Thanks again for everyone's Birthday wishes. Again, I'm so very fortunate to have so many awesome friends and family!
Ya'll RULE! (Not to be confused with Ja'Rule!)
SLAYER... And yes, when you type 'SLAYER' it should be in all caps. When you say 'SLAYER', you don't just say it, but you kinda yell it, like 'SLAYYYERRRR'.... and throw the 'Metal Horns' up, both of them if you can! \m/ \m/
A long time favorite of mine and at one time THE most brutal Metal/Thrash band out there.
SLAYER are of course part of the "Big Four": Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and of course, 'SLAYER'.
I saw them a couple of times in concert, one of the times was absolute crap (Well sonically it was spot on, but visually....). It was at a time when Mike Fields and I deemed ourselves 'too old' for getting in the 'pit' of a SLAYER concert, so we sat and watched them, but they had, on each side of the stage the humongous, massive, strobe lights.
There were warnings coming into the arena that "Strobes would be in use and if you suffered from epilepsy or other seizures you shouldn't come in...
Watching that show was like constantly blinking..- Being 'stoned' as fuck probably didn't help. It was awesome to see them, but it was hard on the head.
The band announced a few months ago that SLAYER's reign was coming to an end. The band is "retiring" and unlike many other bands that have had their "Last ever tours", only to come back a few years later, you can probably count on SLAYER keeping their word.
The many years have been a rough go for the band. Co-founder and guitarist Jeff Hanneman died from pretty much alcohol, the man gave himself 'cirrhosis'. I had wondered...
OK, hold the phone here. So, I had written this blog much earlier and then came back to it... But earlier when I wrote about Jeff Hanneman's death, I had attributed it to an infection that Jeff got from a spider bite, but when I went to Wikipedia, it claimed that the cause of death was the cirrhosis. So, when I came back to my blog here now, I was still kinda thinking that a spider bite had to do with something about Jeff, I was sure that there had been some news, years before that he'd got bit by some spider, the article I found says that he was in a hot tub and was bitten by a spider (though he didn't notice it until a bit later, probably because he was drunk) and then once he saw the spider bite, knew he was going to be quite sick from it. The article does go on to state that the spider bite infection and complications that arose because of it, may or may not have contributed to his liver failure. So there ya go! Fucking spiders! Took out one of thrash Metal's biggest icons! Which is total bullshit because them dark creatures are supposed to be working for us, not against us!!
Lead singer and bassist Tom Araya was suffering bad neck pains because of his thrashing head movements, it caused the disks in his neck to calcify and he had to have a neck operation to remedy the issue and well, can no longer whirl his head about and head bang.
Formed in LA in 1981, the band started out pretty much as a Judas Priest cover act, dawning the same leather and studs as their idols.
The band soon had other plans to become altogether something far darker and evil than Judas Priest could ever dream.
The first album, released in 1983 was 'Show No Mercy' and was only a hint at the evil path that SLAYER would take.
Now ya gotta think, around '83, there were very limited bands that were truly 'evil'/. Venom, Possessed, Mercyful Fate and a few others first carried the banner of 'Evil Metal', but SLAYER was the loudest and fastest, for a time certainly kicking Motorhead aside as one of the 'loudest/fastest' bands around.
The E.P. 'Haunting the Chapel' was released in 1984, followed up by the band's second full length release, 'Hell Awaits' and by this time the band was starting to annoy the churchies even landing on the PMRC's evil and satanic, vile and disgusting list. (For those that don't know, the 'PMRC' - The Parents Music Resource Center' was a tribunal created by Al Gore's wife, Tippy 'Tippy' Gore and went to great lengths to get bands like SLAYER, WASP, Alice Cooper, Frank Zappa, Public Enemy and many others silenced, but this led to people like Twised Sister's Dee Snider to go before congress and give them a piece of his highly intelligent Metal mind. In the end, it was all settled with the 'Warning' labels you'll find on certain band's album jackets)
Then 'Reign In Blood' came out and everything changed. With themes of violence, satanism, Naziism and other evil and vile subjects the band was starting to gain notoriety and the PMRC certainly helped them like they helped every band on their lists at that time. I mean, when Mom tells you "No", that means "Yes"! "Don't be buying that evil SLAYER music!"... And it was done.... What did they think was gonna happen?
It was the album's 'South of Heaven' and 'Seasons In The Abyss', plus SLAYER stepping into music videos that really ripped the belly open and spilt the guts.
'South of Heaven' and 'Seasons In The Abyss' are probably the bands most popular albums. But SLAYER continued to pump out the evil and bloody tales for many more years to come. At times, it felt like they might break up. With Hannemans death, the loss of their absolutely incredible drummer Dave Lombardo, who quit the band (possibly due to animosity he created by joining various side projects, like Mike Patton's bands and others - he's even played drums for The Misfits reunion).
