Mischief

During grade nine I started spending my Friday nights sleeping over at my friend Ryan's place, the head spinning drummer I've mentioned in previous posts. Ryan lived up in what we referred to as the "M" section by MacKay plaza, another Brampton landmark I've mentioned back in the story. Ryan's folks were very nice and laid back much like Jerry's folks were. They allowed smoking in the house and his dad would even rent porno movies for us from the video store at MacKay.


MacKay Plaza as it stands today

Normally on a Friday night we would head over to the plaza, eat some pizza and/or junk food & hang out with the assorted riff raff that frequented the place. We'd usually hook up with a few other trouble makers and see what kind of shit we could stir up. Our most common activity we enjoyed was going into the grocery store, I believe it was a "Food City" and buying cartons of eggs. From there we would wander off into the night looking for people or places or objects to throw eggs at. By far our most favourite thing to do was wait at any random bus stop and egg the driver once he opened the door, then we'd scatter into the darkness. I had started getting drunk early into grade 9 so we were also hitting the bottle a lot on our weekend excursions, usually while we hid out in Massey forest, where we were once lucky enough to bump into some drunken female classmates which resulted in me having fellatio performed on me for my first time. Unfortunately it was cut short by one of the girls irate fathers screaming and searching for his daughter, as she had stolen a bottle of his booze earlier that night.

 

 One night while bumming around a residential area we came across an interesting situation. There was a party taking place and we could clearly see it was full of older kids from our high school. Nobody was guarding the door so we just decided to man up and walk in. I don't think I had ever experienced that much anxiety in my life before. I was certain we were going to be outed, beaten, and ejected off the premises. Ryan knew some of the older guys there who lived in the area so he gravitated towards them. The next thing I knew I was standing there alone scoping the scene, my anxiety now higher than ever.  Finally I spotted a familiar face, it was John McCuish. I quickly approached him to receive a big grin from him and the question "Theodoropolus? How'd you get in here?" I told him we just walked in and he burst out in laughter. John and I shot the shit for a bit. I clearly remember him busting my balls about wearing a beastie boys shirt. If I told John on that day he'd be a huge Beastie Boys fan one day he probably would of laughed in my face...or beaten the shit out of me. Eventually the heat was on us so we dipped out, but I had wet my beak with my first high school party...and I was ready to jump in feet first!

Mentors

Down the street from my high school was a strip mall where all the students used to hang out on lunch. There were a few un notable businesses there that I'll mention anyways such as a bank, a carpet store, a flower shop and a dry cleaners. The rest of the businesses there were all worth mentioning and all held their own as far as a cool place to hang out went. There was Hasty Market which was convenient for the junk food fanatics, smokers and porn aficionados. There was a donut shop which seemed to be more of the rock on/skid hangout, people we referred to as "yeah mans" and "Molten rivet heads" There was a greasy spoon restaurant called "Kelly's" which was usually also full of the above mentioned rockers. There was another food place called "smoke & spice" which specialized in chicken, fries & wedgies. They also had some cool video games like Karate Champ, Sprint & Super Mario. The only other option for food was Pizzaville which had my favourite video game TWA Wrestling.

And then there was my favourite place to hang out, "The Friendly Neighbourhood Comic Shop" yes that was literally the name of the place. They had two kick ass arcade machines in there, Gauntlet & Xenophobe. When we weren't playing video games or browsing the comic bins, we were usually placing prank calls to the sears pickup window in the back of the shop. When the clerk left the counter unmanned to go answer the Sears phone, we would grab boxes of Garbage Pail Kids trading cards off the counter and make a run for it, the clerk oblivious to our actions each time.

There was a group of older thrashers that used to be there every day either hanging out in Smoke & Spice or Pizzaville. These guys ranged from grade ten to twelve and all seemed very cool to me. Most of them had long hair, leather jackets, and cool band shirts that I always made note of  for future record shopping references. They also hung out with some punkers and skaters as well as the occasional skinhead. As far as I was concerned these guys were the coolest dudes in the school and I looked up to them in awe.

I had somewhat of an in with them seeing as my old school mate John McCuish was apart of their group. As my style started changing from metal head to thrasher, I noticed some of them starting to notice me and even complimenting me on some of my shirts and schwag. I took this opportunity to communicate with them and talk music. I'm sure some of them may have considered me a poseur as I was going through this transitional stage, but I was just a kid who loved music and was evolving.

