So thanks to a crazy amount of traffic and hotel getting to most of Saturday was missed. When got there in time for most of CAGE THE ELEPHANT on the Fuel stage. Then it was time to head to the Damage Inc. stage for SUICIDAL TENDENCIES! I’ve NEVER seen them before and holy hell, were they good! Everyone in that band is a beast! Especially the rhythm section of drummer Eric Moore (T.R.A.M.) and bassist Tim Williams. Kicking it off with “You Can’t Bring Me Down”, they set off a steam rolling crushing set, playing hit after hit up until it was time for an INFECTIOUS GROOVES mini-set with Robert Trujillo on bass. It made the hassle of getting there well worth it!
Over thirty years in the game and Mike Muir of S.T. and INFECTIOUS GROOVES still rules.
I got to check out KIRKS CRYPT. A little museum of Kirk Hamments’ horror memorabilia collection. From vintage posters to painting and full sized costumes and masks. It made me very jealous! It To top it off, Linda Blair was there as well! I look forward to October for the release of his book, TOO MUCH HORROR BUSINESS about this collection. I caught most of ARCTIC MONKEYS headlining set on the “Fuel” stage, and boy are they very British! Granted they are, but still, they reminded me of BLUR and OASIS mainly. A good chunk of the crowd dug them a lot.
Then it was time for METALLICA on the “Orion” stage….
Whaddya mean no “Orion” at Orion Fest?
Starting with “Hit the Lights” they ran through four more songs as the warm up to playing the entire Ride the Lighting album. After a brief and kick ass intro video, they came out ass backwards! No, really! They started with“The Call of Ktulu” all the way to “Fight Fire with Fire”. I Enjoyed “Fade to Black” and “Escape” the most. They came back with a nice three song encore of “Battery”, “One” and “Seek and Destroy”. To much grief from a lot of people about no “Orion” The song, famously attached to the late CLIFF BURTON, for which this fest is named for. I guessed they’d save it for tomorrow.
Kirk shared his horror collection and then some guitar solos.
Set List:
Hit the Lights
Master of Puppets
The Four Horsemen
Sad But True
Hell and Back
The Call of Ktulu
Creeping Death
Escape
Trapped Under Ice
Fade to Black
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ride the Lightning
Fight Fire With Fire
Nothing Else Matters
Enter Sandman
Encore:
Battery
One
Seek and Destroy
DAY TWO:
THY WILL BE DONE tore it up early on day two.
Now due to a lil health issue, I had a short visit to the ER that morning. As a result I missed GHOST, Oh well, would’ve been weird to see them in the daytime anyway. Some bands just work better at night. I was really bummed to miss LANDMINE MARATHON. I’ve wanted to see them for awhile.
Bummed I missed this band. I heard they were awesome.
So when I finally arrived I caught BEST COAST, like with ARCTIC MONKEY’S it was nice to hear something a little different and mellow. I got to see this cool new band called THE TRUJILLO TRIO, on the “Vans Skate Ramp”. Robert Trujillo & Family put on a dirty, crusty, grindy, punk rock show. I hope something gets released soon!
Robert Trujillo was a triple threat this weekend.
It was good intro to the insanity for THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER! I ended up pitting my ass off throwing crowd surfers left and right. Haven’t really done that a in awhile, holy cardio workout Batman! It felt great!
Ripper Owens and CHARRED WALLS OF TH DAMNED were amazing!
I had to sprint across to the “Frantic” stage to catch the first show of the year for CHARRED WALLS OF THE DAMNED! Ripper Owens’ and Richard Christy’s unstoppable juggernaut! They were awe-inspiring to watch. Then back to “Damage Inc.” for the headlining set from SEPULTURA! They are in the midst of a tour over in Spain, but flew in just for this. The pit felt like a UFC match and some douche was decked out in gloves and a mouth guard. It was a rough pit. Now musically, this band is amazing! DERRICK GREEN has been in this band long enough that I forgot someone else used to sing for them. New drummer Eloy Casagrande, that kids a monster! He even broke a bass pedal. after that I checked out the sick car show there while AVENGED SEVENFOLD closed the “Fuel” stage. They like fireworks and pyro just at much as METALLICA does.
