The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

Apologies yet once again for the lack of blog posts this week, things have been very crazy to say the least with Christmas around the corner. Andy Williams once sang "it's the most wonderful time of the year" which I think is definitely debatable. Between school shootings, the supposed apocalypse, and cranky Christmas shoppers some may be hard pressed to agree with that song.

I would personally like to wish each and everyone of you a safe and Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year. Please take the time to kick back and relax with your families, friends, and loved ones.

I am going to take a short holiday hiatus over the next 2 weeks but never fear, Heavy Ghetto will reappear in the new year picking up right where we left off in the story. I hope Santa gets all of you everything you want!

- Kabal

Grip tape Graphics 101

So the time had finally come for me to try and conquer the task of applying a black and white image onto the grip tape of my skateboard. I decided liquid paper, or white out as some refer to it, and a black permanent sharpie marker would suffice for the job at hand. I was a bit concerned about messing up the grip tape of my brand new board so I figured I'd better start of small.

For my first test and attempt at this I chose a Skate Rags skull that I saw in a Thrasher magazine add, it was a cool looking little skull and wasn't very typical in regards to what a skull generally looked like. I started applying the white out at the nose of the board, the white out brush wasn't getting in the rough texture of the grip tape very well, so I poured a small pile on the grip tape and began spreading it with the brush to achieve the general shape of the skull. Once I had achieved my desired shape I went in with the sharpie, cleaned up the edges, and began doing the details inside of the skull. Surprisingly it didn't take me long at all and the final product looked spot on considering I free handed the whole thing.

It was now time to test the integrity of my work to see how it would hold up with the wear and tear of my feet on it, so I set out on my board and headed to my favourite skate spot for the evening, Ching Library. After countless hours of thrashing I headed home. Once I arrived I inspected my new grip tape graphic and I was amazed to see it was still in perfect shape asides from a bit of dirt on it. I grabbed a wet J cloth from the kitchen and reluctantly began to wipe away at the dirt. Incredibly the dirt came off with ease and the image stood strong, bold, and un compromised.
I knew it was time for a second attempt.

When I returned home from high school the next day I headed straight to my room with my skateboard to create another new image. I wanted to do something fairly large and complex that would demand people's attention and respect. I flipped through the pages of Thrasher inspecting the tiny t-shirt adds but nothing caught my eye. Suddenly I clued into the fact that all my band t-shirts were black and white, so I started rifling through my closet until one shirt caught my eye, an SNFU shirt.

I ran back to my other room (I had 2 bedrooms) excitedly and got to work. I wanted the image to be the size it was on the shirt so it would fit the top portion of the grip tape, minus the area near the nose where the Skate Rags skull was. I ended up having to pour out the whole bottle of liquid paper and spread it strategically in the general shape I needed to work with, then just like the day before I grabbed my sharpie and got to work. Again I started with the outline and worked my way along the edges until it was complete, and once again I did all the detailing inside of the outline to produce another mind blowing finished product! Feeling great about the job I did and being eager to show it off, I hit the streets to shred and see who I might bump into along the way...

The last deck in the cards

So I was on the hunt once again for a new kick ass skateboard deck. I had gone through so many in the past few months that I was now determined to find one I could settle on and be happy with.

While checking out one of the local skate shops called Street Surfers, that I frequently shoplifted from, I came across a really cool deck. It was made by a company called Brand-X, whom I had never heard of, but this deck looked awesome! The size, shape, and concave was very similar to the Santa Cruz Slasher and the Vision Lee Ralph model. On the top/middle portion of the deck there was the Brand-X logo, two crossbones making the X with a gnarly tongue sticking out between them. It was the graphic on the bottom of the deck that truly grabbed my attention however.

The bottom side of the deck was packed top to bottom and side to side with a collage of faces, resembling a crowd of monsters, creeps, and other weirdos. Some of the faces had empty speech bubbles beside them, similar to what you would see in the Sunday comic strips. I thought it was the coolest thing ever being given the option to write whatever you wanted in the bubbles. I purchased the deck with my hard earned money and hurried home to hook it all up.

Inside the speech bubbles I wrote things such as "skate or die", "not", "no poseurs", etc. all the cliche skate sayings and things relative to the world of thrash and hardcore music. Once I got my trucks, wheels, and rails on it was time to hit the streets. This bad boy was a sweet ride to say the least, and my Ollies were now at an all time high, I was getting close to one foot off the ground doing a stationary Ollie.

There was only one thing left to make my new ride complete to my satisfaction, it was time to figure out how to decorate the black grip tape like I had seen at Ching Park on Captain Caveman's board...

The Jean Jacket

Apologies for no blog post this past Friday, I was a bit distraught over the shooting incident that took place in Connecticut, and the only thing on my mind was getting my son for the weekend and holding him tightly in my arms. My thoughts go out to the victims and their families, its terrible having to deal with such an immense tragedy this close to Christmas.
Now, on with the story.

I spent a portion of the summer of 88' acquiring patches to make my former heavy metal jean jacket transform into a thrashing jean jacket. Over the summer I managed to get some pretty cool patches. I found a nice Corrosion of Conformity patch with the image of the original Eye for an eye album cover, it was perfect to put on the shoulder of the jacket. I also picked up a small Misfits skull patch that went on the opposite shoulder. I ended up finding a small Stormtroopers of Death patch that I put on the left side of the chest. Buttons helped the decorating process as well and I had some cool ones, Anthrax, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy & D.R.I.

The coup de gras was a sweet back patch I found at a small rock shop in Malton in some tiny mall dubbed Westwood. It was solid black with Anthrax across the top in white and a huge image of the not man's face smack dab in the middle. Under his face, the word "NOT!" The jean jacket was in pretty kick ass shape now but I figured I'd continue working on it as I found more items over time. I think I only got to wear it for the first week of school until my girlfriend Lydia decided she wanted to wear it. It was common for cheerleaders to wear their boyfriends football jackets, but in the hardcore world our metal queens wore our jean jackets or our leather jackets.

