Merauder: Who gave these Ricans those rock guitars?

Body Count wasn't the only band smashing genre boundaries back in the 90s. Merauder, Dmize, Bulldoze, and Darkside NYC managed to combine the brainless aggression of metal and the terrifying disregard for human life of gangster rap into a delicious blend that we called hardcore. It was a little bit like my favorite Body Count song, except they were Puerto Ricans:

Here come them fuckin niggas
With their fancy cars.
Who gave them fuckin niggas
Those rock guitars?
Who let em in the club?
Did you make em pay?
Who let em on the stage?
Whose lettin em play?
Dont they know rocks just for whites
Dont they know the rules?
Those niggas are too hard core
This shit aint cool.
Those blacks want everything in the fuckin world.
That nigga plays so good,
He took my muthafuckin girl.
There goes the neighborhood
There, there, there, there goes the neighborhood.

Usually we just make fun of stuff on this blog, but in this case I'm not going to. First of all because I'm scared some DMS dude will reach out of my computer screen and hit me in the face with an eightball in a sock if I do. Second, because Merauder fucking rule and I still listen to this record all the time. It takes me back to the bad old days of the 90s when Lucho Metales and I did silly things like listen to Snapcase and 108.

That said... the video is pretty fucking funny. Watch for yourself. And when you're done, watch this infamous Agnostic Front clip.

A SkullKrushing Vinyl Collection (part 3)

Welcome to part 3 of "A SkullKrushing Vinyl Collection," brought to you today by Megaforce Records. If you care, here's parts 1 and 2.

So, here's a few more records from my crates along with a few more stories from my... my... my... my... I don't know. Something that rhymes with "crates"



Alright! Laaz Rockit! What could be better than a cheesy California thrash band? Well, a cheesy California thrash band that misspells the words in it's name on purpose, of course! Well, this is a test pressing of the Rockit's second effort "No Stranger to Danger " that came out in '85. I scored this jewel for $3 at Jerry's, of course. Jerry's is to record stores what double-sided dildos are to the world of adult toys.
I think it's pretty cool to own a record like this, 'cuz when I tell ladies about it, all they wanna do is rip my Testament shirt off and lick my hairy chest. True story. OK, maybe not.



You can file these 3 records under the "You are the luckiest SOB I know" category. When we were in Amsterdam on tour in Europe with my band, we met a guy from a label who wanted to put out some shit of ours. The label had done cool releases before, so I was going to agree anyway, but I guess he felt I needed a little incentive. He offered me his entire Maiden collection. All 11 pieces. I took it all, of course. These 3 picture disc singles are just a sample. If you ever come to my house I might let you see the rest. But, you have to show me your boobies first.



We all know what a dbag Danzig is. The quintessential egomaniac with a Napoleon complex and a serious case small-dick-testosterone-surplus. I got this double 7" bootleg in Eastern Europe somewhere during the same European tour with my band. The sound is so bad, I can only barely recognize one song and it's Samhain, not even Danzig. Still, this is one of my favorite records in my collection. Why? It comes with a poster, dude!



I saw Excruciating Terror in Berkeley once. It was at a Fiesta Grande, so you know the audience was chuck-full-o-PC fags. All these pseudo politically involved bands had been playing and then ET went on. Someone started screaming at them about a song of theirs being racist or sexist or something. I don't know if you have ever seen these dudes, but I wouldn't wanna fuck with them, that's for sure. Anyway, the singer looked at this hippie in the audience and asked him: "Hey, what do you say to a girl with 2 black eyes? - Nothing, you already told her twice." The place went nuts with boos and ET exploded onto their brutal set. It was classic! I got this 7" from Wild Rags, where I'd gotten their demo a few years back. Man, Mexicans can really rock.



I really don't know what to say about these 2 records. Maybe I should say that it's fucking bizarre that nerds out there have offered me up to $300 for the AC / Meat Shits split. Maybe I should say that I'm often embarrassed to own these. Maybe I should say that I own more than a few Meat Shits cassettes. I really should kill myself and this world a better place. Especially for my family.



I'm finishing up with OZ for two reasons:
1. OZ is the awesomest thing to come out of Finland since Mika Hakkinen.
2. I'm working on another classic post on these rockers for next week.

Funny to think that Megaforce records lasted as long as they did putting out shit like this...

Underrated Masters: Mortal Sin

In a post a few weeks back, I reported, in detail, about Tankard. The Germans are one of the most underrated bands in Metal. In the same vein, Mortal Sin never got the recognition they deserved. Most things from Australia are pretty shitty and gay, like kangaroos, koalas, INXS and Olivia Newton-John. But not these Aussies!

