The World Needs A Stronger Blog...

These were my jams. This was as metal as I ever really got. I never got into Metallica or Maiden. I think I got the Exodus album first, on cassette. I let that tape rock 'til that tape popped. So good. Bay Area Thrash wrap around sunglasses fantasy. I don't care, I loved Steve Souza. This record is out-of-print now and very underrated and overlooked among Exodus' catalogue but this record ROARS. A few years ago I found it on Ebay on CD and paid about $70 for it because I wanted to spin it at Lucky 13 one night. I think I've listened to it once since then, but fuck it, now I'll always have it. The intro to this record still gets me charged.

It was 8th grade at McKinley Junior High and I was such a fuck up. I got suspended a bunch, got into fights, fell down a cellar, I was doing graffiti, I was battling with my parents neighbours in my apartment building, it was a very rough era. I think I just had so much bottled up inside and I didn't know what to do with it yet or how to express myself; like I had the ideas but I didn't have the skills or the means to get it all across. I had all these dreams and things I wanted to do.

Every afternoon on the B16 on my way home I'd just sit there with my headphones on, a storm raging in my head; a tornado of ideas. I was restless. A restless rebel without a cause. Once I was in high school I settled down, got deeper into punk and hardcore and started my first band. After that I was OK. But 6-8th grade was a rough time. Youth gone wild growing pains I guess.

So then there was Megadeth's "Rust In Peace" an album I still rock to this day; an amazing album, critically acclaimed and solid from start to finish. This was one of the first CD's I ever bought on my own, came in one of those big long cardboard boxes, remember those?

I remember when my dad brought home a CD player and a CD for the first time and it was literally like he'd come back from Mars with black diamonds. The first CD I ever saw or heard was Bruce Springsteen "Born In The USA". I remember my dad saying CD's were the future, I was puzzled. It sounded good though, better than a crackling record I thought.

I remember laying in bed, it was a summer day, probably late June. I was home alone. I had all the windows open in my room, the breeze was blowing the blinds and the sun was painting the room bright white and I put on that Exodus cassette. I turned up my boombox with the detachable speakers as loud as it would go and the intro was building and building, and its the sounds of a car accident, the engine roaring, the wild screech, the whole time theres a countdown underneath, a low voice going 7-6-5-4... then the car hits, theres an explosion, a thud and crash, the car horn gets stuck, you imagine a guy mangled and pinned inside his car, head through the windshield, chest pressed against the steering wheel, total chaos, glass everywhere...3-2-1... theres a pause, like a millisecond pause and BAM - the most brutal Bay Area Thrash riff you've ever heard starts. One guitar plays it solo and then the other joins in, the riff sounds like its being played by someone with tarantulas for hands, its all over the fretboard, the bass drum starts thumping like a heartbeat with the hi-hats pounding and then it all comes together. It was a beautiful thing.