I've been meaning to post more downloadable stuff on here, so here you go. Don't say I never gave ya nuthin! Happy New Year, folks!
Cheers!
- Harvey
You
know, like most folks out there, I get down on my life and myself and
get frustrated and shit, but really I'm a pretty lucky guy. I've been
fortunate enough to get to travel all over the place playing
atrocious, aggravating music for like-minded nutsos and become
friends with some of my favorite musicians from the underground. On a
few occasions, I've even got to play with them. Most folks know that
I got to play guitar for my favorite Death Metal / Grindcore band
Repulsion for a number of years. That was really a great time.
Scott (Carlson) and Matt (Olivo) are both great dudes and taught me a
lot about music and provided me with a zillion anecdotes and insights
from the origins of the Death Metal scene. And, they also turned me
onto Riot, for which I am eternally grateful. I dug their
“Fire Down Under” record so much that when I started my
Metalli-deth “Arena Thrash” band, Scarecrow we
ended up covering that tune. Playing in Repulsion
was a total Death Metal nerd wet-dream come true, and one of the
easiest jobs in metal. Basically, I just showed up, played my
favorite songs, and then got a couple beers and a few bucks. It
really doesn't get better than that.
Scarecrow "Swords And Tequila" - and yes, I know this song is way out of (extremely limited) vocal range.
I
want to take the opportunity here to set the record straight on how
that all came to be. I first met Matt and Scott at Maryland Deathfest
in '03 when both Exhumed
and Repulsion played.
As far as I remember, that was the last Repulsion
show with the original lineup. A couple of years prior, I had,
through my job selling records direct to stores for Necropolis
Records back in the '90s (when that was still a thing), happened to
stumble upon the phone number of the legendary (at least in Flint,
MI) Doug Earp (RIP) – the man who paid for the recording of
“Slaughter Of The Innocent” - or as it's better known today,
“Horrified”. Being a massive Repulsion
fan, I kept Doug on the phone for the better part of an hour, soaking
in every detail he could recall of the recording process, (mostly the
engineer's disbelief at the band's sound) and any other bit of
Repulsion minutae I could wring out of this incredibly nice and
patient man. Doug was obviously bemused and stoked that someone was
so interested in the record and was nothing but a gentleman as we
spoke. I mention that conversation because, by the time I actually
met Matt and Scott I probably knew as much about the recording of
“Horrified” as anyone who wasn't actually present possibly could.
I think their reaction was a mixture of flattery, amusement and
bewilderment when I proceeded to nerd out on their (very gracious and
patient) asses.
Repulsion with the original lineup at MDF '03
Fast-forward
a few months later and Repulsion
was offered a show in Spain, and for whatever reason, original
drummer Dave “Grave” Hollingshead decided that he didn't want to
travel overseas and opted out of the show. The first person Relapse
recommended for the job was, of course, my best friend and long-time
partner in grime, Col Jones. Anyone who has heard the Cretin
“Freakery” record can attest that Col has perfected and improved
Dave's legendary drumming style, so he was the perfect fit for the
job. Since Matt and Scott both live in LA, Col needed someone local
to practice with, so I set about learning the Repulsion
set to rehearse with him so that he'd be primed and ready to jam with
the elder statesmen when the time came. It was sort of like helping
your best friend get ready for a date with a girl you'd been in love
with for years. You're happy for the guy, but you're also jealous as
hell. Anyway, as the date of show drew nearer, guitarist Aaron
Freeman decided that he didn't want to do anymore shows with the band
either. Well, luckily for me, I was already jamming with Col, knew
all the songs, and was one of the biggest Repulsion
fans on the planet... So Col graciously recommended me to the guys,
and things went from there. Thanks are due to Col for helping me get
my foot in the door with the band, and congrats to my successors (I
quit the band after our shows with At
The Gates,
right before I moved to Hawaii), two of my favorite guitarists and
people, my former partner in the Exhumed
twin-axe attack, Mike Beams, and one of my oldest friends, Marissa
Martinez of Cretin,
who has nailed the Repulsion
writing style better than anyone not named Scott, Matt, Dave, or
Aaron.
Repulsion with Col and I in LA at the Murderfest in '07. I think we all have much cooler hair now, except Col, who has always had cool hair - at least since 11th grade anyway.
What
a lot of people don't know is that I actually spent a night fronting
one of my other favorite bands of all time, Exodus.
