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Saturday, July 31, 2010

ESCAPE THE TORMENT

This time we have something a little different from our regular blog material. This blog installment consists of an interview we did with Cannibal Corpse bassist Alex Webster.

Alex is one of the gentlemen of the scene, and has supported our efforts with Glorious Times since before we even went public with our plans to produce the book, and when he pledged his support and desire to participate, he kept his promise. That sits really well with us, and is in keeping with how it used to be a hundred years ago too. The rock-star virus has proven impossible to latch onto this man.


Beyond Death 1988 outside the River Rock Cafe
(photo - courtesy of the Buffalo 1980's Underground Metal page on Facebook)

GT: Back in 1989 I was starting up Chainsaw Abortions and you were among my first interviews. Could you have imagine that 21 years later Cannibal Corpse would still be going strong and that you would have had the career that you did? In your wildest dreams when you, Jack and Darrin were forming Beyond Death in 1986 could you have imagined that you'd go on this long in death metal and be so influential?



ALEX: We definitely had no idea that all of this would happen. At that time death metal was less than 5 years old and even heavy metal had been around for less than 20 years so the thought that we could have a band together for over 20 years (let alone a decent career) was something that never crossed our minds. If somebody would have told me then what was going to happen with our band I would have laughed at them. We were hoping at most to release an album and maybe do some touring. Everything else that's happened is beyond anything we could have imagined at that time.


Alex in his Beyond Death days, 1988
(photo - courtesy of the Buffalo 1980's Underground Metal page on Facebook)

GT: Do you ever get the urge, particularly when you play Buffalo, to get Darrin to come down from Toronto and just burst into an old Beyond Death song like "Waiting to Die", "I'm Sick" or "Mr. Yuk" for the old timers in the crowd?

ALEX: I'd love to jam those songs with Frank, Jack, and Darrin again. I don't know about doing any shows since Beyond Death is still active with a different lineup, but getting together in a practice room sometime and jamming just for fun would be awesome. I loved playing those songs. Not sure how well my singing voice has held up though....I guess we'd have to see!


Flyer for Cannibal Corpse's first gig

GT: I was there at your first gig at the River Rock Cafe opening for Dark Angel. Could you describe what that show was like for you? Did you feel the pressure of opening for them on your first gig as Cannibal Corpse?


ALEX:  It was an incredible rush to play in front of so many people. In our old bands we'd never had the chance to open for a major national band like Dark Angel, so the 450+ people in the River Rock for that show was probably the biggest audience any of us had played to at that time. There was some pressure for sure, but when you're young you just throw caution to the wind and go for it. If I was in the same situation now I'd probably be more aware of just how important the gig was and feel a lot more pressure.

One other cool thing I remember about that show was that for some reason I was unable to use my own bass (I can't remember the exact reason, maybe it was broken) so Gary from Baphomet (who were also on the bill that night) let me use his white BC Rich Warlock bass, which was really cool of him. That's one of maybe 4 or 5 times in my whole career I've used someone else's bass for a show.


Flyer for the final show at the Skyroom in Buffalo, NY

GT: How special were those years in Buffalo to you, from your first gig in 1989, to playing in front of 600+ at A Day of Death in 1990 to playing the final show at the Skyroom in front of 700+?


ALEX:  Buffalo had such a great scene during the late 80's and early 90's. We were proud to be a part of it and we remember those shows well. The Day of Death was truly amazing, I've gone into detail in Glorious Times about how special that show was to us, and the final Skyroom show was awesome as well. Although Buffalo maintained a strong scene for a few years after that final show, I think it might be the show that marked the peak of the scene there. It's the biggest all-local band show I can remember from Buffalo (I was told there were over a 1000 people there, but I never heard an official head count).



I think everyone in the Buffalo scene at that time had the feeling we were part of something pretty special, something new. Death metal was a fairly new form of music at that time and there were a few really strong scenes internationally that helped it grow like Tampa, Stockholm, New York City/tri-state area, Montreal/Quebec...I feel like Buffalo was one of those strong scenes as well.


Paul in his Tirant Sin days
(photo - courtesy of Dennis John Glinski)

GT: Cannibal Corpse has gone through a few members, with only you and Paul remaining from the original lineup. Which other original member was it hardest for you to part ways with - Jack, Chris or Rob?


