Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Welcome to the "No-Thrash Zone": Embarassing Confessions About Growing Up Non-metal in Small Town America

It's been a fucking wild past couple of days--Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Karl Malden and Billy Mays are dead and Bernie Madoff will be rotting in prison for the next 150 years. Since I'm still recovering from all this shocking news and busy being lazy and Lucho and his bro are on vacation and the Sarg is busy fulfilling his fantasies of being a 16 year old scene slut I bring to you another reader contributed post, this time from Mr. Shelby Cobras. It's a touching piece that deals with the loss of innocence and finding one's metal self. I hope you enjoy!

Sergeant D is applauded by a group of sniveling yes-men at a recent Metal Inquisition Excellence In Blogging Seminar just outside of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.


It is fairly obvious that the creators of Metal Inquisition are slowly falling out of touch with their hip, young readership. As Sergeant D's elderly mind slowly waddles off into territory best left unexplored and Lucho Metales spends more and more time pontificating on crates of garbage from his youth, M.I.'s so-called "fan base" is losing interest quickly. That's why I'm here. You see, I'm only 30 (a "spring chicken" by comparison) and had a completely different experience in my metal education. While the creators of Metal Inquisition grew up attending the earliest Milwaukee Metal Fests and tape-trading with dudes from Impetigo, I grew up in a small town completely devoid of any sort of metal element whatsoever (Eureka, California - an hour south of the Oregon border with a population of roughly 25,000). With all due respect to Sr. Metales, Eureka was every bit as isolated (metal-wise) from any sort of cultural center, 5 hours from San Francisco and 8 from Portland. Lucho often complains that he had to subsist on 3-year-old copies of Metal Hammer, but we couldn't get Metal Hammer AT ALL, 3 years old or otherwise. It was a lot like Footloose, except with metal instead of dancing. Eureka was a cultural wasteland, devoid of access to "underground" music (besides our own little sheltered scene) or cool places to buy T-shirts. The closest (decent) record store was 20 minutes away in Arcata, and while their "punk" selection was decent, their "metal" selection was limited to stuff like Barren Cross, Cold Lake, and Stryper. While a few death metal bands existed in the area (such as Empire of Dust, Locust Furnace, and Transi), Hessians at the time were usually big, scary, leather clad barbarians, with swastika tattoos and goats living in their kitchen (this is NOT an exaggeration). As a result, me and my friends were denied access to all but the most "mainstream" metal bands of the early 90's, causing my metal upbringing to be backwards, scattershot, and most of all, embarassing. For example, I heard Cryptopsy WAY before I ever heard Broken Hope or Morbid Saint. My first exposure to At The Gates was on the flipside of a dubbed cassette copy of Stikky's Where's My Lunchpail?. I heard Formulas Fatal To The Flesh YEARS before Blessed Are The Sick. As Mike Browning could tell you, time was moving in the WRONG DIRECTION. By the time I heard Butchered At Birth and Legion in 1995, it was already too late. So here's a list of my 5 most embarassing secrets concerning my "metal education". I'm sure that not all of you can relate to the rich metal upbringing that the senile old codgers at Metal Inquisition were fortunate enough to be exposed to. But maybe some of you guys can relate to MY embarassing past, and the sad events that served as milestones for me.


1) MY INTRODUCTION TO "METAL" WAS D.R.I.'S THRASH ZONE This is tough to admit, but Thrash Zone was the album that actually GOT ME INTO METAL. In my freshman year at Eureka High School, I was listening to some really weak shit, like Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains. So when my buddy Julian showed up one day with a copy of Zone, it seemed like a breath of fresh air. Although the songs were way too long, unbearably stupid, and featured dudes in their 30's spouting lines like "School's a job... but... you... don't get paid!", we had no frame of reference whatsoever. D.R.I. sounded like nothing we'd ever heard before. When they shouted "Like a wild Indian from outer space / Drunk and high on WEED!", it pumped our nads. Although we'd never actually been in a mosh pit, we could FEEL the intensity. Soon, me and Julian had formed our own (instrumental) "thrash" band, which we called Kill Whitey (Flesh Parade later stole the name from us). We had a Christian dude named Matt on bass, and we totally RULED. Unfortunately, Kill Whitey didn't last long, as Julian got addicted to speed and ended up stealing my baseball card collection for drug money. But I got the last laugh, because he eventually went to prison for multiple armed robberies. Oh, and I was making out with his younger sister behind his back the whole time. Sucker! Sing along with the old classic, D.R.I.'s "Thrashard", which features quite possibly the best use of fake crowd noises EVER (con sibtitulos en Espanol):