When I was rehearsing for the first Repulsion
show, I had just started working at Alternative Tentacles Records,
via the recommendation of their General Manager at the time, Dave
Adelson (who now runs his own awesome label, 20 Buck Spin, full
time). I was living in the South Bay and the AT office was in
Emeryville (right between Oakland and Berkeley) so the commute was
horrible, especially with the Bay Area's notoriously atrocious
traffic. I had some car trouble on the way home Thursday night and I
opted to take Friday off work to get my car fixed, since taking the
bus or train would literally take several hours round-trip. I was
awoken by my phone that morning- a call from an unknown 510 area-code
number. Since I am kind of a hermit and I hate
talking on the phone, I let it go to voice-mail and checked the
message an hour or so later once my car was at the shop. To say I was
surprised to hear Gary Holt on my voice-mail would be the
understatement of the century. I called him back immediately and he
told me that Zetro had just quit the band, and,
if I wasn't doing anything the next night, Exodus
had a show in Mexico City and needed a singer. I had to think about
it for a second, because to be honest I was intimidated as hell, but
I knew I would be kicking myself for years if I didn't jump on this
opportunity.
 |
| At the airport with the Exo-dudes, I'm the idiot in the middle with the shit-eating "I can't believe I'm doing this!" grin. |
A
bit of quick background, I had met the Exodus
guys in Europe in '03, when we had a day off in Austria and went to
their show with Nuclear
Assault, Grave,
and Mortician. I got
super hammered, accidentally made out with a fat chick, threw up, and
ended up backstage partying with the Exo-dudes. They had a day off as
well and ended up seeing one of our shows or something, and they
somehow put it together that this kid that was at the front row 13 or
more times during the 2nd
Baloff era of the band, screaming every lyric to every song, was also
the singer for this Death Metal band, Exhumed.
In fact, a week before Baloff's death, Dekapitator
had played a show with Exodus
at the Covered Wagon in San Francisco. At any rate, they knew I was a
Bay Area local, sang for a Death Metal band and at least knew all the
words to the “Bonded By Blood” album. So as a last resort, they
rang me and asked me to fill-in for this show. All those years back
in middle school screaming along to my favorite records were finally
coming in handy! Now, when is Voivod gonna call me when Snake has a
sore throat?!?!
I
had a truly amazing time in Mexico City, and the whole show is really
a bit of a blur looking back, but it was an amazing night. One thing
that's really worth mentioning is the kids at the show. They didn't
care that I wasn't Zetro or Baloff, they just really cared that a
band that lost their singer 2 days earlier didn't cancel on them and
did whatever it took to come down and play for them. They were
nothing but wonderful to me, and I can't thank them enough. I didn't
know what to expect, I thought people were going to be really pissed
off or something, but mid-way through the first song, I looked down
and saw a kid with a “Gore Metal” shirt on, and started to feel
like everything was gonna be okay. The Exodus
guys asked me about going to South America with them the following
week, but I needed to be available for Repulsion
and I didn't want to have just started a new job working for an old
friend just to turn around and quit within the first month. If I had
just gone for it, who knows what would have happened... My liver and
brain would probably have been destroyed several times over by now!
When I heard “Shovel-Headed Kill Machine” a couple years later, I
knew that Exodus was
back to full-strength and then some, sounding better than they had in
years. In the meantime, I got to play in Repulsion
for four years or so, and years later, my own goofy band has a new
album out that people seem to like, so I think
everything worked out pretty well all the way around.
I've
had the audio recording of this show for years, but out of respect to
Exodus, I've been
hesitant to share it beyond a few close friends, but when I recently
saw them on the Slayer
tour in Calgary last year (thank Satan they don't have to play at
shitholes like the Covered Wagon these days) Gary and Tom (and Rob
for that matter) gave me their blessing to post the audio from the
show. It's very raw, just a guy in the audience with a hand-held tape
recorder, and my vocals are pretty shredded as the show goes on, but
it's at least good for a laugh – or in case you need to remember
really obscure, random Metal trivia facts, haha! If you want to
nit-pick and critique my performance, go ahead, but keep in mind I
had literally no
rehearsal with the band, and one day to learn the lyrics to (at the
time) new songs like “War is my Shepherd”, “Shroud Of Urine”
and “Scar Spangled Banner”. We ran through those tunes and
“Blacklist” at soundcheck, “Blacklist” was a little rough so
we dropped it. Everything else was just done on the fly. It was a
pleasure and an honor to share the stage with one of my absolute
favorite bands of all time and I want to thank those guys again for
letting me do it, and for giving the go-ahead and share this
recording with the fine folks of the interweb. That said, I would love to see any video of this show, if such a thing exists. This was before literally everything was on youtube, so I've never come across any footage of it. If you have it, get in touch!
So here it is:
