American Football "3"

I listen to alot of music. I listen to alot of kinds of music. My guilt is that I buy tons of music that I will never be intimately invested in (there isn't mathematically enough time for me to hear them all). CDs can be kind of like a drug. You are always hunting for the next fix that changes the landscape for you. It had been a couple of years since I bought music that I couldn't stop listening to; a CD that made me neglect all the other plastic treasures on my wall. In the past few weeks I have found three. It feels like a huge relief to have found some pivotal soundtracks to this time of my life. Typing that I guess it sounds kind of self-absorbed, and it makes me realize that my cd collection is me attempting to score the soundtrack of my life. And make it sound cool like a Wes Anderson movie. I've always liked #americanfootball  . Their first album is a midwestern emo benchmark but I hadnt really thought of them in years. I bought this disc after reading a review online and at first listen I was taken aback by the unassailable production of the album. Everything is in the sonic pocket it needs to be in. Then the songs started pulling me in and I became infatuated. I sat in my car in front of the tattoo shop with the lyric book open revisiting the songs. It is a perfect storm of content that appeals to me. I thought the relief I felt at finding a personally special album was remarkable. A hole was filled I didn't know was there. It's that sort of satiation that strings me along on my music collecting. The relief in finding an album I can live in for a while that stems the search. Thank you American Football!

Rush "hold your fire"

Anyone who knows me knows that i have been on a huge #rush kick for a couple of months. This was the album they were touring for the first time i caught them live in 1988. It's not my favorite in their canon but like so many other CDs i write about it has a nostalgic resonance i can't shake. I  have been really been contemplating the reasons i am so obsessed with their discography. I believe it's part of some sort of mid-life crisis. All of my life there has been a new Rush album. Even in the era of their career where i wasn't buying their new releases i was aware of the albums. I knew what the artwork looked like, they were always on my radar. I am currently delving into those albums and finding how much i truly enjoy the entirety of their output. A few years ago they did a retrospective tour (one of my biggest life regrets is that i did not attend for whatever reason) and all signs are pointing to the band being over. I am in uncharted territory now. A life without new Rush albums.  It made me realise that i took the comfort of their existence for granted. I have watched (and re-watched) multiple documentaries about the band, i have read Neil Peart's books, i have listened to Alex and Geddy's solo albums, i have perused youtube's hours of interview footage.  Since i started buying music they were one of the first three bands whose discographies i started collecting (Kiss and Iron Maiden were the others since you asked). It's a frantic purpose to absorb the material i took for granted in the '90s. I need it because, well... it looks like there will be no more.  That really, REALLY makes me feel abandoned and bleak. The summer before i went to college i had a summer job as a custodian at a school. I rented a room from a guy that lived near the school that i also helped with his dj and live music backline business. He had a mammoth beautiful drum kit in his dining room and on many mornings i was woken up to him pounding out the song "show don't tell" off of the album "Presto".  Every time he did it i was jarred awake (his intention) and while it may have seemed like a dick move i would smile go downstairs and shout the lyrics over the percussive din. Every time.

Michael Jackson "thriller"

I was ten years old when "thriller" was released.  This album was everywhere.  Seriously, you could not be alive in public and not be bombarded with this record. It doesnt hurt that it is a true masterpiece of pop music.  There are albums that come along and seem to change everything that comes after it ("Nevermind", "The Chronic", "OK Computer")  but this record created a template that pop music still uses today.  We were listening to the new Bruno Mars album at the tattoo shop and i kept thinking: "here is more #michaeljackson worship 35 years later".  I loved (and still love) this album.  I know all the crap that tarnishes Jackson's legacy but it really can't touch (sorry) this CD.   My sister, who is a year younger, and i had chores around the house.  We used to have to wash and dry dishes after dinner. It seemed we always played this cassette on a boom box in the kitchen.  The two of us often fought. We fought about who would wash versus dry, we fought about who got to use the "good rake" to clean the yard, we fought about who was breathing who's air.  We didnt fight over what tape to play.  She had a Michael Jackson doll that i used to stage in inappropriate positions with her Barbie doll when she wasn't around.  We used to practice moon walking on our linoleum floor. We would split a pair of gloves so we each only donned one.  My sons love pop music right now.   They are really into contemporary singles.  I try and play some of my snobby stuff or nostalgic stuff i wish they would like and they act like no music is playing at all.  When "thriller" gets played it's a Menter Family Dance Party. It doesn't sound dated.  It is still an engaging and body moving work of art.  That's powerful stuff.

