Posts Tagged ‘va’
Meeting Sepultura 1994
Sepultura was on the Chaos AD tour with Fear Factory, Clutch and Fudge Tunnel in 1993/94. I get a call on 
the day of the show from my friend Steve who owns Skinnies Records in Norfolk, VA and he says he’s guestlisted +1 and offers it to me. Hell yeah! I didn’t really care for the Chaos AD album that much but not having seen Sepultura before, I was definitely interested. The other bands on the bill were not even mildly interesting to me.
I pick Steve up and it’s a cold rainy night in early March 1994. We get to the Boathouse (I miss that place!) and go to the will-call window. The girl hands Steve and envelope and tells one of the employees to see us inside. I don’t recall getting a ticket for this one as it’s not in my ticket stub collection anywhere. Steve put the envelope in his jacket and we go in.
The 3 opening bands were pretty dull. I think Fear Factory was on right before Sepultura and Steve pulls the envelope out and opens it. Two Sepultura after show backstage passes! Score! We were both excited and I remember Steve saying, “Damn, glad I decided to look in the envelope!” Me too!
Sepultura comes on and they were great. They mostly played stuff from Chaos AD and Arise but threw in Mass Hypnosis, Policia, My Inner Self and Beneath The Remains. Score! They were tight and entertaining.
After the show, we just hang out as people were leaving. Several of our friends stopped to say hello and we both kept the passes under wraps until most everyone had left. We then went to the backstage door with our passes displayed and got ushered in. Saw some folks we knew back there and talked it up a bit.
My favorite memory was hearing someone in a thick yet higher-pitched Brazilian accent ask, “Does anybody want a beer?” I turn around and right behind me is Max Cavalera holding 3 or 4 bottles of Beck’s beer. I jokingly said, “Hey man, you sound like a girl!” He laughed, handed me a beer and said, “Drink up!”
We chatted with him and the rest of the guys for a few minutes and I got them to sign the envelope that the passes came in. They were very amiable and joked around with everyone a lot. Steve and I were pretty worn out and left.
I’ve been pretty lucky meeting bands over the years. And this was definitely another great experience. Sepultura was very gracious and seemed to love playing in the States.
So, thanks to Steve and Sepultura for a great night of metal comradeship!
Sepultura backstage pass, Beck's bottle cap and autographs (click to enlarge)
My Life With Lizzy Borden
“Hello suckers!” = Lizzy Borden
The first time I had seen or heard of Lizzy Borden was from a little photo and small article in Circus Magazine. It was a 
cool shot of the band in black and white standing on the roof of a building and Lizzy had a big axe proppoed on his toe. Would love to find that photo somewhere.
I think I first heard them on one of the old Metal Blade Records compilations but it wasn’t really until 1986 that I got into them via a former friend from high school. I remember going to his house and he had the Give ‘Em The Axe EP on vinyl. I was hooked. In subsequent years we all got into Love You To Pieces and the Muderess Metal Roadshow thanks to the VHS they put out, Good times! That former friend from high school and I did Give “em The Axe for our junior year air band contest. I think we won because everyone else was a bit scared.
Sure Lizzy and the band always looked a bit silly and even more so now, but they’ve never really done a bad record. I finally got to see them play at the NORVA in Norfolk, VA back in 2004 opening for Yngwie, not long before their guitarist, Alex Nelson, was killed in a car wreck. He was a killer player. They were all very cool folks. I couldn’t believe they didn’t play Give ‘Em the Axe though! I felt cheated!
So, here’s the review that you’ve so anxiously been waiting for.
