Metal memories

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

That chair story is great ochoill! 

Also kinda sounds like the basis of a Richard Brautigan story, where the chair's unknown metal story takes on a life of its own and unfolds as it sits alone in an empty room 

As for my own metal memories, jesus, wouldn't even know where to start, even though I'm sure loads of ye have many, many more than I do.

[Eoin McLove]

Yeah, there's a Ray storyline waiting to happen with heavy metal chair 

[ochoill]

I must take a photo of the chair next time I'm up home.  It can live on again through the marvel of the internet.

I have more funny ones regarding gigging back home too, I'll lash them in another day.  I also deeply wish I had photos from when meself and Astfgyl started Antihuman years ago because it was the most utterly DIY horror going, ye wouldn't fuckin believe the cut of the shed where we used to practice, or how we recorded.  I got attacked by a nest of Robins once in there because of how loud the guitar was while recording, and I couldn't get out of the way, there were too many lawnmowers and cabinets to climb over, so I had to just get on with it.  That take also made it onto the album.

[Carnage]

There was a laneway between houses on the way to school wih metal bands' names (not logos unfortunately) grafittied all over it, but all were mispelled; Naplam Death, Megadeath and the old classic, Morbid Angle. Pretty sure it who it was that did it, as we used to trade albums back in the day.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Out of all the gigs we played in Ireland, one does actually stand out when reading Andy's story about the Donegal accent; the first time we (pre Era V., when we were still Gambit) played up north, in Ballymoney to be precise, home at the time to Putrefy and, unbeknownst to us before arriving, a prominent unionist stronghold.

It was our first time playing outside of Dublin/Wicklow and we hiked up, train to Belfast, then another to Ballymoney itself. Our drummer at the time fancied himself a proper rock 'n roller, although only in the chemical sense, and I knew he had supplies on him. No sooner does the train pull out of Dublin then he's out of his seat and heading for the jacks to get a line or two into him. "Here man," I says to him, it being around 11 in the morning, "Pace yourself, yeah?" The perfect answer he gave off the cuff had the rest of us in stitches; "I am pacing myself. Starting now." 

When we eventually made it to Ballymoney, we walk out the train station and there's Union Jack bunting absolutely fucking everywhere, zig-zagging all along the main street all the way up. Seriously unnerving and unwelcoming stuff; didn't know where we were and didn't want to open our southern mouths to ask anyone. Then the comprehension difficulties began; I rang Jason (Putrefy's drummer, whose old MI handle I can't remember right now... edit: rapistofrednecks??) to ask for directions. He answers, seems to understand what I ask him, but I can't make out a single word from the stream of nordy gurning. "Can you send me a text message?"

Grand, get to the venue. Drummer disappears immediately to the jacks. Now we're sitting with a pint outside of the venue, glad to be "safe" surrounded by metallers rather than orangemen, and Jason starts talking again. Seriously, the lad has the strongest accent I've ever heard in Ireland outside of the deepest depths of the Kerry gaeltacht. I'm getting about two words per sentence, but that's enough to gather that what he's saying is, "I haven't listened to yer music, but I just hope yer brootal. We've loadsa bands come up say they're gonna be brootal but then they're not brootal at all." We were not, nor had ever said we were, "brootal". At the time, Gambit still even had some remnants of nu-metal influence from two of the founding members, now since ejected. Anyway, we're thinking, "Fuck, we are going to bomb." Sinister Demise were the other band on the line-up, so, yeah, in terms of being "brootal", we were going to stick out like a clean thumb on a hand of bludgeoned fingers. Needless to say, next time I spotted the drummer heading off, I tagged along, despite the danger of being murdered by any locals who might have walked in to find two southern lads cramped into a cubicle together. Then we went out and performed a profusely sweaty, thoroughly unbroootal set and got the fuck out of there.
 
Never went back to Ballymoney. If it's all about the memories you form along the way, then that one was sufficiently burned in there not to need repeating.

[OpenSores]

Out of all the gigs we played in Ireland, one does actually stand out when reading Andy's story about the Donegal accent; the first time we (pre Era V., when we were still Gambit) played up north, in Ballymoney to be precise, home at the time to Putrefy and, unbeknownst to us before arriving, a prominent unionist stronghold.

