Monday, May 25, 2009

The Metal Inquisition Archives: I'm seriously overwhelmed


The picture above may look harmless enough, a simple storage container with random pieces of metal ephemera. I must tell you, however, that this image cannot begin to show the amazing contents held within. This weekend, my brother and I completed an important rite of passage in life, we successfully moved the last remaining bits of our lives from the house that last lived in with our parents. We are both old enough that we should have done this long ago, but in true latino style we kept dragging our feet in doing so. What you see above is the last bit of our life that had been left behind, and what an insanely amazing collection it is.

First, I should admit to all of you that continuously posting on this blog can sometimes be tough. Last summer, I was the only one posting for weeks at a time, sometimes almost three times a week. While that may not seem like a a whole lot to many of you, it certainly was to me. Recently, I've had to slow down in my posts (I mean, "pieces") due to being busy with other things in my life aside from writing embarassing stories about my past in metal. Having found this amazing archive of stupidity and metal, I'm now happy to say that I easily have ten years worth of material to post about...all of it amazing (I think) and insanely embarrassing. Actually writing it all out, and scanning this stuff will be a whole 'nother thing...but I'll try my best. If you are wondering what types of items live inside this amazing box, let me give you a sneak preview...but this is only the tip of the iceberg...a huge, funny and weird iceberg:

- Hundreads of drawings made by my brother and I, of real and made up bands in live settings. These are pencil drawings depicting Iron Maiden, Slayer, Helloween and many bands that we invnted mid-concert. It's hard to explain these, as they basically amount to our artistic renditions of a metal concert, since we had never been to one as little kids. Our drawing skills were very poor, but that didn't stop us from drawing tons of these. They are usually in A4 or Letter sized sheets of paper, and depict the whole stage, complete with lights, speaker cabinets and (in the case of bands like Maiden) the entire stage set. These date back to 1988 and are awful and funny as all hell. Some drawings are extra funny due to our insistence in writing things in english from time to time, even though we didn't speak the language. The results were disastrous. This part of our archives also includes many drawings of things other than bands, like album covers and many many band logos and flyers for made up concerts.

- Tons and tons of autographed items from amazing bands like Flotsam and Jetsam, Cannibal Corpse, Death, Excruciating Terror, Recipients of Death....including weird items like a flower drawn and signed by Trevor from Obituary. Each items has a nutty story behind it.

- My brother and I were obsessive collectors, and we have the scrap books to prove it. Many, many binders of what basically amount to metal scarpbooks, including the dated receipts to many of the tapes we bought. Did you ever wonder when and where I bought my first Believer tape? You'll find out soon.

- Did you ever wonder what our book covers looked like in school around 1991? You'll find out, because we kept them.

- Many letters I received and saved from people like Pat from Hellwitch and Richard C from Wild Rags...all circa 1991 or 1992. These are weird and funny. Pat from Hellwtich gives me updates about the Tampa scene, and tells me about his new house that he just bought.

- The zine my brother and I did in 1991, including the original manuscripts (in cursive, of course) to articles for it. Believe me, when you read my barely-coherent "piece" about Kreator which I wrote as a little kid... you'll be depressed ...but will laugh at the same time.

- Hand written transcripts to many songs like GWAR's "Slaughterama"

- Enough show fliers to choke a donkey, many signed by the bands.

- Programs to a few Milwaukee Metal fests, many zines and a few copies of The Wild Rag.

- Fan newsletters for many bands, including Miami's infamous Raped Ape

I know this post kinda' sucks, since I'm merely tickling your ass with a feather here. But trust me, it's gonna' be great in the long run. I'm just overwhelmed, and don't even know where to start.

30 comments:

  1. what a thankless job this blogging is,hopefully a book deal will emerge

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  2. off topic: you guys need to check out this 'band' : KeyDragon. it's perfect for this blog, in many different ways. the sounds, the sights, their myspace text, their main topic (dragons). should be at last a three page epistle about this great band.

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  3. i had boxes full of crap at my parents house to: demo's / zine's / flyers / shirts. this was before the internet. Mid nineties i threw them all away, gave some away, as i thought i was done with metal (i'm a poser..yes i know). i still have some items, but they have no value to me (maybe some sentimental value) but if freaks wanna pay 100 dollars for a crappy tape on ebay i'll sell..i need the money more than the first demo from whatever band i never liked :)

    but please: bring on the goodies!

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  4. I'm soooo looking forward to this you don't even know!

    On a related note: I loaned a friend of mine all of my circa 1988-89 "Cream Presents Thrash Metal" magazines (all kept in pathetically good shape by yours truly for twenty years). He's going to scan them and, at my request, email an electronic copy to y'all. I hope they prove to be of some use. Especially since they have a Florida scene report that mentions a band by the name of...Hellwitch.

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  5. This is the kind of stuff that kids that grow up with the internet will never truly understand or appreciate.

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  6. Hundreads of drawings made by my brother and I, of real and made up bands in live settings. These are pencil drawings depicting Iron Maiden, Slayer, Helloween and many bands that we invnted mid-concert
    oh my god you HAVE TO post these!!!!! i don't want to spoil the surprise, but let me just say one sentence to let everybody know how amazing these drawings are (i have seen almost all of them i think): "WELCOME TO THE HELL!"

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  7. You're overwhelmed? I'm underwhelmed by this post.

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  8. i'm sorry that you're underwhelmed. i understand. i simply didn't have time to do the first post from the archives, but wanted to let you know about it. sheesh, tough customers. i acknowledged that it was merely a tease.