AVENGED SEVENFOLD likes to blow shit up!
After a cool video intro, METALLICA started of the set with “Hit the Lights” and “Master of Puppets”, like last night, then went to “Fuel”, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “Shortest Straw” before starting “The Black Album” (Metallica) in reverse. I don’t know what it was, but “The Black Album” just sounded better then Ride. Mind you I haven’t heard this about in over ten years. They just sounded tighter on this material. The encore this time consisted of “Blackend” and “One” and then a James spoke about the festival and dedicated the last song to Cliff, “Seek and Destroy” wait what!? Not “Orion”!? What the hell!? This is bullshit! That’s some of the comments I heard around me. My best guess as to why no “Orion”: maybe it’s kind of a bummer to play it and they didn’t want to end the festival on a downer.
Set List: Hit the Lights Master of Puppets Fuel
For Whom the Bell Tolls
The Shortest Straw The Struggle Within My Friend of Misery The God That Failed Of Wolf and Man Nothing Else Matters Through the Never Don’t Tread On Me Wherever I May Roam The Unforgiven Holier Than Thou Sad But True Enter Sandman Encore: Blackened One Seek and Destroy
Day two was more enjoyable than Day One, overall.
All in all, it was a great family festival. It was really good seeing kids there. I’ll most likely bring mine next year. There was enough different musical styles to keep everyone happy and it was worth the long trip to Atlantic City. I want to go back again so lets hope for an Orion fest in 2013!
Through a confluence of sinister events the “God of Guitar”, a shredding guitar hero for the ages is giving a concert in Egypt at the unveiling of a newly discovered pyramid. The concert will be watched by the entire world via streaming Internet, radio and television. The shredder in question is playing an ancient song never heard before that he transcribed, but unbeknownst to the masses watching the show hearing the song might bring about the biblical apocalypse.
That is the premise of The Armageddon Chord by writer Jeremy Wagner. In addition to having written many books and short stories Wagner is the guitarist and songwriter for bands like BROKEN HOPE and LUPARA. He has pioneered the genre known as “heavy metal horror fiction” with this work, combining aspects of modern heavy metal added to a new take on the horror novel genre. Wagner has crafted an excellent, original story that no one has really ever tackled before. With his over twenty year career in death metal and his love of the macabre he has written a terrific story that will delight fans of metal and horror.
BROKEN HOPE with Wagner in the middle, broke up in 2002.
Located in Egypt in the Valley of the Kings where the majority of tombs and pyramids in that part of the world are located, a new discovery is made. An archaeological team led by the disfigured, aging former Hitler-youth member and expert Egyptologist Helmut Hartkopff has made the find. Hartkopff’s life’s work has been to find the tomb of anchient cult leader Aknaseth. In the tomb was Aknaseth’s mummy (in the form of a demon) was a magic headpiece of the cultist called a ureaus and a text in hieroglyphics that spelled out an ancient song. Once this song is played Hartkopff thinks it will make him the leader of the armies of hell during the apocalypse when Sethis (or Satan) is freed from his prison, near the tomb. Hartkopff’s boss the multi-billionare Festus Baustone III has his own ideas what to do with this find. Baustone rules his vast media empire (think Rupert Murdoch) with an iron fist, but illness and age are catching up to him. He is fixated on finding the key to immortality and thus this drives him to even new levels of despicable actions. The one problem is once the ancient song is transcribed, who will be able play it? Enter Kirk Vaisto, the “God of Guitar”. Vaisto (molded after a Chris Broderick, Jeff Loomis or Kirk Hammett type figure) made his name as an instrumental shredder before joining the multi-platinum album selling glam band Cardinal Slynn, where he got his nickname. Vaisto is critical to the equation since he is also the fastest shredder in the world. After his shady agent literally makes a deal with the devil, Vaisto helps transcribe the ancient song and upon performing if for the first time ever, it nearly kills him and everyone around him. Vaisto understands all too well the purpose of the song, but is coerced to perform it by the unscrupulous businessman. Forced to finish his work on the song and perform it at the massive show while playing an instrument Hartkopff designed especially for this occasion (think of Karl Sanders’ guitars in NILE) painted with real human blood. Complicating matters for Vaisto is his recent budding romantic tryst with Baustone’s daughter Mona, who forms a potent bond with the the guitar hero. Will Vaisto play the song and bring about the end of the world by striking The Armageddon Chord, unleashing hell on earth? Read it and find out.