It was our first time playing outside of Dublin/Wicklow and we hiked up, train to Belfast, then another to Ballymoney itself. Our drummer at the time fancied himself a proper rock 'n roller, although only in the chemical sense, and I knew he had supplies on him. No sooner does the train pull out of Dublin then he's out of his seat and heading for the jacks to get a line or two into him. "Here man," I says to him, it being around 11 in the morning, "Pace yourself, yeah?" The perfect answer he gave off the cuff had the rest of us in stitches; "I am pacing myself. Starting now." 

When we eventually made it to Ballymoney, we walk out the train station and there's Union Jack bunting absolutely fucking everywhere, zig-zagging all along the main street all the way up. Seriously unnerving and unwelcoming stuff; didn't know where we were and didn't want to open our southern mouths to ask anyone. Then the comprehension difficulties began; I rang Jason (Putrefy's drummer, whose old MI handle I can't remember right now... edit: rapistofrednecks??) to ask for directions. He answers, seems to understand what I ask him, but I can't make out a single word from the stream of nordy gurning. "Can you send me a text message?"

Grand, get to the venue. Drummer disappears immediately to the jacks. Now we're sitting with a pint outside of the venue, glad to be "safe" surrounded by metallers rather than orangemen, and Jason starts talking again. Seriously, the lad has the strongest accent I've ever heard in Ireland outside of the deepest depths of the Kerry gaeltacht. I'm getting about two words per sentence, but that's enough to gather that what he's saying is, "I haven't listened to yer music, but I just hope yer brootal. We've loadsa bands come up say they're gonna be brootal but then they're not brootal at all." We were not, nor had ever said we were, "brootal". At the time, Gambit still even had some remnants of nu-metal influence from two of the founding members, now since ejected. Anyway, we're thinking, "Fuck, we are going to bomb." Sinister Demise were the other band on the line-up, so, yeah, in terms of being "brootal", we were going to stick out like a clean thumb on a hand of bludgeoned fingers. Needless to say, next time I spotted the drummer heading off, I tagged along, despite the danger of being murdered by any locals who might have walked in to find two southern lads cramped into a cubicle together. Then we went out and performed a profusely sweaty, thoroughly unbroootal set and got the fuck out of there.
 
Never went back to Ballymoney. If it's all about the memories you form along the way, then that one was sufficiently burned in there not to need repeating.

The Bush Tavern I recall, his accent is still as strong and the bunting remains.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

The Bush Tavern, that's the one. The lads, including Jason, were actually totally sound with us, that night and later on too, despite our not being in any way brooootal    Had a couple of great nights with the other, now sadly deceased Jason, their original vocalist, and a load of great chats about gear and metal with Connor over the years back in the day.

[astfgyl]

A bit of a "totes random" memory here, but I remember as a young lad, very early 90s it would have been I think, and going swimming in Stewart's in Palmerston and in the changing room seeing a canvas school bag from, presumably, an older kid. It was covered in metal logos but the one that sticks out in my memory was the Pestilence logo. Over the decades I've sometimes wondered who it might have belonged to and if it might have been one of the Morphosis dudes who lived close by in Lucan...

Slightly similar but older, I was around 15 and helping our old youth club clear out a room they were renting in the town, over a funeral home (which has another few related odd memories as a kid).  There was a part we never used and I was asked to haul some furniture out to a skip.  Among them all was an old chair, beige canvas and steel frame.  The back of it was covered in faded 80s metal names - in particular I remember Venom, Accept, Sodom, and Bathory on it.  I knew these bands by name but had only ever listened to Venom.

I asked the YC staff about it, they had no idea who drew on it, "it's been here like that since we had the rooms, so it must have been done beforehand".  They were in this building since the mid 90s so it was done long enough before then for it to be abandoned to them as a spare.  Something compelled me to take it home, even though I knew fuck all of the bands on it, the thought of this odd little relic from a metalhead a decade or so previous struck me, it would be like someone finding my old green canvas backpacks.

So it sat in the room, with meself and the brothers laughing at it every now and again, wondering who in the town tagged the chair with all this 80s metal, but it was still up at home last time I was there, with the names basically faded off it now.

Yeah it went nowhere but it's a metal memory.

I bought a Sodom double live cd off the back of that chair!

[OpenSores]

The Bush Tavern, that's the one. The lads, including Jason, were actually totally sound with us, that night and later on too, despite our not being in any way brooootal    Had a couple of great nights with the other, now sadly deceased Jason, their original vocalist, and a load of great chats about gear and metal with Connor over the years back in the day.