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  9. If there's one thing I'm a sucker for it's nostalgia. Regardless of if it's my own, or others, reading and writing about hilarious memories is definitely one of my favorite things. I'm pretty psyched to see those drawings and school folders hahaha

    Anonymous: I just looked up KeyDragon on Metal Archives. The only thing that came out of my mouth was "WOW." ... thank you for providing me with that moment.

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  10. now hit their myspace! they sound even 'wower' :)

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  11. what a veritable smorgasbord of awesomeness this is. highly anticipated to say the least. it's like me being picked "most likely to hose metal shop" in high school

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  12. Me: Tickle your ass with a feather?

    Her: What did you just say?

    Me: Uh, I mean, uh...typical nasty weather?

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  13. Good! We are missing your posts Lucho. Hope this brings them oftener.

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  14. I am literally wetting myself in anticipation of the 'pieces' that these goodies will bring.

    @HughDoVoodoo: so true, spoken by a true early 90's metal warrior...

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  15. consider your asses tickled. i'm not sure where i should start, but perhaps the band drawings should be the first big bang. i may have to highlight a few of the choice ones, and offer a multi-page PDF for download, i'm not even kidding.

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  16. Hooker Von SkankyassMay 26, 2009 at 2:13 PM

    Luchos, please don't apologize for any post you make...ever. I don't even care if it's literally the worst thing ever written by a human being - don't apologize. These people that complain about their free entertainment are just fucking unbelievable.

    Also, I used to sit in class and transcribe GWAR lyrics from memory for some reason, so that made me laugh.

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  17. Seriously Lucho... no apologies. In fact, you should follow this with the worst post ever written by a human being. Just out of principle. Fuck that guy.

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  18. I too spent many an hour in study hall drawing shows, although I think I tended to focus more on trying to accurately render "the pit..or atleast my interpretation of it based on D.R.I. songs.
    It never ceases to amaze me how universal some of this stuff is regardless of whether you are from South America or the Midwest.

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  19. Lucho,
    Hooker is right. dont apologize. this site is hilarious and if people are going to complain about it they can go listen to dave matthews band or whatever other granola rock they like.

    if anyone should apologize its the other guys that arent pulling their weight. it seems like you and sarge do all the work now.

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  20. Oh.My.God.

    KeyDragon...haha, umm...no. its just not possible. WOW, just wow!

    this is so incredible.

    from their website:
    "KeyDragon has been pounding out the metal tunes for over 8 years now. Working with various forms of metal and musicians, KeyDragon has evolved into a Dragon Metal band. Dragon Metal is a form of Gothic metal that combines traits of Doom and Power metal. The songs are all about Dragons and are sung by the angelic Tamara Venus Star. Ron Langford provides the “Dragon Vocals”, or screaming vocals, which adds the element of aggression, power, and strength to the lyrics".

    their logo is hilarious!!!

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  21. I wish I still had my book covers from 8th and 9th grade. Arguably, my 8th grade english lit notebook was my masterpiece. Damn.

    Take your time. The Internet will be here when you're ready.

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  22. There's nothing more comforting than grabbing some dusty old metal zines and snapping back to those care free days of yore. Wish I had kept all my shit, oh well thank fuck for this blog, you do definitely HAVE to get some sort of book deal going. Hope you guys use those Cream Presents Thrash Metal as well.

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  23. This sounds really great. I always wanted to save some of my wacky metal artifacts, like the weird overseas packaging that a CD came in, but I never had the space. Postage from Serbia? Cyrillic from St. Petersburg? Gone forever!

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  24. I see a copy of Paul Zimmerman's Cerebral Holocaust zine in that container! I think thats the issue with Cannibal Corpse on the cover? I still have allot of my old stuff like Nasty Savage "Wage Of Mayhem" zine #2, that I bought back in 86'! Been scanning allot of old articles lately... Lots of old VoiVod fanclub artwork! -LEE

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  25. yup, cannibal corpse on the cover. it's one of the least impressive pieces in the collection, but its in there. you're good!

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  26. I remember drawing the pentagrams I saw on the Morbid Angel covers on my book covers in math class in Catholic school... I showing my buddy as we were walking out the door, when the principal/math teacher says "oh, can I see?" LOL that was a fun day

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  27. sounds like a gold mine for me lucho...reading this piece just reminded me that last year, i threw away most of my similar crap that i guarded for many years. i know that i will repent it bitterly when you start posting your stuff...i had a comic story of my "band" (we never made it past 5 rehearsals or so) in which we hit it big and similar shit. i thought that i was the only one who did crazy shit like that.

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  28. Holy shit...this post was the best piece of news I got all week. My week was ultra shitty and although you will have to post a shit-ton more now, I am psyched to read through it. Amazing!!!

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  29. Thanks for this piece of school nostalgia!
    Yes, it was the same worldwide (here in Greece too), I still remember the old days and really miss them.
    All that shit, waiting for a demo in the mail, reading a 3 year old crappy xerox zine over and over and learning new bands and trying to tapetrade their demos..
    Fuck, I still miss those zines.
    Really now, there are some people here and there that have uploaded various old zines on pdf. I print them and keep these 'bootleg' zines and read with nostalgia..
    Really, could anyone try to start a blog dedicated to this shit?
    You can find ANY fucking demo on mp3 but what about zines or old tape compilations? Wouldn't that be awesome!?

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