As sad as I was to see my jacket go I was at least filled with a sense of pride and joy knowing that the woman of my life was proudly parading around in my colours. Since the jean jacket was now in her possession it was time to get to work on my leather jacket...

Decks in effect

Over the course of the summer in the year of 1988, I was practically buying a new skateboard every week. I had a few Powell decks, a few Santa Cruz decks (mainly variations of the infamous Slasher model) and a few decks from Vision skateboards. I even ordered a Suicidal Tendencies deck from Dog Town skates through Thrasher magazine. Needless to say i was quite disappointed after waiting all summer to receive what was the flattest, heaviest deck I had ever owned. I rode it for a week or two and then ended up selling it to Craig.

There was one vision deck I really liked and stuck with for awhile, the Lee Ralph pro model. It had a gnarly design and a wicked graphic depicting a skinned corpse all folded up to fit the inside the perimeter of the deck. The concave on this board was deep and it had a fat, high angled tail. My ollies were at an all time high now, and I seemed to be a better skater over all while riding this board. As all great things must come to an end, I ended up snapping the tail off the deck fresh into the new school year.

I went to buy the same board again but none of the 3 skate shops in Brampton had it, so I opted to buy the Santa Cruz Slasher....again! I didn't even have the board two weeks when I was approached by one of the older thrashers in my highschool, a guy named Shayne who everyone called Spicoli because he resembled Sean Penn's character Jeff Spicoli from the movie Fast Times At Ridgemont High. Spicoli was very interested in buying the Slasher from me and he offered me $40 for it. I told him I'd settle for $20, a gram of hash, and his S.O.D. t-shirt. He agreed and the next day we made the deal. I'm not sure who was more stoked over the transaction him or me, but it seemed like a win win situation for both of us.

Now I stood at a crossroads with a new dilemma....I didn't have a skateboard! It was time once again to take a trip to the local skate shops and see what my next piece of wood was going to be... Little did I know it would be the last board I bought for the remainder of my time in highschool!

73'

My latest effort I've been working on for the last two years entitled 73' is finally complete & right on schedule as planned. Every song incorporates the sounds of the seventies as well as a bit of the late sixties which puts a new twist on my style of music to say the least, & it's by far my personal favourite work of mine that I've done to date. Speaking of dates, the release date was purposely selected strictly for the fact that it is 666 doubled. December 12th, 2012....or simply 12-12-12. In celebration of this & the holiday spirit ( and Satan \m/ ) I am only going to charge $1.2 for the next 12 days until Christmas, 20 songs & over 60 minutes of music for your listening pleasures for 6 cents a song! Plus you get front & back cover art, inner sleeve art, as well as the cd & cd tray artwork, only through my band camp page. I uploaded all the final masters and layout designs last night and 73' is now available for digital download. 
I hope you dig it & thank you everyone for your continuous support.

Kabal

Get your copy of 73' now!!!

http://kabal.bandcamp.com/album/73

Love at first...

In the summer before I started grade 10 , I had mentioned how I became an avid buyer of Thrasher skateboard magazine. Not only could you see the newest skate trends and products, learn the newest tricks, and read in depth interviews and articles on your favourite skaters, but you could also discover some pretty cool bands through the rag. A few bands in particular that I discovered in the pages of Thrasher were SNFU, GWAR & a Seattle outfit called The Accused.

I can clearly remember sitting in the lounge at work on lunch break reading the newest issue like it was yesterday. I stumbled upon an article/interview called The Accused A-Z. I had no idea who they were or what they were about but I decided to read it anyway. This wasn't your typical band interview however, instead the writer through 26 words at the band, each one starting with a letter of the alphabet in chronological order. From there the band talked about the first thing that came to their heads for each word that was thrown at them.

It didn't take me reading much of the article to realize these guys were HUGE horror movie fans such as myself. In fact they were so enamoured by horror and darkness that they didn't even call themselves punk or thrash or hardcore, they had dubbed themselves in their own personal genre which they referred to as "Splatter Rock/Splatter Core" they even had their own band mascot like a lot of bands did, her name was Martha.

Martha Splatterhead to be exact, a zombified punk rock prostitute back from the dead to serve her own brand of street justice on rapists and child molesters. Needless to say I got my butt down to the Record Peddler pronto and picked up their latest release "Martha Splatterhead's Maddest Stories Ever Told" As soon as the needle hit the record I was in love. You've heard of love at first sight? Well this was love at first listen! This music was insane! It was fast, heavy, had sick break downs, insane time signatures, undertones of jazz, and was quite technical all around. Their singer "Blaine Fart" had a voice like none I had other heard, he  sounded somewhat like a small animal being tortured to death, and judging by the photos in the album sleeve, these guys brought some seriously intense energy to their live performance.

A lot of my friends who liked thrash and hardcore didn't like The Accused very much because they didn't like Blaine's voice, I for one however loved it and he still stands as one of my all time favourite vocalists. Some of those friends came full circle eventually and liked the band, while others just didn't get it. Regardless they were now at the top of my list and I was ready to spread the word to everyone and anyone who was willing to listen...

Welcome To Grade 10

High school was back in effect once again and I was now in grade 10. Gone were the days of Adidas, I was now strictly rocking converse and imitation converse as far as footwear went. I had traded in my skin tight Levi's jeans for camouflage army pants. I now had a fairly large collection of black and white five dollar band shirts from my favourite headship in Toronto. I also now owned a few cool Judge Dredd shirts from the local comic shop. I still had my trusted leather jacket and jean jacket, but they were slowly being altered with buttons, patches, and paintings to resemble the hardcore look as opposed to the metal head look.

I had quickly turned my back on the world of metal. I no longer thought it was cool to like bands such as AC/DC and Iron Maiden. All the music I grew up on that helped shape me to this point in my life was now ignorantly dismissed by me. I would eventually come back to my roots and embrace the genre once again but that didn't happen until over a decade later. I was now looking down on rockers and metal heads because they didn't understand hardcore and thrash music, or the nuances of the kids like myself who listened to such.

