Mexico City

Wow, looking at this blog, it's a little frightening how behind the times it is. It's still talking about shit that happened in April... So in an effort to get things closer to present time, I'm going to do some rapid-fire updates...

Tonight's episode:

Mexico City – Fiesta of filth

– or -

Viva la vomit!

After returning from the Atheist / Inferno fest / Neurotic Death Fest Europe trip, I was quite excited to give my two week notice at my (very crappy) job. Our schedule this year is way too busy to hold down any kind of regular work. I was kept busy finishing out my last couple of weeks at work and getting everything sorted for the trip, so we only had time for one rehearsal. We were still feeling pretty good after Europe, though, so it wasn't the biggest deal.

May 19^th, the night before we left for Mexico, I played with Gravehill opening for Destruction in Santa Ana. I grabbed our humble axe-slinger Wes Caley from his home in Oxnard on the way south for the show. The night was a blast, and I ended up getting really, really hammered. I try to hold myself to a zero tolerance policy with Jagermeister, but after drinking a six pack during the performance (which went down awesome and the kids were great, by the way!) and then meeting very cool dude Matt from Dark Descent Records (who put out the new Gravehill record, which came out pretty killer in my humble opinion) and coercing him to buy me a few more beers (the perks of being a “recording artist”, haha!) I was left vulnerable to wiles of that licorice-flavored Teutonic libation we all know and love/hate. The night got kind of weird from there, but overall a good time was had by all. Wes and I stopped off for some much needed Carl's Jr. to soak up the madness on the way to Long Beach where we were hosted by the lovely and kind Katrina Woehlcke (who also let me park in front of her house for the weekend, thanks again!). Needless to say, the next morning when we got up at 7am to head to LAX, I was not a happy camper. Regardless, we boarded the flight with a minimum of confusion and consternation, especially compared to our last trip. This wouldn't last too long though.

Being in a band like Exhumed is weird sometimes. We're far from rock stars (as our meager bank accounts will clearly attest) but when you go to someplace like Mexico City, you kind of forget that for a day or two. As soon as we got off the plane and into the gangway into the terminal, a baggage handler spotted Leon, and welcomed the band to Mexico. Not even in the airport yet, and we were already rockognized. Odd... Then as we were going through customs, one of the guys there asked us what band we were in, and when we told him, he waved all our bags through the x-ray machine and then played us something from “Anatomy is Destiny” on his phone. Odder... We met up with the very cool guys in Pathology, who would be in the same van and hotel as us, and also had the same flight back to LA. Somewhere between customs and the van, Danny's cymbals were lost, which we realized when we got to the hotel. We were able to figure out in our broken Spanish how to tell the guys from the festival, and they called the airline and figured out where they were. Unfortunately security would have to hold them until Monday morning when we departed back for California, but the festival also had cymbals on hand already, so that was a bullet effectively dodged.

We met a few kids outside the hotel, signed some shit for them, and got settled in before heading out for some food. There was a huge buffet nearby that we decided to check out. Anyone that knows any of us even slightly knows that Exhumed pretty much runs on Mexican food 99% of the time. Everything was delicious, so I ate a bit of everything there – meat, rice, all kinds of seafood, flan, I didn't discriminate. I had three plates of food, it was that good. Wes declared it to be the best meal he had ever eaten. If you're wondering why I'm spending so much time talking about the food we ate, keep reading. It will all become clear.

After that we had a few beers (surprise!) and proceeded to get really bored. We ended up hijacking the dudes in Hirax and hopped in their van to get to the fest, as hanging out at the hotel was getting pretty tedious. We all piled in the back with the gear and anywhere there was room and headed to the “Metal in the Forest” festival. We were all wondering about this fest – mostly we were wondering where the fuck the “forest” was in Mexico City. Well, a one-hour van ride later, we had our answer. It was pretty far outside Mexico City, and in the dark, it seemed very remote. We got there as Watain was playing and headed into the madness. If we thought the response in the airport was weird, being at the fest was ten times crazier. Our journey from the gate to the bar (maybe 60 feet away) was a 30 minute odyssey of autograph signings, pictures with the kids, hugs and handshakes. At one point we were standing at the merch booth with about 20 kids taking pictures and shit and chanting “Exhumed! Exhumed!” Totally surreal. At any rate, before too long we were in the backstage tent (yes, the backstage was in a tent) looking for beer when one of the Watain crew guys (I could tell by his cute little matching vest thing) came up to us and politely asked if were playing next. When we told him that we were playing tomorrow, he informed us that we would have to get out of the tent because Watain would be coming offstage. What an asshole. We were literally discussing the fact that we should go to the bar immediately before he said that, so we took off and headed for less douche-y territory. From there we quickly ran into old friend Antimo from Disgorge (Mexico, obviously) and Profanator. It was great to see him again and he introduced us to Ruben, and our party team was formed! Hirax played and were awesome and then Rage was scheduled to go on, but after a 90 minute soundcheck, ended up not playing at all because of some sort of weird technical issue. That was all pretty humorous (as was the guitarist's mullet, perfectly preserved from the 80s) and we were fairly intoxicated by this time, but it was getting really late and pretty chilly. We realized that if we somehow missed the van back to the hotel, we would be literally stuck in a forest, with no tent, sleeping bag, jackets, etc. So we stuck close to Katon and co. and piled into the van for a hilarious ride back to the hotel.

The next day, we were the last band scheduled to play, so I was very surprised when I was awakened by a phone call at noon telling me the van was here to pick us up to head to the festival. Needless to say I asked the guy if we could catch the next van which he told me would be there in an hour and a half. Three and a half hours later, we were headed back to the venue after eating something very Denny's-esque at the hotel restaurant and a few beers. Since it was Sunday, the festival was scheduled to end at 8pm or so (unlike the previous night, which went on until 2am or thereabouts), and we were supposed to be onstage at 6:30. By 7:40 we were actually onstage, and it was just hitting dusk. The show went over really well, and the kids were awesome. Since the festival was outside in a kind of park / recreation area, the ground it was set up on wasn't particularly level and the front of the stage was sloping down towards the ground, which was a little dicey to navigate, but we grinded out the set undaunted.

