracy' album. I bought the album immediately and have been a massive DK fan ever since. I was probably about 14/15 at the time. Yeah, I was a douchebag, but I'm still listening to DK. And probably still am a douchebag...

    My mother used to try to make me cut my hair by sending me to the barbers. I would instruct the barber to 'just cut the fringe' thereby allowing the back to grow like my favourite Metal heroes. It looked like shit until my mother finally gave in and stopped sending me to the barbers and I could grow the fringe as long as the back.

    And who the FUCK are Menudo? They look fucking rad!!

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  21. Alex,
    Menudo were, perhaps, one of the original boy bands ever. They started in the 1970s in Puerto Rico and were mostly famous in Spanish speaking countries. Perhaps the best known ex-member of the group is Ricky Martin. What made Menudo fascinating was that as soon as a member got too old (around 18 or so) they were replaced by a young member. When a member was kicked out due to age, they would have a ceremonial concert for that member to say goodbye to the fans. A few years ago, ex-members (now much much older) who were in Menudo during the group's peak years, reformed as MDO (since they don't have the rights to the group's name.) You can read more about them here:


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menudo_(band)

    Look on google for some pictures of the group, you'll be amazed. "menudo" by the way, is also the name of a soup...so if you see pictures of a soup...that's not the band/group.

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  22. i forgot to mention that Menudo covered Kiss. Watch it now:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naEtrGLHki0

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  23. I often wondered how influential things like Hanneman with the DK sticker was. The Misfits' newfound (at the time, like 1987) popularity with metal kids could be traced to the fact that there was a 3- or 4-year period where Metallica were NEVER photographed without at least one of the guys wearing a Misfits or Samhain shirt. (Seriously - those of you with metal mags from that time should flip to the Metallica article right now and see if I'm wrong.)

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  24. Brilliant, they sound like they have a Logan's Run approach to pop music. It's just like the promise Homer gave to his kids: '18 and out of the door!'

    And HOLY SHIT, that fucking Kiss song is set to haunt me for ever. I have just finished an eight month exile in Iceland where every fucking bar was playing this shit. No wonder you guys were so keen to get ripped up copies of Metal Hammer if this is what was being served up in other magazines. I think this band are way more damaging to the average 9 yr old than seeing piles of murder/suicide victims on the way to school...

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  25. @Matt from Denver, yeah it totally influenced my musical thinking seeing stuff like that DK sticker. I remember the guitar also had a Circle Jerks sticker on it, but I never could find an album (no Amazon/Ebay back then...) so to this day I have never heard them. My mate definitely bought 'Walk Amongst Us' because of Metallica and their Misfits obsession. There must have been other instances of this happening to me, but I don't recall them as well as the DK one. It probably comes from hours of staring at posters and album shots of bands and trying to work out what shorts they were wearing or what stickers they had on their instruments. Not in a gay way you understand, not that there's anything wrong with that... but because we were nerdy obsessive teens.

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  26. ha ha, that shoud say shirts, not shorts. I wasn't staring at guys shorts. That sounds gay, not that there's anything wrong with that...

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  27. Well, not only were Metallica obsessed with wearing Misfits/Samhain shirts, but Cliff had the tattoo on his arm, and they covered Green Hell.

    On the Ultimate Revange video, Dave Lombardo is wearing a DRI shirt, Hanneman is wearing an Agnostic Front shirt. The guitar player from Cinderalla often wore a Crumbsuckers shirt (no joke) and lots of other examples are out there from back in the day.

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  28. Alex, google "Circle Jerks Group Sex Sharing" and you ought to find a few sharing sites you can download that classic from. If you like it, seek out their next two albums ("Wild in the Streets" and "Golden Shower of Hits").

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  29. did Menudo borrow those pants from steve harris and bruce dickenson circa their 1985 powerslave tour?

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  30. Cheers Matt, I'll check them out. I'm listening to their Myspace page atm, pretty good stuff alright. Thank God for the INTERNETS!!

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  31. Menudo used the same stylist as Maiden for much of the 80's...sad but true.

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  32. HookerVonSkankyassJune 12, 2009 at 6:58 PM

    You know, Luchos, you often mention a certain amount of embarrassment in your posts but I always think that you were perhaps cooler than I was back then because of things like this:

    I used to have a huge crush on Charlie Benante and dreamed about marrying him someday.

    True story.

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  33. Nice article Lucho! Don't feel bad about the whole DRI running man thing. I was in drum line my Freshman year of High School (yes, I know, I know), and we all got to do a a visual durring the drum feature. Guess which one I picked?? Only topped by the black dude who did a pelvic thrust as his.

    Oh, and and Irish-Catholic mothers to the list of the overbearing . Trust me on this.