I even had some thrasher friends who loved bands like Metallica and Megadeth but they just couldn't understand what I saw in bands like D.R.I and The Accused. I was constantly butting heads with them trying to convince them of how kick ass this music truly was and still is. Some of them got it eventually, others just never progressed from thrash to crossover and hardcore. Further more many of them still had a very difficult time understanding what I saw in rap and hip hop and just couldn't fathom why I listened to it.

The scene was growing in our school as well. There were alot more skaters, more punkers, more thrashers and more skinheads. It was plain as day however to clearly see those who were true and those who were posing. Poseurs....where do we begin? You know the wannabes who follow a trend or fad to try and fit in even though they know nothing about it or have absolutely no interest in it. Sure my style changed gradually as time passed on, but there were other kids who seemed to be changing style everyday just to fit into a certain crowd and find some form of security, acceptance and belonging...not because they loved a type of music or lifestyle dearly and were truly interested in such, they just didn't know who they were as people yet...

Current updates 12/07/2012

I just wanted to take a few minutes to apologize to my faithful readers for the lack of blog posts recently. I've had quite a few personal issues to deal with the past couple of weeks and I have just not had the time or proper mindset to write consistently. I always try to put my readers first but sometimes I have to compromise that while I deal with the curve balls that life pitches at me. Heavy Ghetto will return this Monday, December 10th with the continuation of my ongoing life story in regards to my involvement with music. Mondays blog will pick up where we left off in September of 1988.

Sincerely, Kabal

An Unfortunate Event

As great as the summer was there was one unfortunate event that took place I neglected to mention. At the start of the summer my mother approached me and mentioned we would be going to visit one of her two sisters that lived out in Cobourg for a few days. No big deal right? Wrong!

My hair had reached quite epic proportions as I had been growing it for almost two years straight now. My mom was not a fan of this and stated I needed a haircut before we went to visit our relatives. She wanted me to look somewhat respectable. I wasn't happy about this but agreed to it none the less. As per usual we went to my mom's best friend Lillian's place. I thought I was just in for a trim but I was sadly mistaken. The first thing Lillian did was chop the entire back of my mullet clean off! She proceeded to bean the rest of my head which resulted in me looking like I was back in grade school again. I was not happy about this at all to say the least. In fact I believe I held a grudge with my own mother for months afterwards.

Now with my hair short and all one length I decided upon a new mission. I was so into thrash and hardcore now that I didn't want to re grow my mullet, instead I decided to try and grow my hair all one length similar to my thrash heroes like Scott Ian and Tom Araya. Realistically I only had two months to grow my hair before it was time to return to school, which definitely wasn't enough time for my hair to reach the length I wanted it to.

By the time grade 10 started my hair was pretty shaggy but not very long. Sanjai loved it because he said I looked like Buddy Bradley, one of our favourite comic book characters from Fantagraphic titles The Bradley's & HATE comics. I was fine with this comparison since these were my favourite comics at the time. Although my hair wasn't super long my bangs practically covered half of my face. This seemed to annoy a lot of my teachers because they could never tell if I was paying attention in class or if I was even awake.

The big question on my mind now was just how long would it take me to grow my hair to the length I desired? And further more would there be any more unfortunate events that would get in the way of my mission?

Summer Closer

Summer passed by in a flash now that I was a working man, and it was time to finish it off in style. What better way than to goto a kick ass party! My friend Greg who lived on my street who was a few years older than me was throwing a big back to school party and there was no way I was going to miss it. I recall it was on a Saturday night because I didn't work that day. Jerry and I kicked the festivities off early, pre drinking at his place, which was pretty much across the street from Greg's place. Greg's parents were away somewhere that I can't remember and he had the house to himself. Coincidentally Jerry's folks were also away so we commenced with the drinking.

Before we left we decided to spy on one of our buddies through his basement window, while he received fellatio from a girl we hung out with who had a reputation for servicing her male friends. He ended up catching us and we had a big laugh then headed up to Greg's place.

When we got there it was still fairly early but the party was already rocking. As time passed by more and more people showed up. Before you knew it there was barely any standing room in the place. I don't remember how many beers I put down that night but I'm guessing Jerry and I split a 24 case like we usually did. At some point I ventured down to the basement and an extremely intoxicated girl started hitting on me. The next thing I knew we were making out intensely. This girl was a huge Beastie Boys fan and she was enamoured by my B-Boys shirt. She asked if she could wear it and I agreed under the stipulation that I got it back by the nights end. I can't remember if I had another shirt on underneath or if she gave me hers, but I definitely wasn't topless for the remainder of the night.

The girl disappeared after awhile so I walked around socializing with people. I started chatting up a fellow Greek guy who gave me my first drink if ouzo from a wine skin he was carrying. I found it amazing that it tasted like black liquorice. I made my way into the kitchen and there were a group of drunken, irate dudes carrying on. Ends up they were all bent out of shape because they had been making out with the same girl, now they were in an argument over who was going to be with her for the night. I joined in their convo and ends up they were talking about the same girl I had made out with previously. Now they were furious and out for revenge.

Awhile later I was feeling dizzy so I went out on the front porch for some fresh air and a cigarette. The next thing I knew all the irate drunk guys were carrying the make out queen and they tossed her out the front door. She slammed onto the concrete porch with a sickening thud. I tried to help her up but she just laid there lifeless in a drunken stupor. The next thing I knew she started vomiting all over herself and all over my Beastie Boys shirt! So much for that. I left her in her mess out front and headed back in. The rest of the night was a blur from that point forward, and I ended up passing out on Greg's living room floor in the middle of the night.

The next morning we continued drinking beer while Greg, who was an extremely talented guitar player, strummed along to the newest Iron Maiden album "7th son of a 7th son" It amazed me how Greg could pick up on a song he had never even heard before and play right along. Greg was a phenom no doubt. I ended up dragging my ass home sometime in the afternoon and flaked out for the rest of the day. I could only imagine what other wild parties awaited me in the new school year to come...

