Thank you, the reader

I decided to take Monday off from writing a blog entry since it was a holiday and all, and I hope all my fellow Canadians had a good time with their friends and family this past Thanksgiving weekend. Speaking of friends and family, I've decided to dedicate this post to you, the readers, my new friends and family. I hit 5,000 views this weekend and I'd like to use today's post as a very special thank you card to all of my loyal readers. Now 5,000 views may not seem like a lot to some people, myself included, considering the amount of people in the world, not to mention the numerous websites that get millions of hits a day, for me though this is a huge milestone. 

Back when I first started this blog in April after being inspired by my friend Jon, it was merely a new creative outlet for me. I honestly didn't expect more than perhaps 10-20 of my closest friends to actually read my blog, numbers that would of suited me just fine. I started the blog back in April with a modest amount of readers, and each month the activity seemed to get a little busier. In fact last month alone I had 1,500 views which is a huge chunk of my overall stats, and I've climbed from an average 10-20 readers a day to an average of 40-50 readers a day. It is quite clear and apparent that each month is better than the month before.

As time went on I was noticing through the stats on my blog's website, that my audience was stretching wider and further across the globe, which surprised me greatly. The bulk of my readers are from Canada, and I was shocked to see quite a few followers in the good old U.S. of A. as well. The thing that really hit me hard was seeing how many readers I had obtained from other parts of the world, places as far as Russia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, The U.K., Mexico, Australia, Poland....the list goes on and on. I don't know quite who these readers are or how I obtained them, but I feel connected to each and every one of them through this story I've been unfolding, which is the most rewarding part at all.

When I first started writing this blog I really had no clue what I was even going to write about, I just kind of went with the flow. The tale that is being weaved has been nothing short of exhilarating to say the least for me, as I've unlocked countless memories and remembered a lot of great and formidable events that helped shape my life and make me the man that I am today. Considering its mainly been musically related honestly makes me feel like you are just getting the tip of the iceberg that is my life, there are so many other wondrous stories I could tell you but they wouldn't really be relevant to this one. 

Another extremely satisfying factor for  me that I've experienced through this journey is the feedback. I really love that a lot of readers have told me they relate to the story. Perhaps because they were the same age, or grew up in a similar environment, or their own childhood memories were restored by reading mine, or they are close friends of mine and are excited to relive a story that they were a major character in. Whatever your reason for reading may be, it's yours and I truly appreciate it. I also appreciate all the kind people who have told me how good of a writer I am. I never considered myself a writer by any means, with the exception of all the lyrics I've written over the course of my days on this earth. Truth be known, I always did love creative writing in school and I guess it's paying off for me now.

Now that this blog is slowly growing into a monster, like any proud father, I wish to see it continue to grow and flourish. So now I humbly ask you, my readers, my friends, my new family, for your continued support in my endeavour. I am assigning a non mandatory homework assignment, that is to help spread the word for me. If you have a friend who loves music, loves art, loves wrestling, or just loves to read, please recommend this blog to them. If you have your own blog or website I'd appreciate any form of mention, a blurb, a link, whatever you can manage. This blog has already super ceded my expectations, so why not see how much further we can take it together in a joint effort. 

Once again my sincerest thanks go out to each and every single one of you for making this an incredible experience for me, and its just the beginning...

MOSH!

Another new and wonderful thing I had discovered through thrash and hardcore music was the insane dancing that was going on in the audience during these videos I was watching. There were people flailing about, fists and feet flying everywhere, bodies smashing into each other, and people jumping off the stage and into the brooding crowd. I was fascinated by this behaviour as I was used to people simply banging their heads and throwing devil horns up with their index and pinky fingers. Anthrax was the band responsible for educating me on the word "mosh" and/or the action of "moshing" a term that became very muddied by mainstream music later on in the early to mid 90's. So let me break it down to you with some help from Wikipedia:

Moshing, in a strict sense, is a style of dance whose participants push or slam into each other. It is most associated with "aggressive" music genres, such as hardcore punk, rock and heavy metal. It has also been emerging in the heavier club genres like dubstep and drum and bass. It is primarily done to live music, although it can be done to recorded music.

Many variations of moshing exist, and can be done alone as well as in groups. Common events in moshing would be a "circle pit" or the more extreme wall of death, and are typically done in an area in the center of the crowd, generally closer to the stage, mosh pit or simply pit. A mosh pit can open up anywhere in the crowd by means of "crack-back" (where a group pushes back against everyone around them with their arms outstretched), people shoving each other into others until space is made, or simply swinging their arms and legs violently until space clears around them.

While moshing is seen as a form of positive feedback or expression of enjoyment, it has also drawn criticism over its dangerous nature. Injuries and a few deaths have been reported. However, it is generally agreed that moshers are not trying to harm one another, and that they follow an unwritten "moshing etiquette".

So there you have it. Add in the chaos of slam dancing & stage diving and you can only imagine the type of intensity that was taking place. I had never danced in my entire life with the exception breakdancing and dancing with girls to slow songs at school dances, and moshing would be the extent of my dance moves, if you could even call it dancing. I turned a blind eye to metal and decided it was no longer cool to headbang to aggressive music. My new outlook was "mosh or die"

What's In A Name?

Now being the proud owner of a new drum set, I was ready to take my musical ventures to the next level. Craig and Jerry were equally excited as I was, but we had one slight problem. Since I had moved to Lord Simcoe I was about a 15-20 minute walk from my friends. Jerry was now living on Longbourne, my old street and Craig lived on the next street over from him. We had no choice but to lug all of the equipment over via skateboards. I went and met up with the boys in the "L section" and we stacked the amps and guitar cases on top of skateboards, then we began wheeling them towards my place. The walk took longer than normal as we had to take our time so we didn't drop all the gear. 

We finally got to my place and assembled everything in the basement. I had built a make shift chill room off to the side of the jam area using bed sheets as walls. In the chill room there was a couch, a table and chairs, as well as my trusted stereo system. This would be our resting place when we needed a break from jamming. There were ashtrays for smoking and incense burning to provide a sweeter smell over the otherwise musty basement aroma. 

Craig & "Bubba" in my basement.

Naturally the first thing we did was work on our previous two songs we had wrote back in grade eight, "we hate the snow" and "we hate the rain" but this time it actually sounded like a real song from a real band. We worked on those for awhile until we got them down pat. We also made a new song called "Crustacea" which was a jab at a song called "House Nation" as "House music" was becoming quite popular amongst the "popular" kids at school. The song we made was essentially a house song but we did it with instruments, not electronic devices. We made sure to set up Craig's kick ass ghetto blaster so we could record our songs and ideas for future material. 

It now felt like this was becoming something real but we were missing one key element, a name for our band. We shot around some ideas but nothing really stood out. While Craig and Jerry were brainstorming names I decided to flip through the dictionary to see if I could find something cool for our band name. I can't remember if this was done  purposely or subconsciously due to my new found love for Anthrax, but I found myself looking up words that started  with the first two letters AN. It wasn't long before I discovered a word that caught my eye, Anathema. The word sounded like it was metal worthy and when I read the definition to the boys we were all sold on the name.

anath·e·ma 

Pronunciation: \ə-ˈna-thə-mə\

Function: noun

Etymology: Late Latin anathemat-, anathema, from Greek, thing devoted to evil, curse, from anatithenai to set up, dedicate

It was related to evil and that was reason enough for us all to agree upon it. We had a band, we had some songs, and now we had a name...

the kit

A few weeks into grade nine there was another extremely significant event that took place, my parents had sold our old house on longbourne crescent and we moved into a brand new house on lord simcoe drive. I was now a bit closer to the high school but lost the privilege of  walking to school with my old friends. I started walking with a new group of friends who lived in my area. 

While walking to school one morning with my group of new friends, one of them mentioned he was selling a drum set. I immediately inquired as to how much he wanted for the kit and he was only asking for a mere $100....or was it $200? I honestly can't remember. I asked him if the kit was in decent shape and he told me it was practically brand new. I then asked why he was asking for such a low amount of money if the kit was basically brand new. 

As it turned out, he had rented the drum set from a local music store using a stolen credit card he had found somewhere, the plan worked and he got away with it, however he was very paranoid about the whole situation and just wanted this drum set gone from his life to avoid further stress. I told him I'd gladly buy the drum set since I still had quite a bit of money in the bank from my summer job at Bell Canada. 

If my memory serves correct, that evening my friend packed the drum set in his fathers van and they personally delivered it to me. They helped load it into the house, I payed them the cash for it, and I was now the proud owner of a new, stolen drum kit. The set was a five piece black pearl kit which included a snare drum, two roll toms, a floor tom, and a kick drum. Also included was a hi hat, crash cymbal, and a ride cymbal. 

 

 

The basement in our new house was unfinished so my folks agreed that I could set the drums up down there. I was absolutely ecstatic, not only did I have my own drum set, I also had a practice space to play them in. I decorated the wall behind my drums with a new Anthrax flag I had bought as well as some other posters and pictures. I hadn't played drums in a good year or two but that didn't matter as I didn't miss a beat. I found myself trying out new beats, most if which were inspired by the new genre of thrash music I had discovered. All I did was hang out in my basement and bash the skins whenever I could get the chance. 

