In around 1985/'86 my Dad lived on Victoria street in Fredericton, right around the corner on Northumberland Street was the Oliver's place - Nick, Joe and Mr. Oliver.
Our families had known each other for years, but the last time I had seen Nick Oliver was at a sailing regatta in Saint John when we were both pretty young...
On my way home from George Street jr. High School, I'd occasionally see a bunch of Punk ruffians coming in and out of Nick's place and also every so often I'd hear this raging crazy 'Rock' music coming from the house. A few times, I'd seen this grumpy looking red headed dude in a leather jacket and we'd kinda just nod to each other...
I can't really recall how I ended up getting introduced to everyone, but soon I had met Grant Forsythe (The red headed 'grumpy dude'), of course I knew Nick, Darren Green was on Bass, Tim Gorman and Bill Brown were playing guitar for the Fredericton cross-over Punk Rock Kings, 'Neighbourhood Watch' and even though they weren't playing 'Metal', the music they were playing wasn't anything like the 'Punk' I knew, it wasn't the Clash, it wasn't the Sex Pistols, it was by far much much heavier and aggressive.
At this time, I was big into Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, SLAYER, Venom, Raven and my first band 'K.G. Wolfe' had been formed and we were playing some originals and some covers and to be honest with you all here and I wasn't no 'band Nazi', I didn't try to control everything, so I had no say in what other band members were into and at that age what they knew how to play. So yes, in early K.G. Wolfe days, we did play... god damn it... 'Poison'...BUT, looking back at my folder of K.G.Wolfe songs, 'Talk Dirty To Me' was the ONLY 'glam song we played... and you can know and bet I wasn't happy about it...
One of the highlights of my youth was getting to hang out at Neighbourhood Watch rehearsals, being introduced to this crew and in particular, Grant Forsythe. I've said it before in posts that Grant more or less took me under his wing, lol he 'groomed' me haha... But it was a great grooming... Not that I had much interest in the "Glam Rock" movement of that period, I didn't like to hear bands singing about chicks and fast cars and that kinda crap with their make up and poofy hair. In Metal, I had gone after HEAVIER bands, evil bands, violent bands aggressive bands... I wanted the Heaviness, not some crap music about how many gals some asshole banged....
Grant and I became good friends, I think I hung out at Grant's place on Aberdeen every day after school and on weekends, in fact I think I did more drinking in my mid teens than I did once I was legal drinking age.
Grant would teach me in the ways of 'Hardcore' Punk Rock. At the time Grant had been in touch with bands all over the World. I remember him getting the first Sepultura albums, he was trading music from behind the 'Iron Curtain'... So he had amazing music coming in from virtually everywhere. At this 'era' there was a 'cross-over' of Metal and Punk, this became known as, 'Cross-over', it bled out through the fact that Punk Rock had evolved and branched out in different ways. This 'new' style of Punk was called 'Hardcore' (essentially created by Washington D.C.'s The Bad Brains).
So, some of my favorite bands that Grant bred me to listen to were, The Accüsed - a Hardcore band from Seattle (long before the whole Grunge thing exploded). These guys played a kinda of music they dubbed 'Splatter Rock'... NOT like the Misfits, these guys had a sound all their own (not that the Misfits don't, but I just don't want people to think that the Misfits and The Accüsed had anything in common).
The singer from The Accüsed blew my fuckin mind. I'd never heard a vocalist like this, I'd been reared on vocals like Bruce Dickinson's from Iron Maiden and sure some heavier vocals like Hetfield from Metallica, Cronos from Venom and Blackie Lawless from WASP, but Blaine 'Farts' vocals just completely busted down my notion of vocals.
Check out some Accüsed:
The Accüsed again, kinda like the Misfits had a 'mascot', her name is 'Martha Splatterhead' and a theme of her murderous conquests ran through many Accüsed albums. I sadly never got to see the Accüsed when I lived out in Vancouver. But did end up in contact with Tommy Niemeyer, one of the bands founders back in the 'MySpace' days, Tommy had sent me some of his artwork when I had ordered their latest album at that time, but sadly Elsa shredded the fuck outa that poster... Damn cat, she's got no respect for my stuff!
Another band that Grant got me into was D.R.I. or Dirty Rotten Imbeciles - Who hailed from Texas. Another amazing 'cross-over' band, the speed and again crazy vocals (though no one was ever as crazy sounding as Blaine from The Accüsed). It seemed a lot of these 'Cross-over' vocalists all had pretty unique vocal styles that set them apart from other bands of their genre, but also apart from any Metal vocalists of the period as well.