Cashing cheques & Captain Caveman

Although my new job at Via Post was somewhat boring to say the least, there was one very exciting aspect about it...getting paid every Friday. I was taking home about $250.00 a week after taxes, which was quite a lot of money for a 15 year old kid in 1988. The coffee truck driver used to give us credit all week long and then on Fridays he would cash our cheques for us and take his cut, this was pretty awesome to me seeing as I didn't even have to goto the bank. Every week I usually owed him about $40-$60 for all the food and cigarettes I consumed over the week. The rest of the money was mine to do what I pleased with it.

Being young and naive I typically spent the remainder of my cheque by the end of each weekend, and I really didn't have a lot to show for it. Most of my money was spent on alcohol, marijuana and fast food. The only material items I was continuously buying were band shirts, most of which I ordered out of heavy metal magazines, clothes, shoes, and skateboard decks. I also became an avid reader of Thrasher Magazine, and was ordering stuff from them quite often as well. All the shoes I bought at the time were $7.00 sonics, converse rip offs that you could find at BiWay (miss that place dearly) I'd adorn mine with killer artwork, always using a circular symbol on the heels such as a D.R.I. logo for example. After awhile people started to really take notice, to the point where they were paying me to design custom shoes for them.

These are a few of my favorite things

Skateboard decks were probably the one thing I spent the majority of my money on now however, as I was practically buying a new deck every week! I wasn't even getting to skateboard as much either as I was always working or was up at the trailer. The odd day we would skate however instead of playing Nintendo, usually at the French school down at the bottom of our street, or if I was up early enough I'd venture over to Ching Park for a late morning shred session. I ended up meeting quite a lot of different skaters at the Ching bowl and people were always trading or selling boards there, so I'd bring my old decks with me and open up for business.

I remember showing up there one day and there were some older thrashers ripping up the bowl, there was one guy in particular who definitely stood out from the bunch. This guy was barely taller than 5 feet and had red hair that was all one length, that stopped somewhere between his waist and his knees. On his board there was a small SLAYER logo in white on top of the grip tape and I was instantly curious as to how that was possible. The dude resembled Cousin It from The Addams Family, or one of my favourite old cartoon characters Captain Caveman, he had by far the longest hair I'd ever seen! I later learned he was actually the older brother of one guitarist from the Epileptic Brain Surgeons (Paul Donohoe) and apparently he had his own band as well called "Distortion" if I recall correctly. His name was Steve Donohoe.

Little did I know on that day way back in 1988 was the fact that this guy was going to be an important part of my life and my musical ventures in the years to come...And how did he do that grip tape job???

Trailer Park Boys

Typically on Friday afternoons we would skip out on our regular Nintendo playing so we could get Dennis' car packed up with all our gear for our weekend excursion to their Uncle's trailer. Mainly clothes, sleeping bags, food and beer, that way when Dennis came to pick us up after work we were ready to roll.

The trailer was up in a small northern town named Midland, about an hour or two north of Toronto. Smith's Trailer Park was the name of our destination. Jerry's uncle actually had two trailers side by side so us boys actually got our own trailer to stay in for the weekend. All we really did up there was drink, smoke, swim, and try to meet girls, which was almost effortless seeing as we were the "fresh meat" of the park. Plus being city boys with some swagger and attitude and unique looks only helped us out in our quest for the ladies. We would usually take a drive on Saturday or Sunday afternoon out to Penatanguishine, to visit Jerry and Dennis' cousin "Kevin" who was a patient in the mental health facility. That was always interesting to say the least.

Jerry and I were only 15 but it wasn't uncommon for each of us to put back 12-24 beers a day every weekend we were there. The park also had a small arcade with vending machines so we hung out there quite a bit during the days. Plus it was always a good place to meet girls. Eventually I became romantically involved with Jerry's cousin, who's father owned the very trailer I was using to seduce her in every weekend. Looking back on this it seems like I was up to some risky business, but back then I was blind to that fact.

One day we were bored so we decided to venture into town and see if we could find anything interesting. We had heard murmurings of a shopping mall in town so we opted to see if we could locate it, which we did with ease since the town wasn't much of a town at all, it was more so just a small strip if road with a few businesses occupying it. This was the smallest mall I had ever been inside of in my life. It literally took 5 minutes to walk from one end of it to the other. There were really no stores of interest there whatsoever, until we came across a small booth in the far end of the mall.

This booth actually had some cool pins and patches of bands, including some thrash and hardcore bands much to my surprise. They also had the old typical iron on transfers for t-shirts like most t-shirt booths in malls did. As I flipped through the pages of cheesy designs and bad quotes my eyes were caught by a very familiar image....Anthrax's "Spreading The Disease" album cover. Needless to say within minutes I was the proud owner of a new kick ass shirt!

We had a lot of good times up there that summer and it was really our only escape from the working life each weekend for 3 months straight. By the end of the summer I had broken up with Jerry's cousin so things became a bit awkward when we were up there, but regardless it was an important place for me and another factor in defining the man I was growing up to be...

Penatang Mental Health Hospital

Via Post

Summer was in full motion and I was very curious to see what it held in store for my friends and I. In the beginning it was a lot of skateboarding at Ching park during the day and a lot of hanging out at 7-11 during the night trying to find parties to crash. That all came to a halt quickly when I landed my first full time job.

To be quite honest I don't even remember how I got this particular job. I have no recollection of ever applying for it or being interviewed for the job, but I had a job none the less. Jerry also got a job at the same place the same time I did so we would be working together on a daily basis now. Our shift was from 3pm until 11:30....or perhaps midnight I can't remember. We were getting paid $6.25 an hour which was roughly $2.25 more than most kids our age were making at their minimum wage jobs.