I started deciding where to eat lunch each day depending on where they were eating lunch so I could have more opportunity to talk to them and attempt to befriend them. One of them was even in my math class so I made a point of trying to talk to him each day. Most of them didn't really have the time for me, but some of them humoured me with small talk and chit chat. I had a new goal now in my new school, I was determined to become apart of their circle before the school year ended...



the type of "cool guys" I was trying to befriend



Madballs

I remember before my family moved off of Longbourne crescent and onto Lord Simcoe street, Jerry's family had moved onto Longbourne, house number 69 at that! I spent quite a lot of time there due to the fact Jerry was now a mere minute walk down the street from me. Jerry's folks were from Newfoundland and they were pretty cool and laid back, they even let us smoke cigarettes in their house when we were 13/14 years old. Most of my time spent there was occupied by either playing Karate Kid and Castlevanyia on the Nintendo gaming system, or watching horror movies that we had rented from Jumbo video across the street. It wasn't uncommon for us to rent 3-5 scary movies at a time and watch them all. 

I recently unlocked another new memory while thinking about those days spent in Jerry's basement. Before my family moved, before I got my drum set, and before Anathema became a real band, there was another band name we had started off with, the name was "Madballs" inspired by these gnarly toys I was collecting, there was even a comic book. Anyone who knows me clearly knows of my toy obsession as I have been collecting for years. In my early teen days I was always scouring places like the It store and Hallmark for bizarre and strange collectibles. 

Jerry had a school project that he asked me to help him out with. He had to design a record cover for music class. Jer did not have much artistic ability but he was great with industrial arts like wood, welding, and auto. I loved drawing and the fact that I got to design a record cover was all the incentive I needed. The school had supplied him with some white bristle board that we measured, cut, stapled and taped together to create a record cover that actually was like a legit sleeve, you could even fit a vinyl record inside of it. We agreed on a Madballs design so now we had our own record cover even though we weren't even a real band yet nor did we have more than two or three songs at the time. 

The artwork looked great and Jerry ended up passing the project with very high marks. A year or so later I went onto discover a new hardcore band from the New York area named "Madball" hence why we never stuck with that name and ended up changing it to Anathema. Their singer was a kid our age and he was the younger brother of Roger Miret, lead singer from Agnostic Front. 

When I got home from Jerry's that night, I entered the house and closed the front door, which in turn woke up my Papa (grandfather) who was asleep in a rocker. My nana and papa (moms parents) were over visiting and it wasn't uncommon for him to take a nap in his favourite plush rocking chair. On this particular night however, me closing the door caused him to wake up, which was a good thing as he realized he was having a heart attack in his sleep. We called 911 and off to the hospital he went. A few months later he ended up passing away peacefully in his sleep. I still wonder to this day if I hadn't come home and inadvertently woke him up would he have died right there in our living room? I felt like I had saved his life, even if it only was for a few more months...

Melissa

There was a kid in grade 9 that I did not know but he was in a few of my classes. This guy was always dressed to the nines in Adidas gear, shoes, sweater, jacket, hat, you name it, he had it. His name was Wayne and he was a bigger guy, about the same height as me but he was much stalkier. Wayne had a jolly red face that was always smiling and adorned with acne. 

We were in the same gym class together but we never really talked until the sexual education portion of the semester started and we sat side by side during the in class lessons. I don't really remember how we started talking but it was probably Adidas or beastie boy related subject matter. Wayne was actually a very friendly guy and I was impressed by his musical knowledge. 

One day we got on the subject of heavy metal and I was shocked to learn that he was very well versed in metal 101. Wayne knew of all the metal bands on the map and even I few I didn't know about. Turns out he was a huge metal head who even had long hair, but he had made full turn to b boy before entering grade nine. 

We got on the subject of vinyl one day and Wayne mentioned he had some old records he would consider parting with. The next day he brought me in an album from a band I had never heard of called Mercyful Fate. The album was entitled "Melissa" and on the album cover was an image of an interesting skull. When I looked on the back I immediately recognized the singer who was known as King Diamond. I had seen a King Diamond video recently for a song called "Welcone Home" which kind of freaked me out and intrigued me. The King had a very interesting voice that was almost opera like, and his face painted black and white with upside down crosses and other satanic imagery.

