Theo's Top Tens

I've been a bit overwhelmed this week between working and tattooing, that I haven't had much time to write. On Monday I plan on getting back in the swing of things and continuing the story. 

For today's post however I've decided to share some top ten lists with you, these lists merely express my personal opinions and they are not based on any type of charts or record sales. With that being said I hope you enjoy my essential top ten lists for punk, thrash, and hardcore. Please keep in mind that these records are listed in no particular order.

PUNK ROCK

Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols

The Clash - Combat Rock

The Exploited - Punks Not Dead

Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables

Misfits - Walk Among Us

Angry Samoans - Back From Samoa

Ramones - Self Titled

The Monks - Bad Habits

Fear - The Record

Beastie Boys - The Pollywog Stew E.P.

THRASH METAL

Slayer - Reign In Blood

Anthrax - Among The Living

Metallica - Kill Em' All

Nuclear Assault - Survive

Possessed - Seven Churches

Celtic Frost - Morbid Tales

Death Angel - The Ultra Violence

Kreator - Pleasure To Kill

Sacred Reich - Ignorance 

Death - Leprosy

HARDCORE/CROSSOVER

Minor Threat - Filler

Bad Brains - Rock For Light

S.O.D. - Speak English Or Die

Crumbsuckers - Life Of Dreams

D.R.I. - Dealing With It

C.O.C. - Animosity

The Accused - The Maddest Stories Ever Told

Cro-Mags - Age Of Quarrel

Day-Glo Abortions - Feed Us A Fetus

Suicidal Tendencies - Self Titled 

If you don't own any of these releases, or have never heard any of them, then I strongly urge you to check them out! Have a great weekend everybody, Heavy Ghetto will return on Monday, July 8th, 2013.

Welcome to my mind

Not long after my birthday I ended up getting into more trouble with the law. I won't go into particulars but it was my heftiest offence to date. I ended up on probation for a year and now had to check in with my P.O. on a regular basis. I also had to perform community service hours, and I was also put on curfew by law, which was essentially the pre cursor to house arrest. 

Due to the circumstances, I was now a prisoner of my own home, specifically my room. The only thing I was allowed access to was music and books. No tv, no video games, no fun. I'd say I was in the darkest place I had been thus far in my lifetime. At first I sat around brooding doing absolutely nothing. After a week of this I was going crazy so I decided to set up a timetable for myself which consisted of music, drawing, reading, crossword puzzles, exercising, and meditation. 

I had recently found interest in Buddhism via The Cro-Mags, a band of hardcore New York skin heads who followed the harikrishna lifestyle. It was in the pages of these books that I started exploring my inner self, which I now realized needed some significant changing. 

I also started reading a lot of books about the mind and dreams. Through this material I had awakened a piece of my brain that most people don't even realize they have the ability to do. I got to the point where I could change and control my dreams, I could even dictate to my mind what I would dream about before I even fell asleep. I also started writing my dreams down as soon as I woke up in the morning. After a few weeks of doing so it was interesting to read it all back to myself in one epic story that made no sense and had no rhyme or reason, yet it was a fascinating read. 

I went on to spend the majority of grade 11 in my "cell" and I made the best of it, in hopes of bettering myself as a person in the long run...

R.I.P. BBJ

I hope all my fellow country men had an amazing Canada day weekend, with Monday being a holiday I decided to take a vacation from my blog.  Just wanted to touch base quickly with a few updates.

First and foremost martial artist/actor Jim Kelly passed away this weekend after battling cancer, he was only 67 years old.  Kelly gained fame in such films as Enter The Dragon, Three the hard way, Tattoo Connection, and Black Belt Jones, just to name a few. The film Black Belt Jones was the inspiration behind one of my bands, but that's another story for later down the road in this blog. I'd like to give my condolences to Mr. Kelly's friends, fans, and family. Rest in peace to the black superman of the martial arts.

