The Metal Files

My Life. My Music. Your Voyeurism.

Archive for the ‘death’ Category

RIP Steve Jobs

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What an effect that guy and his company had on our lives, directly and indirectly.  Thanks, Steve.  No more suffering.

Written by The Metal Files

October 5, 2011 at 5:53 pm

Posted in apple, death, obituaries, steve jobs

RIP Jani Lane

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Let’s be clear…I fucking hate Warrant…always have.  I hated 99% of all that sissy hairband bullshit.  I saw Warrant open for Crue on the Dr. Feelgood Tour.  Crue wasn’t that great live but it was the only time I ever saw them and it was enjoyable at least.  But Warrant?  Fuck ’em.  At that show all I really remember is Jani Lane talking a bunch of retarded bullshit between songs.  It was annoying as hell.  There were a lot of folks in the crowd that were yelling at him and flipping him off.  Someone even threw a shoe at him *cough*.  They blew.

Crue, again, did alright, but Vince kind of ruined it.  No surprise there.  The one great thing about that show was this little redhead who wanted up on my shoulders.   Of course I put her up there for a few songs and she even got topless.  Nikki Sixx threw 2 bass picks our way, I caught them both, I don’t think the girl even noticed them.  After I let her down my buddy put her up.  Or maybe she was on his shoulders first.  Doesn’t matter.  I scored 2 picks!  I ran into the girl in the hallway after the show and gave her one of the picks.  “One of these belongs to you.”  She gave me a quick kiss and a hug and we parted ways.

Damn she was cute.

So Lane was 47?  No secret he had been spiraling for years but I never quite saw this coming.  Hopefully there’s a decent story with some hookers attached to it.  RIP dude.  Sending good vibes to your family and friends.

Warrant?  Really?  Sheesh.

Crue stub and Nikki Sixx pick. Was always a little miffed that the ticket-taker gave me the short end of the stub.

Written by The Metal Files

August 11, 2011 at 9:47 pm

Posted in 1989, concert review, concert reviews, concerts, death, jani lane, motley crue, obituaries, warrant

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Death/Dark Angel – May 12, 1989

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This was a great show even though Death didn’t play.  Apparently their van broke down.  It was my first time seeing Gene Hoglan live.  Other than seeing OTT, a local band that I loved, seeing Dark Angel was pretty huge.  I wasn’t really a Death fan at the time, that didn’t really happen until Hoglan joined the band.  After that I decided to delve into their older material.  Good stuff.  After Darkness Descends, I lost interest in Dark Angel.  This was on the Leave Scars tour and I didn’t really care for that album at all…except for the drumming.  Gene rules.  This show also featured Brett Eriksen from Viking on guitar to replace Jim Durkin.  It was a great night made even more special by it being at the old Atlantic Beach Club.  I loved that place and saw some really cool shows there.  I also missed some really cool shows there!

Written by The Metal Files

May 31, 2011 at 8:08 pm

Posted in 1989, atlantic beach club, dark angel, death, gene hoglan, OTT, thrash metal, virginia beach

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King of the drums, Gene Hoglan

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The guy is a total badass on the drums. I’ve been a fan since I first bought Dark Angel’s Darkness Descends. That album is still awesome today even though a bit tame by death/thrash standards. I really didn’t care much for the band’s subsequent albums but I did get to see them live @ the Atlantic Beach Club in ’89. Death was part of that tour as wel but their van apparently broke down and they couldn’t make the show. Didn’t matter, Dark Angel ruled that night. Right before they went on, the band was walking through the crowd of people (maybe 40?) and I was standing right next to the stage when BAM! I get knocked down by a train…well…Gene Hoglan.

They started rocking out and he was phenomenal to watch. For whatever reason the singer didn’t care to sing Merciless Death so I got to do vocal duties for much of the song. Quite a thrill for a pimple-faced 19 year old like me.

Being a huge fan of Death I was stoked when I read that he was doing an album with them. he ended up doing 2 and by far those are my favorite Death albums, Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic. RIP Chuck.

Although his drumming was pretty awesome on the Strapping Young Lad (SYL) stuff, I just couldn’t get into the music. I was a distributor for Century Media at the time SYL came out and used to get their promos and stuff and I tried to dig it but it never stuck with me.

In 2003 SYL came to Norfolk with Napalm Death and Dark Tranquility. SYL was the opening act. I got to the venue pretty early to hopefully catch Gene outside. Sure enough he came off the bus and hung out with my friend and me. I had him sign my book (which will be discussed in another blog) and some other Dark Angel stuff. The guy was so cool. We talked for quite a while and he asked me what I was doing after SYL played. i told him my plan was to watch SYL and go home as I didn’t care much for the other bands. Nuclear Assault was playing about 15 minutes away and he asked if I could take him to that show after the SYL set was finished. What was I going to say, “no”? “Of course I’ll take you!”

This is where the story gets a little more fun. At the time I had a 2000 Saturn Wagon and they aren’t the biggest cars in the world. If you know anything about Gene you know that he’s about 6’5″ and 300+ lbs. You should have seen us trying to stuff him in my front seat. It was pretty hilarious. Once we finally got the door closed on the car we were on the road to see Nuclear Assault.

I guess I was being a bit quiet while we were riding because gene said something like, “You ok over there, man? You’re really quiet.” I looked at him and said, “You’d be quiet too if you had one of your musical idols in YOUR car!” We all laughed and talked a lot in the short trip.

We arrived at the shitty venue that Nuclear Assault was playing and Municipal Waste was in their last 2 songs. That was my first time seeing them and they were pretty awesome live. After their set gene walks up to their drummer and tells hiim he was great. The kid looks at Gene and just says, “Thanks, man.” Then a second later the guy realized that it was gene Hoglan and flipped out. I think he even got a tear in his eye. He was obviously a big Hoglan fan.

We drank a lot there. ufff. Gene kept buying shots.

Gene grabbed the guys from Nuclear Assault and introduced them to me. Super nice guys. They got on stage and just ripped it up. Great show! After some more greetings and hanging out with NA after the show, I took Gene back to his tour bus and we were invited on to hang out. Devin Townsend was sitting next to me eating a banana. He offered me a bite and I graciously declined.

It was an awesome time and I wish I could find the foto of Gene and I from that night.

Written by The Metal Files

January 21, 2009 at 1:28 pm

Posted in century media, chuck schuldiner, dark angel, death, gene hoglan, kirshon, norfolk, strapping young lad, the metal files, the norva, themetalfiles.com

The thoughts that surround my troubled mind…

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It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost 2 years that I packed up my shit and moved from my lifelong home of Virginia to Austin. I have zero regrets about it. Ninguna! I do miss some things about it like the smell of the salt air and some of my old stomping grounds and the friends I stomped those grounds with. For as much as I hate cold weather I did like seeing the leaves change color. Here in Central Texas they just go from green to brown. Weak.

Seriously, I just don’t like this time of year. The cooler air is depressing. Not to mention the shorter days suck. The worse part about this is the holidays.

My Dad died on Dec 5, 1997. The weeks leading up to that date always get me down. It reminds me of Dad’s last days. In general for a guy with cancer, he looked good. He didn’t get emaciated like a lot of cancer patients do. He didn’t even lose what little bit of hair he had on his head. But I always feel guilty. I moved in with Mom and Dad for a few months to help out. I didn’t help enough. Mom did everything and I tried to avoid it. I didn’t want to accept the fact that my Dad, my hero, was about to die and I couldn’t stop it. So I hid. I couldn’t face it then and still have trouble facing it to this day, 11 friggin’ years later.

The one thing that made things easier during that time was Dad himself. He never lost his awesome sense of humor and made it a bit easier for me to cope with things. There were a few weekend days in his last months that we would just sit and talk in the garage for a few hours. That time with him will always be special, but I regret not doing more of that. Not just in his final weeks but in his final years.

To me, my Dad was invincible. He was the man of steel. Strong, confident, smart, driven, hardworking, funny, romantic, chivalrous, full of common sense and even a little cocky sometimes. All good qualities in a man and things that I strive to be althoug I think I’m rather unsuccessful at most of those.

Just thinking back to those last few months of his life, I still get that guttural feeling that I am a shitbag. Yes, I know I’m not (in general) but the guilt still overwhelms me sometimes. Today was one of those days.

Just a few weeks before this, my best friend’s Mom died of cancer. That woman fought long and hard. She was an awesome lady. I’ll never forget that when Dad was back in the hospital to get his pain under control, we told him that she died. It was only the third time in my life that I saw that man cry. He said, “Well shit, if she couldn’t beat it, I know I can’t.” When my friend and I talk about those times, we always say that his Mom and my Dad are together somewhere else talking shit and having a good time, just like they did when we were all together.

It was also around that time, I believe a week or 2 before my friend’s Mom died, that my step-grandma died. She was the woman who basically raised my Mom when her alcoholic Dad was too drunk to. She was always referred to as “Little Grandma”. Another woman who was the salt of the earth. The times we’d travel to Pennsylvania when I was a kid, I always looked forward to staying there. She was the sweetest woman in the world.

So yeah, November-December are no longer enjoyable for me and haven’t been in over a decade. It seems to be the times when I lose the ones I love. To be truthful, there are others that I could add to this list that left around the same time but that would just be a bit too depressing to talk about, eh?

People are funny. They say, “What, you don’t like the holidays?” Nowadays my general answer to them is, “No, not at all.”

So now that I have aired that out a bit, it’s time for some music. This seems mildly appropriate as Dad always loved Hank Sr.:

Written by The Metal Files

November 17, 2008 at 8:18 pm

Posted in cancer, death, guilt, hank sr, mom, my dad

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