When I went to lunch that day I proudly showed the record to some older metal guys in the smoking area only to be barraged with laughter and insults. Apparently they didn't think King Diamond was cool. All the guys passed the record around and had a laugh. At one point I realized the record was gone, they were obviously trying to pull a gag on me but I played it off like it was no big deal. Magically the record reappeared followed by snickers from the guys.

When I got home after school that day I went to put the record on only to find that it was terribly warped and unplayable. It ended up someone had taken the record, ran off to the welding class and melted it with a blow torch during that period of time that the record had magically vanished. When I got to school the next day I had a laugh with the guys about it, since I was younger and trying to impress them I figured laughing along with their prank would earn me a bit of respect, and it did. They liked the fact that I could take a joke and didn't cry over spilt milk. But I knew in my mind I'd never bring a record around these guys again...

Halloween 87'

Halloween was rapidly approaching and with it came the first school dance of grade 9, the Halloween dance of course. I was quite excited as Halloween was and always will be my favourite holiday season. There was only one slight problem, I had no idea what my costume would be this year. It wasn't until mere hours before the dance that I came up with a costume idea, I decided upon dressing up as Scott Ian, rhythm guitar player for the almighty Anthrax, my new favourite band. 

Looking back now on this I can honestly say my costume wasn't the most original idea, as I was pretty much dressing up the way I would normally, just with a bit of extra flare. On my feet were my brand new Patrick Ewing Adidas shoes, adorned with two different tube socks, one with blue stripes and one with red stripes. I put on my most colourful pair of jam shorts, thankfully it was a mild evening. I had a blank hockey jersey that I modified. I cut the sleeves to 3/4 length and illustrated a big picture of the "not man" on the front, on the back I drew the anthrax logo across the shoulders where your last name typically would be, and adorned the back and shoulders with a number. The number now escapes me but I have a feeling it was either 69 (for obvious reasons) 87 (the current year) or 14 which was always my number in hockey. I used my sisters crimping iron to straighten my hair and make it appear a bit frizzy like Scott's. I topped the costume off with my Mike D hat and sunglasses, I was ready to rock.

I met up with Jazzy Jeff, Eggman, and a few others at a park behind the strip mall close to our high school. One of my friends had recently discovered that his father smoked hashish, so he brought a piece of hash with him he had stolen off his old man. Jeff had a bottle of booze he had stolen from his parents. We hung around the park for about an hour passing joints and the bottle around. Once we were all feeling good we headed over to the graveyard to meet Steve and his neighbour, and my old friend Pat, who had an amazing Freddy Kreugar costume. From there we walked across the street and were at the school.

I remember we almost didn't get in due to the fact we were clearly inebriated, and if I remember correctly Jeff eventually got kicked out of the dance for being so drunk. The dance was clearly not my scene as the music being played was terrible top 40 bullshit. Eventually there was either a heavy song, or a public enemy song played by the DJ that fired us up to the point of starting a mosh pit. I was ecstatic that I finally had the chance to try out my new dance moves, which resulted in both boys and girls hitting the floor hard.

The next thing i knew we were being hauled into the office for our "violent" behaviour. The principal was treating us like we had committed some heinous crime, like killing the president or something. We were given one choice, leave now or risk facing possible suspension. Humbly admitting defeat we decided to leave the dance. All in all it was one hell of a night and a pre cursor to an ongoing trend that would follow, which was me getting kicked out of places for moshing...

Join The Army

A few weeks after purchasing Anthrax's "Among the living" cassette, I found myself back at the dentist for some follow up work. My first visit weeks prior was part one of two visits that I had to make to the dentist. If memory serves correct the follow up appointment was to fill some cavities that the dentist discovered during round one. As per usual my mother had agreed to buy me a new record afterwards. 

I now found myself once again standing in Sam the record man. Surprisingly this time around I didn't even look through the vinyl records, I went straight to the cassettes and picked up Suicidal Tendencies "Join The Army" I flipped the tape over to see if it contained the song for the video I had recently seen "Possessed To Skate" and much to my relief it did. That one song was enough to sell me on buying the tape.

Once I got home I did my usual routine which consisted of retreating to my bedroom, popping the tape in my stereo, and strapping on the "ear goggles" (headphones) As always I listened to the tape from start to finish a few times repeatedly, while following along to the lyrics, reading the liner notes, and admiring the cover artwork, which in this case was a gnarly looking dude wearing a blue bandana. He was holding a pistol in one hand and was pointing forward with his other hand, very familiar to the iconic image of Uncle Sam wanting you to join his American army. 