Over the weekend I also added two full length albums to my bandcamp page, both releases are from "Rotten Utensils" a 4 man rap group I was a member and producer of. You will hear all about that later in the story as well, but in the meantime enjoy the music for free!

www.kabal.bandcamp.com

Sweet Seventeen

Christmas had came and gone, I spent New Year's Eve with a small group of friends at Jeff & Limey's. Theevening consisted of beer, weed, and us all partying shirtless for some unknown reason. Now my 17th birthday was here. To celebrate I had Craig & Sanjai over for dominos pizza. Nothing special I suppose but it didn't matter to me because the best gift of all was just around the corner.

Just days after turning 17, there was an all ages show happening at the Concert Hall, the same place I saw Slayer, and I hadn't been back there since. This show was a bit different however, as it was an all ages matinee show featuring a slew of bands. It was on a Saturday afternoon so it was no problem rounding up a car load of guys to join along.

The show almost seemed to good to be true since the line up was out of hand and overwhelming. When the day of the show came and we arrived at the gig, we were a bit upset to find out Danzig would not be performing as well as Corrosion of Conformity. I wasn't too heartbroken over the absence of Danzig even though he was the frontman for legendary punks The Misfits, but I was pretty crushed to learn I would not be seeing C.O.C.

The show kicked off with a few local acts. Toronto thrashers Overthrow put on a hell of a performance and it was a great pleasure to finally see them live. The next act was a group called Blessed Death and we weren't digging them at all. I'll never forget after the show Craig drew a comical sketch of them in one of my books.

Craig's artistic rendering of Blessed Death

If memory serves correct Razor played as well and they ripped shit up with their usual brutal onslaught of metal.

The next act was none other than New York rap/metal pioneers Ludichrist, and it was amazing to finally see these guys perform live. Their energy was off the charts and they were just as tight live as they were on record. I had an absolute blast skanking around in the pit for their entire set. I was also super stoked to get a Ludichrist bumper sticker for $2.00, which I immediately put on the lower back portion of my leather jacket. It would remain there until the day my coat died. 

Last but not least was the headlining band, one of my favourites who I had missed seeing just a year prior to this... Bay Area Thrash-tech gods Death Angel! They definitely stole the show, their intensity was through the roof! I managed to make it to the stage and performed my first ever stage dive! It was so fun I couldn't help but diving repeatedly throughout the duration of the set. My friends and I were also catapulting each other onto the crowd to do some body surfing. We also got a decent size circle put going. The first few rows of fans were all head bangers, so for fun we kept running, jumping in the air, and crashing into them from behind with brutal body checks. 

This was the most fun I had engaged in yet as far as concerts went, and it was this day in particular that The Concert Hall beat out The Siboney Club as my favourite venue to see live music. Driving home in bliss I wondered to myself who I would have the privilege of seeing next at the hall...

The Legend of the Leather Hat

Just a quick apology to the readers in regard to not posting on Monday. I have no excuses, although I had worked 7 days straight and I was completely exhausted both physically and mentally. I needed a full day of doing absolutely nothing and that's what I did Monday. Ok I guess I do have an excuse, anyhow on with the story!

With Christmas rapidly approaching there were really only two things on my wish list, and looking back on how much trouble I was that year I am surprised I even got anything at all. My parents obviously weren't going to deny me gifts but I honestly wouldn't have blamed them if they didn't get me anything. 

The first item I wanted were a set of hair clippers. I had started growing my hair in again at the beginning of the summer prior to grade 11, but recently had decided to try out the "under cut" that everyone was rocking, although I planned on growing mine very long where as most people walked around looking like mushroom heads. I wanted the clippers though so I could shave the undercut myself and not have to pay for haircuts anymore. I even convinced my dad to shave his head with them for his first time ever, and now over 20 years later he's still keeping up with the tradition.

the beginning stage of the under cut

The second gift I wanted was a black leather hat I had seen at a shop in the mall, it was fifty dollars. I can't even recall why I was so obsessed over this hat. Perhaps because everyone was wearing fitted caps, mostly L.A. Raiders and Chicago Bulls. I guess I wanted to be different and original, and the way I saw it this hat was the ultimate pimp daddy of baseball hats. Leather hats were somewhat of a staple in the hip hop world so I guess that had something to do with it as well.

On Christmas morning I was more than ecstatic to find both gifts under the tree. I think I even used the clippers that evening before donning my new hat and going out to the movies with my friends. 