The place was called Via Post and we worked on an assembly line bundling flyers, the kind of flyers you would typically find inside your towns local news paper. The job was fairly boring and repetitive but having Jerry at my side kept things interesting since I had a friend to talk to. The place was fairly fun to work at despite the boringness of the job and I even met my first official drug dealer, he was a receiver there and was my first real contact to score weed and hash from.

Our daily ritual was the same, I'd get up about 11am, shower and dress, then head over to Jerry's to play Super Mario brothers or Punch out on his brand new Nintendo entertainment system. We would play straight through until 2:30 pm at which time his mother would drive us to work. On last break we would always blaze some goodies with the receiver which was the highlight of the day to me. When we were finished work Jerry's brother Dennis would pick us up and drive me home. The next day we would repeat the routine. This was all I knew all summer long.

On Fridays however when Dennis picked us up the routine changed dramatically, he wouldn't drop me off at home. Instead the three of us would head up to their uncle's trailer for a weekend of fun and non-relaxation...

Exams

Within the blink of an eye spring had transitioned into summer and my first year of high school was coming to an end. I had pulled my socks up so to speak as far as my grades went and I was ready to take my exams in full confidence. I managed to keep my nose pretty clean that first year with a mere single visit to the principals office after exchanging some harsh words with my French teacher one day. I sat in the office waiting to be disciplined but no one even acknowledged my presence there. When the bell rang for lunch I simply got up and left.

As far as our band went we seemed to be doing more talking about it than any actual progress. We still jammed on Saturdays but we spent the majority of our time learning cover songs instead of making our own original material. The Epileptics had teamed up with another local Brampton band named Curious Mold and they recorded a demo, which I was lucky enough to receive a copy of from my old pal John McCuish. Both the bands had business cards made so we decided to follow suit. Ryan's dad worked for Kodak Canada and he linked us up with some bright yellow business cards he made at work. We now felt another step closer to becoming a real band.

I think the party life consumed us once we got a taste of it, which in turn put G.P.K. on the back burner. Our friday nights were like a ritual now. I'd take an empty beer bottle from my dads beer case and fill it half way with various shots of liquor from the old mans cabinet. I'd fill the other half of the bottle with pop for mixer and I was set for the night. Typically we would hang around the 7-11 parking lot in hopes of catching wind of a party. Most of the time we would eavesdrop on other people's conversations and then show up party crasher style. It seemed the more parties we went to the easier it was to get in as people were starting to know us. Plus grade nine kids were having parties now as well which made it much easier for us to get in without the anxiety and fear of being beaten and kicked out in humiliation.

I ended up passing all of my exams with ease, even my English exam that I decided to get drunk prior to for some unknown reason. I downed a Mickey of gin walking to school that morning then stomped on the empty bottle which resulted in broken glass. One of the shards managed to find its way through the sole of my shoe and into the bottom of my foot. Being intoxicated definitely silenced the pain for the time being. As I wrote my exam I noticed a slow but steadily growing pool of blood on the floor under my foot. Regardless of my stupidity I managed to ace the exam with flying colours.

I passed all my courses and completed my first year of high school without any serious incidents that would be detrimental to me. Summer break was now here and I was very excited to see what it held in store for me and my friends...

Sacrifice Sisters

Whenever I was at the mall hanging out and getting up to no good, I would make a point of stopping by Mr.Sub to see the sacrifice sisters and chat them up. They were the best of friends. Their names were Lydia and Laura. Both of them were of European descent and they both were towering, curvy amazons standing at around six feet tall. Both had dark hair and dark eyes and they were both very talkative and friendly.

I believe Lydia was Croatian and Laura was Italian, Lydia being the more attractive of the two. Laura wasn't hard on the eyes by any means, but she seemed a bit more butch and had a very deep voice. Her brother was also a well known tough guy who wasn't to be fucked with so I had no desire to pursue her, but Lydia on the other hand I definitely had a soft spot for.

Lydia always used to say that I reminded her of Tommy Lee from Mötley Crüe. This used to bother me somewhat as I felt we looked nothing alike, plus I was a hardcore thrasher and he was a make up wearing "glam fag" as we used to call them. Over a decade later I saw the Tommy Lee/Pamela Anderson adult video and I didn't mind the comparison so much anymore! HA!

Whenever I hung out with the sisters at Mr.Sub we usually had some good laughs at other people's expenses. We also gossiped about whatever or whoever was the hot topic at the time, but mostly we would talk about music since we had a lot of the same common interests as far as bands went.

I definitely felt some type of spark or vibe with Lydia and I embraced it. When I spoke with her it was like Laura wasn't even there, that's how lost I would get in the moment. I started getting the notion that the feeling was mutual with her, as she seemed happier each time she saw me. Eventually I mustered up the courage to ask her for her phone number. If I remember correctly I used some big party that was going to take place as an excuse to get her digits with the promise that I'd call her to give her the address and details.

Up to this point I had briefly dated three different girls since I stated high school, none of which lasted more than two weeks due to my impatience. If they weren't putting out then I would put them out. Looking back I realize how ridiculous I was being, assuming that now i was a high school guy meant girls would have sex with me within the first two weeks of dating. I really liked Lydia a lot and I vowed not to make such hasty decisions like I had in the past 7 months. I called her to give her the details for the party and we ended up talking on the phone for hours. My hunch was right, as she expressed her feelings for me as I did her.

I decided to ask her out and she said yes! I was ecstatic to say the least, I had a new hot girlfriend and as if that wasn't good enough she was also a metal queen! Life was shaping up nicely...

Haunting the Chapel

After discovering the new Public Enemy album via my friend Jeff, I was eager to ask Wayne if he had heard it. In case you've forgotten Wayne, he was one of the few white b-boys in my high school who was once a metal head. The same guy who gave me the Mercyful Fate record I never got to listen to because the older guys melted it with a welding torch.

I asked Wayne if he had heard the new P.E. album and he had, just like myself it was his new favourite rap album. As we talked about the album I brought up the song "She watches channel zero" and went on about how amazing and heavy it was. Wayne agreed with me on that one and he even knew the name of the guitarist from Slayer who's riff had been sampled, his name was Kerry King. Wayne also knew the name of the song it was sampled from...Angel of Death.