ALEX:  All of those guys had a lot of creative input in the band while they were members so it wasn't really easy to replace any of them. We worked hard to try to make sure each lineup change resulted in what we felt was an improvement in the band (that's subjective of course). Kicking out Bob was hard because it was something we did because we felt we had to, not because we wanted to. It was strictly done to improve the band musically. With Chris, we had had a few personal problems so that made it a little easier to ask him to leave the band when the time came, although by then the reason was also musical, not personal. Replacing him was the probably the hardest because singers are generally the face of the band, and that was certainly the case with Chris. He did most interviews and wrote most of the lyrics, so many people thought we were taking a big risk by replacing him. We had confidence in George though, so we really weren't that worried about it. That's probably another case of us being too young to be cautious!

GT: I remember back when cannibal corpse first started you were a real big fan of steve Digiorgio of Sadus, what other bassists impress you these days?


ALEX: Yes, Steve is still one of my favorites to this day as a matter of fact. He's one of the main influences that helped me develop my style of playing.



These days there are a lot of killer bassists in the death/extreme metal scene, like Mike Flores from Origin, Jeroen Thesseling of Obscura, Novy (ex-Vader, ex-Behemoth), Patrick Boleij of Severe Torture,  Jeff Hughell of Reciprocal (ex-Brain Drill), Mike Poggione from Monstrosity, Derek Boyer from Suffocation, Erlend Caspersen from Blood Red Throne....there are really a lot more bassists making themselves heard these days in death metal, and naturally I'm very happy to see that. In the old days, with the exception of a few legends like Steve and Roger Patterson (Atheist) bass players were almost an invisible member of the band for most death metal bands. I'm glad to see that's changed.


George
(photo - Alison Webster)

GT: When you parted ways with Chris was it a conscious decision to go with a more old school death metal vocalist in Corpsegrinder rather than another gutteral singer like Chris had become?


ALEX: Pretty much. George had a voice that was more like what we had always wanted in the first place. The bands that influenced us a lot often had really fast singers, bands like Dark Angel and Slayer. Either that, or they had the more gravelly voiced type singers as opposed to the ultra-low guttural approach Chris adopted for our 2nd and 3rd albums. For example, just to give you an idea of what we were looking for, two of my favorite singers in death metal are Ross Dolan from Immolation and Martin Van Drunen from Hail of Bullets (we were all really into his singing on Pestilence's Consuming Impulse album in particular). We felt that George had a really good combination of Doty or Araya-like speed and the gravelly/guttural (but not necessarily ultra-low) character of some other death metal singers we liked. Besides, we were all big fans of George's work with Monstrosity. When it came time to make a change in the vocal department, George was our first choice.


GT: You've been touring off and on for about a year now in support of "Evisceration Plague". How have the various tours (Australia, Europe, America, South America) gone?


ALEX: Everything's been going really well. We've been traveling so much I'm going to need some time to digest it all when we're all done. It's really great to see this much interest in death metal worldwide. It really is an international form of music.


Alex and Paul with their copy of "Glorious Times"

GT: Keeping with the concept of “Glorious Times”, do you have any good stories/memories to share from your "Evisceration Plague" tours?


ALEX: We've had a lot of good experiences over the past year and half while touring for this album, but I'd say if I had to pick one as a favorite it would be doing the Mayhem festival tour which featured one of our all time favorites Slayer (and around a dozen other bands as well). Touring with a band we've been influenced by since we were teenagers like Slayer was truly incredible, and being able to hang out with them a little bit during the tour was really great. Throughout the tour some of the bands would host parties and BBQs in the parking lots of the venues after the shows. There would always be a few members from each band on the tour at these parties, so everybody had a chance to hang out. It was definitely a great time, it was like a traveling extreme metal circus or something.

GT: What's the writing process like for Cannibal Corpse these days? Do you write on the road and in rehearsals or do you write all your stuff in studio now?

ALEX: Usually the songs will be written at home by whichever band member is writing the song and then he'll show the song to the rest of us as it starts to take shape. That's how it works most of the time, although each album might have a song or two that's written more spontaneously at the practice room. We pretty much never write on the road or in the studio. On the first 2 albums most of the songs were written at the practice room, often with all three string players contributing several riffs to each song. We started writing things more individually during Tomb, and even more so on the Bleeding. By the time Gallery of Suicide came out we had pretty much settled into the songwriting system we have now.


Dennis John Glinski (Grave Descent), Paul, Jimmy Link and
Rich Ziegler (Grave Descent) at the
Cannibal Corpse show in Buffalo, December of 2009
(Dennis and Rich were in Tirant Sin with Paul)
(Photo courtesy of Dennis John Glinski)

GT: How much fun was it to come back in December and play to your hometown crowd in Buffalo?