I immediately informed my good friends and band mates Jerry and Craig that I had bought a drum set. Gone were the days of jamming in Craig's room with my drum machine, we had the real deal now AND a real rehearsal space. It was clearly time for us to bring our band to the next level...

Possessed To Skate

After the one episode of the power hour that was dedicated to thrash and hardcore, it seemed the show was now starting to feature two or three bands per episode out of the many videos played within the hour. Once again I had the VCR on standby and was lucky I did, as I captured a second video from Venice Beach bad boys Suicidal Tendencies. The song was called "Possessed to skate" and the video started off with some dude (singer Mike Muir) seeing his parents off to their Winnebago looking van. I recognized the mother, she was the same actress who played Mike's mom in the Institutionalized video and I also knew her from a low budget horror movie titled "Movie house massacre" that I had bought from Bargain Harold's one day for two bucks. The actor who played Mike's father was a different man, he was not the same guy from the first video. Years later I recognized him to be none other than LSD guru Timothy Leary. 

The folks tell Mike to behave while they are out and his father insists "no skateboarding until you've done your homework" Now we find Mike in the house sitting at a desk doing what appears to be algebra or fractions or something along those lines, he is using an oversized 80s gimmick pen. Mikey's skateboard is perched up on his desk as well, so he takes a moment to admire it, then spins one of the wheels with his index finger. As the wheel spins the opening riff to the song starts up, his homework becomes emblazed with a pentagram, then the door breaks down and a gang of rampant skaters run into the house, so Mike grabs his board and joins in. 

All the skaters proceed to trash the house, spray paint the walls, and skateboard off of tables and furniture. The band is also amongst the chaos which provides the visual stimulation of "Homework Mike" and "Suicidal Mike" moving a couch together to make room for skateboarding. A covered pool in the backyard opens itself up via stop motion animation to reveal an empty pool. Next thing you know the thrashers are ripping the pool up while Suicidal performs the song live on the deck of the pool. The video comes to a conclusion with Mike skating through a couch, ripping around his house, and finally bailing at the feet of his angered parents who have returned from their outing. Mike looks up in surprise and nervously says "Hi mom.....hi dad....." to which his mother screams in horror and falls over. 

This video was a classic masterpiece and I loved it. The video opened my eyes and inspired me to bring my street skating to the next level, much like the Death Angel video which featured lots of boneless tricks and acid drops. I was ready to take my new inspiration to the streets, I even went as far as to record the song onto cassette by putting my radio up to the tv, just so I could skateboard to the song. I went out to the garage, popped the tape in my ghetto blaster, and began tearing up the pavement on my driveway and street. I was already into skating but now I was possessed to skate!

Among The Living

I was a few weeks into high-school and my life was changing rapidly due to a whole new world of changes I was being introduced to. After capturing all those new thrash and hard core videos at Steve's that fateful afternoon, I now found myself digging through completely different sections while I frequented the regular record stores in the Bramalea City Centre. I was somewhat shocked and surprised to find a few of the bands I had seen that day. Anthrax, Suicidal Tendencies, & Agnostic Front, all had records and or cassettes for sale in a mainstream record store which I found interesting, as I had never thought in a million years that bands like these with such an extreme sound would actually have record deals and major distribution, but I was sure as hell happy that they did! 

At some point in September of 1987 my mother informed me I was due for a visit to the dentist. I absolutely dreaded going to the dentist as I had already had my fair share of cavities, gargantuan needles, and nauseating drills, which made nails on a chalkboard sound like sweet music. Now that I was in high school my parents were being a lot more lenient with me, finally letting me grow my hair and letting go of their little boy, which in turn had now caused me to develop a bit of an attitude and I was more opinionated than ever. I told my mom I had no interest in going to see the dentist, which led to an argument that concluded with me using a form of extortion in a sense, as I informed her I would not go unless she took me to buy a record afterwards. She agreed. 

After my visit to the dentist took place the following week, I found myself in Sam the record man looking to make my first ever purchase of this new genre I had discovered. I already knew in my mind it was going to be Anthrax or Suicidal, but low and behold they didn't have either band in stock on vinyl. Never one to be bested or discouraged, I simply went over to the cassette section. I can vividly see myself standing there with a cassette in each hand, in my left was Anthrax's "Among The Living" and in my right hand was Suicidal's "Join The Army". I stared at both covers in awe and was very taken back. I flipped them both over and read all the song titles and realized that I knew the song "Indians" from Anthrax, but the song "Institutionalized" was NOT on the Suicidal cassette. The decision was made and I purchased Among The Living. 