I had almost totally forgot about The Crumbsuckers! Yeah, there's a band name for ya eh? The Crumbsuckers were from New York State. The amazing thing about this 'Cross-Over' era was that a lot of the bands were certainly unique in their sound. You could certainly tell an Accüsed song from a D.R.I. song... The Crumbsuckers had a great sound, it was super tight, intricate and their album production was actually pretty rock solid for being a 'Hardcore' band. But the scene was catching on and there were a lot of labels and distributors that were helping to bank roll decent recordings.
I could write almost a whole book on The Dayglo Abortions (haling from Vancouver/Victoria B.C.), at one time undisputed as Canada's nastiest and most controversial band.
While on the 'Here Today Guano Tomorrow' tour, the band's *cough* 'Tour Bus" insurance ran out right here in Freddy Beach and being 1987 there was no email or any way to get the insurance papers across Canada aside from snail mail, so after an absolutely AMAZING show at the Fredericton Exhibition Grounds (promoted by Peter Rowan and his Dress To Kill records), we got to hang out with the Dayglo's for pretty much an entire week. - The "tour bus" was a short school bus... with no toilet.. They usually pissed in the sink or in bottles.... Don't ask me where they shit... I didn't ask or wanna know...
It was a hilarious great time. We took the guys to art gallery and some other touristy places, the band partied hard and there's stories for another time and place...
But the Dayglo's were another band that Grant got me into. When I moved to Vancouver in 1989, I actually ended up being spotted by then Dayglo's drummer 'Jesus Bonehead' at Kit's beach. I was wearing a 'SCUM' t-shirt ( Another great Canadian Punk band from Montreal), so we hooked up when I got to Victoria a few months later and though I stayed one night, I ended up choosing to sleep in my buddies car over sleeping at the Dayglo's band house, it was just a little too crazy for me.
The great effect that Grant had on influencing my then fresh young mind, with this amazing 'new' genre of music was profound, and hanging out with the band and Grant as a friend did have an adverse effect. My 'Metalhead' friends started to come down on me for hanging with the "freaks" and "Skaters"... Which was hilarious because I'd tell them... 'Umm... So you know that Metallica are skaters right? (James Hetfield had to sign a contract barring him from Skateboarding before and during tours), Anthrax were skaters..... But I still got lots of flak for hanging with them. I dunno, the 'freaks' were a helluva lot cooler than the 'Metalheads'. I loved their music, they partied just as hard if not harder and they supported me and brought me in as one of their own. They certainly didn't seem to have any issue with me being around.
it was about 1987,'88 Rob Melvin, the bassist of Neighbourhood Watch, was canned from the band and while at a party over on University avenue, Rob and I got talking and he said he'd love to sit down and write some music with me for K.G. Wolfe, funny enough, up until that point, K.G, Wolfe had never had a bass player, and we had been playing shows.
This was a major turning point for my first band. Up until then, we'd just been writing pretty basic Heavy Metal originals. Looking at the file, we actually had 7 originals, which wasn't bad for a bunch of 14/15 year olds. But once Rob and I got together the whole dynamic changed. Rob of course brought the 'cross-over' sound to the band. The biggest change occurred with Bryce McKellen joining up with K.G, Wolfe. We might have been Fredericton's first and only 'Cross-over' Metal band.
This K.G. Wolfe song is circa '88/'89
Who knows what K.G. Wolfe would have sounded like if I had not met up with Grant and the Neighbourhood Watch crew. I know I'm forever grateful to Grant for his stewardship and guidance into a genre of music I had no real idea existed. I had heard and been exposed to bits of Hardcore through listening to Nick Oliver's 'Punk Rock' radio show 'Institutionalized' on CHSR-FM, but again, Grant was the one who really introduced me to so many amazing bands.Our families had known each other for years, but the last time I had seen Nick Oliver was at a sailing regatta in Saint John when we were both pretty young...
On my way home from George Street jr. High School, I'd occasionally see a bunch of Punk ruffians coming in and out of Nick's place and also every so often I'd hear this raging crazy 'Rock' music coming from the house. A few times, I'd seen this grumpy looking red headed dude in a leather jacket and we'd kinda just nod to each other...
