When credit is due

Last night my friend John (fellow bleach banger) and I had the chance to see one of, if not the most, underrated bands in history, ANVIL.

For those that don't know, ANVIL started in the mid 70's and their first album was released in 1981 titled Hard and Heavy. As should have been expected they toured with the best bands in the world and then unfortunately went nowhere. I don't want to spend this blog talking about what happened and how wrong it was, as that is to fucking boring. Everyone can see all of that on their movie, Anvil the story of Anvil. I have seen it and it really is a great movie about the band.

The movie is also how I came to know the band. I would have to admit that I didn't know who they were before I saw the movie, but as with other people that now like Anvil that is the whole point. Now that I know about the band, I can enjoy their music and it does kick ass. Especially their latest album, This is Thirteen, which incidentally in also their thirteen album of their career, nice touch guys.

Anyway, back to the performance. They really kicked ass as I said, what is also impression is these guys (except for the bass player) are in their fifties and they would have put guys half their age to shame. Especially the drummer Robb Reiner, he did a drum solo that was close to epic. God how I miss the old days of drum solos, they are a lost art form. Going through close to a 10 song set, they never let up the entire time. And they are really down to earth type guys.

John and I both had the opportunity for a meet and greet before the show and got pictures taken with each member. Mostly a little small talk here and there, which was nice, but when we got to the singer Steve "Lips" Kudlow, it was a little humbling. I asked him how it felt to be a rock star now, and he said "Man I'm not a rock star, a rock star is someone with their head in the clouds and my feet are on the ground." And I really believed him, during the set he kept coming into the crowd and would play songs, he was stating that he loved to perform on stage, and as they were about to start their last song he said for everyone to give him about 5 minutes to clean up after the show and he would come up and shake everyone's hand. Truly a perform who lives to play music and expects nothing else. Many of the performers out there right now could really take some notes from these guys.

I want to give these three guys the respect and gratification that they deserve. They have stuck with their passion and desire for the love of their music and never gave up. That is something I believe we can all agree on that we don't see anymore.

Keep on rockin' Anvil, I look forward to enjoying your career from here on, I wish I had known you sooner.

\m/

Sportin' A Woody, Fantastico

Another great show tonight on Bleach Bangs. We had the great frontman Jason McMaster on the show. He was nice enough to honor us with his presence. Man this guy is a monster, he stated that he is in several different bands. Most of you should know him as the frontman for the great metal band, Dangerous Toys. He is also a member of another great band, Broken Teeth. They just released a new CD called Viva La Rock, Fantastico this tuesday.

McMaster is also involved in the following bands: Watchtower, SSIK (KISS Tribute), Ignitor, and Killa Maul (Metallica Tribute).

I gotta tell you, the man is awesome. We all on the show agreed that just being able to keep a few bands straight would be a task, but he is truly a "master." He was actually on the road to a Killa Maul show and acted like it was nothing for him.

Another fantastic thing is I have listened to several of the bands on their MySpace pages and each of them sounds completely different. Ignitor has more of a speed metal sound, Watchtower slapping your face with a thrash sound. To be honest I hadn't really had a chance to listen to Broken Teeth, but when I did HOLY SHIT!!!! I am waiting to be able to download some songs digitally and then buying the record, because the new record is f#ckin awesome. Songs such as Exploder, Break the Spell, and Blackheart are phenomenal sounding songs I extremely recommend checking it out and buying the damn thing as soon as you possibly can.

That's all for now...

The availability of my music

I don't listen to the radio, never really have. I do have the availabilty of a station that has always played my music, but with that I have times when they play the same songs to often and it begins to bore me. I do have the opportunity for an ipod but my "older" car isn't equip with the functions for my ipod to play in my car. Also since I don't know how long I will have my car I don't want to spend the cash to have the hardware installed so I can use my ipod.

So I still go old school with a compilation cd of different songs. That's right my friends a "Super Tape" (or cd whatever you want to call it.) This way I can enjoy the opportunity to download different songs and enjoy them on one cd while I drive.

Anyway, I'm off track a little. I wanted to extend my thanks and appreciation of VH1 CLASSIC. Usually every Saturday night for sure and occasionally a day or two in the week, they will play a show called, Metal Mania. This is the wholly grail for metal music, it's like saturday morning cartoons when you were a kid. Most of the shows will run 2.5-3 hours long. If you have the chance TiVo them or DVR them, whatever you have. For those that are tired of wanting MTV for videos (which never happens now), these are the shows to watch. I am watching one now and I have already seen the best of bands. Slayer, Overkill, Tesla, Anthrax, Bon Jovi, and many more.

So raise your devil horns and salute VH1 Classic for the balls to play the videos of the bands that paved the way for the so called "metal" bands of today.

\m/

The Beginning Of The End

It's the first post so gotta get it right, I'll tell you right now were not geniuses (sorry everybody but I gotta set the records straight.) We are just regular joes, the guys and gal of the norm. But the one thing we excel at is METAL. You will not find much more on this blog, but the talking of metal. This is an addition to our radio show, Bleach Bangs. Also check out our website, www.bleachbangs.com for more information. I gotta give credit to Randy and Becca for the creation of the web page. They are the bomb!!!

We started slow with weekly broadcasts talking about music and how it affects us. Also we would do our favorite top tens, such as bands, concerts, guitarists and many others. Now we have moved on to doing what I believe Randy, Charlie, and John started out to do. Bringing the metal to the masses. Since then we have had bands such as, KrashKarma, Wildstreet, Revengeance, and Dirty Penny to name a few on the show. Plus many many more to come so listen in and ROCK ON!!!

Metal is in our blood. Whether hair metal, heavy metal, alternative metal or glam metal. Call it what you will but we all live and breathe it. We all grew up on the "Hair Metal" craze and now are doing our best to keep it alive and help out the up and coming bands that will keep this genre alive when we are pushing up daisies. These bands mean more to us than the music. It's part of our past and what helped make us what we are today.

SO BE READY WORLD AS HERE COMES THE-----BLEACH BANGS!!!!!!