Summoned "lunarterial"

I meet a ton of people through my career as a tattoo artist.  Most of them i like and a few of them i get to be friends with.  I wear my interests on my sleeve (usually quite literally) so when i find common ground it makes my world a little bigger.  The kindness i encounter is actually pretty staggering and i try to pay the kindness forward often.  Recently a guy i tattooed and i had discovered a shared interest in music,  specifically melancholic blackened post-metal.  We share discoveries and rant and rave about our favorite stuff.  More recently we began to discuss inner city home ownership.  It always makes the times he comes in a pleasure: cool conversations and he likes to get skull tattoos.  He and his better half recently ventured to Philadelphia for a music festival. He returned to the shop woth a couple of CDs he purchased there that he thought i would like.  As you may have guessed i really like CDs so i was thrilled to receive the gifts.  One of the discs he gave me is this #summoned album "lunarterial".  It is a deep blackened pit of of atonal death doom.  Howled vicious vocals over a din so evil it sounds inhuman.  He hit it out of the park, i love this CD!  It's funny that something so caustic sounding can make me feel so warm and fuzzy.

Astrud Gilberto "beach samba"

The wife and i are enjoying a kid free weekend.   All three rug rats are at my mom's house in the country for the weekend.  Last night we drank too much at a few of our old haunts in the city.  We slept in and meandered off for indian food for lunch and run a bunch of errands at a leisurely pace without the constant kinetic energy of three young boys wearing us down.  We bathed the dog and are enjoying a warm day with the windows open in the house.  It's a great day for this record.  I discovered #astrudgilberto in my twenties through the album she did with stan getz and their awesome version of "girl from impanema".  I've always found her echo drenched vocals soothing and love this album on lazy warm days.  I once declares this CD the "summer album of the season" to a friend and peer.  He argued that the statement didnt make any sense and i obtusely defended my remark.  I thought it was just more playful banter but later found out he was really upset at me.  It strikes me as really funny and ironic that this warm samba album incited such animosity.  Ok, so as i wrote that i realised that the album didn't incite any animosity; my obscene love of debate did.  But that wouldn't make this memoir about a compact disc as clever.  Ill just go ahead and remind people that this is still my summer album of the season.

Smart Went Crazy "con art"

When this #smartwentcrazy disc came out i was in a very directionless point in my life.  I had a job i liked but didnt pay well at a silk-screen print shop. My first band was breaking up and i was still reeling from the heartbreak of being dumped ny my girlfriend.  I was twenty-five years old and had felt like i had blown all my chances at being the best version of myself.  I was wired to be that romantically tragic.  This CD floated into my life at precisely the right moment to be my favorite album for months on end.  It is smart indie rock with some post-punk angst wrapped up in a urban-chic melancholy that i could not resist.  To this day, twenty years after it's release, i have not found a band that has so aptly used a cello in rock music.  While laying on my bed in my cold west side apartment i remember pondering the cello and remember my brief encounter with the instrument in elementary school. In fifth grade I wanted to learn an instrument so when a sign up sheet appeared in my music classroom i looked at the available instruments and signed up for bass.  Gene Simmons played bass guitar and i figured there was a connection to the two instruments.  When it came time to be assigned instruments i was too late to get a bass but the music instructor assured me i would enjoy cello and had shown me the two instruments and it looked like a smaller version of the bass.  I was able to take the instrument home and start my lessons.  I remember it being frustrating because while i loved the vibration and tone of the instrument i was impatient with my ability to make anything that sounded like music to me.  And none of the music i loved at that age had a cello in it and i couldn't see how this instrument would ever translate to what i wanted to be a part of.  In a fit of frustration i remember snapping the bow and having to return the instrument and abandoning the lessons.  It is one of the biggest regrets of my life.  So i laid on my bed listening to this great rock album with powerful and beautiful cello incorporation and wished i could time machine myself a copy so that my impatient little self could have connected the universal dots of music.