Another aspect of the tape that caught my attention and intrigued me was the inner sleeve of the cassette cover, which was a mass photo collage of the band. I had never seen a collage like this in any release before and I could easily get lost in trying to look at each and every tiny photo that made up the collage. 

Musically this tape was fantastic. Suicidal seemed to have their own distinct guitar sound which was provided by Rocky George, an African American. I remember being fascinated by the fact that a black man was playing guitar in a thrash band, and he was an incredible guitar player with licks that made the average metal guitarist seem elementary. The singer also had a very distinct voice that almost sounded like he was straining to deliver his vocals in somewhat of a raspy manner. The majority of the songs were a blend of fast paced action and rocking grooves and breakdowns. 

All in all I was overly impressed with this tape and I felt every track on it was quite solid. The stand out song for me however was the title track "Join The Army" it was very grooving and almost had a rap type appeal to it due to Mike Muir's vocal delivery. I was enamoured with the new crossover of rap and metal that Anthrax had introduced me to, and this was right up there in somewhat the same sort of vein. Before long I found myself wearing flannel shirts a lot with just the top button done up as well as bandanas and/or baseball hats with the bill flipped up and "Suicidal" written inside of the bill with black magic marker. I was now emulating the Suicidal look and it had nothing to do with trying to be a crip or blood or some type of gangster. I had simply joined the army...

still rocking the suicidal look after all these years

Hate Rap

Asides from Sanjai, there were only a handful of guys like myself that were into rap music. They all got heavily into it like I did in grade 8. Now that we were in grade nine I figured there would be more of us, but there wasn't. Besides Sanjai and I, my other group of "rap buddies" consisted of only a few: Jazzy Jeff, Egg man Craig, Davy D, Rich P, & Matt O.D. 

Drawing I did of Davy D. in grade 9 math class.

Jeff, Matt & Craig had started up their own DJ crew called J.M.C. and they were making quite a name for themselves quickly, landing gigs DJing at middle school dances around the Brampton area. Jeff owned the bulk of the equipment as well as an excessive amount of vinyl records, so naturally we all hung out at his house to work on our skills and honing our styles.Jeff's house had a small guest room on the main floor that had become the beat lab. There were turntables set up with a mixer, a microphone, and record crates scattered about. I didn't DJ but I loved hanging out there and watching them do their thing, plus it was a great opportunity for me to catch up on all the newest releases. 

One day I showed up there with a mission on my mind, I had written my first rap song and was hoping Jeff could help me record it. Jeff had a cassette deck hooked up to the mixer so he could record mix tapes of his DJ work, so he agreed it would be easy to record a song, the only problem was I didn't have a song, just lyrics. Jazzy decided he could beat mix a few instrumental records so I would actually have a song to rap over, but he gave me the liberty of picking the records. I ended up choosing 3 instrumentals that I was big on at the time, The 45 King's "900 number" Fast Eddie's "yo yo get funky" and Twin Hype's "Do it to the crowd" Jeff cued the tape up, plugged the mic in, and got the records lined up. We decided to switch the beat up about every 60-90 seconds to keep the song fresh and interesting with constant changes. Due to the fact we were recording straight to cassette, everything had to be done perfectly in one take, which surprisingly we pulled off with ease. 

The song was untitled but would later go on to be known as "Hate Rap" since the lyrical content was chock full of negativity, stereotyping, and slight undertones of racism. Generally I remember every word to every song I've ever written, but this one escapes me. It could be due to the fact that I lost the tape a mere year or two later and have never heard the song again. I do however clearly remember the opening line: 

"it's time to get funky to this best that gets you hooked like a crack head junkie" 

The rest of the lyrical content was a general bash fest attacking a new trend that was happening within our high school, white girls dating black guys. There was also a lot of hatred spewed forth in regards to the black guys in our school targeting punks like myself who looked different and labelling us as racists. As far as I know my rap was the first rap geared towards hating on people and society, hence the self appointed moniker "the original player hater" I dubbed myself over a decade later. If I had to compare it to anything nowadays I suppose Eminem's early music would work as a comparison. Looking back I truly consider myself "the real slim shady"

When the other guys heard the tape they were stoked. They absolutely loved it, but were all in shock over the controversial lyrics. They all agreed the song was great, but they all shared one opinion about it....there was no way in hell any black guy in our school could hear it without my life possibly being at risk...and MC Kev T was officially born!