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What was he like?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice Cream Man
I am fascinated by that guy & how he would antagonize the audience, before each song.
I love the songs to (I love livin' in the city & I don't care about you).
That first Decline DVD is just dark & intense, moreso than the "Metal Years."
There's a really intense, chaotic vibe between band & audience.
Oh yeah, Clutch have always been consistent & great!Quote:
Originally Posted by vhfanjack
While we've been on the topic of black metal in our Dms, you need to check out this band from New York.Quote:
Originally Posted by unchainedguitars
I don't like the later waves of black metal bands, but this strange Chilean guy that saw I had a Darkthrone album in my cart at Rasputin's in Berkeley started telling me I must buy their stuff. He was such a strange little guy. Only listened to black metal and early, grimy death metal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Vk_Z-hl8N0
Haha, you posted this same band & videos a couple years back, and i rememberQuote:
Originally Posted by vhfanjack
telling you that i liked what i heard.
Mainly, i like reading about the black metal scene, more than i like listening to it.
Those guys in Norway were like the thug rappers of America, killing each other off
over petty arguments.
I was never much into that specific scene, musically, though i loved thrash & early
death metal.
Okay, I'm rooked in. I can't resist telling my story! (Long for a forum post, but worth it!)Quote:
Originally Posted by unchainedguitars
It was my last night, and my plane was leaving the next morning, but I couldn't leave without seeing the Rainbow and Whisky, so I crammed both into an evening.
First I went to the Rainbow. There was a $5 charge to get in, but you got a free drink with that, so I had a Jack & Coke and went to the patio. No Lemmy at the rock n' roll trivia machine that night, unfortunately.
I asked a waitress, where did Led Zeppelin sit? She said she didn't know, I should ask the old guy in a suit at the door. I couldn't believe they didn't cover that at orientation. The guy pointed to a booth in the middle of the place and said, "Right there! Those were some wild days!" (After I got home I later read there was actually a private club upstairs where they partied, but whatever!) I told him, "You must get asked that every 45 minutes, huh?," and he said, "Not really." Why not? The whole reason everyone knows the Rainbow is that picture of Zeppelin hanging out there with Lori Maddox, right?
As I was talking to the guy at the door, Ron Jeremy walked in. He has his own brand of wine there. I didn't approach Jeremy because I figured, what was I going to say? "You ruined a lot of porn for me in the `80's?" Plus, I couldn't shake his hand. Who knew where it had been?
I went upstairs and peed, excited that my urine was probably sprinkling the same bowl John Bonham once peed into after a pint of ale!
Planning my trip I knew I wanted to see a decent band when I went to the Whisky. The best band all week appeared to be this Buckingham-Nicks pair (link). They were indeed really good. I stared at the stage thinking, "Van Halen stood on this stage as a local band. And Jimi Hendrix! Jim Morrison took off from THIS VERY SPOT!"
The other bands ranged from decent to extremely iffy.
Then I saw some older guy walking across the floor. I thought it was Lee Ving. I'd seen him in Dave Grohl's Sound City movie, so I recognized him as an older man, but it seemed weird no one else was doing a double take or approaching him. What if I was wrong? I had to confirm if it was indeed Lee Ving!
I went over and tapped him on the arm and said, "Excuse me..." He didn't seem to notice, so I tapped again, and he turned. "I don't want to bother you, but I just had to confirm. Are you...," and he seemed to smile in anticipation of the question, "...Lee Ving?"
He got a big smile and said, "Yes I am!"
"HELL YEAH! AWESOME!," I exclaimed.
I asked him why he wasn't on the stage? I came there thinking maybe FEAR would be up there! He laughed and asked me my name and where I was from. I told him Atlanta, and he said he had a show coming up here. He asked if I'd heard of this local Atlanta politician, and I had, and was surprised he knew of him. He said that the guy was a friend of his and he was coming here to do a benefit for him soon, and I should send him an e-mail and he would get me in. This was an unbelievable way to cap off my trip! (I e-mailed a month later...didn't hear anything. I tried looking up the benefit online and didn't see it. Maybe it was super private, or I missed it? Maybe I got stuck in his spam filter. He's about 70, so, you know. I think he was sincere, though.)
He seemed like he would've chatted more, but I was afraid to reveal my knowledge of FEAR was thin outside of Decline, "Bomb the Russians," and seeing them on USA Night Flight in the `80's, so I just thanked him and went out the door.
Earlier in the week on Hollywood Boulevard I heard Black Label Society soundchecking at the La Fonda Theatre. The mix was so good and the playing so smooth it could've been a CD, but it was about 3 in the afternoon and so loud you could hear it on the sidewalk, so I think they were jamming.
I saw Conan O'Brien tape, and his musical guest was Jack White, who did two songs. As I suspected, Jack White's just not that great. I think his Edward Scissorhands look is what puts him over. I was most thrilled to see Andy Richter.
Also got to see Craig Ferguson tape The Late Late Show at CBS (guest: Bob Sagett). His presence off camera impressed the hell out of me. You could just see in his stride and the way he carried himself that if not a TV star, he would at least be the regional manager for a luxury department store chain. Very focused and ambitious guy.
Watched four hours of open mic night at the Comedy Store, where my hero David Letterman started. Jeff Ross from The Burn, which had just been canceled, dropped in.