Sepultura "roots"

Last night my family was engaged in a vicious round of the pop-o-matic board game "Trouble".  My wife plays a bloodthirsty style and was unflinching in sending our sons back to the start of the game.  She turned her relentless win-at-all-costs attention towards me and i started singing the chorus to "cut-throat" from this #sepultura album.  My middle son started joining me in throaty unison and i pulled the song up on my phone so he could hear the real deal.  He and i were the only ones enjoying the playback.  It made me realise that i am constantly scoring the soundtrack to my life.  My obsession with music has led me to a vast catalog to choose from and its rare that I'm in any situation and do not have an apt song playing in my head.  I'm not saying I'm as good as Wes Anderson or either of the "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies but it is a soundtrack that rarely stops.  When i was younger i used to hum and sing to my drawings (still do).  If i were drawing an army tank i would rattle "taps" or belt out the theme song from "First Blood".  I don't  know if it was because i spent a great deal of time watching cable TV and absorbed awesome soundtracks ("Conan the Barbarian" score still gets my blood boiling) as a kid or if music is just that deeply engrained in my genetic code.  Either way,  when you see me be assured i have a song in my head for the situation.  It also reminds me that i have clogged my recall memory with songs.  I can't remember algebraic proofs.  I cannot recall which type of motor oil my car uses.  I can't even tell you how many cups of water it takes to make a pack of ramen noodles.  Rest assured i can sing along to the english lyrics on this record and phonetically mimic the other languages while scatting guitar riffs and drum breaks.  I'm doing it while typing this.

Jawbox "jawbox"

In 1996 I caught #jawbox live at the Showplace Theater in Buffalo.  They were touring for what would ultimately be their last album.  We didn't know it at the time.  That show changed my life as a musician.  Up to that point I had been playing in a punk band and didn't really pay attention to gear. I played a hand me down bass on the biggest practice amp I could afford (a fender bxr100 amp if you're taking notes.  I couldn't tell you what make that cream bass guitar was)  I parked myself in front of the bass player's rig (which is still my custom) and the band launched into their set.  I remember really loving the set but was absolutely enthralled by Kim Coleta's bass tone. So punchy, so big.  It was the sound I wanted to make.  She played a fender jazz bass through an ampeg 8x10 cabinet and some sort of ampeg bass head I don't remember.  I left this show on a mission.  I wasn't making much money at the print shop where I was working but I bought a used ampeg svt pro head and shortly after I bought a floor model ampeg 4x10 cabinet.  I've always coveted the 8x10 cab but never had any reasonable way to lug around what amounted to a small refrigerator.  The guitar took a little longer.  With a tax return and a month of Ramen noodles I was able to purchase an american fender jazz bass guitar.  The whole process took me a couple of years.  When I had all these components I used to walk up to the band rehearsal space for the indie rock band I was in at the time and sit Indian style in front of the rig and just run the only scale I knew.  I let that sound wash over me.  It was my most prized possession in my life up to that point.
I don't know if it was that live bass sound or what but this "s/t" CD remains my favorite of their canon.  It flies in the face of what is generally regarded as their best album.  That's not my problem. The songs on here are dark and obtuse. Time changes and texture.  It's a heart wringing muscle flex of D.C. post-hardcore done with artistic flair.  I come back to this CD often.

