HEY! I need you opinion! Seriously!

OK, so a lot of you know that I was a VHS trader back in the day as well as audio. I've been slowly transferring all my VHS to DVD forever now, and I have around 100ish shows burned to disc.

Now, here's the kicker. Now, I want to transfer the discs to hard drive. Since I'm doing that, there's now reason I can't post them here along with the vids. I have quite a bit of rad shit that I'd like to share, and my question to you all is this.. What format would you all prefer uploaded? Personally I'd like to put up ISO's of the original rips. The file size is big, but easy to copy on the user end. AVI's or DiVX are smaller files, but require re encoding on your end, and add compression to a source that may be spotty to begin with. Compression artifacts + 20 year old VHS aging and gen wear are a bummer, and I'm old school to the point where I don't want to do ANYTHING to degrade quality.

But you guys may digress. Please let me know your thoughts. You WILL be rewarded with some cool rare stuff if you do. Seriously, just drop a note in the chatbox if your too lazy to reply like an adult. ;-)

Thanks.. And Happy 4th to all the Americans here.

Pat O'Brien was fucking Hardcore

Not to be too maudlin about shit, but a friend of mine, and a huge part of the local scene (which actually does exist) died yesterday. Pat played guitar for Cobra Clutch, and was a co-worker of mine at a local bar here in Fredneck. We didn't always see eye to eye, but he was a good guy, and his loss really fucks a lot of folks here.

I post here with respect to him, and everyone he left behind.

Cheers Brother.

Blabbermouth Report (I sent in)

Cobra Clutch MySpace page.

Noisecreep writeup that plagiarized me wholesale.


I'm an old fart (39), and it bugs me deeply when someone that young goes. (He was 24) He has a beautiful daughter named Violet,and hope she grows up to know what a cool Dad she had.

Cheers brother. This drunks for you.

Quick Note.

OK, I made some layout changes. The music player is new. I also removed any blog links that haven't been updated in over a year, and deleted a couple of bullshit posts that didn't stick to the format. I guarentee you won't miss them.

I'm not in love with it so far. Maybe I just need to get used to it. Eh, I'm gonna let it ride for now.

And as reward for your loyalty, I present something we can all enjoy, regardless of our punk/metal background. Yes, it's Glenn Danzig getting the piss knocked out of him. It NEVER gets old.

My Impossible Wish List Challenge

Well, all of us old traders have our list of "Holy Grail" tapes we've been looking for. With the internet, it's a lot easier, but there's still stuff that's eluded me. Here's my list.

It's mostly stuff I had and lost, local bands that I've lost touch with, and shows I've taped and lost.

If you want to add your requests, throw 'em in comments, and I'll try to find them. (Or post them if I have any of them.)

I haven't updated my demo/live pages in forever, so it'll give me an excuse to re-up some stuff.

OK Here we go:

Rancid Decay (Baltimore) Any live. Especially Hung Jury Pub 1987
Usurper (Arlington VA) - Anything.
Abominog (Arlington VA) - Anything
Cerebral Hemorrhage (NYC) - Whiplash/Nuclear Assault side project
Spazztic Children (SF, Ca) - Metallica side project - Anything, especially Live at Ruthies Inn
Slayer/Overkill - Warner Theater DC 1987
D.R.I/Christ on a Crutch - Hung Jury Pub 1987
Prong - Third From the Sun EP
Shark Chum (Seattle) Post- Holy Terror - Anything
G.O.D (Arlington VA) - Anything
M.F Bulldogs (VA) - Wrathchild America side project
Oblivion (Baltimore) Pre-Spine - Demo's
Murder Inc. (DC) - Anything
L.D.K (Reston VA) - Anything
Lethal Aggression (NJ) - Kill, Death, Die Demo #1 (The band doesn't even have this)
Silence (DC) - Anything
Inside Out (Reston VA) - Anything. Especially the Wormwood Demo
Hemlock 13 (Richmond VA) Anything, especially demos
Typhoon (SF, Ca) - Anything
Psychodrama (DC, West Va) Anything
Thud (DC) Anything Live
Jackhammer Orchestra (DC) Anything
Parasite (DC) Anything
This City Bleeds (DC) Anything

If you read this far, you deserve a reward. Here's a live Creed video.

DC Area Non-Dischord Music History Lesson Part 1

ADDENDUM: I'm breaking this into individual parts. 1 post would be a book. I have easily 20 or 30 posts worth of stuff just for this subject alone.

Sorry. I couldn't think of a catchier title. But this will eventually have a TON of stuff for download, and it's kind of all over the map style wise.

DC is known for 2 things musically. harDCore and Go-Go.

Even the punk history tends to center around Dischord Records, and the circle of people involved.

Frankly, they deserved it.

They created SxE culture and built a D.I.Y business model that is still used today. This came from a bunch of High School kids before the internet.

What I'd like to do here though, is shed some light on some of the great other stuff that was going on at the same time.