Obviously things (logistically speaking) were winding down as we played, and dudes were taking down the lighting rig about mid-way through our set, which was weird. Thankfully the kids stuck it out with us and were awesome. By the time we finished playing, the lighting rig was halfway dis-assembled, and the backstage tent was completely devoid of lighting, so we struggled to find our bags in the dark and amazingly didn't forget anything – except our banner. We were so rushed leaving and there was so much activity with the people taking down the stage that no one grabbed it. We headed back to the hotel to shower, and then decided to hit a taco place on the corner.

We ended up drinking and eating with the guys in Violator and Gama Bomb, a couple of excellent Thrash bands that had played that day. I was wishing Dekapitator was in the line-up as it would have been a perfect fit! A couple of the Pathology dudes cruised over for beers as well, as well a guy from Anarchus who literally just happened to be in the neighborhood. Crazy! Anyway, because we need to get paid in US Dollars, we were waiting to get paid for a few hours after the show, so beers and al pastor tacos kept coming and going, and by the time I finally got all the business settled, my stomach was a bit iffy. I laid down to try to grab four hours of sleep before catching yet another excruciatingly early flight. As I lay there, I could feel my guts a'rumbling. I thought “just sleep a bit and this will pass”. I took some stomach medicine and tried to get some rest. It was not to be. I headed to the bathroom and vomited intensely three times in rapid succession. Now, keep in mind, I had been eating really spicy food all day, and everything came up. Literally. So I had an entire day's worth of spicy food pouring out of my face in three massive inverse-gulps. Tears were flowing, vomit was pouring out of my nose, which was also running, and to top it off, I had extremely bad diarrhea. After that expulsion, I hoped that I had literally gotten it all out of my system, and laid back down. Wes got back to the room and passed out as I lay there tossing and turning. It was gonna be a looooong day.

At 6am or so, after throwing up a couple more times, we woke up. I told the guys I was feeling ill, gave Leon all our money and told him he was in charge. We piled into the van with the Pathology guys and headed to the airport. I rode shotgun with the window open and a bag in my hand (that I thankfully didn't end up needing on the drive), ready for the worst. When we got the airport, the line was huge, so I posted up near the bathroom, and left the guys to their own devices. After about an hour or more, and several agonizing trips to the bathroom for me, someone from Pathology had the wherewithal to discover that we were in the completely wrong terminal of a huge airport. Bad news. We headed to the correct terminal, all of our crap in tow, with me bringing up the rear. As sick as I was, I had to stop every 50 feet or so and rest, and I was sweating profusely. Also, I had to go the bathroom at least every 15 minutes. It quickly became clear after a 10 minute tram ride to the other terminal and yet another bathroom break for yours truly that our chances of making the flight were getting very, very slim. The Pathology guys, unencumbered by a shambling, vomiting albatross of a band member such as I had become, sprinted on to the finish line and boarded the scheduled flight. We however, didn't even reach the gate until the flight had been closed for 20 minutes.

Our options were to wait until tomorrow and catch the same flight, which would have cost us $400, but allowed us to get a hotel (which of course would have cost even more money) and some rest and try again the following day, or to wait in the airport for 7 hours and try to get on stand-by for the full flight that afternoon. Being in state that was at best incredibly tired and frustrated (everyone else) or vomiting and shitting profusely and practically non-stop (me) we headed downstairs and found some benches (which were thankfully located very close to the bathrooms) and crashed out for a few hours. Somewhere around 1pm or so, I finally hadn't thrown up for about 45 minutes. It was time to try to keep some water down. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a bottle of water that much in my life, even though I could only handle small sips at a time. By this time I could at least talk a little bit to the other guys and find out what was going on. Up to that point, I had been pretty much oblivious. We planned to head back to the counter at 3:30 to see about the standby flight. I finally got some solid sleep until Wes woke me up so I could see a guy holding a “Ted Bathing” sign in the airport that got a few laughs. I looked at my phone and it read 3:35 – which I found a bit distressing as Leon and Danny were nowhere to be found. I swear, I get sick for one day, and all hell breaks loose! Anyway, I texted Leon, who was of course a) with Danny, and b) at the bar. They hurried back and we were at the ticket counter by four. Thankfully there were four seats in the exit row (score! Extra leg room!) available and it would only cost us $25 each to change our flights, since it was the same day. Frowns were turned upside down and I even ate a little on the plane ride home. So, as the bard once sagely intoned, all's well that ends well. We headed home happy and relieved. However, my stomach was still bothering me even a week later at MDF... but that's the next exciting episode in the never-ending fight for truth, justice and the Armenian Way– or whatever the fuck it is that we're doing with ourselves on these ridiculous adventures.

MDF recap coming soon!

More about Europe - and not the "final countdown" one, even though John Norum is totally rad

Where were we.... Oh yeah, still in Europe. Since posting part I of our European Vacation - yes, that's a Griswald reference - we've been to Mexico City and Maryland Death Fest, but those stories will come later. Also, I have a bunch of photos I'll upload next time. Anyway, here's the exciting conclusion of our last saga - four dumbshits let loose in the old country - or, how I learned to stop worrying and love Europe.

