From rebellious, headbanging, social outcast to moderately conformed, womanizing, socially acceptable outcast....Metal is still in my blood.
Year of World Entry: 1970Current location on Earth: Los Angeles, California
Year of Metal Baptism: 1982
First Metal Buy: QUIET RIOT - Metal Health (1983)
First Extreme Metal Buy: SLAYER - Show No Mercy (1984)
First Metal Concert: QUIET RIOT / WHITESNAKE (1984)
Most Memorable Gigs: DIO - Last In Line Tour (1984)
METALLICA - Ride The Lightening Tour (1985)
VENOM/SLAYER/EXODUS - The Palladium, Los Angeles (1985)
DARK ANGEL - Radio City, Anaheim (1985)
CELTIC FROST/EXCITER - Fender's, Long Beach (1985)
KREATOR/VOIVOD - Fender's, Long Beach (1987)
DESTRUCTION - Celebrity Theater, Corona (2000)First Mosh Pit: DARK ANGEL - Radio City, Anaheim (1985)
Last Mosh Pit: DEMOLITION HAMMER - Fullerton, CA (1992)
Random Useless Information:
The story of how I got into extreme Metal is rather humorous. Like most kids, I got into Metal that was popular between 1982-84; the usual MOTLEY CRUE, DIO, QUIET RIOT etc. One day in early 1984 while browsing my local record store I finally decided to throw down eight bucks for the SLAYER album I had seen in the bin for months. I was intrigued by the Satanic imagery and song titles so I had to have it. One listen had me walking back to the record store demanding a refund on my money. I hated it and thanks to the stubborn cashier who would not honor my request but instead gave me another SLAYER record (I told her it was defective), I was forced to go home with it and learn to like it. Within two days or so I was spinning the record all hours of the day. From that day on I started going after anything that I thought might sound like Show No Mercy. Oddly, the guys in SLAYER used to visit my record store and I ran into them often. Shortly thereafter I picked up Metal Forces magazine and the rest is history. I became a fanatic for extreme Metal and was proudly the first kid in my city to where a METALLICA shirt to school. I was soon branded a freak, devil worshipper and stoner. Those of you who grew up in the 1980's listening to this music and sporting long hair, a denim jacket and an attitude knows exactly what I went through.
I started playing guitar in 1984 and fully intended to create a Thrash Metal band but with no one else into the sort of music I was, this proved impossible. I got into tape trading in early 1985 and soon established contacts the globe over, many of them bands. My tape collection swelled and I was frequenting gig after gig in Los Angeles, which was a hub of Metal bands back then. My first headbanging experience was great - until the following day when my neck swelled up and I suffered the tortures of the damned. My first bloodletting in the pit occurred at a violent HIRAX/DARK ANGEL gig in 1985 when the force of an errant elbow struck me in the mouth, impaling my upper lip on a frontal canine. While rinsing the generous amount of blood flowing from the wound in the restroom, HIRAX's guitarist entered and remarked how "awesome" that was. I was not amused.
I was the first (according to Trey) person in California to get into MORBID ANGEL and Trey and I became close pen pals. I still have the old rehearsal tapes he sent and the morbid letters as well (yes, they were in fact quite morbid indeed!). Other bands I stayed in close contact with were SACRIFICE, SLAUGHTER, AT WAR, DESTRUCTOR, & HELLWITCH.
In 1988 I joined the U.S. Marine Corps and spent 4 years traveling the globe in the service of my country (including an 8 month deployment to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War) , making it harder for me to stay on top of the scene. When I got my discharge in 1992 I threw myself back into it and was able to catch up on all the releases I'd missed while away. I also started going back to gigs but felt too old and mature to be diving off stages at that point. However, I jokingly declared that I would be the first to open a Death/Thrash Metal Karuoke bar. I continued to play guitar off and on and wrote loads of music and lyrics. The concept of my band that never was still lives on in my dreams.
My love for writing and Metal led me to create The End Times back in 1999 when it was originally titled The Cynic's Dungeon and was merely a place to list my CD collection and make brief comments on them (a lot of the reviews on this site are from those days. I know, they look and read awful, sorry).
My preferred forms of Metal are Thrash, various forms of Death Metal and Power Metal. I never could get into the Black Metal scene and still laugh at corpsepaint. Current and all time favorite groups are OPETH, CORONER, SABBAT, ARCH ENEMY, DESTRUCTION, SLAYER, KREATOR, CELTIC FROST, ENTOMBED, SENTENCED, EXODUS, DARK ANGEL, IN FLAMES, SOILWORK, DARKANE and TESTAMENT.
This year I decided to recruit help with the review process and John F. was the first to volunteer. Matt G. then accepted my offer for more help. In the future I may consider adding another reviewer depending on the site's evolution. Whatever the case, my love for Metal music has never waned and even today my Mother asks me when I "will grow out of it". Mother's don't always know best I guess.
Additional Nonsense: My Metal Memorabilia