All sound lads, and yeah I remember the singer Jason well, although I was outta the country at the time of his passing. I'm sure Connor has a few metal memories from back then.

[ochoill]

... Never went back to Ballymoney. If it's all about the memories you form along the way, then that one was sufficiently burned in there not to need repeating.

Amazing.  Have done a handful of gigs gone sideways over the years, they make for the best tales and craic after the fact at least.

I bought a Sodom double live cd off the back of that chair!

Jesus Christ I actually forgot about that, what a buried memory.  I don't remember a note off the CD, that's not promising

_{Did you fix your phone yet}

[Eoin McLove]

Out of all the gigs we played in Ireland, one does actually stand out when reading Andy's story about the Donegal accent; the first time we (pre Era V., when we were still Gambit) played up north, in Ballymoney to be precise, home at the time to Putrefy and, unbeknownst to us before arriving, a prominent unionist stronghold.

It was our first time playing outside of Dublin/Wicklow and we hiked up, train to Belfast, then another to Ballymoney itself. Our drummer at the time fancied himself a proper rock 'n roller, although only in the chemical sense, and I knew he had supplies on him. No sooner does the train pull out of Dublin then he's out of his seat and heading for the jacks to get a line or two into him. "Here man," I says to him, it being around 11 in the morning, "Pace yourself, yeah?" The perfect answer he gave off the cuff had the rest of us in stitches; "I am pacing myself. Starting now." 

When we eventually made it to Ballymoney, we walk out the train station and there's Union Jack bunting absolutely fucking everywhere, zig-zagging all along the main street all the way up. Seriously unnerving and unwelcoming stuff; didn't know where we were and didn't want to open our southern mouths to ask anyone. Then the comprehension difficulties began; I rang Jason (Putrefy's drummer, whose old MI handle I can't remember right now... edit: rapistofrednecks??) to ask for directions. He answers, seems to understand what I ask him, but I can't make out a single word from the stream of nordy gurning. "Can you send me a text message?"

Grand, get to the venue. Drummer disappears immediately to the jacks. Now we're sitting with a pint outside of the venue, glad to be "safe" surrounded by metallers rather than orangemen, and Jason starts talking again. Seriously, the lad has the strongest accent I've ever heard in Ireland outside of the deepest depths of the Kerry gaeltacht. I'm getting about two words per sentence, but that's enough to gather that what he's saying is, "I haven't listened to yer music, but I just hope yer brootal. We've loadsa bands come up say they're gonna be brootal but then they're not brootal at all." We were not, nor had ever said we were, "brootal". At the time, Gambit still even had some remnants of nu-metal influence from two of the founding members, now since ejected. Anyway, we're thinking, "Fuck, we are going to bomb." Sinister Demise were the other band on the line-up, so, yeah, in terms of being "brootal", we were going to stick out like a clean thumb on a hand of bludgeoned fingers. Needless to say, next time I spotted the drummer heading off, I tagged along, despite the danger of being murdered by any locals who might have walked in to find two southern lads cramped into a cubicle together. Then we went out and performed a profusely sweaty, thoroughly unbroootal set and got the fuck out of there.
 
Never went back to Ballymoney. If it's all about the memories you form along the way, then that one was sufficiently burned in there not to need repeating.

Out of all the gigs we played in Ireland, one does actually stand out when reading Andy's story about the Donegal accent; the first time we (pre Era V., when we were still Gambit) played up north, in Ballymoney to be precise, home at the time to Putrefy and, unbeknownst to us before arriving, a prominent unionist stronghold.

It was our first time playing outside of Dublin/Wicklow and we hiked up, train to Belfast, then another to Ballymoney itself. Our drummer at the time fancied himself a proper rock 'n roller, although only in the chemical sense, and I knew he had supplies on him. No sooner does the train pull out of Dublin then he's out of his seat and heading for the jacks to get a line or two into him. "Here man," I says to him, it being around 11 in the morning, "Pace yourself, yeah?" The perfect answer he gave off the cuff had the rest of us in stitches; "I am pacing myself. Starting now." 

When we eventually made it to Ballymoney, we walk out the train station and there's Union Jack bunting absolutely fucking everywhere, zig-zagging all along the main street all the way up. Seriously unnerving and unwelcoming stuff; didn't know where we were and didn't want to open our southern mouths to ask anyone. Then the comprehension difficulties began; I rang Jason (Putrefy's drummer, whose old MI handle I can't remember right now... edit: rapistofrednecks??) to ask for directions. He answers, seems to understand what I ask him, but I can't make out a single word from the stream of nordy gurning. "Can you send me a text message?"