To Wagner’s credit, this book is well written with even the ancillary characters fleshed out and giving exacting details. His experience writing horror gives him the breadth and depth to create a book that is very suspenseful, expertly detailed, well paced and exciting. Metal fans will find the many nods and references to the real music business (particularly the seedy side), the world of heavy metal music and guitars pleasing while big horror fans will love the well crafted, unmitigated evil and gore elements. The cultural and historical facts were painstakingly researched, lending an air of authenticity to the book that rivals others in the genre. I’ll be excited to see what Wagner comes up with in his next attempt at this style. You can buy this book and hear some of the music Wagner composed to accompany the book at his website.
Jeremy Wagner the author has swapped deadly riffs for deadly words.
David White is one of the most identifiable and consistent lead singers in all of American Thrash metal. As the front man for the majority HEATHEN’s history, he was part of the birth and rise of Bay Area Thrash and watch as it grew into a phenomenon. On the comeback trail of late with a re-energized lineup, they dropped The Evolution of Chaos (Nuclear Blast) last year and are on their first full North American tour since 1998. Directly after getting off the stage in Boston, David graciously sat down with me to talk about the present tour, their past history and the future.
MAA: You just played your first show ever in Boston. How is the tour going?
DW: It’s been good. This is actually our third tour in the last year. We’ve done two tours of Europe and this is our first American run since 1988. Touring with DESTRUCTION has been great. We toured Europe with them and shared a bus with them a couple of months ago on the tour with OVERKILL. We’ve known them for a long time. They are great friends of ours and we get along with them really well. We had some different things happen at the beginning of the tour. We have a new road manager, trying to whip him into shape. He’s a really young guy, a little bit green and of course he thinks he knows it all. But he doesn’t really know it all yet. He’s getting better. We had a shit bus to start off the tour, all kinds of crazy problems, popping tires, breaking down. Then our driver didn’t have a passport so he couldn’t get into Vancouver, so we had to get another driver. But we got a new bus after a breakdown in Barstow, right after playing San Diego. We waited all day at the repair station in the middle of nowhere and then we got a new bus at 12:30 AM. We had to make a bee-line straight to Denver. The driver only stopped to use the bathroom a few times. We arrived at 10:30 and both bands played on WARBEAST’s gear just so we could do the show. Ever since then it’s picked up and been better.
MAA: What’s the crowd reaction been like since you guys are back after a long layoff?
DW: San Diego, there were some people there and the people that were there were really into it. But it wasn’t a big crowd because it was a Monday night or something. But it started to pick up and we’ve had some really good shows. Ottawa and Montreal were amazing! Chicago and Cleveland were really good. Detroit we didn’t get to play since there was a double booking with THE CAVALERA CONSPIRACY and the promoter didn’t want to pay all of the guarantees. So that sucked. We still had a nice little day off. Then we came down to Baltimore. Good show, but a small crowd which was a bummer since we had two good ones, maybe three in a row so that was a bit of a lull. Then last night we made it to New York and it was a crazy good show at a big venue. Coming into Boston for the first time was a big deal for me because I’m a big baseball fan, football fan and hockey fan. So I tried to trip around the city a little bit, checked out Fenway Park just up the block and took the tour which was cool. Unfortunately, the Sox are out of town. What was really cool was in Baltimore a few of us took a cab to Camden Yards, bought cheap tickets and saw the Orioles play the Seattle Mariners. Nice ballpark. As for Boston, the kids tonight…. it was just a different intensity coming off from the crowd which was nice. It’s a nice, intimate little club (Church). There was good crowd in the front and a nice pit there in the middle with a bunch of people in the back too. I could just see that everyone was into it. I just felt the vibe from them. When we feel that from the crowd then there is just no stopping us and we just plow right through the set. I would have loved to keep playing, but we had some time constraints. The kids are great here! We loved it!