2) THE FIRST TIME I EVER HEARD ANTHRAX, IT WAS ON THAT REMAKE OF "BRING THA NOIZE" THEY DID WITH PUBLIC ENEMY Embarassing but true. I was a huge fan of P.E., beginning with the release of Apocalypse 91 back in, um, 1991. But what really blew me away was the totally innovate amalgamation of rap and metal they placed at the end of the album, a totally slammin' little ditty called "Bring Tha Noize". After doing some deep research (i.e. reading the liner notes), I found that the song was a collaboration with an awesome group of surf-trunks-wearing thrashers called Anthrax. I quickly rounded up copies of Attack of the Killer B's and Sound of White Noise, which, to my knowledge, were the only releases from these rap-metal masters. They even threw some sweet funk into the mix, which to my 13-year-old mind seemed like the best idea EVER. With 20/20 hindsight, it is fairly obvious that Public Enemy has retained their dignity better than Anthrax over the years, Flavor of Love nonwithstanding.



3) I USED TO PUT SLAYER AT THE END OF MIX TAPES... AS A JOKE I spent LOTS of time making mix tapes for my bros (and yes, chicks I had "secret" crushes on) in the early 90's. Usually chock-full of hideous garbage like Screeching Weasel, NOFX, Guttermouth, and Skankin' Pickle, these tapes were, unfortunately, a pretty accurate documentation of where my head was at the time. But the best part about making a mix tape was the extra time at the end of each side, which I liked to fill up with random sound clips and comedy bits and stuff. Usually anywhere from a couple seconds to about 2 minutes long, these leftover areas were a great place for me to flex my creative mix tape muscle, inserting samples from Adam Sandler's comedy album ("Fuck me in the goat ass!" was a popular choice) or a piece of dialogue from a cartoon I had dubbed off TV. But here's where it gets embarassing: My friend Nate, who had been a metalhead in the past but "progressed" to pop-punk, was embarassed of his old music collection and kicked me down his copy of Slayer's 1991 live album Decade of Aggression. This hurts to say, but Decade was the FIRST TIME I ever heard Slayer. Immediately confused by the excessive speed and pointless guitar solos, Slayer became my new favorite for time-consuming mix tape fodder, a ridiculously over-the-top "joke band" I could add on in 30 second increments to fuck with my friends. Unfortunately, by the time I realized that Slayer was actually pretty good (1994 or so), they had already gotten bad again. Oh well. Looking back on this, I would probably still use Slayer songs to take up extra time at the end of mix tapes, if I still made them. Except it would be jock-rock stuff like the songs on Christ Illusion or that cover they did of "Born To Be Wild". That shit is hilarious.

4) THE BLACK ALBUM WAS THE FIRST METALLICA TAPE I EVER BOUGHT AND it was the first time I'd ever even HEARD Metallica. AND I liked it. Wow, it actually feels kind of good to get that off my chest.

5) BODY COUNT SEEMED SCARY AND HARSH Keep in mind that this was before Ice T had appeared in Tank Girl (right) or smoked a joint with the Leprechaun in Leprechaun In The 'Hood. We was some backwoods, rural folks out there in Humboldt County, and "Cop Killer" seemed like the most hardcore, gangster, inner-city shit out there. Never mind Beatmaster V's inabilty to play a steady beat or Ernie C's atonal, amateur solos. Body Count was the REAL DEAL, a ghetto nightmare come to life on our very own Discman. Ice T was, without a doubt, a ruthless killer, a hardened criminal and a threat to the security of our country. And rap-metal, like I said before, seemed like a really good idea. In retrospect, it's pretty amazing that ANYONE could take the band that wrote a song like "The Winner Loses" seriously. Except Eastern Europeans, of course (PS - these two videos were the only versions of said song I could find on Youtube).








