Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Memory lane

Recently I moved, and after packing my life into boxes I decided to share a few musical gems from yesteryear with you boozehounds.

First up is a band from Ann Arbor called Youthcorpse. They have a decidedly Heartwork sound, with hints of classic Megadeth and whatnot. The bassist gave me a copy of their disc. I'd upload it for everyone but I don't have one of them upload accounts, and I'm not buying one anytime soon either. My life is a Johnny Cash song.



Busted!

Not sure if they are still active but according to myspace they haven't logged on since 2008 so I doubt it.



They have a youtube video? WTF?

Next up is an East Lansing band called Summer Dying. They formed out of the remains of Somber, which was At the Gates worship before all the gringos knew where Sweden was on a map. I saw Somber open for In Flames back on the Colony tour. You know, before they were terrible. Somber was actually pretty solid ATG worship, and I'm sure the album is impossible to find so if I ever find the pegs to my CD rack I can unpack it and if I ever get some extra cash that I don't spend on weird whiskey I can upload it for you.

Anyways Summer Dying's first album was pretty great, but their second one had really irritating vocals where the bassist would shriek in the background over everything. Oh well. Still pretty solid musically. They broke up a while ago. Nothing lasts forever, even cold November rain.



Next up is more Heartwork worship from Texas by the band Deep (not even a myspace page). I bought their first album The Reach of Envy from them when they opened up for Arch Enemy and Nevermore way back when Johan was in Arch Enemy and Time Calvert was in Nevermore. Ancient times! They sounded much better live than on the album. Live their singer was an exact double of Jeff Walker. Anyways they put out a major label album that had half the songs from The Reach of Envy called Pieces of Nothing. Not bad stuff, but too bad they never were able to capture their live feeling on record.

Last I heard of them their web page (on hypermart) expired so I can assume that they are quiescent. Yeah, and looking back on that Nevermore show I still owe Big C for the trip (through a blizzard!) since my carless ass had no way of getting there and now that I have a car I hate driving so much that I don't know if I would make that drive for someone else.

Finally there is Sauron. Another East Lansing band, they were classic thrash metal. Not like these new school thrash bands though. These guys played fast and loose like Motorhead. They were filthy dirty just like thrash should be. I hung out with these guys a number of times and they are all class. I have one of their demos on cassette tape, so for you kids out there it looked like this:



This is what a cassette tape looks like. You could record music onto it and play it back in a "tape player".

Weird I know! The only way I can listen to my tape is if I bring it in my car, because my car is now "vintage" from 2002 and has a tape deck. My copy had a cover of The Return of Darkness and Evil. Damn straight. You can actually find their stuff available for purchase online. What? Not cult enough for you? Too mainstream for you?



These guys kill live

I even had an opportunity to play bass in the offshoot band Harbinger, but I could not afford the drive to Lansing. Then I moved a couple states away and lost contact with the fellas. You know how it goes. I never got a chance to see them live so this is actually the first I've heard of Harbinger outside of their demos five years ago, and again you can actually buy their album online. Which you won't because it isn't cult enough for your CD collection down in mom's basement.



Hand numbered demos only! Cvlt!

2 comments:

  1. James, you could upload it onto SendSpace.com -- you don't have to sign up, it's free, and it can store up to 300 MB. Do it!

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  2. Well if people want it I can try. Might take some time though...I lost the pegs to my CD rack so I won't have things unboxed for another couple days.

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