Give ‘Em The Axe EP – 1984
This was a cool EP. The title tracks rules. No Time to Lose and Kiss of Death are cool. I never liked their cover of Long Live Rock and Roll (Rainbow). 7/10
Love You To Pieces – 1985
Oh man. This album rules. There’s not a bad track on it but the highlights ae Warfare, American Metal, Rod of Iron and Red Rum. I listened to this tape so much. No telling how many copies I went through over the years. 10/10
Menace To Society – 1986
Another fantastic record by Lizzy Borden but it suffered severely from poor production. It was very tinny and I don’t really know that a bass was used on it. I’m one of the few Lizzy fans who actually thinks this one is as good as the previews album. My faves are Notorious, Ursa Minor and Love Kills. 10/10
Terror Rising EP – 1987
Ugh. This really was a bit of a waste of petroleum based materials. Catch Your Death was a cool tune but the cover version of the Tubes’ Don’t Touch Me There with Betsy from Bitch, the title track and the god awful cover of White Rabbit makes me with I could get my $5.98 back from the Music Man. 2/10
Visual Lies – 1987
Another Lizzy album that I love but it’s a lot different than their previous albums. It’s a little more polished in production terms and a little more palatable for the MTV crowd. They had a video for Me Against the World and the song was featured in the terrible movie Black Roses. I dig the album though. There are some really great tracks like Lord of the Flies, Shock Treatment, the title track and Eyes of a Stranger. Worthwhile listening for sure. By the way, this featured Joe Holmes on guitar who was in Ozzy for a brief time. 9/10
Master of Disguise – 1989
This is where started losing me a bit. While it’s not a bad album, it was missing something. I could never put my finger on it. I think that this was supposed a solo album by Lizzy…allegedly. I haven’t listened to this one in years and years. I won’t anytime soon! 1/10
Deal With the Devil – 2000
This was a good comeback album for the guys. I like this one a lot and still spin it a few times a year. There Will Be Blood Tonight is a good track. Their cover of Alice Cooper’s Generation Landslide was pretty decent too. I really dig Zanzibar and The World Is Mine. 7/10
Appointment With Death – 2007
I haven’t listened to this one since it came out but I don’t remember it striking me like the previous album did. Can’t really even name any songs off of it…so there you go. 0/10
So, as it stands, I always recommend Love You to Pieces, Menace to Society and Visual Lies to everyone.
Rolling Stones Review – Bomb Scare Show – 10/06/05
As you may know if you’ve either known me for a while or read back through some of my ramblings, I am a huge Stones fan. My #2 band of all time actually, only to be beaten out by Iron Maiden. I finally got an oppurtunity to see them in 2005 at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, VA. I originally bought 5 tickets, 3 nosebleeds and 2 good ones. I planned to use the good seats for myself and whoever I decided to bring along with me and resell the other 3 for a profit. Yep. Capitalist pig I am! But…I ended up selling the 2 good seats to my friend Jeanne as she wanted to take her mom to the show. No profit to be made.
Right about a year or so before I got the tickets, I started to frequent the Taphouse in the Ghent section of Norfolk, VA. I had been there before with friends but never really “hung out” much there. I liked the place and started going there mroe often for shows and such. I lived about 25 minutes away so I didn’t do much of my partying there because of the drive. As I was sitting at the bar one afternoon, I was talking to one of the owners, Al, about how I had some spare tix for the Stones show if he knew anyone that wanted them. He said he’d buy them and take his guitarist along. Done deal. We ended up going to the show together with his brother as his guitarist bailed at the last minute.
I didn’t really know these guys that well but what the hell. I knew a lot of people who knew them and they were good to me as a patron in my early days there. These 2 guys play in a band called Rylo. Rylo is a boogie/honkytonk/jazzy/upbeat type band. Hard to classify really but they do what they do very well. Of course in my car I only brought metal stuff to listen to. Maiden, Dokken, Mercyful Fate, KISS, etc. Ended up that these 2 dudes were metalheads. It was the beginning of a wonderful relationship.
We drove to the show, a 3 hour trip, and had a blast. We met Jeanne and her mom in town for some Italian food then parked and walked to the stadium for the show. We parked in some dude’s yard for $20 and walked about a mile. No biggie, the weather was perfect.
