Race With Devil On Spanish Highway

Right about the time that Riot released Privilege of Power (which I still love), I was reading the credits in the cassette’s liner notes. Remember cassettes? Anyhoo, I went to the mall record store and looked DiMeola up on their database and purchased Elegant Gyspy (on tape). At that time it was a name that I was unfamiliar with as I really wasn’t listening to any jazz/fusion at the time. Mahavishnu Orchestra was really the only band I was familiar with from that genre. I remember popping the tape in my car’s cassette player (1982 Pontiac Trans Am!) and just sitting in the parking lot with my mouth wide open. I was completely blown away. All I could think was “This dude is a badass! Holy shit. Listen to that drummer!”

I had a full time job with VDOT at the time but was also working a few hours a week at a local drum shop, helping the owner build his new store. I brought the tape in one evening and said, “What do you know about Lenny White?” He was already sitting behind a drum set and started playing some of the amazingly fast paradiddles and other licks from this album. Again…mouth wide open. Drew was a fantastic drummer.

I listened to this tape incessantly and even practiced drums to it…as much as my abilities let me anyway. I was no Lenny White.

It’s easily in my top 10-15 albums of all time. Al’s playing on this is so fluid. It’s jazz, it’s a little rock, it’s a little metal, it’s flamenco…it’s everything. The album flows so smoothly from beginning to end. I usually listen to it at least twice every time.

A few years ago (2006?), Patrick (Buzzard) and I got tickets to see DiMeola in downtown Norfolk. We were both pretty excited to see the show as we were both big fans. We parked near the venue a while before the show so we could grab some food and a beer or 2 prior to going in. We had some NY style pizza and a few beers and walked over to the theater. As we got closer I could see that something was taped to the door. “CANCELED” My heart sunk. What a total letdown. We were both pretty annoyed. Apparently Al’s drummer quit that day or something. Damn! So we ended up going back to our neighborhood and barhopped.

Last year it was announced that Return to Forever was reuniting and that their first 2 shows would be in Austin at the Paramount Theater. Doug Morrison and I scored 2nd row center seats on the balcony. $125ea and worth every penny. The view and the sound were perfect. You could hear Al’s footswitch when he changed channels on his amp. Everyone was quiet and attentive while RTF played. It was pretty impressive. It was doubly special for me because I finally got to see Lenny White play drums live.

Of all of Al’s other solo works, I really only liked Land of the Midnight Sun and Casino. The others got a little too modern sounding for me…But Elegant Gypsy is the cream of the crop.

So Mark, if you’re reading this, thanks for turning me on to DiMeola.  I owe you bigtime! :)

RIP Michael Jackson

Sure he turned into a freak but it still doesn’t negate his great contribution to music in the 70s and 80s.  Once upon a time he could sing and dance like no other.  Thriller…Off The Wall…Beat It…classics.

Maybe now he has found piece in that tormented mind of his.

Thanks for some great tunes.

Screaming Trees – Sweet Oblivion

So early in 1993 I was drumming in Epitaph, a band that consisted of some of my best friends. It was fun being in a band with those guys, especially since we always basically agreed on everything that we wanted to play. Good times had by all. The only real problem I had was that I wanted to play out. Sure we did the occasional party here and there but I wanted to get into some clubs. We were certainly good enough but those guys didn’t have much interest in it and it wasn’t too big of a deal. I understood where they were coming from.

So one day I cruise over to Mark S’ house and hang out with him a while. I had known him for quite a while as we worked together at the grocery store in 1986 and there weren’t that many drummers in our small town, therefore we all knew each other. Mark was/is an incredible drummer, definitely someone I’d love to be drumming for me now (I can’t play anymore; I should blog about that sometime). So we’re in his garage and doing some drum tradeoff stuff. I was dazzling him with my double bass skills and he was dazzling me with his overall drum badassedness.

Anyway, to make a long story longer, he told me that he was playing in a band (I AM I from Virginia Beach, VA) but had to quit it for whatever reason and hooked me up with an audition. I got the gig and it was fun while it lasted (1993-1995). We played out a lot. It was what I would call a progressive rock band. It was tough to quantify as we all had such different influences. We had quite an array of songs, 4+ sets of material which were about 50/50 originals to covers.

One of the covers we did was Nearly Lost You by Screaming Trees. I had not heard this before but I liked it. I ultimately heard the song again in the soundtrack to the movie Singles (great film). Screaming Trees got pigeonholed as being a grunge band but personally I think they were heads and tails better than most of the bands that came from that NW rock scene and they were doing their thing for several years prior to that wave of music. They had a certain something that was very different. They were dark, depressing, heavy at times but not in a Nirvana kind of way. I ultimately bought the album Sweet Oblivion and instantly loved it. There was something in Mark Lanegan’s voice that just screamed that he was hurting deep down. It reminds me a little bit of Hank Williams, Sr. No matter how upbeat the song sounded, you could hear the pain in his voice.

This album has that front to back. Great hooks and melodies, Lanegan’s haunting vocals. It’s a perfect album in my opinion. Oddly enough for as much as I adore this album, I never delved into the rest of their catalogue. I remember hearing Uncle Anesthesia a few times when it first came out, but it didn’t stick with me, nor was I ever really trying to listen to it as it was always background music to something else. I heard some of Lanegan’s solo stuff and it’s very dark and moody. I briefly jammed with Drew from Unicorn Records in Portsmouth, VA and we did a few of Lanegan’s songs. I never got into his work with Queens of the Stoneage.

Riot – Narita – San Antonio Texas – 6/2/09

From the 6/2/09 show.  Sorry the video ends abruptly, my camera was having issues.

Pat Travers – Putting It Straight

When I was still collecting vinyl, Iron Maiden was my #1 interest.  As you probably know they released a ton of stuff and I had a good selection of it thanks to Unicorn Records, Skinnies Records, Electric Smiles, Fantasy, eBay and trading through some pen pal type things from the backs of magazines.  Oddly enough there were never any problems with the traders.  I never got ripped off once.  Honest lot those metalheads!  As a subset to collecting Maiden stuff, I also was trying to collect everything that Nicko McBrain had played on.  Not an easy task as there were some pretty obscure British things out there.

So my former supervisor and I were good friends and he told me about his record collection that had been sitting in his closet for 15 years.  Knowing Mark like I did, I knew these were in near perfect condition.  The guy was meticulous about everything, unlike his cousin…Big Bill!  So I randomly stopped by Mark’s house one day (1993ish?)  when I was in the neighborhood and we were just hanging out and catching up a bit as we hadn’t seen each other in a while.  After a while I asked if he still had his records.  He said he still had them and wanted to sell them.  I wasn’t in the market to buy the collection but I surely wanted to peruse his crates.  So he pulls out these 3 huge crates of records and I start flipping through one by one.  Tons of 70s rock. You know, BOC, Zeppelin, Stones, Bob Seeger, Poco, America, etc etc.  Nothing too obscure and surely nothing that a record collector would have paid more than 3-4 dollars each for.

There near the end of perusal, there it was.  It was one of those heavenly “ahhhhhh” moments where it seemed like the clouds parted and the sun shone down on this box of records.  Pat Travers’ Putting It Straight with Nicko on drums!  Mark still claims to this day that I was shaking when I was holding it.  I don’t doubt that I was.  I was pretty excited.  I said, “How much?”  He responded, “Not for sale.”  What a douche!  But he did tell me to take it with me until I found my own copy.  It was in pristine shape.  PERFECT even.  Shortly thereafter I found another vinyl copy at Skinnies and a year or 2 later he had the original and rare Jap pressing of the CD which I also bought.