I can't really recall how I ended up getting introduced to everyone, but soon I had met Grant Forsythe (The red headed 'grumpy dude'), of course I knew Nick, Darren Green was on Bass, Tim Gorman and Bill Brown were playing guitar for the Fredericton cross-over Punk Rock Kings, 'Neighbourhood Watch' and even though they weren't playing 'Metal', the music they were playing wasn't anything like the 'Punk' I knew, it wasn't the Clash, it wasn't the Sex Pistols, it was by far much much heavier and aggressive.
At this time, I was big into Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, SLAYER, Venom, Raven and my first band 'K.G. Wolfe' had been formed and we were playing some originals and some covers and to be honest with you all here and I wasn't no 'band Nazi', I didn't try to control everything, so I had no say in what other band members were into and at that age what they knew how to play. So yes, in early K.G. Wolfe days, we did play... god damn it... 'Poison'...BUT, looking back at my folder of K.G.Wolfe songs, 'Talk Dirty To Me' was the ONLY 'glam song we played... and you can know and bet I wasn't happy about it...
One of the highlights of my youth was getting to hang out at Neighbourhood Watch rehearsals, being introduced to this crew and in particular, Grant Forsythe. I've said it before in posts that Grant more or less took me under his wing, lol he 'groomed' me haha... But it was a great grooming... Not that I had much interest in the "Glam Rock" movement of that period, I didn't like to hear bands singing about chicks and fast cars and that kinda crap with their make up and poofy hair. In Metal, I had gone after HEAVIER bands, evil bands, violent bands aggressive bands... I wanted the Heaviness, not some crap music about how many gals some asshole banged....
Grant and I became good friends, I think I hung out at Grant's place on Aberdeen every day after school and on weekends, in fact I think I did more drinking in my mid teens than I did once I was legal drinking age.
Grant would teach me in the ways of 'Hardcore' Punk Rock. At the time Grant had been in touch with bands all over the World. I remember him getting the first Sepultura albums, he was trading music from behind the 'Iron Curtain'... So he had amazing music coming in from virtually everywhere. At this 'era' there was a 'cross-over' of Metal and Punk, this became known as, 'Cross-over', it bled out through the fact that Punk Rock had evolved and branched out in different ways. This 'new' style of Punk was called 'Hardcore' (essentially created by Washington D.C.'s The Bad Brains).
So, some of my favorite bands that Grant bred me to listen to were, The Accüsed - a Hardcore band from Seattle (long before the whole Grunge thing exploded). These guys played a kinda of music they dubbed 'Splatter Rock'... NOT like the Misfits, these guys had a sound all their own (not that the Misfits don't, but I just don't want people to think that the Misfits and The Accüsed had anything in common).
The singer from The Accüsed blew my fuckin mind. I'd never heard a vocalist like this, I'd been reared on vocals like Bruce Dickinson's from Iron Maiden and sure some heavier vocals like Hetfield from Metallica, Cronos from Venom and Blackie Lawless from WASP, but Blaine 'Farts' vocals just completely busted down my notion of vocals.
Check out some Accüsed:
The Accüsed again, kinda like the Misfits had a 'mascot', her name is 'Martha Splatterhead' and a theme of her murderous conquests ran through many Accüsed albums. I sadly never got to see the Accüsed when I lived out in Vancouver. But did end up in contact with Tommy Niemeyer, one of the bands founders back in the 'MySpace' days, Tommy had sent me some of his artwork when I had ordered their latest album at that time, but sadly Elsa shredded the fuck outa that poster... Damn cat, she's got no respect for my stuff!
Another band that Grant got me into was D.R.I. or Dirty Rotten Imbeciles - Who hailed from Texas. Another amazing 'cross-over' band, the speed and again crazy vocals (though no one was ever as crazy sounding as Blaine from The Accüsed). It seemed a lot of these 'Cross-over' vocalists all had pretty unique vocal styles that set them apart from other bands of their genre, but also apart from any Metal vocalists of the period as well.
I had almost totally forgot about The Crumbsuckers! Yeah, there's a band name for ya eh? The Crumbsuckers were from New York State. The amazing thing about this 'Cross-Over' era was that a lot of the bands were certainly unique in their sound. You could certainly tell an Accüsed song from a D.R.I. song... The Crumbsuckers had a great sound, it was super tight, intricate and their album production was actually pretty rock solid for being a 'Hardcore' band. But the scene was catching on and there were a lot of labels and distributors that were helping to bank roll decent recordings.
I could write almost a whole book on The Dayglo Abortions (haling from Vancouver/Victoria B.C.), at one time undisputed as Canada's nastiest and most controversial band.