I proclaimed that I needed to get my hands on a Slayer album. To my surprise Wayne mentioned that he owned a Slayer record that he was willing to part with for a mere five dollars. I told him it was a done deal and we made arrangements for the following day.
The next morning I wrangled up a five spot and eagerly headed to school. Wayne and I only had gym class together which meant we wouldn't see each other until 11am. It was a long morning of anticipation.

When the time came we met up and sealed the deal. I was super stoked that I now owned my first Slayer album. I decided not to show it to the older metal guys in fear of them sabotaging my sweet vinyl again, so I tucked it safely in my locker for the remainder of the day. When the bell rang I rushed home to partake in my usual listening ritual.

The record was called "Haunting The Chapel" and it was a four song e.p. The cover art was nothing fancy, just the circular Slayer logo and the album title dripping in blood. When I threw it on my ears were subjected to the heaviest sound I had heard to date. I was quite shocked by the blatant anti religious banter within the lyrics. These guys were evil and felt no need to hide it or sugar coat it. I wondered if God himself was going to cast me out and strike me down for listening to this record, but by the end of it I was still in tact.

All in all I really enjoyed the album but I was a bit disappointed that the riff Public Enemy sampled was not on this album. I now had yet another new mission to accomplish....find the record that contained "Angel of Death"

Elanor Rigby

Although this post isn't really music related I feel like it was another defining and shaping moment in the journey of my life, so I've decided to share it with my readers.

Jerry's older brother Dennis had started dating a very attractive girl who was a die hard bible bumper. Generally I would have hated on such a person but this girl could have easily been a super model. One day Dennis told us she had a sister who lived in London England that was coming to visit, her name was Elanor and she was 19 years old.

Jerry's folks had gone away on vacation so the brothers had the house to themselves. Jerry and I harassed Dennis to invite the girls over and we also told him to see if they could bring another friend with them to even the odds. She agreed to bring her cousin and her sister with her. When the girls showed up we were all in heaven. Jerry immediately called dibs on the cousin, leaving me to try and land Elanor.

I had just turned 15 a few weeks prior and had no clue how I could try and hit on a girl who was four years older than me without surely facing rejection. I told Jerry and Dennis I had an idea I needed them to play along with. I told them I was going to claim to have just turned 17 instead of 15 with the hopes of standing a chance with Elanor, if I was even attracted to her.

When they showed up I was instantly enamoured with her. She was short and curvy with sparkling blue eyes and soft blonde hair. Elanor had a gentle voice with a thick English accent that lit my fire. Her skin was porcelain white and unblemished, and she definitely had the largest breasts I had ever been in that close of proximity too. I gave the boys a nod meaning the plan was a go and they had to stick to the story. Before long all three couples were in separate rooms and things began to get hot and heavy. It was a great night considering both Jerry and Dennis hit home runs while I contently hung out on second base.

The next day at school after gym class I started telling a few guys about her in the locker room, the next thing I knew I had peaked the interests of the whole class. They were all wide eyed in disbelief and paying me their full undivided attention. I was 15 dating a 19 year old, so needless to say I was like a legend amongst my peers. Elanor was only in town for two weeks and we made the best of it, spending every possible minute of every day together when the chance presented itself. And like clockwork the guys in my gym class would huddle around me in the change room to hear the erotic tales from the previous night.

A few of them started questioning the validity of my story claiming Elanor was someone I had fabricated, so naturally I brought her to the one place where I knew she would be seen, the mall! As we walked around holding hands I received nods and thumbs ups from fellow classmates who spotted us, Elanor blind to the public display she had been put on. When the two weeks came to an end I was sad to see her go, we said our goodbyes and never saw one another again. Although it was somewhat heartbreaking I had a sense of glory and victory. Even though I was still a virgin I had been with a real woman, and not a school girl...I felt like a man now!

Fast Crude

I mentioned this briefly in a previous post, but during grade nine it seemed half of my classmates were working at McDonalds for $4.00/hr, my guitar player Jerry included even though he went to a different high school. My parents were on my case about getting a job so I decided to go apply at McDonalds. As I was filling out my application someone I knew who worked there mentioned I would have to cut my hair if I got hired. Needless to say I immediately crumpled the application up and threw it in the garbage.

I did however hang out there quite a bit, mainly to wait for Jerry to get off work. On my way there I would always stop in the "Pay less" and pick up a big fat cigar for one dollar. At the time you could still smoke in McDonalds and I loved nothing more than sparking up a cheap stogie in there and stinking the place up. To pass the time waiting for Jerry we would also play frisbee with the cheap aluminum ashtrays they provided. We would also kill time by mixing up concoctions of condiments which we would leave on the table for the next person eating in hopes of disgusting them.

I had also met all the other guys in the band Epileptic Brain Surgeons, and their lead singer Steve Waller also worked at McDonalds. Steve had a fairly bad case of acne way back in those days, and rumour had it he would pop his zits into the secret sauce. Once I caught wind of that I refused to eat there anymore until he was eventually terminated.

Not long after his dismissal Steve got a job in the mall working at Mr.Sub. Since I was a dedicated mall rat, I would always go by and visit him and shoot the shit. There were also two hot metal girls who worked their which made my visits even sweeter. We referred to them as the "Sacrifice Sisters" because they could of passed for siblings and their favourite band was Sacrifice, a thrash band out of our great city of Toronto. One day I went by to see Steve but he wasn't working so I decided to chat up the "sisters" who informed me Steve had been fired for doing the "chain trick" in front of customers while he was working.



The chain trick was something we learned from pro skater Fred Smith who rode for Alva. To pull it off you had to snort a chain, or string, up your nose. From there you let the one end fall down your throat and then you spit it out of your mouth. This resulted in one end of the chain hanging out of your nostril and the other end hanging out of your mouth. From there you grabbed each end and pulled back and forth, much like flossing your teeth. I started doing this at parties whenever things were slow or boring in an attempt to liven things up.

I was totally bummed that I couldn't visit Steve anymore but he was a fellow mall rat too so I didn't stay bummed out for long, but now that I had my chat with the Sacrifice Sisters, I still had two good reasons to visit Mr.Sub....or 4 good reasons if we are counting boobs...

***Correction Notice***

I tagged Steve on Facebook for this post and he informed me I had made a mistake. It was Burger King he worked at. Home of the "popper" ;D

P.E.T.V.

Before long there were three different music videos for songs off of the new Public Enemy album, and I was fortunate enough to catch them on Rap City. To be quite honest with you, I'm not sure how I over looked the fact that Rap City existed until mentioning it at this point in the story, so lets have a quick history lesson.

According to Wikipedia the show began several years after MuchMusic first went on the air in 1984, so perhaps I didn't over look it since it more than likely did start airing somewhere between 1987 and 1988. The show featured selections of the newest and vintage music videos from Canadian and American hip hop artists. At the time there was nothing like it in existence. The show was created by producer/director Michele Geister after petitioning that a show of this nature was overdue for the Canadian market as well as the stations credibility. The show was the first of its kind in Canada and it also predates any of MTV's black music programs.

The first P.E. video I happened to catch was for the song "Don't Believe The Hype" and visually there wasn't much to it. The band was performing a live concert and the song had been over dubbed. The film quality wasn't the greatest but it was cool to see it none the less.

The next video to drop was for the track "Night of the living base heads" and let me tell you it definitely made up for the lack of effort and creativity that the first video suffered from. This one was a masterpiece, presenting itself as a tv channel with news anchors and commercials. Base heads are exposed, beeper ties are advertised, and the groups front man Chuck D is captured by a racist anti rap group known as the Brown Bags.

The third video was for the song "Black steel in the hour of chaos" which had actually become one of my favourite tracks on the album. The story Chuck told in his lyrics was very powerful and illustrated the story without a video very clearly in my mind. Chuck receives a letter from the government issuing a draft order for the army which he declines and consequently lands him in jail. From there Chuck is left to fend for his life and try to plan an escape. After seeing the video for my first time i quickly noted that it was just as powerful as the song.

It was a great album and I was very thankful the group released three videos in such a short span of time. I ended up getting a P.E.shirt for $5.00 from my favourite head shop and I wore it proudly...despite the mixed reactions from certain cliques at my school, including thrashers, skin heads and "the brothers"

It Takes A Nation Of Millions...

When I got home from school I was once again a man on a mission. I went straight to my bedroom, dug up a blank cassette tape, and popped it into my dual cassette player. I put the Public Enemy tape in the second cassette slot and hit play/record to commence the dubbing. Instead of listening to the tape right then and there, I decided to do some other stuff around the house. My tape deck would automatically switch sides when one side completed, so I kept myself busy for 90 minutes until I knew both sides of the tape were completed. It was now time to give this thing a serious listen from start to finish...and then some.

The album title was "It takes a nation of millions to hold us back" and I found it very fitting since this was such a powerful recording. On their first album Public Enemy resembled any other rap group, having a drum machine, minimal samples, scratching, and rapping...mostly tales of urban street life straight from Long Island New York. Now on this new beast of a release they had upped their game in a major way. The music was much more interesting, boasting tons of samples and faster tempo beats in comparison to their first album. The DJ work was easily some of the best I had heard to date, and the lyrical content had become so political that I actually thought the government would try to extinguish them before they caused an uproar of protests and riots and hostile takeovers from the black community. THAT is how powerful, controversial, and profound I felt it and found it to be.

Public Enemy also seemed to have a new found attitude and aura about them. To me the first album sounded somewhat lazy and generic as far as rap music went, but now they were seething with anger, aggression, rage, hatred, and energy, all within the confines of positivity, but in the same vein as hardcore music it made me want to uprise and destroy shit! This record was magical and that day it became my new favourite rap album which to this day still stands in my all time top 5 greatest rap albums.

At the time I didn't know it, but because the tape I dubbed was a dub, I didn't know which side was which and that led to me labelling side one as side two and side two as side one. I was unknowingly listening to the album in the wrong sequential track order which normally would have been a big issue with me since I've always felt records are created to be played from start to finish just like a book or a movie would. I could never understand why people went out and spent hard earned money to buy a shitty record from some shitty band just so they could listen to the one hit song it contained repeatedly.

I read a few weeks ago on Wikipedia while doing some research on this album that it was originally designed to be played the way I was listening to it but for some reason I cannot currently recall the group decided to switch the sides up at the last minute. I always regarded this album as a masterpiece, even years before I officially bought it to discover I had the sides mixed up, and in my mind that just proves how classic it is. You can listen to either side first and it still translates as a great musical journey which stands the test of time in any rap fanatics books.

You can only imagine how stoked I was when I discovered there was a video for one of the songs from the album shortly after...

Channel Zero

With spring fever in the air all kinds of new things were coming to life and unfolding right before my eyes. As I roamed the school hallways between classes, I bumped into my first "producer" Jazzy Jeff, who seemed extremely anxious and excited. I questioned him on his giddiness and he explained the reason why he was so pumped up, he had just bought the new Public Enemy record and had dubbed it to a tape. 

I owned the first Public Enemy album and I liked it, but to be quite honest there wasn't anything that special about it. All in all it was a good album but it definitely wasn't one of my top favourites nor were P.E. one of my top favourite bands. None the less Jeff was ecstatic and insisted I had to hear a specific song, and before I could even answer him he was forcing his headphones onto my ears.

The track started off with Flava Flav stating "you're blind baby, you're blind from the facts of who you are because you're watching that garbage" then came the sound of television static, the type you would here on a channel with no reception. From there a slamming, hard beat kicked in, topped off with one of the heaviest guitar riffs I had ever heard. After a few seconds I quickly recognized the riff, it was the same riff from the intro to muchmusic's power hour....it was Slayer!