Above and below: Two crown jewels from my mid-90's Humboldt Metal collection, Drunk By Noon's I'd Call In Sick If I Had A Job cassette demo (featuring the songs "Meat Box" & "Morbid Goat") and Locust Furnace's Ignorance Through Perception. The Locust Furnace CD is actually pretty good, but take a close look at the cover art. They just cut out and blew up a chunk of the cover art from Altars of Madness. Genius.



Now that I've gotten all this shameful information off my chest, I'd like to add one more thing, something that I've never told ANYONE: Once, when I was about 10 and bedridden with a terrible fever, I crapped my bed. There, I said it.

Now that we're acquainted, please take a moment to check out MY blog, Illogical Contraption, which one reviewer called "quite possibly the best thing on the internet, EVER" and another dude referred to as "the poor man's Metal Inquisition". Which it is.


37 comments:

  1. Ha! It's funny you should mention "Thrash Zone," that was one of my earliest introductions as well. Kevin Campion (the previously-mentioned-on-MI son of the guy who started Zumiez) gave me a tape of this album in our gym class in 1990. "Here," he said, "you can have this, you'd probably like it, it's too thrash metal for me." And he was right!

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  2. I'm guilty of some shitty pop-punk/ska-punk mixtape creation as well. I'm even guilty of enjoying some of it from time to time (Skank for Brains and Misfits of Ska are both pretty entertaining, but maybe it's just nostalgia). I've been listening to Body Count a lot lately. I like it, so stuff you. But, there has actually only been a couple times when I have felt embarrassed about these things. Mostly I live in a bubble when it comes to music. Other than our fellow Bloggers, I don't ever listen to music with anyone else.

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  3. Wait, I don't listen to music w/ other bloggers, ISHARE music with them. Duh.

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  4. Holy shit... It's really eerie but that's pretty much the same as me, DRI, PE, Bodycount... Except in Montréal. I was really into ska back in the 90's, not something I'm proud of since I can't stand it nowadays. Man, this brings me back.

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  5. Wow, your readership just doubled.........to 12.

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  6. You know, one of the best things about having such a small readership is knowing EXACTLY who all the 'Anonymous' commentators are, ERIK.

    Thanks for publishing this post, Metal Inquisition Guys.

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  7. I can relate to you in so many ways. I live in a small town of 15,000 in central Kansas, and there's hardly a metal scene to speak of here. The closest thing we have to a record shop is Wal-Mart, and their metal section hardly even exists. The first time I heard Metallica was on their Black Album, and the only way I can get any underground metal is to either download it or get my mother to order it for me off of Amazon (yeah, I'm pathetic, I know).

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  8. What does it say about me that I not only owned that Stikky album (the first thing Lookout Records let go out of print), but a couple of their demos as well?

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  9. BTW, Body Count was pretty scary when they first hit. Remember, good ol' Charlton Heston called for their censure (not to mention for their censorship) because of "Cop Killer." Sure, he plays a cop on TV now, but there was a time when Black revolution seemed possible and guys like Ice T seemed more threatening in that atmosphere.

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  10. shelby, please elaborate on goats in kitchens as much as possible.

    also, i've never shit the bed, but i DID shit in the middle of a street once. i don't think anyone was around though, so it's not that funny.

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  11. also, GREAT use of "bildungsroman" as a tag!!

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  12. 4) THE BLACK ALBUM WAS THE FIRST METALLICA TAPE I EVER BOUGHT

    héhé! The black album was the first (and only) Metallica I ever stole! while working as a clerk at the La Jolla Tower Records!

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  13. "It was a lot like Footloose, except with metal instead of dancing"
    Nice post and great line.
    There has been a few questionable things I used to listen to in the nineties. I go back and revisit a few sometimes and I'm usually like "how the hell did I like this". But that is the good thing about digital music. You can just delete it and forget it ever existed...again.

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  14. dude, when i was thirteen I totally thought the fusion of rap and metal was an amazing idea. hearing raps on top of chugging guitars literally sent chills down my spine. now that i'm older and more sensible, i can recognize those chills for what they rightfully are: douche chills.

    p.s. I too put slayer on a mixtape for a girl I was dating to show her that I had a sense of humor.