When I got home I went right to my room and threw it on. I listened to the tape 2 or 3 times straight through, my eyes closely following the lyrics with great intensity the entire time. Eventually my mom called me for dinner, and as soon as I was done eating I was back in my room blasting the tape again. I was absolutely enamoured with it and fell in love. The lyrics all revolved around things I already had interest in, horror, comics, and life in general. They even had a mascot named The NOT man, a rubber novelty toy. Not man was a small rubber face you put your fingers in the back of so you could manipulate and change his face. The ironic part was i had actually stolen one of these from the "It store" months before i knew about the "Thrax" so i religiously carried him around in my pocket with pride. Anthrax were now my new AC/DC. I was so inspired that I went as far as to start using a new alias in the BBS world, you guessed it....Anthrax. I even started designing a new board called "Among The Living"

the "not" man

I was already a metal head that loved rap music as well, so my attire was somewhat a blend of the two. Tight jeans, leather jacket and fresh Adidas sneakers, topped off with an Adidas or band t-shirt....oh and my sweet mullet, which know had grown quite long in the back and I had shaved lines in the sides of my head. Anthrax were somewhat similar in style but they had a bit more flare, rocking jam shorts and hats similar to something Run DMC would wear, so naturally i began to assimilate. When I saw their video for "I'm The Man" it rampaged my senses, as these guys got it like I did, we were unknowingly on the same page. Rap was an amazing art form that was shunned upon by metal heads and people in general, but we were open minded enough to see the similarities it had to metal as far as rawness and attitude went. Anthrax was my new god, and Among The Living was my new bible...

w/ cousin jamie, the one who started it all. 1987, I'm 14 he's 20

The Crossover

Generally once the school bell rang at 3:00pm I would rush out of that place as fast as I could. I never understood why a lot of kids chose to hang around after school socializing with each other, that's what class was for. I was a man on a mission and once that final bell sounded I always bolted home as quick as I could to watch the power hour on much music and videotape metal vids. I was now practically spending every day after school at Steve's place, so I started bringing my VHS cassette to school with me so I could record metal videos at his place. I had recently discovered through experience and failure that it was essential for me to record every video played on the power hour each day, as sometimes I would miss out on discovering a new cool band. Once I started recording a video that I didn't like, I would stop the tape, rewind a little, and cue it up for the next one played. 

This technique ended up very useful on one particular day while recording videos at Steve's place, as I captured and discovered a whole new world of music. There were a series of videos that day that would fall under the categories of thrash, crossover, & hardcore. These videos were "Indians" and "I'm the man" by New York  thrashers "Anthrax", "Voracious Souls" by Bay Area thrashers "Death Angel", "Institutionalized" by Venice Beach outfit "Suicidal Tendencies", "Trapped" by New York's "The Crumbsuckers", "Anthem" by New York hardcore punkers "Agnostic Front" and last but not least "We gotta know" by yet another New York crossover group "The Cro-Mags" For those readers who may not understand this last genre, crossover was a mixture of thrash metal and hardcore punk, which would go on to be my all time favourite genre for the rest of my life, and myself, like this genre of new music I'd discovered, was crossing over.

All of these bands were incredible in their own right and each of them had their own distinct sound. Anthrax was very thrashy and heavy, yet the vocals were a bit more reminiscent to standard heavy metal, except for their song "I'm the man" which was a rap metal song. This concept, song and video blew my mind as my two favourite genres of music had been mixed into one. I would go on to adore this blending of styles for decades to come. Death Angel were also very thrashy with more melodic singing. They were all Philippinozs who were cousins and their incredible drummer was a mere 12 years old. The boys were skateboarding in the video and I was a fan instantly. Suicidal Tendencies were a trip. These guys all looked like Hispanic vatos and gangsters similar to the characters I had seen in the movie "Colours" the song was more so spoken than sang, and the story told was easy for any teenager in angst to relate to. 

The last 3 bands all had somewhat of a similar sound, as they were all crossover bands from the New York area. The Crumbsuckers were very fast and technical, and their singers voice was the most unique vocal sound I had heard to date. To this day he still stands as my all time favourite singer. Agnostic Front all appeared to be skin heads, and although their style could be considered crossover, they somewhat leaned a bit more to the hardcore side of the spectrum. The Cro-Mags also all appeared to be skin heads, yet their crossover style leaned a little more towards the metal side of things, as they had somewhat intricate guitar riffs and a bit of melodic-ness to the vocal delivery. 

This monumental day still stands out as a very crucial and important turning point in my life, and I can still vividly remember it like it was yesterday. This day stands out in my mind as the day I stopped being a "headbanger" and became a "thrasher" and it was just the beginning of a long and wonderful musical journey...