ALEX: It was great to be back. It was particularly cool that time since Hatebreed was headlining. Once we finished our set we had plenty of time to hang out with our friends during Hatebreed's set. Normally when we play Buffalo we headline and often have to leave in a hurry to make it to the next show. So, we had a good long hang that night with a bunch of our friends, it was killer. We'll be back this November too so hopefully we'll see everyone there again.

GT: What's your favorite track on "Evisceration Plague" musically and what's your favorite track from that album to play live?


ALEX: I like "Skewered From Ear to Eye" the best, it's one of the songs I wrote so I guess I'm biased. I like it because it's a little bit different from some of our other stuff and also because Pat does some really cool leads in that song. My favorite song to play live from that album is "Priests of Sodom". It's just a really fun song to play.


GT: Once the tours for "Evisceration Plague" are done are you guys going to take a break or are you jumping right back into the studio?


ALEX: We'll start writing a new album pretty much immediately with the goal of getting into the studio by mid-2011. We try to avoid taking breaks longer than a month or so.


Beyond Death live at the River Cafe 1988
(photo - courtesy of the Buffalo 1980's Underground Metal page on Facebook)

GT: We want to again thank you for your participation in our book "Glorious Times". Several bands had told us they were "too busy" to spend 5 minutes writing down a favorite memory of theirs from those days, but you took the time while you were on tour to not only write down your story, but to get back to me a couple of days later to change some of it. We really appreciated that, it's something we will never forget and it's one of those things that we think makes our book special. Do you have any last words of wisdom to impart upon our readers?


ALEX: Well, it was our pleasure to be featured in the book, we really appreciate the opportunity. Even though we've achieved some success in the metal mainstream we are still a band that plays death metal and comes from an underground background. The zines, tape traders, and college radio stations that helped us out before the mainstream press would give us the time of day are people that we will never forget and will do our best to continue to support. So thank you very much for the interview, and thank you to all of our supporters, and all supporters of death metal. See you on tour!


Alex Webster July 23, 2010

CHECK THE CANNIBAL CORPSE PAGE FOR TOUR DATES

We wish you all continued success Alex, personally and professionally, and urge everyone who hasn't done so, to check out our GTCDR005 'A Day Of Death' - which among other bands, features 2 previously unheard Cannibal Corpse live tracks from that inspirational evening of October 20 1990. It can found on our blog, simply entitled: A DAY OF DEATH.












Monday, July 19, 2010

A DAY OF DEATH


October 20, 1990, the (Country Club) Skyroom in Buffalo, NY...if you were there you will never forget it, if you weren't there you wish you were. The pinnacle of the early death metal scene, the moment just before the majors noticed death metal and screwed up a good thing. A lineup of bands still unsurpassed some 20 years later - Radiation Sickness, Lucifer's Hammer, Deceased, Suffocation, Goreaphobia, Incantation, Mortician, Disharmonic Orchestra, Cannibal Corpse, Immolation, Baphomet, Repulsion and Autopsy. Two decades later A Day of Death is still talked about in international circles, and not just by those who were there, it has become the thing of legend to the newer death metal fans who were too young to have been there. The flyer for the show even makes its presence today in "Choosing Death" by Albert Mudrian.

Suffocation at A Day of Death, Photo : Brian Pattison

It started with rather humble beginnings. In early 1990 Joe Pristach (Mosh Central 'zine) and Brian Pattison (Chainsaw Abortions 'zine) began talking about possibly promoting a show of up and coming bands we knew. It was a long time ago so we can't recall if this was before or after the Michigan Death Fest was announced, but we make no claims to being the first death fest. We thought it would be great to put on a show with these demo bands who were friends of ours - Mortician, Deceased, Immolation, this new band from Long Island named Suffocation, Goreaphobia and a few locals. Somehow the manager at the Skyroom caught wind of it and decided they would jump on that, they decided to line up the bands and just use Brian and Joe as promoters.

Deceased at the Michigan Death Fest (Aug. 11, 1990)
Photo: Brian Pattison

The Michigan Death Fest was fast approaching and within a week of it Exmortis cancelled and Baphomet from Buffalo was added to the bill. At the time Brian Pattison was really good friends with Baphomet and they asked him to tag along. They got there, go past the Jesus Freaks picketing the show and begin handing out flyers for A Day of Death. This would be where Brian first met King of Deceased. Handing out flyers and this guy comes up to Brian and says "hey is this you?" and points to Chainsaw Abortions at the top of the flyer for A Day of Death. Then he says who he is and that Deceased is listed on there but no one even asked them if they wanted to play it. Brian started to explain how the club had taken over control of the show from him and Joe, when King interrupts and says no big deal they'd love to play it. It was also around the time of the Michigan Death Fest (Aug. of 1990) that Repulsion reformed, they were quickly added to A Day of Death's already amazing lineup.