We definitely had nosebleed seats. Trey Anastasio of Phish opened up. B O R I N G. I was amazed at how many people left after Trey played. Whatever. The Stones were the Stones. Sloppy. Energetic. Funny. To be honest, I shed a tear when they hit the stage. Lifelong dream for me to see them.
Halfway through the set, Mick stops and does introductions then says they need to take a break per the “authorities”. We figured someone called and complained or something. Turned out to be a bomb threat. They cleared the floor for the first 40-50 rows and brought in bomb sniffing dogs. No bomb. Of course. The big treat for me was that they played Sweet Virginia. They NEVER play that song.
They came out and finished their set. From what I understand we only lost 2 songs…Infamy and The Worst. No big deal.
We decided to drive back to Norfolk that night. It was slow getting out of there but we had a blast. Mountain Dews, beef jerky and Doritos all around for the ride home. It was a blast, almost as fun as the show.
Soonafter that I moved to Ghent and the Taphouse became my place. I ended up working there as a doorman as needed and loved every moment of it. I made some friendships there that will last forever. I miss that place a lot and when I go to visit Virginia, it’s usually the first place I stop in.
Setlist:
- Start Me Up
- It’s Only Rock’n Roll
- Shattered
- Tumbling Dice
- Rough Justice
- Ruby Tuesday
- Sweet Virginia !!!! with additional sing-along after the song had ended
- All Down the Line !!
- Night Time is the Right Time
— band intros, thru Ronnie.
Time: 9:43pm
“We have to take a 10 minute break, according to the authorities”. Band leaves the Stadium, they bring in bomb sniffing dogs, clear out the stage people entirely, and vacate everyone in the first third of the field and the seats at the ends of Mick’s catwalks.
Time: 10:38pm - Miss You (to second stage)
- Oh No, Not You Again
- Get Off My Cloud
- Honky Tonk Women (from second stage)
- Sympathy For The devil
- Midnight Rambler!
- Paint It Black
- Brown Sugar
- Jumping Jack Flash
- You Can’t Always Get What You Want (encore)
- Satisfaction (encore)
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. 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.
Foodeater!
I guess it was late 1987. I went over to my friend Don’s house to see River’s Edge on HBO. He had cable and I believe it was a Sunday night showing of the flick. Unfortunately it was a 9PM 
showing and it was also a school night. I only got to see the first hour of it because of my stupid curfew.
The main reason any of us wanted to see the movie is because we had read that Slayer and Fates Warning were in the soundtrack. I finally got to see it in full about a year or 2 later when I found it for rent on VHS…or maybe I bought it. I don’t quite remember. I just remember watching it several times; both then and now.
This is in my top 5 or 10 movies of all time. not only because of the soundtrack, but because of the movie itself. Crispin Glover and Dennis Hopper have some great one-liners. “I know, Feck. You had to kill her. Women are evil.” “You…know this?” and the greatest line delivered by anyone in the flick was by *gasp* Keanu Reeves (worst actor ever? maybe). The scene (shown below) is between Matt and Jim (Matt’s mom’s boyfriend). Really it’s the whole conversation, but when Matt replies to Jim calling him a “mother fucker” with “foodeater!”, it’s simply awesome.
But yeah, the whole movie rules. I think I have watched it at least 50 times and watch it at least twice a year. Really, Glover’s character makes this movie what it is and Hopper’s performance is right behind it. Daniel Roebuck plays a perfect role as someone who really doesn’t give a damn about anything. The character of Tony has a great line too. He’s getting interviewed by a reporter talking about how it’s hard to be subjective because he knew the perpetrator in question…then he stops and says, “Oh, by the way I play guitar.” hahaha. Awesome!
Glover has another great line when he’s asking for gas money for his baja VW…”What, do you think this car runs on God’s own methane?”
Here’s a list of quotes: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091860/quotes
If you’ve never seen it, please do so, especially if you were a metal kid of the 80s.
10/10
The Metal Files 
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