Descendents "milo goes to college"

In 1989 I bought #descendents "milo goes to college" because a friend of mine told me it had the drummer from Black Flag.  I remember being bummed that this album wasn't as ferocious as "damaged" but I listened to this alot at the pizzeria I worked at. It's catchy proto - pop punk won over the cute blonde at work so it won me over too.  On one occasion I was skateboarding through Como Park on my way to meet my friends.  I was listening to this on my Walkman cassette player when a Camaro swerved towards me on the park road. I naturally yelled obscenities at them and flipped them the bird. The car screeched to a halt and did a burn out u-turn back towards me.  I kicked my skateboard into my hand and stepped onto the grass next to the road.  The car loudly screeched to a stop just a few feet from me and I remember the smell of but rubber from all of their muscle car heroics.  I saw there were two dudes in the car as it stopped and as the passenger door opened towards me in a fit of blind anger and self-defence I rushed the car and swung my skateboard at my would-be assailant.  It struck him broad side in his melon and he crumpled back into the car seat and the Camaro peeled off.  I stood there basking in pride of staving off bullies when a family at a nearby picnic table yelled after me that I was an "animal".  That still stings to this day. The errant assessment that labeled me an "animal" .  I skated my ass off to my friend's house fearing the return of the bitchin' Camaro (I swear I'm not making this shit up) with reinforcements.  My buddie's were frenzied up at my tale of skateboard swordplay and we all skated en masse to the park looking for a fight.  The car never came back.  The passenger of the car was later identified due to the large grip tape brush burn on his forehead and it was a summer of conflict between our two groups culminating in another fist fight at a C.Y.O. dance (which I lost).  You'd think this linked memory would make this disc something that would agitate me, but my clearest memory of the event was the smell of cut grass in the park and the rumble of its rough pavement under my skateboard wheels.  It makes this a summer standard for me.

Hellhammer "apocalyptic raids"

The first time I heard #hellhammer was around 1987.  A friend had given me a cassette with this album on one side and Onslaught "power from hell" on the flip (a great album in its own right).  I LOVED this Hellhammer album right from the first listen.  I've read accounts of how despised this band was upon it's release.  I'm always a little surprised.  Yeah, it's primitive and borders on cheesy in it's desire to be evil as hell.  I think the thing that sells it though is the sincerity of artistic focus.  The album exists solely as an honest statement, it is not derivitive and I believe that resonates with those of us who love this shit.  I was talking about "true metal" with one of my co-workers yesterday and I believe that there is no truer metal than this.  It is heavy metal distilled down to it's concentrated essence.  Leather, spikes, long hair, double bass drums and smear distorted riffs.  There's no pandering to non-metal.  The music is singular in it's appeal.  That purity is what I freaking love about this album.  As an album I actually prefer the follow up Celtic Frost's "morbid tales" but as a statement of extreme heavy metalness I believe this album is unprecedented.

Steppenwolf "16 greatest hits "

I've always had a love affair with motorcycles.  I had Evel Knievel toys as a kid, I remember some psychedelic chopper children's book I used to check out of my elementary school library repeatedly (I've searched repeatedly for that book but have been unable to find it with such little clues)  I watched "easy rider" as a teenager and fantasized of the rebellious freedom. In high school I read Robert M. Pirsig's "zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance" and it literally changed my internal wiring. I've read a trio of books more than three times each in my life. Pirsig's "zen..." Tolkien's "lord of the rings" (I count it as one book.) and Herman Hesse's "steppenwolf".  Those three books have resonated with me over and over.  I discovered the band #steppenwolf while watching "easy rider", it wasn't for a few years I discovered the book the stole their name from.  I bought a cassette of "16 hits" in high school smack dab in my heavy metal phase.  I was also into Pink Floyd's "the wall" at that time.  There was something hesher-historic about the band (they did coin the phrase "heavy metal thunder") and I really loved the collection of songs.  When I finally started riding motorcycles I found "born to be wild" was consistently my inner-soundtrack.  I realise how cliche that is.  I'm not ashamed of it.  My love of motorcycles is a conundrum for me: I realise how dangerous they are. My father was killed on one.  My wife works as a nurse in the er of a hospital.  She was fearful every summer seeing the parade of maimed motorcyclists. I gave mine up because it became an issue to ride with my obligations to my small children and storage of beloved metal steed.  I long for another bike.  When the kids are older I'll get another.  The warmer months are painful for me.  Hearing bikes and seeing them on open country roads calls to me like a siren.  I can't wait to have that steppenwolf song stuck in my head again as I use all of my senses to navigate and manipulate another bike.