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  34. Jesus, somebody should've told Scott Ian to shave his goddamn cheek. It's so gross you almost don't notice the eyebrows.

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  35. johanesburgmilitiaJune 12, 2009 at 8:09 PM

    The band that I discovered via metal gods wearing T-shirts was Faith No More, which led to a massive obsession which then led to a subsequent obsession with Mr.Bungle. But I guess that was after your time Lucho! btw how do you expect to divulge such info as corpse hanging from trees and not want your esteemed international public to not request a full on Metal Inquisition Real Estate piece on it?? please to explain!

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  36. the singer for Sugar Ray wears a Circle Jerks shirt in the video for "Answer The Phone." that's how i got into the Circle Jerks!

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  37. A DRI logo in a polo seems so OI-skinhead for me.

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  38. I know it's part of the self-depreciating shtick, but I agree there is no need to feign embarrassment. Searching out the Cro-Mags album (or any of those ckassic HC/crossover albums) at the tender age of 12 based on whatever kind of "recommendation" is pretty cool in my book. Great piece, and a great and very anticlimatic ending ("let me tell you about the horrors of South America in the 90s, and look here a DRI polo shirt...")

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  39. having a crush on charlie bennante seems fine to me, i mean, i may question your taste a bit...but i think that's fine.

    as far as me faking my ebarrassment, it's not fake. if you were to look at me today, and how i live my life, you would quickly realize how distant all this stuff seems to me...and thus how odd and backwards it all seems. its' for this reason that i keep threatening to do a huge post one day called "metal in the past tense" which basically explains how distant (aside from this blog) i am from all this stuff. i'm not trying to play the "i'm so over it"card, but i'm merely trying to explain that if you look at what i write about, it's all in the past. nothing is current, and i like it that way. memories are usually better than the present...and if i had a choice about the present (and I do) i'd rather spend it doing the stuff i currently do, and not buying records and seeing bands play live. but that's just me.

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  40. My buddy who knows the singer from beowulf personally just put cryptic slaughter and crumbsuckers on my ipod about a month ago, but my introduction to crossover was D.R.I.'s thrash zone. awesome album. The song about him sitting at a table writing the words with the tip of his pen was a bit overdramatic, but for some reason beneath the wheel is my girlfriend's and little brothers favorite d.r.i. song.

    Also I forgot to mention that from taht music my buddy put on my iPod, i heard dark angel for the first time the other day, as I was taking a dump in the bathroom at school before my math class.

    It's really funny how even though they were in the studio they tried their hardest to make the "DEATH!!" part sound like it was recorded live.

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  41. I thoroughly enjoyed this post! Being a crossover kid myself, this brought back some great memories of wearing white hightops with COC t-shirts, backyard slam pits, and skateboards w/ Slayer and Minor Threat stickers on the bottom (and yes, memories of me and my friends posing like the DRI skankin' guy logo while walking home from school)!

    Now I'm off to go and buy one of those bad ass DRI polos...

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  42. i'm so happy to hear that i wasn't the only one holding the DRI pose. yes! i'm not alone!!!

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  43. ok Lucho so you're embarrassed by your past, you've grown out of it as probably your mom hoped that all that racket and devil nonsense would be a phase that teenagers go through. Congratulations are in order. So what do you listen to in your company car these days mr.suit&tie guy?

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  44. DRI thrashard lyrics are so incredibly juvenille and hilarious. i still cant believe that Brecht HAS published books!

    "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"

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  45. In regards to taking musical cue from other bands stickers/shirts...I may have mentioned this before, but when I was a young grommet I bought a copy of a Beowulf album based solely on the fact that it was advertised on the same one-sheet as ST's "Join the Army" in Thrasher magazine...imagine my disappointment when I got that pile of crap back to the house and popped it in the boom box.

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  46. I was taking a dump in the bathroom at school before my math class

    LOL!!

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  47. On Friday I was in a very good mood I was listening to (drumroll please) Steely Dan's "Aja"

    Yup, it's true. As most drummers, I tend to like music that many dislike. I first listened to them because of the drummers that did session work for the album, I now love that album dearly and listen to it very, very often.

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  48. I think every young thrasher in the 80s held the DRI pose at one time or another. But I was disappointed at how quickly they jettisoned the early one-minute material. When I saw them on the "Crossover" tour, the only old songs they played were "Violent Pacification" and that one long song from "Dealing With It." I forget what it's called, but I think it was the last song on side one.

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  49. Me and my best friend did the D.R.I. pose all the time too and thought we were hilarious. I had no idea this was such a prevalent practice.

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  50. Scott Ian is the reason I'm in my 30'as and still want a solid gold Judge Dredd Badge! Goddamn him!!

    Also, I'm another "hold that DRI pose" guys!