I adore this album.  It’s got Nicko’s signature drum licks written all over it.  My favorites are Life In London, Offbeat Ride, Gettin’ Betta and It Ain’t What It Seems.  The album as a whole is good and I highly recommend it if you’re into 70s hard rock.

Around 1994-1995 Pat came to town to play Wicker’s in Portsmouth, VA.  I did my usual “show-up-to-the-gig-super-early” routine to hopefully meet the band.  I lucked out as they were all inside getting ready to eat.  I walked up to Pat and asked him to sign a few things for me and he was really cool.  He signed my vinyl copy of this album and my CD cover.  I asked him to talk about how it was to play with Nicko and he didn’t have many nice things to say.  “Good drummer but a complete asshole after that whole Iron Maiden thing.”  Apparently after Nicko joined Maiden, he landed his helicopter in Pat’s yard and bragged about his success.  Who knows?  I wouldn’t be that surprised if it was true.  Not important to me either way.  The guy that was sitting with us while we were talking about Nicko was Aynsley Dunbar.  Of course I didn’t know that at the time.  Had I known he was drumming for Pat, I would have brought my Jefferson Airplane and Journey stuff!

Nicko also played on Makin’ Magic which is also worth tracking down.

Vauxdvihl – To Dimension Logic (obscure prog)

I really can’t remember exactly when I first heard this but it was undoubtedly via Kelz and Denis Gulbey of Sentinel Steel Records around 96 or 97.  Doesn’t matter.  This is a great album all the way around and pretty obscure.  Vauxdihl hail from Melbourne, Australia.

I highly recommend checking this out if you’re a fan of Fates Warning’s Perfect Symmetry.  It reminds me a lot of that album although not quite as good.  No, this album isn’t particularly groundbreaking but it’s a nice change from all the trad and the death metal that I have been spinning lately.

Since this is very out of print and relatively hard to find, I uploaded it for your listening pleasure.  Download here.

Dark Angel – Darkness Descends

I’m pretty sure it was spring 1987 and I was down on Atlantic Ave at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront hanging out for whatever reason.  There was a little record store there that I can’t remember the name of.  I’m pretty sure it was an independent store and don’t hink it lasted more than a few years.  I can’t even remember if anyone was with me…maybe Robert S or Big Bill.  Anyhoo, we were browsing the cassettes and I saw Dark Angel’s Darkness Descends.  I immediately knew that this would be my purchase.  I had seen the ads for this in various metal mags and it was on Combat Records which had a pretty good track record of bands so far.

I remember getting in my 66′ Nova 4dr and heading back home while the tape started.  I was immediately blown away.  The drums.  Holy shit, the drums!  I remember seeing fotos in magazines of the band and the big huge drummer in shades looming over them in every foto.  I was fortunate enough to meet him earlier this decade and he was the coolest mofo in the world.

But back to this massive album.  There’s not a stinker in the bunch but my faves are Burning of Sodom, Black Prophecies and Perish In Flames.  Sure it’s a tad sloppy and severely underproduced, but it set a/the standard for early thrash and death metal in my opinion, especially for drummers.

When I finally saw them live in 1989, I got to help sing Merciless Death as the new singer said he didn’t know the lyrics that well.  I was the happiest acne-faced, bad-haired kid in Virginia Beach that night!

If you’re into classic metal and especially early thrash, you NEED this album.

I finally found the foto of Gene and me from 2001. 

Thank You Metal Blade Records!

For giving me a lifetime of enjoyment from your early selection of albums.

1. metal massacre 1
2. bitch – damnation alley
3. demon flight – s/t
4. metal massacre 2
5. warlord – deliver us
6. savage grace – the dominatress
7. bitch – be my slave
8. metal massacre 3
9. armored saint – s/t ep
10. obsession – marshall law ep
11. witchkiller – day of the saxons
12. metal massacre 4
13. slayer – show no mercy
14. pandemonium – heavy metal soldiers
15. 3rd stage alert – s/t
16. satan – court in the act
17. silver mountain – shakin’ brains
18. trouble – assassin 12″
19. trouble – s/t
20. lizzy borden – give ‘em the axe ep
21. metal massacre 5
22. total destruction (compilation)
23. warlord – aliens 12″
24. slayer- haunting the chapel
25. fates warning – night on brocken
26. voivod – war and pain
27. omen – battle cry
28. hellhammer – apocalyptic raids
29. warlord – and the cannons of destruction have begun
30. mad max – rollin’ thunder
31. dark heart – shadows of the night
32. thrust – fist held high
33. celtic frost – morbid tales
34. attacker – battle at helms deep
35. sye – turn on the fire
36. metal massacre 6
37. slayer – live undead
38. tyrant – legions of the dead
39. destruction – sentence of death
40. slayer – hell awaits
41. trouble – the skull
42. hallow’s eve – tales of terror
43. lizzy borden – love you to pieces
44. sodom – in the sign of evil
45. hirax – raging violence
46. nasty savage – s/t
47. destruction – infernal overkill
48. celtic frost – emperor’s return
49. mark edwards – code of honor
50. omen – warning of danger
51. fates warning – the spectre within
52. pandemonium – hole in the sky
53. cryptic slaughter – convicted
54. metal massacre 7
55. bloodlust – guilty as sin
56. predator – easy prey
57. sound barrier – speed of light
58. juggernaut – baptism under fire
59. sentinel beast – depths of death
60. lizzy borden – murderess metal road show
61. best of metal blade vol 1
62. cirith ungol – one foot in hell
63. flotsam and jetsam – doomsday for the deceiver
64. unknown
65. unknown
66. deaf dealer – keeper of the flame
67. sacrifice – torment in fire
68. detente – recognize no authority
69. krank – hideous
70. hallow’s eve – death and insanity
71. exxplorer – symphonies of steel
72. warlord – thy kingdom come
73. sodom – obsessed by cruelty
74. destruction – eternal devastation
75. savage grace – after the fall from grace
76. hirax – hate, fear and power
77. speed (compilation)
78. tyrant – too late to pray
79. cities – annihilation absolute
80. heretic – torture knows no boundaries

Man, there are surely some heavy hitters. The ones listed in italics are ones that I never heard and/or owned. Best info I have as to why 64 and 65 were never released was that there were some contract disputes. When I worked as a distrubutor for Metal Blade years ago, I tried finding out what 2 LPs those were, but no one seemed to know, including Brian Slagel. The contract dispute explanation was the only thing they could provide.  At the height of my vinyl collecting I probably had 60/80.   Now I probably have 5 or 6 of them.  Sometimes I wish I had kept them.

My Life With Mercyful Fate

I got into Mercyful Fate after my introduction to King Diamond’s solo work, Abigail specifically. His voice took some getting used to but coupled with the brilliant guitar work by Denner and Shermann, I grew to love them. As most know, Mercyful Fate flaunted the whole Satan worship thing. While that sort of thing never really bothered me, there are a few tracks of theirs here and there that still give me the willies.

Melissa – 1983
What a haunting album. The production is pretty thin but this album is absolutely incredible. The weakest track is Satan’s Fall and only because it’s a tad too lengthy. The title track is so very dark and just oozes evil. My favorites are definitely the title track, Curse of the Pharaohs and Black Funeral.
9/10

Don’t Break the Oath – 1984
Easily one of the most evil album covers ever…at least to me. To be honest, I keep the CD cover facing inwards. Yes, I know, silly. But whatever. This album has some better production than Melissa and while the songs are very strong on this one, I generally still listen to the debut first. Standout tracks are certainly Come To the Sabbath, Welcome Princes of Hell (album was misprinted to read Princess of Hell), Night of the Unborn and Desecration of Souls. Gypsy sort of annoys me and The Oath still creeps me out. Mission accomplished, King!
8.5/10