Jawbreaker "unfun"

In 1991 I somehow landed a copy of the "Hardcore Breakout" compilation.  It introduced me to two of my all-time favorite bands: Samiam and #jawbreaker . I rarely, if ever purchase compilation CDs anymore but there was a time that this format was how I discovered bands.  I could rattle off a dozen discs I purchased from strong appearances on compilations and split 7"s.  I was turned on to jawbreaker at first because of the tonality and style of the vocals (actually that's what turned me on to samiam too, but in a different way)  I ordered this disc (still the original) directly from the label through an ad in Maximum Rock n'Roll.  I remember I sent cash folded into some drawings.  The dude from the label included a note saying the drawings were awesome when I received this cd.  It was a very encouraging moment and actually bolstered my artistic efforts. I don't remember what I sent and I could have sworn I tucked that note inside this cd booklet but it's not there and I'm pretty bummed.  With every release Jawbreaker got better but this first album still holds a dear (you) place in my heart.  The song "fine day" made its way onto mix tapes I made for years.   It was just announced that the band is reuniting for the first time in 21 years (fuck, I bought this cd and have been carting it around for 27 years.  I'm old).  They have announced a single festival date that I probably won't be able to attend (though I really really want to)  I really hope the band can hold it together for at least a tour and maybe, dare I hope, a new album. I've followed all the band members since the breakup and bought their subsequent discs but I'd love the alchemy of Jawbreaker to release some more songs.  And Fugazi, if you're reading this: we need you too.

Portal "swarth"

There aren't many bands than can unnerve me with a live performance. #portal is one of them.  A friend accompanied me to a metal show at the Mohawk Place in Buffalo.  We were excited to see black metallers Krallice and didn't really know anything about the other bands on the bill.  The club was not packed but the people that were there were all into the fringes of metal.  I had heard rumblings that dude who runs Profound Lore records was there (impeccable metal record label, you can throw a dart at their catalog and hit an awesome album) so we started getting excited about the show.  I did my customary trip to the merch tables.   I love when bands bring stuff by other bands, like a travelling underground record store.  I bought CDs by everyone on the bill (including this one ) and started drinking cheap beer at the bar.  While I am a beer snob there is something mystical about metal (and punk) shows that makes cheap beer not only palatable but actually desirable.  So we watched the band's plow through their sets and were enjoying the evening  (and getting rather drunk) when the headliners Portal finally took the stage.  All of the lights were turned off except for two red bulbs, the band took the stage dressed all in black with black sacks over their heads and large nooses tied around their necks.  The kicked into a blackened noise of arpeggio riffs and the vocalist took the stage in a black pope's outfit with a sheer opaque black mask over his face.  The vocalist made grand gestures while grotesquely grumbling over the din.  I was raised Roman catholic and the entire scene was obscene and unsettling.  I loved it. Ghost came out a couple years later and while I enjoy their similar aesthetic it seems like a Kiss Army characature compared to Portal.  My friend and I had no idea what we were in store for.  We were mesmerized by the unlistenable experience.  This disc and this band are only vaguely musical.  All of the necessary rock instruments are present but the band plays a roaring vacuum,  not songs.  They feel menacing and evil but sound like nothing else.  I can't say I love this cd.  I can say it changed how I appreciate the artistic aesthetic of music.