And I saw Adam Carolla tape his podcast at the Ice House comedy club in Pasadena (guest: Paul Rodriguez) and got my picture with him. Earlier that same afternoon, I went to Las Lunas Street and saw the childhood home of Eddie and Alex Van Halen, as well as other notable Van Halen sites!
That was June of 2014, but I'm STILL high off the experience!
This song sounds funny today, but was scary as shit in 1985: "Bomb the Russians" (link)
Then I saw this on USA Night Flight and was totally weirded out...and intrigued!
FEAR at 26:07
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m8KfNdpR5E#t=26m08s
It's pedestrian and low fi, but for whatever reason I prefer black metal to death metal. I think it might be the minor key of the riffing.Quote:
Originally Posted by unchainedguitars
Great stories, ICM.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ice Cream Man
I was reading, and nervous that Ving would be like: What the fuck's your problem, man?!
As a VH loving kid, i was always vaguely aware of bands like Fear & the Circle Jerks, but dismissed
them all as guys who couldn't play their instruments.
But watching that first Decline film, i really kind of understood the appeal, especially for kids
of that time period.
Ving is magnetic, just the way he looks at the audience as he bangs out those barre chords:
A combination of respect & revulsion.
I liked the tunes & the lyrics were hilarious:
Cockroaches climbing on the walls,
crabs are crawling on my balls,
Oh but i'm so clean cut,
I just wanna fuck some slut....
I love livin' in the city!
Man, it's too bad Lemmy wasn't at the Rainbow.
That would have really sealed the deal on that LA getaway.
I still like the damn Odin segment, of the Metal Years segment, btw!
Fucking Randy O with the stage fan blowing his scarves & glam shawl.
I still can't get over him saying, "We're gonna be bigger than these other bands on
the strip...I'm talking Zeppelin, the stones, the beatles."
Then they cut to Odin doing some song that is the epitome of 1988, "Gypsy."
At first when I tapped him and he didn't respond I thought he might've been blowing me off, but I'm glad I tapped again. He was super, super nice and friendly.Quote:
Originally Posted by unchainedguitars
Lee has been kicking around since the `60's playing all kinds of music. In Philadelphia, where he's from, he had a blues band that opened for Cream!
By the mid `70's he was in L.A., in his mid-30's, and playing blues and jazz, but he said audiences would be either comatose or chat while he played, and he couldn't stand it. Then someone told him he should check out a punk show for a laugh.
He said he saw the slam dancing and stage diving and said, "THIS is an audience that's engaged! I want to play for THIS crowd!" There was also a singer there who started every song, "1-2-3-4, 1-2-3!," and he ripped that off and made it his trademark.
FEAR's bass player was some jazz/multi-instrumentalist guy he knew. I read where another ex-member that Lee is on the outs with Ving said their gear was actually bought for them by Three Dog Night, who were friends of Ving's!
There are other clips on the internet where he plays harmonica and I've even seen him singing Italian opera, and he's pretty good at both! They say he makes solo country albums, too! Plus he acts: He played the club manager in Flashdance, and has been in several other movies in bit parts.
I saw a YouTube comment where someone wrote that they opened for The Offspring in Hollywood this year, and no one in the crowd even knew who they were. People today don't know about five years ago, let alone 30 years ago. I didn't want to let on that I wasn't sure if FEAR was still a band or if he had a new CD out or not, so that's why I shook his hand and ended the night there. I guess I knew more about him than anyone else there, just by the fact I recognized him and knew some of his history.
It was also fitting to end my vacation there because some of my fascination with Los Angeles started when I was 14 and Night Flight played live clips of FEAR and The Dead Kennedys back to back. It was EXTREMELY different than the L.A. I was reading about in Circus! I thought, "What...the fuck?"
And of course like everyone...HE'S COLLABORATED WITH DAVE GROHL!
For great, funny lyrics, check out "New York's Alright If You Like Saxophones." It's the second song from their legendary Saturday Night Live appearance where they got cut off by NBC because somebody screamed, "New York sucks! New York sucks! FUCK!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Frud5RFtTi0
Yeah, i was amazed how old they all were in 1980.
Billy Zoom was already in his 30's, Ving as well....
Penelope Spheeris was like 35.
You picture early punk as being a really young person's game.
I just watched Decline 3, where they revisit punk in the mid 90's.
I thought it sucked.
I didn't even like the fans, the squatters.
It's like, "Get off your ass, and do something already instead of dying your
hair & begging change from LA tourists."
At least, the original punks were rebelling against politics and the government.
These kids are like, "Dude, no job for me. Can't deal with the hassle of waking up...."
They adopted the image, but none of the intelligence of the original scene.
A Different Kind Of Truth.
Man, I tell you. This CD/Album still has legs.
The only song on this album that doesn't fit in, is TATTOO.
I love You and Your Blues. Don't understand why YAYB or Blood and Fire weren't the first singles.
As Is and Stay Frosty are still my favorites.
Big River, Bullethead, Outta Space and Beats Working have become a must listen too. I love what Dave is saying in Bullethead and Outta Space.
Big River and Beats Working has that 70's feel. It's refreshing.
This album doesn't feel "dated".