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  15. pps. i just drove through eureka last year and, unlike the rest of northern california, I feel for you man...seems like a great place to live if your home is a combination car/meth lab.

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  16. Stikky! Just the reference brought back a flood of memories. Thanks!

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  17. wait a minute...listening to Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam in HIGH SCHOOL? on a DISCMAN? dude, you are NOT old.... if you did not listen to 5th hand suicidal tendencies and Dark Angel cassette copies on a full size tape recorder with headphones in your middle school industrial arts class while wearing sweatpants with holes in them, you are not old by MI standards.

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  18. This guy's blog is fucking terrible. Jesus I miss Sargeant D.

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  19. Help! im surrounded by poseurs!

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  20. Add me to the list of people who appreciate the Stikky reference- I loved that 7" in high school!

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  21. Shelby Cobras...you know who the anonymous commentators are? Do you mean that you can tell by the style in which they write, or do you mean you actually know who they are in real life? Either way, you've got me beat...i don't even really know either way. Actually I know only one person who posts comments from time to time, and only marginally. I think if we all met in real life, we'd all hate each other.

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  22. Maybe, but I think most readers would hate me a lot less IRL than they think they would based on my posts

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  23. I shit my pants when I was 9 on halloween! I was dracula!!!

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  24. I shit the bed when I was 26 and had bad Chipotle. My ex-fiance came in late from the bar and woke me up when shutting the apartment door. Within 2 seconds, "Did you shit the bed?"

    "What! No!" With absolute certainty, then.. " . . . . oh"

    I enjoyed this guest post, am guilty of other crimes against metal as well. Also, RyGar, I have downloaded from your blog in the past, thanks.

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  26. i don't care what shithole you're from.. if you're 30 and the black album end decade of aggresseion are the first albums you heard of those bands.. that's pretty lame

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  27. Lucho: I can usually guess who commentators are on my own blog by the amount of sarcasm they use, considering the readership there consists of the "contributing writers", who are also the same 4 dudes i get drunk with on the weekends. Outside of that, I know very few commentators personally. But I do agree that it would probably be a pretty lame, awkward party if we all hung out together.

    Brian: I agree, my blog sucks and Seargant D is brilliant. Well said.

    Mr. Balls: As jared pointed out, a fabulous use of the "bildungsroman" tag (I had to look it up). Kudos.

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  28. This is a splendid post, fuck the haters!

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  29. "Thrashard" is awesome, though it's the only good songs on that record.
    Plus, CoCo's tits are so big I could cum in my pants in a couple of minutes...

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  30. you meant Ice-T tits

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  31. "small town completely devoid of any sort of metal element whatsoever (Eureka, California - an hour south of the Oregon border with a population of roughly 25,000)."

    25,000 is small?

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  32. Hace tiempo que no veía un blog tan bueno!
    Además es muy gracioso y el contenido esta bien.
    Ojalá alguien hable español acá, pero me gustaría cambiar links con ustedes.
    Saludos y visitaré mas este lugar jeje.

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  33. i lived in arcata for a long time and graduated from hsu. you failed to mention mr. bungle--mike patton grew up in eureka and although it's not exactly metal, it's not too bad what the guy's accomplished. Plus, there were lots of bands coming thru (small venues, but hey, you actually MET them.) I actually think it was better coming from that perspective, it develops a better sense of musical taste, sharing music with a small rabid group of devotees than those big city fucks who were just raging douchebags from the get-go. And now it doesn't really matter anymore cuz the web's changed everything. So I say embrace your past. Let haters suck a dick.

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  34. as a postscript to my posting above, i saw lungfish play at a fucking BOWLING ALLEY in humboldt and it was the best show i've ever fucking seen.

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  35. Speaking of hating your past, Mike Patton has turned on Humboldt County harder than probably anyone else. How many times has Bungle returned to Eureka since they signed a record deal over 15 years ago? Zero. They even put Eureka on a 'Your Welcome' list on the clown album. Cocky bastards.

    And I definitely think there were major perks to growing up in such a small scene as well. It was interesting, to say the least.

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  36. I just wrote up some embarrassing confessions of my own.

    http://autisticmetalhead.blogspot.com/2012/09/embarrassing-confessions-about-growing.html

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