When we were a kids, my brother and I were limited musically to whatever records made it to South America's stores and whatever dubbed tapes we got from friends, who'd gotten them from their friends. Well, in a trip to the record store in the mall in '89 or so, we saw a Face of Despair record in the Rock section. At first I thought the band might be some shitty Christian rock, but when I turned the record around I realized these guys meant business. Metal business. White high-tops, ripped frosted denim jeans, sleeveless "Shut-up and Skate" T-shirt and Suicidal Tendencies-like bandanas? Damn, the temptation was too much. We bought the LP and played it as soon as we got home. We were not disappointed.

"Face of Despair" quickly became one of our favorite records. We never really got the cover, with the girl and the "SEX" neon sign and a syringe and the crucifix... I guess they were trying to make a deep point about girls and sex and health care in Australia. Whichever way, the music spoke for itself. The first song on side B, "Innocent Torture" opens with a rad sample of a judge sentencing someone to death. From there Mortal Sin rip a fucking awesome tune with awesome riffs that would make Tenacious D proud. The production on the record is not super clean and the guitar sound is a little whiney, but the that song is still one of my favorite thrash tracks of all time. The other tune in here that is bad-ass is "I Am Immortal". Here's a video from some TV show in the 1989. It might be in Australia, but I thought they only got electricity there in the late 90's...




So, here we were, in love with a band we knew nothing about and wanting more. We didn't even know where they were from. We'd have settled for any info at all, but what we had coming was more than we expected. Enter: the Peña Twins.

If it wasn't for Mortal Sin, the Peña Twins wouldn't be mentioned at all in our memoirs. The Twins used to ride bus #1 from school with us and got off on 140th Street, just below 7th Avenue. They were pretty annoying kids and were always getting in trouble, so my brother and I ignored them through the school year. That was only until one day, when one of them (the one with braces) asked me if I'd ever heard of Mortal Sin. "Fuck!", I thought, "how does this little shit know about OUR band?" Mortal Sin wasn't a band people were allowed to listen to without getting permission from us. After all, we'd discovered them. How did Peña Twin #1 know about them? How did he know anything about metal at all? Sure he wore high-tops and had a skater cut with a rat-tail, but he was far from being metal. They knew who Black Sabbath was and maybe even Metallica, but that was about it. My friends and I had a list of ALL metalheads in the school and the Peña Twins were NOT in it. I was shocked. Hiding my outrage, I told them I knew who they were. He then told me he had one of their records. "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, this POSER has a Mortal Sin record?" Well, he probably bought it by mistake in the same record store we bought ours, I thought. "I can't remember what it's called, but the cover has a demon eating buildings" - "You must be mistaken, dude. That's not a demon, it's a little girl. And she's not eating shit, she's scared as hell!" He told me I was crazy and he'd bring the record to school the next day.

Originally released in '86 with the cover on the left and re-issued in '87 with the cover on the right.

"Fuck my ass!" or something like that, is what I thought the next day when I saw one of the Peña Twins holding "Mayhemic Destruction." I don't even know if it was the same Twin, but at that point I was more concerned with being one-uped by certified posers than analyzing the differences between these 2 genetic mutant freaks. My brother and I looked at each other in horror. We were both thinking the same thing: "Don't look surprised, we can't let them think they know more than we do." But they did. They had a Mortal Sin record we didn't! It was too much to bare, we had to compromise our metal integrity to listen to this record. I broke down and asked him to borrow it. "We already have it on tape, at home, of course" I lied, "but the tape is really old and you can hardly hear it."
Wow! The sound was much rawer than I had expected. I realized while listening to it that it was their first record. It wasn't as Meliah Rage-ish as "Face...", it reminded me more of "Kill 'Em All" or "Ride The Lightning" Pretty goddam metal whatever it reminded me off. I made a tape of the record and returned it to the fucking Peña Twins. Fuck'em. Here's my favorite tune from that album, "Women In Leather".





It wasn't until 12 years later that I would finally own a copy of "Mayhemic (is that even a real word?) Destruction" I got a really nice Japanese pressing that I paid entirely too much money for. I also scored a 12" single called "Voyage Of The Disturbed" that the sold on tour in the US in '89.

My Mortal Sin vinyl collection today. The Peña Twins ain't got shit on me anymore!

So, I guess after "Face..." the Australians went the way of kangaroo shit. The have re-formed again and again, but it's not the same. One of the dudes put out a record in '91 under the name Mortal Sin and got sued quick-like. What a douche.

What a gay cover. No wonder he got sued.