When Chuck D came in with his rhyme you could feel the aggression and hardness in his voice and words. I stood there in the hall mesmerized, and banging my head along to the beat. This was by far the heaviest rap song I had ever heard in my life, it was called "She watches channel zero" I've mentioned before that most my friends didn't see the parallels I saw between rap music and hardcore music. They surely couldn't deny that fact now if they heard this song. 

I begged Jeff to let me borrow the tape so I could dub it, but he wasn't so keen on the idea. I proclaimed that he owned the vinyl record and I assured him I would bring the tape back to him the following morning at school. Jeff agreed under one circumstance, he would let me borrow the tape but not until the school day was over, as he wanted to listen to it for the remainder of our time there on that particular day. I was cool with the conditions and agreed to his terms.

When three o'clock hit, I met Jazzy out by the usual smoking area, where he handed me the tape with serious conviction, similar to a government official handing important documents over to one of his secret agents. I rushed home in anticipation to see what other incredible sounds and songs awaited my ears...

The Chaos After The Storm

\Most people are familiar with the saying "the calm before the storm" but today I have decided to put a twist on those age old words, which is quite fitting in this story considering after the storms of winter had passed, my life became even more crazy and chaotic. By crazy and chaotic I mean that in a positive way I assure you, life was just taking more interesting turns for me. 

Now with spring in the air I was back on my skateboard and hitting the streets with a vengeance. Craig and Jerry were also skating now so it was nice to have my band mates thrashing the streets with me. For march break all we did was surf the streets in unison, Craig skillfully holding his oversized JVC boom box on his shoulder blasting out the hardcore soundtrack to our every move. 

The party scene was starting to come alive again and I was definitely ready to try and sneak into some more parties, or perhaps actually get invited to some....or even one. Now that I was somewhat "in" with the older metal guys I had first hand inside information to all the goings on as far as "bashes" went. 

With the new leaves and flowers in bloom things were being reborn all around me, including myself. One of the older guys named Noel started referring to me as "Theo" since my last name was difficult for most people to pronounce. Over the years I had been called things like Snuffleupagus(from Sesame street) and Popadopolous(Alex Karras' character on Webster) but they were just hokey jokes to me. 

Noel, the man responsible for dubbing me "theo"

All the older metal guys had nicknames, and now that one of them had dubbed me with one I felt like I was one step closer to becoming apart of their circle. Before long everyone was calling me Theo and I had no idea the nickname would stand the test of time right up until this current day. 

That spring also brought the birth of a new local band and none other than my old chum John McCuish was their drummer. The band was called "Epileptic Brain Surgeons" and they would go on to be my favourite band, idols and role models. 

With spring fever in the air there was all kinds of new things coming to life before my eyes, including a soon to be released record that would change my life forever.

epileptic brain surgeons

G.P.K.

Once everything was wrapped up as far as dealing with the parks & rec crew went, we humbly packed up our "snowboards" and headed home in the bitter winter cold. Everyone seemed pretty down about the fact that we couldn't build jumps on the ski hill anymore. We could however still ride our decks down the hill but with no sweet jumps to hit along the way it just wasn't the same. I was going to share the news with the guys about the name I had discovered in the office, but all of our band mates weren't present so I decided to hold off.

 The next day after school was a Friday and the time had finally come to move all our gear to Ryan's house. I don't remember exactly how we got the stuff there since none of us were old enough to drive yet, so I'm assuming our parents helped us out. In Ryan's basement there was a small room off to the side that contained a bed and some bookshelves, this would be our new rehearsal space. We combined the two drum sets into one and we now had the power of double bass drums, a staple in the world of thrash and hardcore. I had previously taught myself to emulate double bass on one kick drum, now trying it out with two seemed very awkward to me, but Ryan got the hang of it in no time. We placed the amps where we wanted them and we were good to go.

Saturdays were now our official jam day, so the following morning we collected at Ryan's place just before noon. Having the bed in the room was a great stress reliever, we could now have wrestling matches if the tension between us got to high, or if we just wanted to have some fun. Before our first official jam at Ryan's kicked off I brought up the band name I had in mind, G.P.K. or Garbage Pail Kids. Everyone instantly agreed upon it. The name still was a bit juvenile to say the least but it was a perfect reflection of us. We were all kids still, well teenagers, and we were all fairly unkept in our appearances. None the less it was settled and we would now be known as G.P.K.

Craig & Ryan wrasstlin'

Inspired by our new name and an artist named Sean Taggart, I was eager to draw up a cartoon picture of our band. Taggert had done some amazing artwork for The Crumbsuckers "Life of Dreams" album as well as Agnostic Front's "Cause For Alarm" album. Sean's style was cartoonish yet exaggerated with a bit of a new wave comic twist to it. As the boys made some sweet noise with their instruments, I sat on the bed working on my drawing. I never did finish it up at jam, so as soon as I got home I was right back to work on it. Essentially I stole some of the faces he had drawn on the Agnostic album and incorporated them into the drawings I was doing of us. There were so many faces on the Agnostic album that I was able to wisely pick ones that reflected or resembled each of us. When I finally finished I was very happy with the final product.

The following Monday I brought it to school with me and made some photocopies. I wasn't much for colour in my younger days so the entire piece of art was all done in black pen, which translated better anyhow for xerox purposes. Initially I believe I had plans to colour the drawing in but I never did get around to it. Regardless I was more than satisfied with what I had created, and the time had come to spread the word of G.P.K. via photocopies of our new band art.

The library in our school was the only place with a xerox machine so there I was pumping out copies while all the scholar types read books, studied, and worked on assignments. As far as I was concerned guerrilla marketing was the way to go, shove things in people's faces and ram it down their throats. Instead of literally doing the above mentioned, we roamed the school stuffing the copies into the breathing holes of everyone's lockers. We were now getting our name out there despite the fact we hadn't even written one song yet as a five piece band, but the way I saw it we were jumping the gun and making people aware that we existed...