Disharmonic Orchestra at A Day of Death
Photo: Brian Pattison

In September of 1990, Disharmonic Orchestra made the trip from Austria over to the United States for a short tour. One of those shows was to be played at the "Rotting Grandma Ampitheatre" in Belle Vernon, Pa. Brian made the roughly 4 hour trek with some friends from Buffalo to see the show. Turned out to be a rain filled day so instead of playing on a stage in the backyard as planned, Disharmonic Orchestra ended up playing in the basement (recorded on Don Crotsley's radio and Brian Pattison's cassette tape). Once back in Buffalo Brian talked to the guys in Baphomet and told them they had to get the club to add Disharmonic to A Day of Death. So, the 12th band was added.

Sharon Bascovsky (Derketa), Brian Werking (Exmortis), Jeff Walker (Carcass)
and Mary Bielich (Derketa) at A Day of Death.
Photo courtesy of Sharon Bascovsky

The day finally arrived and was as much about the people in attendance as it was the bands on stage. It was a rare opportunity for many of us to meet others from various parts of the country, even from other countries. It was great just to walk through the crowd and talk to people like Sharon (Derketa) and Sam (Hideous Mangleus) who made the journey from Pittsburgh, talk to Jeff McClelland (Death Vomit 'zine) from Virginia, see Jeff Walker (Carcass) walking about in the crowd, to see and talk to Ed Farshtey (Book of Armageddon 'zine) and the NYC contingent, to see Domino Minchelle who came all the way from France for the show. Of course, the key one, the impetus for the book, the reason you're reading this now...the day when Alan Moses and Brian Pattison would finally meet. Between, and even during bands, if you were to meander over to the merch tables you would see one guy standing about 15' away just watching and enjoying the activities; that guy was none other than Chris Reifert. Looking out into the crowd and seeing 600+ death metal heads from all over converging in Buffalo was a truly glorious sight. There was a feeling in the air that this was something special, that we were all witnessing history. An unforgettable day for death metal and for Buffalo.


Repulsion at  A Day of Death
Photo: Brian Pattison

This wasn't a fest like the ones of today where you have 90 bands and all but 3-5 are mediocre, this was 13 of the best bands of the times. Each band came on, played their 30 -35 min set and raged. Every band was made of fans too, so before and after their sets they could be seen walking amongst the crowd or by the stage enjoying the other bands...that is unless (like King of Deceased) you got kicked out for sneaking your own booze into the club. Early on things were going really smooth and everything was right on schedule. Then came Goreaphobia, at the time they only had a handful of songs so they went through their quick set, then just a couple of minute break and out came Incantation, not even scheduled to play, just another bonus for all in attendance. The sound guy did not realize Incantation was not the next band scheduled (remember, the Skyroom was a country bar) and so began the lengthening of the day. Thinking Incantation was the next band scheduled and that things were apparently running well ahead of schedule he began to lengthen the times between bands.

Autopsy at  A Day of Death
Photo: Brian Pattison

All the added times between bands led to it now being beyond midnight and Autopsy had yet to play. Many of us had been in the club since 3 o'clock or even earlier. You could see the half-conscious look in everyones eyes during the break after Repulsion. The edges of the stage and all areas in back were filled with the bands from the day. As Autopsy took the stage everyone seemed to get their second wind to pay respect to the masters. From his vantage point on stage right Brian was able to take some great up close shots of Reifert. Brian was also able to look across stage and see his friend Alan Moses taking pics and enjoying the show from stage left. 20 years later digging through boxes Brian would find some of the pics he took that night and found that he had captured Alan in a few of them. Likewise, Alan had captured Brian in a few of the pics he took. We had even captured each other in pics we took at the same exact moment. It would be those pics that would start us on discussions and then the journey to making and releasing "Glorious Times".

Autopsy at  A Day of Death
(standing up across the stage is Alan Moses)
Photo: Brian Pattison

Autopsy at  A Day of Death, standing up across the stage
(black shirt, white writing) is Brian Pattison
Photo: Alan Moses

CRACKING THE LID OFF THE COFFIN ~ AGAIN!

Fans of death metal, and extreme music in general, are known far and wide to be tremendous gluttons for punishment. So this time we've enlisted some help from ex-Decaying Visions video zine co-creator John Verica, who has contributed something very special as we approach A Day of Death's 20 year anniversary on October 20 2010.