In the Shadows – 1993
This was a reunion album of sorts sans Kim Ruzz on drums. While I like this album a lot, I rarely listen to it. Egypt is a badass tune. There are no real stinkers in the bunch but the new version of Return of the Vampire annoys me, mainly because I detest Lars Ulrich (who played on this track) so much.
7/10

Time – 1994
Enter Sharlee D’Angelo and Snowy Shaw on bass and drums, respectively. Sharlee is a Ric player and even though I wasn’t a Ric fan at the time, I remember him using one on the tour. It was a great show and I got to hang out with Sharlee and Snowy before and after the show. I like this album a tad better than In the Shadows. I love Snowy’s drum style. Nightmare Be Thy Name is a great tune and was the opening video I played when I had my own little local cable access metal show in 98 or 99. One of the ladies I worked with at the time saw the show (late nights) and confronted me at work with, “Are you a Satanist?” I replied with “I don’t know, Marianne, do YOU think I am?” I let off an evil laugh and walked away. She didn’t speak to me again for the new few years she worked there. Hilarious.
6.5/10

Into the Unknown – 1996
Ugh. This album just wasn’t necessary. It’s boring. Under The Spell and Holy Water are pretty decent, but in general the album is weak.
3/10

Dead again – 1998
I’m glad I was working for Metal Blade Records at the time because I got this one for free as a promo. Mike Wead (Candlemass, Hexenhaus, memento Mori etc) was brought on to replace Michael Denner. I really don’t remember much of the album if any at all.
0/10

9 – 1999
This album was a little bit better than Dead Again. I can certainly hear Wead’s guitar influence much more which is a good thing. I saw this tour at the 930 Club in DC with nevermore opening. It was a fun show and I got to spend some time with Mike Wead before and after. Great guy, badass guitarist. Last Rites, Sold My Soul and Kiss the demon are my faves.
3/10

Renee Reviews stuff.

So way back in 1987 when my first real band first got together, this beautiful girl with big hair (no offense Renee) and her gorgeous friend Carla used to come over to our house on the farm and hang out during band practice. Realize that my band practiced in my bedroom…9pc Pearl drum set, 2 guitars, bass and sometimes a singer (haha – Big Bill!), a bed, a desk and a dresser in a roughly 12×12 room. It was pretty cramped in there. It was always fun having them over there because they were a lot prettier than us sausage heads.

A few years later I started working for VDOT as a surveyor. I had met him a time or 2 back in the band days when we would either go to Renee’s house to pick her up or drop her off. It was never a pleasurable experience but we won’t discuss that any further. Renee’s dad was one of the survey chiefs and ultimately the big boss of the survey department during my tenure as one of the “grubs”. He was always a cool guy. He ultimately moved into a position in the design section and I moved to utilities shortly after. It was cool because I got to work with him more closely. I knew that Renee had moved to LA some years before and had lost touch with her, but her Dad gave me her number when I decided to make a trip to LA to do some business with a few record labels there (Century Media and Metal Blade). Renee graciously invited me to come over and I went there the evening after we landed in LA. We ultimately went to the Hard Rock to see Wayne Kramer (MC5) do a spoken word thing with some poet dude. It was a weird show but fun to meet Wayne and hang out. Before the show, we hung out at Renee’s for a bit and I got to speak to James Hong on the phone for a minute as he was friends with Renee. One of the folks hanging out with us that night was John Skipp who wrote Fright Night! The dude was super cool. Anyway, that night and next morning were the only times I got to see Renee when I was there as my schedule was pretty tight with the record labels, but she made my trip that much better.

We spoke a few times since 1997 but not at all in the last 5-6 years. Thanks to social networking we’re in touch again and I’m happy about it. She was/is always the coolest. Now she’s doing movie reviews for The Examiner website. Renee has a very creative mind and I highly recommend that you check out her stuff.

Click here for Renee’s movie reviews, old and new.