HEATHEN, led by David White is back and better than ever!
MAA: With several classic albums to choose from, how do you come up with the set list for the tour?
DW: For this tour our drummer Darren Minter couldn’t make the tour so we hired a replacement drummer in Jon Dette (SLAYER/TESTAMENT). He only had so much time to learn the songs. A lot of them are long and complicated. So we gave him a list of songs and we really wanted to push the new album because it’s still fresh. And then the older songs we do play feel fresh too, because we have played them for so long. But we only had so much time and Jon didn’t have enough time to learn all of those. We predicated the set on what he could learn in a short amount of time and have tightened some things up along the way as we go.
MAA: Do you almost have to play “Death By Hanging” every night?
DW: (Laughs) We’ll you know we just played the Europe tour with OVERKILL and DESTURCTION and we had only thirty minutes to play every night. We only played new songs. We did “Dying Season”, “Controlled By Chaos”, “Arrows (in Agony)” and “No Stone Unturned” and that’s how it ended. You know the kids were like “whaaaat”, but that’s all we could do constrained by that amount of time. And you know Schmeir was like (imitates Schmeir’s thick German accent) “Why you don’t play “Death By Hanging”? You have to play that, you have to play that!”. So we made sure to pull that out of the hat on this tour for sure.
MAA: The Evolution of Chaos album is really strong all the way through. What was the writing process like for the album and how did you ratchet the HEATHEN machine back up again?
DW: It was kind of a slow process. There were some riffs that we had that Lee actually came up with before we ever split going back to 1992-93. Stuff we’d been hashing around for a while. I remember that time frame from when we decided were gonna put the band back together right before the “Thrash of the Titans” show (2001) and before we did Wacken. After Wacken we decided “let’s fucking do this!”. I remember Lee calling me on the phone and shouting “I got it, I’ve got my Emerald”. See THIN LIZZY is one of mine and Lee’s favorite bands and Lee had come up with the part to “A Hero’s Welcome”. He played it to me on an acoustic over the phone and I heard it and went okay! We had something there! Sort of like an evolutionary process. We did a shoe-string tour of Europe in 2005 with NUCLEAR ASSAULT, but when Lee joined EXODUS things slowed down, a lot. But we kept shopping the demo and forging ahead. I had done some session work with Kragen’s (Lum) band PROTOYPE and Terry had left so Kragen came into audition. He was so well prepared we didn’t even try out the guys scheduled after him. Kragen wrote a new song and then another one and another one. Our bassist Jon Torres wrote some, one of which made the album. While Lee was away and busy I spent a lot more time on my own and actually wrote a few songs on pro tools with Jon. I had to throw down some ideas and then show them to Lee later on. So we could have been a little better prepared at the start of the recording. And there was a lot of arguing and fighting and agreeing and disagreeing, but what you have is a pretty crushing record. I am very proud of it. I’m proud of the guys for what they put down musically, but I feel it is my best vocal set I’ve ever done. Lyrically I think came across as much more personal from me. It talks more about my life experiences and our life experiences as a band, so it’s much more grounded in who we are as people.
MAA: “Bay Area Thrash” is going to be thirty years old soon. What does that mean to you?