I loved my new hat more than anything in the world, and as silly as that may seem, it was as if my life was complete with that hat. 

I didn't know it at the time, but my new hat would go on to be somewhat of a staple or trademark of myself, an extension of me if you will. It ended up adorning my crown for over a decade before it started falling apart...

Homeless

As much of a shit disturber that he was, Limey was a good kid deep down inside, or at least he was at one point, but there was obviously a little bit of that still in him, because when he saw me at school all distraught he knew something was wrong with me. Like any good friend would, he actually made an effort to show he cared. I told him about being kicked out of the house and the whole Ryan fiasco. Limey immediately put out the invitation to come stay at his place for awhile. I was quite received to have a place to stay needless to say.

When we got to his house he went and asked his mom if I could stay over for awhile. He explained the situation and Joan his mother was more than willing to help me out. We jammed around in the DJ booth for awhile and then we decided to go mall rat it up at the Bramalea City Centre, and we definitely were NOT going into Eatons again!

It seemed like we had only been at the mall for a mere matter of minutes when from out of nowhere came my father looking mighty angry. My dad informed me that my mother was worried sick over me and he had been out everywhere looking for me...well he found me! My dad demanded that I come home with him and I obliged without question.

When we got home my mother was very relieved to see me, I guess the guilt had gotten to her as she was definitely regretting kicking me out in the first place. I was actually quite surprised that she only stuck to her word for a few hours before deciding against putting me out in the streets.

My folks and I sat around and had a big heart to heart. I didn't realize just how badly I was bending them out of shape with my actions and behaviour. It was quite clear from their faces, words, and tears, just how badly I was effecting them. I decided I was going to try and be a better son, as I felt like nothing more than a major disappointment to them.

The only question now was how long would it take me to clean my act up and get my shit together?

Teenage Trials

So far I wasn't very impressed with the way the school year had started out. My circles of friends were starting to divide, I had narrowly escaped many fights covering Limey's hide due to him ripping people off. The police showed up at my door one morning to return my bag of pharmaceuticals the principal had confiscated. The cops were pretty cool about it, they just gave me the usual overplayed lecture about drugs and mentioned that since none of the pills were prescription I was off the hook. I got mixed up in fraud and forgery which resulted in me being sentenced to my room for a month long grounding. As soon as I was a free man again my freedom was ripped right out from under me compliments of Limey.

We went to hang out at the mall one day, we entered the Eaton's doors as we always did. I stopped briefly to look at a few cassettes in the music section, then we headed into the mall. Soon as we stepped out of Eaton's we were grabbed by security for some unknown reason. Unbeknownst to me, Limey had pocketed a seven dollar pair of earbud headphones.

Because he hadn't turned 14 yet, the young offenders law didn't mean shit, so in turn they decided to charge me with theft under $5,000.00. My dad had to come pick me up and asides the verbal tongue lashing, it was an embarrassing situation to get caught up in. I ended up having to goto court, where I was thankfully let off with a slap on the wrist. The only thing that seemed positive to me at the time was missing school to attend court.

Academically this was shaping up to be my worst year yet, as I was too preoccupied cutting class so I could hang out with my various circles of friends. One day I cut a class so I could have double lunch period. Some friends and I ended up grabbing a case of beer and heading to my place for lunch. My mom unexpectedly showed up early from work and caught us in the act. She kicked everyone out and then let me have it. I suppose she was at her wits end as she actually told me to get out of the house and never come back! I was speechless. I couldn't believe it, here I was just 16 years old and homeless.

I felt lost and confused, I didn't know what to do or where to go so I decided to head back to school, which was still in session. I went right to Ryan, as his folks were very cool and I knew for sure they would take me in. I found him and explained the situation thinking he'd be willing to help with open arms. Instead he told me he had promised some of his cool new friends a ride home from school, as he now had his license, and he had no room in the car for me. I think I stood there with my jaw on the ground in disbelief. Here was someone I considered a brother after being band mates for the last two years, and now he was turning his back on me as to not tarnish his new social status. "Fucking poseur sell out piece of shit!" I yelled in my mind repeatedly. I decided right then and there that I would never talk to Ryan again.

The big question now was...
Where the hell was I going to live?