In customary Glorious Times style we've tapestried selected tracks provided by John, into another of our DIY CDR download packages - everything you need to construct your own title! Inserts, tray layout and both flac and mp3 versions to give you a representation of what the night was like: a peek into the sheer glory of it all.

Pure live audio and more unseen photos, plus special sentiment, await you on this unique celebratory project featuring selected tracks by a number of the bands who took part in this colossus of an event.




WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? DOWNLOAD OR DIE!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

JULY 2010 OFFERS & NEWS FROM GLORIOUS TIMES

Glorious Times has 4 new announcements to make you aware of.

THE FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT:

GT is now the proud distributor of CAISSON FILMS, they are a grass-roots film company that is making the movie "Deep Seeded" which will feature Kam Lee in his first movie role.

We have for sale 3 individual dvd's and also 1 dvd which has all 3 films. These are showcase films introducing the company's work and what they have done so far.

Individual films cost $5 US dollars (plus postage) and the dvd with all 3 films costs $10 US dollars (plus postage).

The films are: "Heart Of The Damned", "Slip Of The Ton...gue" and "Spare The Rod".

IF YOU ARE SERIOUSLY INTERESTED IN OBTAINING THESE MOVIES - AND HELP SUPPORT THE WORK OF CAISSON FILMS & IN SO DOING, HELP KAM LEE'S FIRST FILM PROJECT - GET IN TOUCH!


POSTAGE RATES FOR CAISSON FILMS ORDERS

USA - $1.56

CANADA - $1.75

REST OF WORLD - $3.12

THE SECOND ANNOUNCEMENT:

Glorious Times is now working in conjunction with Jim Nickles & Shredly Studios to make available PRE-PRESS orders of something very special for Malevolent Creation fans, and fans of the early days of extreme music.

It's a demo recorded in 1987, remixed in 2010 by Jim Nickles (founding guitarist)...remixed in the very house where Malevolent Creation was formed.

Containing the 3 tracks: 'Sacrificial Annihilation', 'The Traitor Must Pay' and 'Confirmed Kill', "Confirmed Kill" was performed live in studio.

These versions have never been released. 'Confirmed Kill' was never recorded in studio again.

CD layout will include rare photos of Malevolent Creation from 1987, plus liner notes by Jim Nickles.

$5 US dollars (plus postage) for prepress orders. Once the disc is pressed (mid to late August) price will jump to $7 US dollars (plus postage)



Jim Nickles with GT Xmas 2009

POSTAGE RATES FOR MALEVOLENT CREATION CD ORDERS

USA - $1.90

CANADA - $2.27

REST OF WORLD - $4.80

THE THIRD ANNOUNCEMENT:

GT is now a proud distributor of BUTCHERED RECORDS. Starting today we have 13 titles for sale, all $10 (plus postage). We'll be adding more titles in the coming weeks.

Current titles:

Abdicate - Forged In Ruin

Deception - Nails Sticking Offensive

Foul Stench - Eternal Rot

Human Mastication - Grotesque Mastication Of Putrid Innards

Hybrid Viscery - The History Of Torture, Execution And Sickness (Burning Dogma Recs)

Imposer - Divine Intolerance

Modus Delecti/Clitordis Invaginatus/Dismembermen Split CD

9th Entity - Diabolical Enticement Of Blood And Lust

9th Plague - Apocatastasis Reversed

Plague Angel - Stagnation Of Christ

Sufferatory - Pseudophilosophic

Yogth-Sothoth - Abominations Of The Nebulah Mortiis

Yogth-Sothoth - The Dark Waters Are Shaken

POSTAGE RATES FOR BUTCHERED RECORDS ORDERS

USA - $1.90

CANADA - $2.27

REST OF WORLD - $4.80

If you are ordering more than 1 cd or dvd or any combination thereof, ask us ahead of time and we can possibly cut you a little deal.

THE FOURTH ANNOUNCEMENT:

We have some cheap goodies still available in a limited run. These were made on the basis of requests from people, who wanted some kind of cool GT knicknack to buy and also expressed interest in seeing our old zines.

Glorious Times keychains $3.

CDR with pdf scan of Buttface #2 and Chainsaw Abortions #2, also tossed in alternate Nuclear Death and Malevolent Creation layouts; also $3. These zines being those of the GT editors from 'back in the day'.

Or you can get the keychain AND cdr for $5. USA dollars, through paypal, price is universal and includes postage.

All payments are to be made out in US DOLLARS and sent via paypal to this email address: glorioustimesdeathbook@gmail.com