While on the 'Here Today Guano Tomorrow' tour, the band's *cough* 'Tour Bus" insurance ran out right here in Freddy Beach and being 1987 there was no email or any way to get the insurance papers across Canada aside from snail mail, so after an absolutely AMAZING show at the Fredericton Exhibition Grounds (promoted by Peter Rowan and his Dress To Kill records), we got to hang out with the Dayglo's for pretty much an entire week. - The "tour bus" was a short school bus... with no toilet.. They usually pissed in the sink or in bottles.... Don't ask me where they shit... I didn't ask or wanna know...
It was a hilarious great time. We took the guys to art gallery and some other touristy places, the band partied hard and there's stories for another time and place...
But the Dayglo's were another band that Grant got me into. When I moved to Vancouver in 1989, I actually ended up being spotted by then Dayglo's drummer 'Jesus Bonehead' at Kit's beach. I was wearing a 'SCUM' t-shirt ( Another great Canadian Punk band from Montreal), so we hooked up when I got to Victoria a few months later and though I stayed one night, I ended up choosing to sleep in my buddies car over sleeping at the Dayglo's band house, it was just a little too crazy for me.
The great effect that Grant had on influencing my then fresh young mind, with this amazing 'new' genre of music was profound, and hanging out with the band and Grant as a friend did have an adverse effect. My 'Metalhead' friends started to come down on me for hanging with the "freaks" and "Skaters"... Which was hilarious because I'd tell them... 'Umm... So you know that Metallica are skaters right? (James Hetfield had to sign a contract barring him from Skateboarding before and during tours), Anthrax were skaters..... But I still got lots of flak for hanging with them. I dunno, the 'freaks' were a helluva lot cooler than the 'Metalheads'. I loved their music, they partied just as hard if not harder and they supported me and brought me in as one of their own. They certainly didn't seem to have any issue with me being around.
it was about 1987,'88 Rob Melvin, the bassist of Neighbourhood Watch, was canned from the band and while at a party over on University avenue, Rob and I got talking and he said he'd love to sit down and write some music with me for K.G. Wolfe, funny enough, up until that point, K.G, Wolfe had never had a bass player, and we had been playing shows.
This was a major turning point for my first band. Up until then, we'd just been writing pretty basic Heavy Metal originals. Looking at the file, we actually had 7 originals, which wasn't bad for a bunch of 14/15 year olds. But once Rob and I got together the whole dynamic changed. Rob of course brought the 'cross-over' sound to the band. The biggest change occurred with Bryce McKellen joining up with K.G, Wolfe. We might have been Fredericton's first and only 'Cross-over' Metal band.
This K.G. Wolfe song is circa '88/'89
Another awesome band, with an awesome band name was 'RKL', AKA 'Rich Kids On LSD' - When you listen to these bands, like The Crumbsuckers, RKL, the Dayglo's, there's no denying the 'Metal' edge, the riffs are undeniably Metal, but the lyrics and attitude is undeniably Punk. Just listen to the 'riffage' in 'We're Back We're Pissed' by RKL
A few other bands I'd recommend people check out:
Battalion Of Saints, Excel, S.O.D., Bad Brains, Minor Threat and of course The Misfits (early stuff), Agnostic Front, Sick of It All, Nuclear Assault, Dead Brain Cells, The Crucifucks.
I hope you enjoyed another one of my trips down 'memory lane'... I'm working on another blog which will dive into the 'Metal' years of my life. As I've written about my Pop, Rock and now 'Punk' influences. I hope it reflects my open mind towards many genres of music. It's something I've always taken pride in about myself and though I've never 'written' music myself, I have of course written many and all the lyrics for every band I've been in. It might piss some people off, but I don't think one can be a proper musician if they have a closed mind. So many times throughout life I've heard people (some 'musicians)' say that this genre "sucks" or that genre is "crap". I just cannot agree with statements like that. I don't like Reggae or Ska, but I don't say it sucks or it's crap. I just prefer not to listen to it.. Unless I'm in the car with Ciaron, then I have no choice lol... And as I've said numerous times, 'Heaviness exists in every genre of music', it's not just cranked Marshall amps and distortion that makes music 'Heavy'....
Hey Chris,
ReplyDeleteWell done sir! Cudos to you. I think the first time I really remember you was when your band played some New Years eve gig. me and some friends showed up and shortly after your band broke into Last Caress. Instant pit! Your band mates were terrified of us. It's been a great run, brother. Here's to many more years!
W00t! I think I finally 'fixed' the comment 'issue'!
DeleteGrant, what can I say, you d'a best!