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...