A new record came out in '07, but the new line up is pretty pathetic and a few of them have advanced cases of Robb Flynn's Disease. It's very sad. See for yourself. The video starts off with no audio, but give it a second.

Anyway, here's to another underrated band that made the days of my youth worth living. Cheers, mates!

MIOSoMA: MegaMetal vs. RockCards

In 1991 the world of metal was turned upside down with the release of not one, but two collections of heavy metal cards. In one hand you had Impel's MegaMetal and in the other Brockum's RockCards. Even tho I had a few cards of each back in the day, I acquired both complete sets in mint condition in 2001. I traded a mint set of 15th series GPKs for them in a non-sports card convention in Philly. Hey, we are all nerds here, right?
Anyway, today, the question that has been haunting the metal scene for 17 years will be answered: which set of metal cards was better? After an ardous investigation I came up with the answer. Which set got the Metal Inquisition Seal of Metal Approval (MISoMA, for short)? Read on and find out.
(I know there was some other set with Motorhead and a few other metal bands, but it also had Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer, so excuse me if I try to forget that that collection ever existed.)

The Basics
First of all, MegaMetal is a way cooler name than RockCards. MegaMetal's logo has a skull in it and the cards have a black border on them. RockCards have poser gradient colored borders. All rainbowy and gay. MegaMetal also has checklist cards, which made writing this thing a lot easier. MegaMetal is off to a good start.

This image is here specifically for the spookyspeegster, who always complains about the lack of King Diamond in MI.

Size. Does it matter?
MegaMetal's basic set was only 150 cards, while RockCard's basic set was 288, plus 16 stickers. But is this an issue of quality vs quantity? I don't know, but I'll award one point to RockCards.
(Please note: There was holograms, promo cards and gay shit like that on both sets, but let's stick to the basic set)

RockCard's set included pretty bad-ass art stickers

The Poser Factor
MegaMetal featured such poser kings as Bon Jovi, Firehouse, Skid Row, Heaven's Edge (who?), The Front (who?), Vixen (!), Slaughter and L.A. Guns. That's a total of 73 hair-poser cards. That's 2 cards short of half the set.
Not to be outdone, RockCards had Winger, Cinderella, Poison, Skid Row, Warrior Soul (ew!), Whitesnake, Slaughter, Tangier (who?), Warrant, Sisters of Mercy (why?), Bon Jovi, Motley Crue and Salty Dog (who?). That's 144 poser cards. That's exactly half.
By 2 cards MegaMetal comes up on top here, so I'll give them the point. Still, on both sets half of the cards are hair-metal. We all lose.

Seriously, if anyone has current addresses for any of these assclowns, let me know. They are just begging for a beating. Denim shorts (x2)? Are you fucking kidding me?

WTF?
Each set has a few cards that seem to come out of nowhere and do not seem to fit.
MegaMetal has 7 Billy Squire cards. I didn't know Billy was metal, much less "mega" metal. Add 8 Robert Plant cards to that and 8 McAuley Schenker Group cards. That adds up to 23 more cards we can chuck.
RockCards gives us Katmandu (5 cards), Dan Reed Network (5 cards. Who the fuck are these people?), Junkyard (10 cards), Deep Purple (6 cards), Yes (4 cards), The Moody Blues (4 cards), Pink Floyd (4 cards), Iggy Pop (2 cards), Stevie Ray Vaughan (1 card) and Clarke-Rotondo (who? - 1 card) . Total 42 useless cards. This is pretty sad.

I have no clue who the fuck Dan Reed is or why he has a "Network", but what I do know is that they look like idiots.
This why I support tough immigration policy. We could easily deport these dbags.

Surprise!
Both collections have a few gems in there. A few cards you wouldn't expect, but make the set a little awsomer. MegaMetal gives us a Dark Angel card, 11 Iron Maiden record cover cards, 4 M.O.D. cards and 5 King Diamond cards. Not bad, right? Can RockCards match that? Well, not in the basic set, but the 16 sticker set has 2 Slayer covers, 4 Iron Maiden art cards, 2 Pushead cards, and 6 Megadeth's Vic art cards. This is a tough call, but you can't deny Dark Angel. Even if it's just one cards, that's pretty metal. I'm going with MegaMetal on this one, too.

The card that might end up tipping the scale

Down to Business
OK, all the cards we've talked about are the special ones, but what about the rest. The ones we are left with once we throw away all the shit. Well, both sets have Iron Maiden, but MegaMetal features Nuclear Assault, Priest and Dio. Not bad, not bad. RockCards? Well, they got AC/DC, Anthrax, Sabbath, Megadeth, Testament and Exodus. That's also not bad either, but I think Nuclear Assault and Dark Angel are way more Metal. Sorry, MegaMetal on top again.