Leaving Italy and heading back to Germany, we drove through the alps once again, and I actually was awake for most of the drive, taking in some truly breathtaking scenery, and taking over the iPod for the first time on the trip. That was a nice change of pace. I had finally almost got over my jet lag, now that our trip was winding down of course. Exhumed has always had our most solid following in central Europe – Germany, the Czech Republic, Belgium and Holland. As we headed into the home stretch, we were playing to our strengths – drunken Germans who love blast-beats and presumably shit-porn. We had never played in Munich itself, and we were all psyched to be in the beer capital of the world. I personally love German beer, it's my absolute favorite, with Belgian beer being close behind, and the beer in Munich was exactly what I love about German beer. Not too heavy, refreshing, mildly effervescent with a full, but not overbearing flavor. So delicious. The club had built in accomodations (not totally uncommon in Europe) so we weren't going anywhere until the following morning. We posted up in the bunk room and got ready for the show. The stage was a little weird, very long and horizontal but not deep. It didn't really matter though. The place filled up quickly, and we saw a lot of Rotten Sound, Napalm Death, Dead Infection, etc. shirts. Always a good sign for us. We tore into it and the kids were loud and obnoxious, just the way we like it. One of the better shows on the whole run for us for sure. Also ran into the drummer of one of our old favorites - Dead. A split 7"was discussed, and hopefully the project will actually materialize and not just be drunken yammering. Admittedly, it'll be impossible for either band to top the cover art for Dead's "Orgasm Through Sleazy Vibes" EP.

After we played we retired upstairs to meet with our agent Marco, who works for the excellent Avocado agency. He was a nice, straightforward guy who spoke plainly and directly – what the fuck kind of booking agent is that?!?!? Anyway, it was a positive meeting, we started working on more plans for Fall, and then it was time catch Atheist and get sloshed. Done and done. We just partied all night, and it was a total bro-down, or brodeo. Either way, it was just the four of us and our ever patient driver, Mat. Kelly and Chris from Atheist stopped in for a drink, but soon we were getting stupid and loud. I managed to only break one beer bottle, and graffiti an excellent picture of our personal mascot, Ted Sanchez on the wall. Success!

The next day, we weren't even that hung over, by some blessing of the beer gods, and we headed off to Tilburg. Again, this was well-trod territory for us, having played the awesome 013 venue a few times already. We were sharing a dressing room with Atheist and one of my favorite current Death Metal bands, Hail Of Bullets. Martin from HOB informed us that the Heineken was his, but we could drink as much of the other beer as we wanted. That sounded like a dare. Anyway, I ran to the local music store to grab some new strings and after getting the guitars stage-worthy, met up with the affable American expatriate Pip Soret from Relapse Europe. Got to hang out with a lot of old friends, Harold from Legion of the Damned, John and Kyle from Incantation, Jason from Misery Index, Frank Van Liempd, our old publicist, and a lot of other folks who I can't exactly recall at the moment. The vibe of the whole day was just awesome.

We were pretty warmed up and tight (at least for us) by now, so the set felt great, and it went down awesome. I have to admit, I love playing bigger stages, much more room to run around and interact with the kids and shit. Caught Misery Index and Hail Of Bullets crushing it, drained many, many beers and headed off to a Formule 1 hotel, which anyone who has ever stayed at one will tell you is one of the worst hotels ever. We had two rooms with bunk beds – it was very “Stepbrothers”. You also had to keep pushing the button to turn the shower on every 45 seconds or so, or it would just turn off. Oh, Formule 1, you don't even have continental breakfast.

We got up to fly to Greece pretty early the next day, but our driver, who had up to this point been very on the ball, misread our flight schedule, so we totally missed our flight. Getting this sorted out was very time-consuming and expensive, which Mat very professionally took out of his pay, stand-up guy that he is, since for once- it was someone else's goof that caused the delay! I love it when I get to say that. It's pretty much always our (if not my) fault when things go wrong, haha! Anyway, after a bit of a delay and some food, we were back on track. Wes and Leon flew from Amsterdam to Frankfurt to Athens, and Danny and I were routed through Munich. I actually got a hold of the promoter before we left and gave him our new arrival info and things were back on track. All things considered, a pretty minor hiccup.

After a fairly nondescript flight, we arrived in Athens – our flights landed within 20 minutes of each other's – and Danny and I quickly found Wes and Leon in baggage claim. Amazingly, all of our luggage was already there and things were looking good. The driver was there waiting for us, and he was a super nice guy. He took us by the Acropolis, even though it was closed, which was truly awe-inspiring, even from the remote viewing area where we were. Greece was a breath of fresh air after the sort of stiflingly organized nature of central Europe. Here the city clearly sprung up spontaneously, erupting in tangles of labyrinthine, serendipitous urban quagmire. The streets were dirty, there were weird hookers on the corner, graffiti everywhere, rubble in the streets from a soccer-related riot / street brawl. It was kind of like being back in the Oakland or Hollywood, except without the burritos. I can't wait to come back to Greece, hopefully on vacation and really soak in this amazing place. Again, we had an uncharacteristically nice hotel, even if it wasn't in the greatest neighborhood. We were warned several times about the neighborhood, which was kind of funny. I just said, “Dude, I used to live in Hunter's Point – I think I'll be fine”. Bay Area peeps will know what I'm talking about there. At any rate, the dinner at the hotel was delicious – the eggplant in particular was great. We headed to the venue and had a few beers before hitting the stage. This was definitely an Atheist crowd, who eyed us a little suspiciously at first, but warmed up quite nicely and the show turned out really well. Great to go out on a positive vibe. I had been checking out Atheist sporadically every night, but in Athens I caught their entire set and was really blown away at how good they are – not just at playing their instruments (that too), but they really are a band that sounds like no one else. We interrupted their set to bring them out Jager shots and Danny and Leon even stage-dove during “Piece of Time”. Epic stuff!