DW: It’s funny because I played in a band called BLIND ILLUSION and we weren’t thrash at all. EXODUS had their own scene and they were first to go in a more metal direction. I went to high school with all of those guys. We used to have EXODUS come play with us because we played halls and parties and parks before doing clubs. They were more influenced by The New Wave of British Heavy Metal like IRON MAIDEN AND JUDAS PRIEST, while we were more into RUSH, KING CRIMSON, BLACK SABBATH, DEEP PURPLE and LED ZEPPELIN. They were more on the cutting edge and they really were the ones that started it in the Bay. METALLICA had started doing it in LA too, because Lars was very in tune with the British heavy metal trip. When they first came up they did some shows with EXODUS. And a lot of people were affected by those two bands and started doing a similar style. METALLICA decided to stay when they got Cliff Burton in the band. This is before Kirk Hammett even joined. Different bands started to pop up like DEATH ANGEL and MORDRED. I left BLIND ILLUSION and Lee had started HEATHEN with Sam Kress on vocals. And actually I was going to jam with and audition for RUFFIAN which was more like, not posers but more of a rocking type metal band and not thrash. Good band though. And I ran into Leah Schecter, who was Lee’s girlfriend at the time and she was like what are you doing here? I said I’m here to audition for RUFFIAN. And she was like no, my boyfriend’s band is looking for a singer you should call him. And I’m sitting here now. I joined in 1986. HEATHEN then entered the fray at that point too. Then VIO-LENCE popped up and FORBIDDEN. A lot of new bands formed around that time.
MAA: Is there a time table yet for another album?
DW: We are definitely going to be doing a new record. We have material already that was not on “Evolution..”. Not that they weren’t good enough for “Evolution”. Certain songs that were ready were focused on for that record. But songs that weren’t fully developed will be finished off for another record. Kragen’s got new stuff already. We’re already 30-40% done with material. But since (the tour) has been going on we haven’t got in a room and said let’s do this! We’ve been focused on pushing this record as far as we can and getting the band in the right position before making the next one. We’ve made some lineup changes, management changes, um there could be some other changes in the future too like booking agents, who knows. We want to be in the right position with HEATHEN so we can keep doing it as much as possible. I would say we should have a new album out within the next year.
MAA: That’s awesome- thanks for taking the time to chat!
DW: No problem.
(Special thanks to Dave White, Kragen Lum and Lee Altus of EXODUS, Liz Civarella-Brenner of Earsplit PR, and Aaron from Return to the Pit).
Haven’t you ever wanted to kick a little kid in the face? Aren’t they just annoying, me-first assholes? Look at this little brat – she’s got the honor of being brought to a METALLICA show but it still has to be all about her, that’s my theory as to why she’s dressed up as SNOW WHITE.
Well, KIRK HAMMETT stroke a blow for all of us out there who hate kids and for that, I say that KIRK HAMMETT is a hero and deserves his own national holiday. Look at that precision, that accuracy, I just hope REX RYAN was watching!
Chuck of TheMetalUnion.com conducted an interview with Oakland, California extreme metallers ALL SHALL PERISH on July 30, 2010 at the Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts during the band’s “Summer Slaughter” tour.
ALL SHALL PERISH recently parted ways with original drummer Matt Kuykendall and replaced him with Adam Pierce. The group stated at the time, “It’s always tough to part ways with a longtime member and friend, but it was absolutely necessary in order to maintain forward progress.”
ALL SHALL PERISH’s most recent lead guitarist, Jason Richardson, left the band and joined BORN OF OSIRIS. He has since been temporarily replaced by Francesco Artusato from Treviso, Italy.
ALL SHALL PERISH in January cancelled its participation in “The Black Procession” European tour alongside MACHINE HEAD, HATEBREED and BLEEDING THROUGH.
Awaken The Dreamers, the latest CD from ALL SHALL PERISH, was released on vinyl for the first time on March 16 via Pure Noise. An extremely limited pressing, it is available in two eye-striking patterns; 300 copies are clear with red splatter and 600 are half black/half red, literally split in half between the two colors.
METALLICA’s Kirk Hammett named Awaken The Dreamers as one of his 25 favorite albums of the past decade in an issue of Rolling Stone magazine.