    BTW- This is without a doubt the best blog around! All the articles are genius! Congrats! Soooo much to identify with! (Apart from givin Lilker a hard time about his baby teeth, of course)

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  51. Mr Crabmeat, thank you. you are a gentleman and a scholar. if by "characters" you mean the people who post...well....we are all real. sadly. the fact that i listen to Steely Dan was not made up by a Hollywood script writer (although it could have been. it's an actual fact.

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  52. I can't say I'm thrilled about the Steely Dan bit but it could be worse, you could have gone way back to your roots and listen to some salsa, merengue, julio iglesias crapola. I heard that AJA song and it reeked of yuppie-easy listening elevator jazz pomposity, but as I said, there are worse things out there. Whatever helps keep the blog going or whatever inspires you I suppose it's for the best.

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  53. It's a sign of maturity (and not just getting older) when you start to a) admit to liking music that's totally uncool, because everybody likes something that's not cool in the least, and b) classify music as "good" and "bad" rather than "metal" or "hardcore" and "everything else which sucks cuz it's not metal or hardcore or whatever I've aligned myself with."

    And the DRI song I was referring to was "Nursing Home Blues," which at nearly 4 minutes seemed interminable for them when I first spinned that record.

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  54. ...and this is where sarge chimes in about brokencyde...

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  55. i do listen to a fair amount of merengue, but not much salsa actually. 80s merengue (wilfrido vargas, chicas del can) is absolutely fantastic. as far as Steely Dan, that album brings me an unbelievable amount of joy. I don't bring it up to be ironic, or to be contrary to what others listen to. again, as a result of being a drummer, i end up listening to some stuff purely for the drummer, and end up loving it.

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  56. I hate the fact that I listen to "Can't Buy A Thrill" as much as I do. Can't help it! And that song about taking a picture (or whatever it is) is really cool too.

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  57. Lucho actually listens to merengue?..... I just threw up in my mouth a bit.

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  58. if you didn't grow up with it, i don't expect you to understand at all. it's cool. i'm not the only on this blog that does either.

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  59. Excellent post. I am from South America too and Metal Hammer came 11 months late to Peru. At least to my corner store. Last time I was down there I actually went downtown searching for all those 100 issues of Metal Hammer and Heavy Rock (Spain's crappier version of Metal hammer) my mom trashed.

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  60. Love the blog. Loved crossover. Still enjoy quite a bit of it. I came to crossover from the punk side of things, which in part got me into more metal bands than I ever would have otherwise. When I was in high school, it really did seem to bring about some unity between the punks and the metalheads (that, and the fact that the school pot dealer was a punk, so the metal dudes had to be nice to him and his friends).

    As I've gotten older I find myself really enjoying stuff like Steely Dan, which I would've NEVER listened to when I was a teenager. Every now and then it will dawn on me that the 70s punk bands I love the most pretty much all formed as a reaction against bands like Steely Dan, and I feel some small twinge of betrayal. But then I'll watch the DVD of that episode of the Muppet Show with Elton John and think "god damn, this guy did a lot of awesome songs."

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  61. Yea I remember when i first heard the Misfits as well. I thought it was going to be the fastest most brutal evil thing I ever heard. I bought the Legacy of Brutality tape and was like...what is this? I was letdown big time. When I bought Samhains "Initium" it was even worse. Then I got the Die Die my darling ep and thats where I was like ok and then I heard Earth A.D. and I was like ok this is what everyones talking about. It definetly wasn't the most evil thing I ever heard mind you by that time I got Reign in Blood when it came out a year earlier.

    And yes we used to play a game when someone said stop you had to be in the D.R.I. guy pose.

    Come to think of it the guy i lent my Die Die my Darling ep to claimed he was the biggest Punk ever and would call thrash metal bands sellouts and give Punk bands shit when they suddenly had a video. Always starting fights cause these guys weren't true (Kinda like the Kvlt black metal kids). Fast forward 20 years later (yikes!). This same guy works for a BANK married, kids, etc.Totally denying his past. I ran into him giving him shit for selling out simply cause he would give everyone else shit back in the day. Wish i had some before and after pictures to post. He said "when are you gonna grow up". He ran away quickly as got into nice and i mean nice car. The hypocrisy never ceases to amaze me.
    Im sure evryone on this board has a story like this feel free to post one for my amusement in my "truer than thou" existance.
    Now off to lisen to the Nocturnus demos hoping somehow I can summon the time machine and go back to that era. or maybe not.

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  62. Could anyone list all of the lps you talk about, please? I only know and have some of them, but not all... I need them!!!
    Thank You!

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  63. Could anyone list the bands the interview with Scott Ian talks about, please?
    I know and have some of them, but not all... I need them!!!
    Thank you!

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  64. Your photos and article both are excellent .

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