After the show, we headed back to the hotel, where Leon crashed out. Wes, Danny, and I wandered around town until we heard some cool-sounding folk music coming out of a basement bar, so we wandered downstairs and grabbed a very large beer and an amazing sausage sampler plate. The music was great, the vibe was awesome, and it was one of those you-can't-plan-this-shit kind of travel moments that makes the whole grind of touring totally worthwhile. I felt really lucky to be sitting in a random bar somewhere in Athens drinking good beer with old friends and enjoying truly local color. Afterwards, we made our way through the hooker-lined streets and got back to the hotel. As Wes and I were heading to our room, I heard some girls in the hallway and poked my head out. They asked me if I was in a band, I said yes. The only thing I could think to say next was “You guys want some beer?” Before we knew it there were three obviously very under-age Norwegian high school chicks drinking beer, chewing tobacco, smoking cigarettes and taking shots of Absolut in our room. How random is that? Anyway, no this wasn't some weird “Barley Legal” Letters-worthy encounter (c'mon, I'm 35 years old here, what kind of guy do you think I am?!?!?), but it was a pretty random and funny end to the night. We dozed off about 4am or so and got up around 8 to fly home.

I took a quick shower, rousted the boys and we piled in the van. We were cutting it pretty close time-wise, as usual. It turned out that didn't really matter, though, since our flight was delayed by three hours (exactly the amount of time we would have had to catch our connecting flight). The wait in line took forever, and the wait for the flight seemed to take even longer. In our hungover (as usual) states, we saw a smoothie stand, and invested way too much money in the worst fruit smoothies I have ever seen. Eventually we were headed home. I watched Black Swan on the way back, which was pretty good, and got some rest. I couldn't even drink on the flight this time, I just needed a day off. That didn't stop the other guys, though, but the party vibe had definitely mellowed at last. We hit JFK, went through all the ridiculous TSA bullshit in customs, and barely made our rescheduled connecting flight to LA, where we learned immediately after landing that Bin Laden had been killed. That was kind of a trip, and I couldn't help but be stoked and feel even better about getting home. The last hiccup was that our merch box was lost by Delta, so I had to stay even longer and fill out a bunch of bullshit paperwork. Leon and Danny headed off with their significant others and Wes and I were picked up by the ever-affable Mike Abominator from Gravehill, driving my car which he graciously allowed me to park in front of his house in Orange County while we were gone.

On the way south to the OC to drop Mike off, we hit the closest Del-Taco and I ate waaaaaaay too much. From there, Wes and I drove north to Ventura County (about an hour north of LA) and I continued on to San Luis Obispo County (about four hours north of LA) where I arrived at about 5am and finally got some well-deserved sleep.

My trip:

Strings broken: 1

Beer bottles broken: 3

Pieces of Luggage forgotten by Exhumed: 3

Clothing items lost: 2

Books read: 2

Instances of vomiting: 1

Shits taken outside: 1

Exhumed Tattoos: 1

Favorite condiment: Butter

Travel days: 11

Showers taken: 7

Drawings of Ted Sanchez: 1

Calls to my parents: 4

Band arguments: 0

Farts: 1,000,000

Exhumed in Europe Spring 2011

Exhumed in Europe 2011 Part the firste

Idiots abroad

– or –

How I spent my Spring Break

Let me get this out of the way first. Logistically, Exhumed is a mess. A lumbering, clumsy clusterfuck of a band. We have no rehearsal space, are missing significant pieces of key gear (although this is being remedied as I type this), live in different cities, and never seem to have the basic elements of being a band down. That said, we have a killer new album under our belts, a great record label behind us, rad booking agents on both sides of the Atlantic, and years of experience at pulling victory out of our asses at the last minute. And so it remains in 2011.

On the morning of our flights to Oslo, we forgot the following: 1 entire T-shirt design; our backdrop; all of Danny's clothes and drum hardware; my bullet belt; and a brand-spanking new severed head to drink blood out of at the end of the show. Wes was the only person that didn't forget anything, but he also had all of his clothes in a grocery bag. Oh, did I mention that we barely made the flight? Hopefully none of the wonderful people that I mentioned above (record label, agents, etc.) are reading this blog, as I really don't mean to erode any (very probably misplaced) confidence they may have in us, but I have to tell it like it is. The important thing is this: we made the flight to Norway – we played the shows, we lived to tell, or rather to blog, the tale.

Luckily, we flew KLM to Amsterdam, which means that they don't charge you for booze. Wes and I enjoyed several Johnnie Walkers that made the morning's rough start a lot easier to take. I also got to see “The Fighter”, which was a killer movie. We hit Amsterdam without incident, hit the bar, and then made our way to Norway. Of course, when we collected our luggage, my guitar was conspicuously absent... That was a bit disquieting. After hassling with the attendant paperwork that one must endure when one's luggage is lost, we met the very amiable tech-death metal legend Kelly from Atheist and headed to the hotel.

We were greeted by an extremely polite dude who was listening to a great mix CD w/David Allan Coe, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and other country classics, which was a very good omen. The hotel was a bit surreal, as it was a pretty nice hotel (2.5 stars at least) that had been taken over by the Inferno Festival. All the TV screens showed ads for metal vendors at the fest or new releases from Norwegian metal labels. Motorhead played over the PA as we checked in. Fucking weird. There were heshers everywhere, and a lot of goth-looking clothes going on which was a bit strange as well. We had planned to get guitar strings and a few other essentials after landing as we ran out of time to do so before leaving, but we were informed that everything was closed for Easter – all weekend. After dumping our luggage, we headed to the venue to get our wristbands, passes, and most importantly... drink tickets!

It felt a little weird for our first show back to be in a place where we didn't really know anyone, and we just kind of hung out at the rooftop open-air (the weather was great) bar by ourselves for the first hour or so and felt a little goofy. That problem was soon solved, as we were joined by an old friend, Christine, and quickly ended up hanging out with a bunch of people, including Bard Eithun (ex-Emperor) who was a really nice, down to earth dude. Soon we were several drinks in and making friends left and right. I had a very solid buzz and took in a killer set from Aura Noir and then headed downstairs to check out one of my all-time favorite bands, Voivod. They took the stage and just crushed the place. I immediately headed upstairs to see some old Bay Area heroes of mine, Forbidden, who were also excellent, then headed back to the hotel drunk and feeling no pain.

Danny and Leon hit the sack and Wes and I headed to the bar to cajole drinks out of anyone foolish enough to befriend us. We ended up drinking Satyr's brand of red wine (yeah, the dude from Satyricon has his own wine which was served at the fest... whoa.) with Christine, Craig and Steve from Forbidden, and a few other people until about 5am. Craig graciously offered me use of his guitar the next day, which was really, really nice of him. Especially considering that in 1989 I was a 13 year old who used to headbang to “Forbidden Evil” in my bedroom all the time! We also got a lot of advice on how to get my guitar back from the airline, how to pick up Norwegian chicks, and a lot of other seemingly pertinent information which I forgot immediately after leaving the bar.

The next day... headaches, beer shits, and worst of all, the realization that we a) had no money, and b) were out of drink tickets set in. But we always find a way, right? We didn't play until 12:30am that night (immediately after Immortal's set – what a great slot, huh?!?) so the challenge we put to ourselves was to stay sober until about 10pm anyway. Wes set about re-tuning Craig's guitar from Eb to B, I got our merchandise going, and just when we had to go down to the desk to borrow a screwdriver or something, Wes and Danny keenly noticed my guitar sitting there! Sweet relief! We headed over to the club for soundcheck, and things seemed to be getting on the right track at last. After soundcheck, I cobbled together a new set of strings that I got from the incredibly helpful and polite production staff. Since this is Norway, and everyone tunes to E or D, the strings were waaaaaaay thinner than the guage we usually use (.013-.56), but the set that was on my guitar were really old and the fifth string had already broken several times, so just about anything was a step up. I ate my sandwich I had taken with me from the hotel's extensive (and delicious) breakfast buffet and headed to the hotel's workout room. By the time I was done there and showered, it was about 9 or so, and I got a call from the fest, very concerned that we were late for our signing session (which is weird in and of itself- we're an underground Death Metal / Grindcore band for cryin' out loud!). Yours truly apparently didn't read the one of the promoters' several dozen emails correctly, and thought it was going to be right around the time we played... whoops! The really embarrassing thing? We had to have a van come and pick us up at the hotel because every time we tried to walk to the venue (maybe half a mile away from the hotel) we got hopelessly lost – unless we were drunk, in which case we walked straight there and back with no problems. Wes and I hit the venue and met quite a few nice kids with shit to get signed and took some pictures with them, which was cool. Danny and Leon were already at the venue, but Leon's phone was off, so they missed the whole thing. Hoo boy... as I type this, I realize that we really gotta get it together.

At any rate, we quickly found the guys from some of our old tour buddies in Soilent Green, Today Is The Day, and Vomitory, and our beer problems were as good as solved. We were ready to rock at last. The room we were playing filled up quite nicely as Immortal wound down and we bashed out a surprisingly (to me anyway) tight and coherent set that went down really well. After exhorting the crowd with a typical “So Norway likes Death Metal, huh? - I don't think you fucking heard me, I said NORWAY LIKES DEATH METAL, RIGHT?!?!?”, I can confidently confirm that Norway does indeed like Death Metal. Heading back to the hotel we had more drinks with Steve Austin, Shane from Napalm (who told a wonderfully drunk and enthusiastic tale of receiving the Genocide demo in the mail on January 31^st, 1986, with Wehrmacht on the A-side of the cassette) and the Vomitory guys and Christine, and left the bar around 3 or 4, somewhat of an improvement from the previous night.

I was up early the next day to hit the breakfast buffet before splitting for London, where I ran into Horgh from Immortal (he had played drums for Hypocrisy when we toured with them several years ago) to congratulate him on a job well done the previous night and then got ready to fly out. This time we were a bit more ready than we had been leaving LA, and we met all of the Atheist guys, who we would spend the next 10 days on the road with.

The flight was short and sweet, and our work permits were properly filed and presented at customs, which makes a huge difference – the last time we visited the UK we were stuck in customs for almost 2 hours – so things we pretty much humming along. Our driver Mat, was there at the gate, on time to pick us up, we had all of our luggage and it seemed like things were coalescing nicely at last! We were even able to get some proper guitar strings and everything! The show went down really well, and I began to understand just how great Atheist are live- I literally hadn't seen them play since 1992. They executed their material flawlessly and demonstrated that technical, progressive Death Metal can still be aggressive, organic and powerful. We were recommended to hit a bar in town called the Crobar (yeah, I would've thought there'd be a “w” in there as well), as the show was over by 10:30 or some obscenely early hour. We got cabs and hit the bar – a true rock bar with a great juke box stocked with tons of Thin Lizzy, Rainbow, Morbid Angel, Autopsy, Kreator, Celtic Frost and much more killer shit. Beers were drained, friends were joined and made, including an American serviceman named Andrew (I think?), an old friend of Danny's named Niki, and a very helpful blonde who had an Exciter patch on her denim (my kind of girl, for sure!) whose name has completely escaped me. The party escalated from there – everyone except me left around 2am or so, and somehow or other I ended up in the office of the bar partying with the bar staff until about 5am. A lot of details as far as how things went down are fuzzy at this point. Shit, they were fuzzy the next day. I do remember doing a shot of something and instantly vomiting. That was pretty gnarly. Anyway, the cab I ended up in dropped me off at the wrong Travelodge, which I didn't realize until I tried my key in the door and it didn't work. That was interesting. Luckily, I was able to hail another cab and get to the right hotel (two of them on the same street) within a few minutes. I stumbled into the room as the sun was coming up for about an hour and a half of sleep before the van left for Germany.

This day was pretty much gone for me. I slept until about 6pm or so, when I finally emerged, crusty, cranky and very hungry and thirsty. Today's show paired our package with the excellent Macabre / Birdflesh / Rompeprop lineup, which was great. I joined the other guys and old friend Adde from Birdflesh / General Surgery just in time for dinner. Bruce Lamont (Yakuza, et al) was also on hand as he was on tour with Macabre. It was great to meet him and tell him in person how much I dug the Circle Of Animals record he did. If you like Ministry, Killing Joke, Godflesh, Pigface, God, Head Of David, etc., you should absolutely check it out. Anyway, back to dinner. We of course went to the wrong restaurant (our dinners were paid for by the venue at a place called Maze, and we went to someplace across the street) and ended up having to buy our dinner like idiots. We decided to hit Maze anyway and get our food to-go for after the show, a decision which would prove to be prudent. By the time we made it back to venue, I was feeling more or less human, and Rompeprop was just wrapping up a killer set. Birdflesh was next, and were as lethal and hilarious as ever. Macabre was beyond awesome, and it really hit home how psyched I am about our upcoming tour with them in the states and Canada. I always love playing Essen, not only because the kids there are awesome, but because it's the hometown of one of my very favorite bands, Kreator. The show was great that night, maybe the best of the whole trip. The kids were going fucking mental and we were loving every minute of it. After the show, I asked Adde “Was the set too gay?”, he smiled and responded “Just gay enough.” That's when I knew we were on the right track.

From there we hit Paris, a city I've been to many, many times. In fact, I even vacationed there (and you thought I had no culture!) so I was much more interested in sleeping than I was in taking in the sights. We did get out for a bit to try and find some new underwear and socks for our under-wardrobed drummer. The show went down all right, and I got to see my old buddy Malek Baali for a minute afterwards. We fully intended to go out and get shitfaced, but the need for dinner, high prices in the neighborhood and a lack of overall momentum kind of foiled us. Alas, tomorrow would be another day. And hopefully a drunker one. We headed east to the beautiful country of Switzerland. Of course, myself being a lunkhead of the highest order slept through the alps and only woke up once we were in Zurich itself. The thing that sticks out the most for me was that the beer we had here was probably the worst beer I've ever had in Europe – yes, it was worse than Kronenbourg. Luckily we had Jack Daniels. We all bunked in one room in a hostel, where Leon took matters into his own hands and bought some good beer for all present, and we proceeded to get hammered with the Atheist guys at the hotel. The next morning I took one of the least satisfying, but most overdue showers of my life. A quick trip through the well-stocked continental breakfast bar and it was off to Italy.

Again, I slept through some spectacular scenery, and awoke at the venue for load-in. One thing that will scare the hell out of you being in an underground band: A really huge venue. This place could have easily held 1200 people. That was a bit big for just us and Atheist. I was a little apprehensive about filling the place up to say the least. Our hotel was ridiculously nice as well – Wes and I had a suite all to ourselves with two king-size beds and a huge, jacuzzi tub. Danny and Leon's room was considerably more modest, but still pretty damn swanky. We got back to the club, checked out the usual array of bootleg merchandise you have to tolerate when playing Italy, and were relieved to see a lot of cars in the parking lot. The place wasn't full by any stretch of the imagination, but it definitely didn't look pathetically empty either. We hit the (huge) stage, had a good, well-received show and hung out with our old pal Marco from Brainwash. We went out to meet some of the kids after the Atheist set, and were amazed that they actually smelled worse than we did. That never happens! The next day I resolved to actually be awake for the drive through the alps.

To be continued... Hopefully the other guys will send me their pictures in time for pt. II so you can see some of the stupidity...

Tablature

Okay, some folks have asked me about tablature for Exhumed songs, and since I end up transcribing the songs for the other guys anyway, I actually have tab files. The program I've been using is Guitar Pro 5, but there's a new version, Guitar Pro 6 and you can download a free trial of the program here.



I haven't used any of the fancy stuff on the program, I've just used it to transcribe riffs. There are no solos transcribed, as frankly, it's just too much of a pain in the ass to do it, and I rarely remember them correctly anyway. One limitation I've found, at least in GP5 is that you can't account for tempo changes within songs - so each song is tabbed at or near the dominant tempo. So the bridge for "Waxwork" will be way too fast for example when you listen to the midi, which is of course, hilarious sounding.



I've posted up three songs to start with. There's "Limb From Limb" from Gore Metal - basically every song on the album is virtually indecipherable by ear - I'm almost hesitant to post these tunes, as usually when you can't make out a riff, the riff you imagine almost always ends up being heavier than what was actually recorded. So if you're disappointed, sorry, haha! Then "Decrepit Crescendo" from Slaughtercult, which has long been a staple of our live set. I think that the solo riff here is transcribed as a D-beat riff, whereas on the album it's trem picked like an old-school Death Metal riff. That was a change made years ago, so if you want to play it faithfully w/the album, just trem-pick that part. Lastly is "Waxowork". I posted this because it's one of our most complicated (not necessarily technical, but complicated) songs and I've seen some really weird videos on youtube of people playing it really wrong. Now they'll have no excuse, haha!

Anyway, enjoy and let me know if these are helpful, fun, or whatever.

Cheers,
Harv

download "Limb From Limb" tab

download "Decrepit Crescendo" tab

donwload "Waxwork" tab

LPs and other junk for sale

So I finally cleaned out my storage space and found some merchandise sitting around collecting dust. So instead of it sitting around collecting dust at my pad, you can buy it and then it'll sit around collecting dust at yours! Here's what I've got:

EXHUMED "Gore Metal" LP - $15ppd US, $20ppd world

EXHUMED / INGROWING 7" - $5ppd US, $6ppd world

EXHUMED / INGROWING 3"CD - $5ppd US, $6ppd world

DEKAPITATOR "The Storm Before The Calm" LP - colored vinyl - $15ppd US, $20ppd world

Paypal only to harvey_matt@yahoo.com

Just email me at harvey_matt@yahoo.com if you're interested - I'll get your address and we'll go from there.

Cheers!

Crap from the Crypt Vol. 1 - Goregasm demo 1992

Welcome to a new thing on this blog... I will be digging through my archives of accumulated bullshit and posting random tidbits here from time to time of stuff that isn't available or maybe has never really been heard outside the band. Keep in mind, this should only be for the really curious or the extremely die-hard, as all of it will be raw, poorly recorded (and probably poorly played), and mostly ripped from crappy 3rd generation cassettes. Most of our (comparably) listenable material from the past was featured in the exhaustive compilation 2CD (or limited 3CD) “Platters of Splatter”. That said, there is still some random stuff floating around down there, deep within the cobwebbed recesses of storage spaces, long neglected boxes and shameful, repressed memories.

I figured we should post “Goregasm” up here first, as it's the oldest thing I have on hand (I think I may still have a copy of our 1st rehearsal tape in storage... it's pretty cringe-inducing) and it's something people here and there have asked me about through the years.

A bit of history to put this recording in context is definitely in order. In January 1992 we released our first demo tape, “Dissecting the Caseated Omentum”, followed by our first EP that May on Afterworld Productions – called “Excreting Innards” (both releases can be found on disc 2 of “Platters...”). Jason Wineland, the guy who released the EP (as well as the excellent Putrifact 7”) was getting pretty ambitious and decided he wanted to release a full length album from us. Well, at the time, I was 16 years old and a junior in high school. The oldest member of the band at the time was our bassist, Ben Marrs, who was 18. Suffice it to say, we were far from organized, and after recording the EP, we could no longer rehearse in my Dad's garage – the cops were called too many times – so rehearsals were sporadic. We would sometimes share a jam space (or rehearse at someone's house) with a punk band from my high school called F.D.S. (Flying Dead Skin – wow... that name sucked then and has gotten worse with age), and sometimes we would just end up playing shows cold. (check out some of our old pay-to-play tickets from '91-'92 at the right...)

We had booked time to record our “album” in October, but had barely rehearsed. We also only booked two days in the studio – the same amount of time we had taken to record the six-song demo and then our subsequent six-song EP (although two songs on the EP were under five seconds long) – and we planned to record a twelve song album in that space of time. Needless to say, not the brightest planning on our part. Our reasoning was that since most of the songs on the record would be from the demo and EP (we had four brand new songs, a noise song, and re-recorded eight songs) that it would take us less time to record them. Of course that wasn't factoring in time for mixing, or the fact that we had barely rehearsed before the recording. The naivete of our planning for this still kind of astounds me. Afterworld never offered a budget for recording – and to be honest, it never even occurred to us that one of the primary functions of a record label was to fund recordings. We just were having fun making a racket and the fact that anyone was interested in helping us do that lit a fire under our collective asses.

It should come as no surprise if you're still reading that the resulting music is pretty bad, both in performance and in production. But it is a funny artifact from the band's embryonic stages. Shortly after this recording, we kicked out Ben Marrs for some reason or other – it all seemed very serious at the time – I think he didn't show up on time for a gig or something like that. Mostly I think it was because he was crazy about bands like Atrocity and Demilich and wanted to go in a weirder, more avant-garde direction, or maybe because he was 18 and a lot further along in life at the time, while Col and I were still very deep in a “read comic books, play RPGs with many-sided dice, afraid of girls” kind of stage. (pic at right - nerding out circa '92/'93, L to R: Me, Derrel Houdashelt obviously very baked (below), our friend Brian "Terrorizer" Rubio (above), Col Jones with his boyish grin).

Even after recording this, I think we all realized that it was a bit of a step backward from the demo and EP in terms of performance and sound quality. Jason let us know shortly after we finished recording that he was folding the label, and “Goregasm” faded into the background. For some masochistic reason, we started selling it as a demo cassette in 1994 (the cover, designed and photocopied by Ross Sewage can be seen below to the right), which kind of kept it on a few people's radar. For me, I think this is more of a novelty or a completist kind of thing - I sure as hell wouldn't invite people over to my house for a listening party for “Goregasm”. But there are still some cool riffs and ideas that given some more time to rehearse and execute could have been a positive part in the band's development, rather than a red-headed stepchild. We decided not to put this on “Platters...” because the quality is just so bad, and most of the songs are featured elsewhere in different versions.

I actually had an offer not too long ago to have this issued as a limited vinyl-only release, but to be honest, it's so rough around the edges (and you should all know by now that we're far from perfectionists) I wouldn't want anyone to pay for it. So go ahead and download the bastard if listening to musically inept high school students bite off way more than they can chew is your idea of fun.

Download "Goregasm"

I don't think that there ever was a concrete track order, so the files are simply in alphabetical order. For whatever reason, a couple of the files contain two songs, and some of the file names don't exactly match up with the track names, so here they are:

01 Ben's Song – This song did have lyrics and a title at one point, but Ben Marrs wrote most of the music, and since the actual title and lyrics are lost to the annals of time, it was simply called Ben's song
02 Cadaveric Splatter Platter – this is a re-recording of a song from the EP, you can hear subsequent better versions of it on “Platters of Splatter” disc 2 and 3
03 Caseating Decomposition_Embryon – this is “Caseating Decomposition” and “Embryonic Regordation” - two songs from the demo re-recorded and on the same track here for whatever reason
04 Coital Mutilation – this is a re-recording of a song from the EP
05 Excreting Innards – this was a new song at the time, and you can hear much better subsequent versions of it on “Platters of Splatter” discs 2 and 3
06 Festering Sphinctral Malignancy - this is a re-recording of a song from the EP
07 Goregasm - this was a new song at the time, you can hear the first riff recycled in a song on the new record, “All Guts, No Glory”
08 Oozing Rectal Feast – this is a re-recorded song from the demo
09 Perverse Innard Infestation - this is a re-recording of a song from the EP
10 Splurgee_Pyathrotic Discorporat – this is two new (at the time) songs - “Splurgee” a noise bit about Slurpees, and “Pyathrotic Discorporation” - you can hear a subsequent version of this song on “Platters...” disc 2
11 Ziploc Bodybag - this is a re-recorded song from the demo