After Seasons In the Abyss, SLAYER went on to release a further 7 albums, including 2 live SLAYER albums.
Also on the anniversary for the release of 'Reign In Blood', the band did a one-off performance in 2004 where the band played the album in it's entirety and played the final song 'Reign In Blood' while blood literally rained down on the band, soaking them in realistic 'fake' blood (Except for Hanneman, he was a real pussy and stepped to the side and only got a bit of blood on him, I mean, c'mon man! What the fuck!?? Just once? For that moment in time and he has to side-step the blood. Pffft, maybe that's why the spider bit him!). They used a rig commonly used in the film industry to achieve this effect. It's basically a grid of tubes that water is pumped through and then out of sprinkler types nozzles to make a great 'rain effect', obviously in SLAYER's case they used fake blood.
After Jeff passed away and Dave Lombardo quit, they were replaced by 'Exodus' guitarist Gary Holt and on drums from 'Testament' and 'Exodus' Paul Bostaph.
I have great memories of living in Victoria in 1989, driving around in my buddy Chris Flintoff''s car with SLAYER just blasting out to all the tourists in the inner harbor. A clear way to piss off any member of the establishment, yuppies, preppies or lovers of Country music... Toss on some SLAYER and it's bound to have some humorous room clearing effects (Leaving space to mosh it up!)
So, very sad to see the band go, and heartbroken I couldn't see a show of the final tour, especially because they have Behemoth with them... You could barely ask for a more evil show!
Lets shut up and listen;
I'll leave you with a random photo I took today of the church I attended as a child, Fredericton's Christ Church Cathedral
Ya'll RULE! (Not to be confused with Ja'Rule!)
SLAYER... And yes, when you type 'SLAYER' it should be in all caps. When you say 'SLAYER', you don't just say it, but you kinda yell it, like 'SLAYYYERRRR'.... and throw the 'Metal Horns' up, both of them if you can! \m/ \m/
A long time favorite of mine and at one time THE most brutal Metal/Thrash band out there.
SLAYER are of course part of the "Big Four": Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and of course, 'SLAYER'.
I saw them a couple of times in concert, one of the times was absolute crap (Well sonically it was spot on, but visually....). It was at a time when Mike Fields and I deemed ourselves 'too old' for getting in the 'pit' of a SLAYER concert, so we sat and watched them, but they had, on each side of the stage the humongous, massive, strobe lights.
There were warnings coming into the arena that "Strobes would be in use and if you suffered from epilepsy or other seizures you shouldn't come in...
Watching that show was like constantly blinking..- Being 'stoned' as fuck probably didn't help. It was awesome to see them, but it was hard on the head.
The band announced a few months ago that SLAYER's reign was coming to an end. The band is "retiring" and unlike many other bands that have had their "Last ever tours", only to come back a few years later, you can probably count on SLAYER keeping their word.
The many years have been a rough go for the band. Co-founder and guitarist Jeff Hanneman died from pretty much alcohol, the man gave himself 'cirrhosis'. I had wondered...
OK, hold the phone here. So, I had written this blog much earlier and then came back to it... But earlier when I wrote about Jeff Hanneman's death, I had attributed it to an infection that Jeff got from a spider bite, but when I went to Wikipedia, it claimed that the cause of death was the cirrhosis. So, when I came back to my blog here now, I was still kinda thinking that a spider bite had to do with something about Jeff, I was sure that there had been some news, years before that he'd got bit by some spider, the article I found says that he was in a hot tub and was bitten by a spider (though he didn't notice it until a bit later, probably because he was drunk) and then once he saw the spider bite, knew he was going to be quite sick from it. The article does go on to state that the spider bite infection and complications that arose because of it, may or may not have contributed to his liver failure. So there ya go! Fucking spiders! Took out one of thrash Metal's biggest icons! Which is total bullshit because them dark creatures are supposed to be working for us, not against us!!
Lead singer and bassist Tom Araya was suffering bad neck pains because of his thrashing head movements, it caused the disks in his neck to calcify and he had to have a neck operation to remedy the issue and well, can no longer whirl his head about and head bang.
Formed in LA in 1981, the band started out pretty much as a Judas Priest cover act, dawning the same leather and studs as their idols.
The band soon had other plans to become altogether something far darker and evil than Judas Priest could ever dream.
Young SLAYER
The first album, released in 1983 was 'Show No Mercy' and was only a hint at the evil path that SLAYER would take.
Now ya gotta think, around '83, there were very limited bands that were truly 'evil'/. Venom, Possessed, Mercyful Fate and a few others first carried the banner of 'Evil Metal', but SLAYER was the loudest and fastest, for a time certainly kicking Motorhead aside as one of the 'loudest/fastest' bands around.