Prince and the Revolution "purple rain"

In 1984 I was twelve years old.  My blossoming hormones had not missed Appolonia. It was and is a fantastic movie with arguably the best soundtrack ever.  I had spent a morning playing Dungeons & Dragons at my friends house.  We spent the morning with dice, graph paper and off-brand soda pop.  The three of us wrangled with whatever module we had managed to get our hands on for a few hours before  my friend had to leave.  I retired to my buddy's basement where their record player was and we listened to #princeandtherevolution sing about things we had no grasp of.  We were definitely excited by "darling nikki" but really were too naive still to fully grasp how filthy that song really is.  We played the backward vocals back word by disengaging the record players belt by leaving the speed knob stuck between 33 and 45rpm.  Maybe we were seduced by the hedonistic world of Prince, maybe rock and roll is actually the devil's music or maybe we were just dumb but it was then that we decided to sample the booze in my friend's  father's fully stocked basement bar.  We were innocently enough just trying to sample what all the hub bub was about.  Why were certain brands in George Thorogood songs?  We sipped and reeled from many of the bottles as "baby I'm a star" egged us on.  We didn't realise we would end up getting smashed.  In hindsight we were really just that dumb, but at the time that outcome hadn't occurred to us.  We got drunk goofey.  We knew we had to get away from the scene of the crime and tried to ride our bikes to the playground behind the elementary school.  We repeatedly crashed and fell.  We were unfamiliarly dizzy and without any of our faculties.  We pushed our bikes and laughed and drool spit our way to the end of our street where we ended up just sitting on someone's front lawn and rolled around laughing.  I don't remember how long it took us to sober up and I know we never got caught, which amazes me really.  The episode was a PMRC wet dream.  That Prince record is some powerful stuff.

Sir Mix Alot "baby got back"

I hate karaoke.  I've tried to like it.  I don't mind going with others who want to sing but I hate doing it.  There was a stretch of time where a bunch of my musician friends were roving around western New York trying out different karaoke nights at different bars.  They were all into it and it made for fun nights.  My friends put on shows.  Acting like schmaltzy lounge singers (even going so far as to attend events in tuxedos and wigs) or stadium rockers with abandon.  Some could sing very well, some couldn't.  They started entering competitions and the whole thing took on a life of its own.  It was great fun to spectate.  My dirty secret is that I hate performing.  Yeah, I've been in bands for years and played many shows around the country.  It's my least favorite part of being a musician. I loved rehearsals.  You and your friends conjuring songs and jokes. I loved recording.  The wizardry of the studio and documentation of your efforts.  Performing live in a band you can sort of hide personally behind the band is an entiry. That and beer were the reasons I got through it.  Always had the jitters and always wanted to bolt afterwards.   The only thing more embarassing than performing is small talking about your performance afterwards. 
This is the only song I've ever sung at karaoke.  I chose it because it's goofy,  it's a rap  (so tonality doesn't matter as much) and because I know all the words.  I twerked, I lap danced and I spat the lyrics out.  I received riotus applause and knew at that moment I would never do anything like that again. 
By the way I also know all the words to the b-side "cake boy".
"You drink much brew-ha, got a body like buddha"

Curve "frozen"

I sorely miss the days when CDeps and CD singles were widely used.  I miss their exclusive tracks/b-sides and remixes.  They were affordable and came with artwork outside of the band's full length canon. They were a way to get a sizable sample of band's work outside of an isolated compilation track.  This ep by #curve sounds really dated. It's '90s production is almost overpowering but it is a compliment to the dark and sultry electro -pop.  There are shoegaze elements and a twin peaks/Angelo Badlamenti vibe to the thing that I loved when I purchased this back in 1991.  This was a period in my life I was into indestrial/electronic music.  I'd buy anything on wax trax! Records and coveted my Ministry, Skinny Puppy and KMFDM albums.  Curve fall into a more shoegazey end of that sort of music and the song "the colour hurts" was making it onto all of my mix tapes.  I bought their follow up full length "doppleganger" (one of my favorite words) and they continued in the quasi-gothic brooding vein but I seem to always return to this ep.  What's especially great about this ep is that as far as I know none of these four songs appeared on any other of their releases.  I have carted this copy around since 1991,  that is saying something.  Through my countless moves and subsequent collection purging this cd has consistently made the cut.  I've liked this disc enough through all my musical phases to never let it go to make room for new stuff.  It may be the nostalgia, this thing is a time capsule that teleports me back to my freshman year of college, it may be my underlying affinity for anything melancholic or it might be an effect of how deeply I miss the extended playing format.  In any event I don't see this cd going anywhere.

Garden Variety "knocking the skill level"

In the '90s I had been doing illustrations and writing reviews for fanzines.  I didn't get paid for it, but I did receive CDs which I would have inevitably spent the money on anyhow.  This period of my life opened me up to a ton of stuff,  a great deal of it I didn't like and would often wrestle with writing non-dismissive reviews because I appreciated someone spent a lot of time and effort on these shiny plastic discs.  There were a few real game changing gems that I received though too and this #gardenvariety disc was one of them.  It's a D.C./post-hardcore vibe with personal lyrics.  Getting an album this good in the mail just affirmed the time I spent on the art and writing.  I mean I have been obsessed over music since I discovered it as an amassable entity.  At this time of my life though nothing else really mattered to me.  I had started playing bass guitar in a band, I was neck deep 'zine culture, I was working with a punk rock television show, I attending any show I could and drank coffee (which was not musical in nature but was social and I would yammer on about music to anyone who was within earshot).  I was singular in purpose.  That singularity of purpose has happened a few times in my life: tattooing and fatherhood being the others.  That trinity of obsessions really does define me.  There is nothing I do that doesn't fall under those three catagories.  While writing this the song "soft on the name" is playing and the lyrical refrain is repeating: "you're always the last one left to find out" and maybe there are people who find their "centers" in life sooner than I did. It turns out to navigate there I had to triangulate.
This disc came out in 1995.  If I really think about the 22 years since I got it on its release alot of heavy shit has transpired, but this disc still sounds great and still resonates with me.  It makes me want to play music.  It makes me want to drink the rest of this pot of coffee and research what these band members have been up to.  It makes me want to listen to it again while I tattoo tomorrow.  It reminds me of walking around buffalo with headphones so I'm going to get the boys together and go for a walk today. Centered.

Mentors "you axed for it"

I discovered the #mentors by listening to the college radio station WBNY in the late '80s.  Where I lived in the suburbs it took a lot of work to listen to the station.  It's grossly under powered transmission was meant for the campus only so tuning it in my neighborhood was like summoning a demonic overlord.  I would go to the northwest corner of my grandmother's apartment upstairs in the duplex where we lived.  I'd sit by the window (opened if possible, weather permitting ) and in this precise area at a precise time I would fold what must have been pounds of tin foil in exotic origami like shapes to the fully extended antennae of my boom box. I would constantly wiggle and adjust the setup until the crackly semi-clear transmission could be heard.  I would have a cassette tape cues up to record with the pause button engaged so that I could record songs with a gentle button push so as not to disturb my delicate and tenuous set up.  The metal show on wbny was legendary to my circle of friends, they played tons of underground stuff that we devoured.  A friend of mine had captured the song "four F club" from this album on tape and we all poured over it's vulgar lyrics and cave man metal. We had spent hours memorizing John Valby tapes (look him up) so the sexist dirty lyrics were a welcome addition to our collection of forbidden media.  It was a song I had always hoped to catch myself.  It was a quest.  We traded these tapes we made of the show and compiled our favorite songs (Thrust's "posers will die" became legendary this way)  but I really wanted my own Mentors song trapped on my own cassette.  Actually, come to think of it that song had no business on the radio but WBNY felt like a pirate radio and I suppose at the time it kinda was.  I eventually caught "four F club" and "sandwich of love" on tape.  It wasn't until pretty recently that I ever owned a proper release by the band.  I try not to smirk at the gross lyrics but I still do.  This is not a cd I play when the kids are around.

Slayer "show no mercy"

In the spring of 1985 I had been given a cassette which had Venom's "at war with satan" on one side and Slayer's "hell awaits" on the other.  That tape opened Pandora's box of heavy metal.  I searched out albums by both bands and at Cavages record store I found my own copies of #slayer "hell awaits", "haunting the chapel" and "show no mercy". I was already hooked on Iron Maiden but this was a whole new level of dangerous sounding music.  By the end of ninth grade I was ready to replace my Maiden back patch (I had shredded the jacket it was on getting drunk in a field behind the elementary school)  I went to our trusted head shop Pavillion International and got a back patch of this album cover.  A goat - headed sword welding satan in front of Slayer's original (and sorely missed) logo.  I wore that badge of confrontation proudly.  It led to confrontation.  That jean jacket never left my flesh and every day in the cafeteria there was a table of jocks that would mockingly exclaim "slayer!" as I walked past their lunch table. They had done it for weeks and laughed to each other.  One day one of them upped the humiliation and chucked a tater tot at me as I slunk past.  I was already an angry kid and the rage had been building over this incessant harassment.  The tot hit my shoulder and then ricochet to my head. I stopped and pivoted 90 degrees to my left, took three steps and smashed the closest dude in the face with my lunch tray. He tried to stand up and I punched him and he toppled.  I grabbed the chair he had been sitting in and threw it indiscriminately at the person who had been seated at his right. While I was enraged I remember time slowing to an almost serene pace. I threw some ineffective punches at someone's back, whoever I could reach and was then grabbed from behind by our gym teacher. He roughly and silently shoved me out of the cafeteria towards the school office.  I received a week of in-school suspension.  When the week was up and I returned to classes I was dreading lunch and the jock retaliation.  My head was on a paranoid swivel all day. Every guy in a letterman jacket a potential threat.  I anxiously waited for retribution all day.  None came.  Not a peep.  I nervously went to school the next day.  Still nothing.  No jeers of "slayer!"  Years later I ran into a guy I didn't know who was at that table.  He was bouncing at a bar on Chippewa.   He asked me of my name was Joel Menter. I responded that it was.  He then told me that I beat his friend in high school with a chair (not entirely accurate) and that it was the most bad ass thing he had ever seen.  He said they were all terrified of me and believed I was a satanic cultist.  He laughed and shook my hand and let me in the bar without paying the cover.  Man, I wish I still had that jacket.

Immolation "here in after"

In the late '90s I was working at a silk screening shop.  We hand pulled greeting cards for a local company. It was here I ended up meeting one of my best friends.  When I started at the shop he had long hair down to his ass, and was obviously a metal head.  I had been deeply involved in indie rock and the first wave of emo for a few years but found myself welcoming his turns on the shop cd player.  It was through him I rediscovered my love for death metal.  I had asked him to make me a "best of" compilation of Morbid Angel and he also made a general mix of death metal.  On that mix was "Christ's Cage" by #immolation .   Back in the day I had a cassette that someone put their demo on.  I remember loving the vocals but I don't remember much else.  When I heard this song I was hooked on death metal all over again and through my buddie's guidance (and his personal cd collection ) I started mining the depths of the genre again.  My rekindled relationship with metal became kind of an inside joke with the bands I was involved with at the time, most of the other members  (actually, none of the other members) had any history with heavy music let alone death metal.  It became a special sort of insular musical cocoon for me at the time.  My buddie and I started attending the odd metal show together and all the reasons I loved metal in the first place kind of just bubbled to the surface again and it wasn't long before I was re-immersed in it's evil din.  Prior to working at that print shop my cd collection contained Slayer's "reign in blood" and the first four Black Sabbath albums.  Now almost half of my collection falls under the heavy metal flag.  The music just doesn't ever let you go.  "Christ's Cage" is still one of my favorite songs in its wide world.