Exhumed Mark I (seen at right being doofuses in 1991)
L to R:

Derrel Houdashelt - guitar
Col Jones - drums
Matt Harvey - guitar, vocals
Ben Marrs - bass
Jake Giardina - vocals

"Behind the music - where you can smell all of the band's farts" - or "How to succeed in Grindcore without really trying"

Here's the latest installment in the continuing adventures of a lovable gang of misfits who must band together to overcome the odds and win the campus ski tournament, defeating the smarmy jocks and winning the heart of the pretty girl who is obviously too sensitive and sweet to be dating the leader of said smarmy jocks. Oh wait... I thought we were in an 80s movie there for a second. Nonetheless, the usual gang of idiots is at it again, pooling their collective, ummm... I was going to say talents, but that's a bit of a stretch, but the point is - we're making a new fucking record. It's going to be called "All Guts, No Glory" and we're recording in Arizona. Here's the fucking details:

Day 1 - Tuesday: After arriving in Los Angeles around 1:30 am with Wes in tow, we grabbed a well-deserved Burrito and arrive at Leon’s house about the same time as he does. We enjoy a few cold beers and unwind, even though we have to get up in a few hours and head off to LAX. I get up early and shower anyway, then we arrive at the airport with a minimum of hassles. One and a half uneventful hours later, we’re in Arizona and are welcomed by our old friend Ryan Butler (Unruh, Landmine Marathon, etc.), who will be recording the remainder of the tracks for the album – guitars, bass, vocals, incidentals, etc. Nothing particularly interesting happened after that, we hang out for a while, have a few beers and some food and then off to bed to get started in the morning.

Day 2- Wednesday: After discovering that Busch 30-packs were only $15 at the local Walgreens, we stocked Ryan’s mini-fridge and started thinking about guitar tones… Many guitarists are fucking obsessed with tone and Wes (especially) and I are no exception. The plan was to record four rhythm guitars and we had already decided to use Wes’ Marshall JCM 800 as the core sound for the rhythm guitars on the record, but the tone for the other two tracks would have to be sorted out in the studio. Luckily, Ryan has a killer arsenal of amps at his studio (Arcane Digital in Phoenix- yes this is a plug for the place, it rules!) so we had a lot of shit to choose from.

We settled on a two amp set up with a Bogner Uberschall and an Engl Powerball, for a bit brighter, crisper tone than the Marshall. It was a bit weird hearing all the songs with this tone first (since these tracks were planned to sit a little lower in the final mix, we recorded them first since the playing invariably improves as you do more takes), but by the end of day, we had a tone we were happy with and we had dug into a couple of tunes already.

Day 3- Thursday: Rhythm guitar is always the thing that eats up the most time in the studio for us and although we knew that going in, the fact that we had 17 songs to work through was beginning to sink in. Wes was up first, focusing on recording his songs. We had discussed having him track all the rhythm guitars, as Mike Beams had done in the past (in case you’re wondering, that means that I tracked a grand total of none of the rhythm guitars on “Gore Metal”, “Slaughtercult”, and “Anatomy…”- thanks Mike!) but he and Ryan convinced me to go with a “you wrote it, you record it” philosophy common in many bands with two guitarists. Needless to say, lazy prick that I am, I was not entirely enamored with that decision, and to be honest, I was a little intimidated having to record rhythm guitars (although I did record all the rhythm tracks on “Garbage Daze…” and the bass on “Slaughtercult”, there's a lot less pressure there). Luckily for me, I didn’t have to jump in too quickly, as Wes led the way, laying down some crushing stuff on a bunch of his songs (and one of mine too, by the time all was said and done).

Another great thing about recording with Ryan is that he, like myself, is a giant nerd. While listening to Wes’ tracks, I availed myself of the opportunity to devour back issues of Marvel’s “New Avengers” series by Brian Michael Bendis, which impressed the shit out of me. What can I say, I am a HUGE Avengers fan – I think I even posted a picture of my extremely beat-up copy of Avengers #1 on Facebook a while ago. And yes, I am fucking beyond psyched about the upcoming movies. Anyway, between guitars, comics and the Giants kicking the crap out of the Rangers in the World Series, I had no problem filling any downtime in the studio

Day 4- Friday: I ended up tracking a bunch of stuff on day 4, and it ended up turning out pretty okay. The tone had a little more high-end than I’m used to, and I definitely ended up hearing a little of the “twang” that I picked up from playing with Matt Olivo in Repulsion (the distinctive JCM800 + tube screamer Repulsion twang) than I’m used to, but anything Repulsion related is a good thing as far as I’m concerned. It also started to become clear that with the amount of material vs. the amount of time that we had for rhythm guitars, we weren’t going to be able to be quite as anal retentive about guitar as we were on “Anatomy…” (which, ironically, we had less time to record), and would have to let go any hopes of eliminating every trace of string noise, every slightly over-accented note, etc. etc. This was actually a blessing in disguise.

All of us in the band feel like “Anatomy…” was a little too clean sounding (funnily enough, that’s exactly what Neil Kernon told me when I was telling him to make it as clean as possible) and wanted a sound that was a bit more off-the-cuff this time around. By the end of the day, almost all of the Bogner / Engl tracks were done and we were really, really tired of drinking Busch. I retired to the good ol’ Super 8 looking forward to Saturday – when we would set up the Marshall and Leon would arrive in AZ.

Tune in next time, same bat-time, same bat-channel, for the next exciting chapter in the seemingly never-ending saga of this fucking album. Oh yeah, and we'll put up some pictures, too.

Cheers!

Harvey and the usual gang of idiots