A lot of people don't realize how many extremely well known musicians grew up here and were a part of the local color. Everyone cross pollinated with each other. I won't say "scene" since this will cover a wide range of tastes and genres.

Scenes definitely existed, but we all partied together, and traded ideas. We were intense. We were also open to other versions of our aggression.

It surprises me how many folks from our circle of friends went on to greater success as musicians. I hope it doesn't come off as name dropping, but if someone famous is involved, I'd be stupid to not note it.

I have personal ties to a lot of the stuff here, so I'm biased, but I'll try not to get too boring.

We Start Here....

Cheers, John

Deceased - Evil Side of Religion 1986 and 1987 Rehearsal

I'll start with one of the big guns.. Most people reading this know that Deceased is legendary in underground metal circles, and that drummer/vocalist, King Fowley has become one of the major characters and torch bearers of Old School Metal.

I consider myself almost encyclopedic with my heavy music collection and knowledge, but I barely scratch the surface compared to him. King's forgotten more shit them most people remember.

I thought I was a major taper/trader back then, until I saw his list. Fucking unreal, and that was 20 years ago.

Deceased have been a band for 25 years, and still going strong.

Here's a couple of personal Deceased/King memories.

The first was King getting Mille Petrozza from Kreator to wear a Deceased shirt on stage at the old 9:30 Club when they came though with D.R.I. and Holy Terror in 1988.
By "getting" I mean "scaring".

King was a big, loud, aggressive guy and Mille was a really little, surprisingly quiet German dude who had a bad case of E.S.L.
It was pretty amusing.

Another time, at a Voivod/Vio-lence show in Baltimore; King was telling me about playing Nintendo: Blades of Steel on the tour bus against Piggy, who was wearing nothing but tighty whiteys.

King was also well known as a master shoplifter, and the biggest Voivod fan on Earth.

I remember him pummeling some guy outside The Bayou in DC for saying he didn't like Angel Rat. I didn't like Angel Rat either, but I weighed about 120 pounds soaking wet back then.

We're both pushing 40 now, but I'm sure he'd still kick my ass if I said that to his face. Dude is nothing if not loyal.

Les Snyder was in a band called Usurper before joining Deceased. Their guitarist/singer was a guy named Rob Riscossi.

Rob and I were talking outside of a Possessed/Dark Angel show in 1987, when he invited me to join the band as second guitarist.

The first thing I said was "Great, I know most of your songs already, and think I can improve them." (I was pretty far up my own ass back then) Rob responded with, "Fuck you" and immediately fired me. So I was in Usurper with Les for about a minute and a half. (Literally) For the record, Les was always a really cool guy back then. I haven't seen him in about 20 years. (Usurper was an excellent band BTW. I wouldn't have improved shit)

Trivia: Usurpers drummer, Kevin Murphy, currently plays for county star Josh Gracin. (Namedrop #1)

Deceased were the first band signed to Relapse back in the day and have put out a bunch of albums. But this is where it started. 1st demo 1986. Seminal old school Death Metal. Great stuff.

Download: Deceased - Evil Side of Religion

Bonus Download: Deceased - Rehearsal Tape 1987

Their Second demo "Birth By Radiation" is on the demo grab bag page. You should check it out too.

Update: I sent this to the band in case I fucked anything up, and King wrote me back a really cool note. According to him he and Petrozza talked for a long time, and were cool. There wasn't any scaring going on....

Also, the Angel Rat guy was saying that Pantera was real metal, and we all know that's worthy of an ass kicking right there. More info here, if you haven't read it before. It was good to hear from him. Honestly, I was suprised he remembered me. Show Deceased some love at thier Myspace page here.



I'm hovering around back there somewhere, see if you can find me, I looked like this back then.

Quick Update +Future Plans

Hey guys. I know it's been forever, but life and inspiration have conspired against me. For what it's worth, I have a huge post planned and I'm drafting it out now. It's going to take a while, but will be well worth it. In the meantime. I HIGHLY recommend you head over to the Lockjaw blog and get your mind blown. If you like my blog, your will be completely floored by these guys. It's easily my new favorite spot on the web. BTW: I have no affiliation with them, and are only riding their nuts because they deserve it.

Metal and Hardcore Overload: 109 Live Shows, and 106 Demos

OK this is a lazy post, but a useful one. I have verbal diarrhea, and you want free shit. Fair enough. I'm adding direct links to all the old grab bags I've put up before, so you don't have to wade through pages of me pretending to be Jann Wenner.

Feel free to read my many fascinating articles and commenting on them. My fragile little ego demands it. Plus, there's lots more cool shit to download there too.

85 Random Hardcore and Metal live shows at: Dumpster Full-o-Live Shows.

106 Old School Band Demos at: Gigantic Fuckin' Demo Grab Bag.

And oddly awesome 23 live Metallica shows from: Asskissing Metallica Bootleg Overload and Soliloquy


(Yes, that is me in the pic. Yes, I am drunk)