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...