A couple or rad RockCards of Steve Souza.I can almost hear him: "Do... the Toxic Waltz!"

Individual Cards
The competition is too close to call at this point. What I'm gonna do is look at a few more cards from both sets and make the decision. After all, most people out there don't collect complete sets non-sports cards like I do, so this might end up being the fairest way to judge.

Knock, knock... Who's there?... Tangier... Tangier who?... Exactly.

Yeah, it's 3 different dudes. Seriously, it's 3 different dudes. Yeah, they are dudes.

Damn, it's grampa Lou and uncle Earl!

Lame-ass motorcycle pic, Bad-ass motorcycle pic.

Separated at birth? Nice boots there, brizzy!
That's the beds that Mustaine gives members of Megadeth on tour. Good luck fitting in there, Nick!

MegaMetal has pretty bad-ass Maiden cards. they are way better than RockCards.
Gotta love the hyper-typical Dave Murray "oh-face".

The inclusion of these dipshits is costing RockCards serious points.
They look like rejected extras in a Miami Vice episode.

This dickhead makes me want to kill my family and then spread my brains all over the kitchen table.
GOD! Why does this picture make me SO FUCKING ANGRY?

I went to college with dudes like this. I punched them in the kisser as often as I could.
Die you fucking hippie. DIE!

The world is a worse place because of this picture.
If you stare at this fucking pole smoker long enough, you'll go blind. Try it.

I don't know anything about this band, except that their Photoshop skills equal that of a lab baboon with serious brain damage.
You know, 'cuz the testing they did on'em.

Veredict?
Well, back in the 90's I was all about MegaMetal. I liked the name and the logo, I guess. After writing this post, tho, I'm not so sure. I mean, RockCards have more cards in the set and they have the nice stickers. But they have too much glam shit... MegaMetal has Vixen and MSG, but also King Diamond and Dark Angel. It's a tough call, but I'm going with MegaMetal. I'm gonna trust my 16-year-old gut.

MegaMetal cards get the MISoMA! Congratulations!

Metal Inquisition Video Vault: The State Of Metal—1991

1991, at least according to this piece of footage, was a tough year for metal. Listen to Tom Araya, Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett weigh in on this very important subject. Lars was as annoying then as he is now. Jesus, does he ever stop? The man has been annoying since birth. I think he probably came out of his mother talking about his theories on NWOBHM.

The report concludes that the trouble with metal comes down to nomenclature, watch and laugh. Slow start, but hang in there.

Please note:

1. Kirk Hammett's weird teeth and his tiny bicycle skid mustache.
2. Tom Araya's name, misspelled. He drops some knowledge.
3. Ozzy telling us about washing machine metal (my favorite part)
4. Lars drops knowledge too, and he refers to Guns N Roses as "the Guns guys"

Wimps and posers, leave MySpace!!

Did anyone have any doubts that ManOwar are the TRUE kings of metal? Well, they in fact SO metal, they deny requests for friends in MySpace. After all, "they don't attract wimps, 'cuz they are too loud!". Here's an email I got from a friend of mine. I wouldn't go as far as calling her a "poser", but I guess she's not metal enough for the KINGS of metal.

"Even if you're not a member of MySpace, you know how it is, right? No bands really deny your friend requests. Most are hungry for numbers and any opportunity to promote is a good opportunity. Or so I thought.

I know I'm not embedded in the scene. I know I don't look the part. But I have a base understanding, a past, and an appreciation for metal that most currently outside the scene don't.

So here's where I'm left scratching my head and at the same time loving ManOwar even more now! Those assholes are so freakin' metal that they went through swarms of friend requests that they got on MySpace and carefully selected just who is metal enough to consider their friendship. No posers allowed!

I can see it now, Joey Demaio and Scott Columbus tooling around on MySpace and gleefully answering their friend requests. Upon seeing a short chubby red-head with glasses and a flipped up hairdo they thought, "Who the fuck is this chick? She doesn't look metal. Let's click on her profile and see what she's into. ... Weezer, Jerry Lee Lewis, her hair really isn't that long and she isn't dressed all slutty like we like 'em. This chick ISN'T metal. She has no place in the Kingdom of Steel."

In some ways you gotta love that. I'd rather be denied their friendship than know they randomly accepted applicants. I guess if I want to talk the talk, I've got to walk the walk.

PS: The SkullKrusher's request WAS accedpted like 3 years ago!