The E.P. 'Haunting the Chapel' was released in 1984, followed up by the band's second full length release, 'Hell Awaits' and by this time the band was starting to annoy the churchies even landing on the PMRC's evil and satanic, vile and disgusting list. (For those that don't know, the 'PMRC' - The Parents Music Resource Center' was a tribunal created by Al Gore's wife, Tippy 'Tippy' Gore and went to great lengths to get bands like SLAYER, WASP, Alice Cooper, Frank Zappa, Public Enemy and many others silenced, but this led to people like Twised Sister's Dee Snider to go before congress and give them a piece of his highly intelligent Metal mind. In the end, it was all settled with the 'Warning' labels you'll find on certain band's album jackets)
Then 'Reign In Blood' came out and everything changed. With themes of violence, satanism, Naziism and other evil and vile subjects the band was starting to gain notoriety and the PMRC certainly helped them like they helped every band on their lists at that time. I mean, when Mom tells you "No", that means "Yes"! "Don't be buying that evil SLAYER music!"... And it was done.... What did they think was gonna happen?
It was the album's 'South of Heaven' and 'Seasons In The Abyss', plus SLAYER stepping into music videos that really ripped the belly open and spilt the guts.
'South of Heaven' and 'Seasons In The Abyss' are probably the bands most popular albums. But SLAYER continued to pump out the evil and bloody tales for many more years to come. At times, it felt like they might break up. With Hannemans death, the loss of their absolutely incredible drummer Dave Lombardo, who quit the band (possibly due to animosity he created by joining various side projects, like Mike Patton's bands and others - he's even played drums for The Misfits reunion).
After Seasons In the Abyss, SLAYER went on to release a further 7 albums, including 2 live SLAYER albums.
Also on the anniversary for the release of 'Reign In Blood', the band did a one-off performance in 2004 where the band played the album in it's entirety and played the final song 'Reign In Blood' while blood literally rained down on the band, soaking them in realistic 'fake' blood (Except for Hanneman, he was a real pussy and stepped to the side and only got a bit of blood on him, I mean, c'mon man! What the fuck!?? Just once? For that moment in time and he has to side-step the blood. Pffft, maybe that's why the spider bit him!). They used a rig commonly used in the film industry to achieve this effect. It's basically a grid of tubes that water is pumped through and then out of sprinkler types nozzles to make a great 'rain effect', obviously in SLAYER's case they used fake blood.
After Jeff passed away and Dave Lombardo quit, they were replaced by 'Exodus' guitarist Gary Holt and on drums from 'Testament' and 'Exodus' Paul Bostaph.
SLAYER 2019 line up
I have great memories of living in Victoria in 1989, driving around in my buddy Chris Flintoff''s car with SLAYER just blasting out to all the tourists in the inner harbor. A clear way to piss off any member of the establishment, yuppies, preppies or lovers of Country music... Toss on some SLAYER and it's bound to have some humorous room clearing effects (Leaving space to mosh it up!)
So, very sad to see the band go, and heartbroken I couldn't see a show of the final tour, especially because they have Behemoth with them... You could barely ask for a more evil show!
Lets shut up and listen;
Slayer's first music video ' War Ensemble'
The band's second video 'Seasons In The Abyss' - filmed in Egypt on the verge of the Gulf War
The lovely tune 'Silent Scream' is a fine example of singer/bassist Tom Araya's most excellent penmanship. A lyrical whirlwind of evil, sick and twisted lyrics it's no wonder the band raised Tipper Gore's ire so much.
Be sure to read the lyrics along with the song!
SILENT SCREAM
Nightmare, the persecution
A child's dream of death.
Torment, ill forgotten
A soul that will never rest.
Guidance, it means nothing
In a world of brutal time.
Electric, circus, wild,
Deep in the infants mind.
Silent Scream
Bury the unwanted child.
Beaten and torn
Sacrifice the unborn.
Shattered, adolescent [sings: another child]
Bearer of no name.
Restrained, insane games
Suffer the children condemned.
Scattered, remnants of life,
Murder a time to die.
Pain, sufferaged toyed,
Life's little fragments destroyed.
Silent Scream
Crucify the bastard son.
Beaten and torn
Sanctify lives of scorn.
Life preordained
Humanity maintained.
Extraction termination
Pain's agonizing stain.
Embryonic death,
Embedded in your brain.
Suffocation, strangulation,
Death is fucking you insane.
Nightmare, the persecution
A child's dream of death.
Torment, ill forgotten
A soul that will never rest.
Innocence withdrawn in fear.
Fires burning can you hear
Cries in the night.
Songwriters: Jeffery John Hanneman / Kerry King / Tomas Enrique Araya
Silent Scream lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
I'll leave you with a random photo I took today of the church I attended as a child, Fredericton's Christ Church Cathedral
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