Grand, get to the venue. Drummer disappears immediately to the jacks. Now we're sitting with a pint outside of the venue, glad to be "safe" surrounded by metallers rather than orangemen, and Jason starts talking again. Seriously, the lad has the strongest accent I've ever heard in Ireland outside of the deepest depths of the Kerry gaeltacht. I'm getting about two words per sentence, but that's enough to gather that what he's saying is, "I haven't listened to yer music, but I just hope yer brootal. We've loadsa bands come up say they're gonna be brootal but then they're not brootal at all." We were not, nor had ever said we were, "brootal". At the time, Gambit still even had some remnants of nu-metal influence from two of the founding members, now since ejected. Anyway, we're thinking, "Fuck, we are going to bomb." Sinister Demise were the other band on the line-up, so, yeah, in terms of being "brootal", we were going to stick out like a clean thumb on a hand of bludgeoned fingers. Needless to say, next time I spotted the drummer heading off, I tagged along, despite the danger of being murdered by any locals who might have walked in to find two southern lads cramped into a cubicle together. Then we went out and performed a profusely sweaty, thoroughly unbroootal set and got the fuck out of there.
 
Never went back to Ballymoney. If it's all about the memories you form along the way, then that one was sufficiently burned in there not to need repeating.

  savage.

[Crystal_Logic]

The Chaos Descends bunk bed incident will stay with me as long as I live

Ah come on, you can't just mention a story!

Also regarding putting on gigs in your teens, when we were 14/15 a pub in Draperstown used to let us put on gigs on Friday nights. There would be 40 or 50 of our mates drinking and smoking hash in the bar! Madness to think about, the bar didn't give a fuck as long as no one started a row.

One memory that sums up how ridiculous this whole scene is. At Day of Darkness 2006 I woke up around 5am and couldn't get back to sleep so thought I would go for a walk. Went out of the camp site and in the car park were two lads, blasting black metal from the car stereo, windows down and doors open, windmilling and playing air guitar, not a care in the world! 

[Pentagrimes]

The quick version is Andy tagged along to the festival the year Vircolac played, and was sharing a bunk bed in our accomodation. He  opted for the top bunk, which proved to be a bad choice as the next morning owing to an knee injury he'd temporarily forgotten about while shitfaced, it took the bones of 20 minutes for him to get down from said bunk. You had to be there.

Also I got woken up in the middle of the night by a flying shoe - I was in the bunk beneath- that Darragh was aiming at Andy because his snoring was apparently unreal. that whole weekend was hilarious in retrospect, (as was pretty much any weekend away with the Wolfpack  with the exception of our tript to Lodz)... Mr and Mrs Purcell's shot belts and breakdancing to Autopsy also being two particular highlights.

[Mower Liberation Front]

Death was quite reasonable compared to the two Ozzy gigs. They were insanely packed. It was gas afterwards when people looked like they were gently smouldering coming out of McGonagles with the amount of steam billowing off them into the night.

A memory of that Death gig, though not quite so fond, was after the gig. There was a bit of violence outside, and I had no money for the bus so was walking home, and headed onto Dawson Street to start making my way south.

As I neared the end of the street, a lad pegged it by me, shortly afterwards followed by the same group of cunts who were fighting outside the venue. They headed towards the top of Grafton Street after yer man, so I cut across to the Green. I was going towards Harcourt Street anyway. Just as I got across the road, I saw the last one of the group had turned around and started walking my direction.

Bollocks.

He started the "Were you lookin' at me?" shite. It sounds stupid, but I had gotten a stick from Reinert at the end of the gig and my first thought was "How do I get out of this with this stick?" which was hidden up the sleeve of my leather jacket.

I noticed more of the pack had stopped chasing yer man and were now coming over too. I was 6'3" when I was 16 and usually avoided shit like this as a result. I was fucked now, though.

I was making it very clear to the first guy that I wasn't looking for trouble, was just walking home because I had no money even for the bus.

"Yeah, you were, you were looking at me!"

I was now circled, all the cunts had cone over. Again, I just repeated that I was walking home and wasn't looking for trouble. They were just waiting for me to make a move. They just wanted a reason to kick my fucking head in.

The first guy now changed course. "Gimme your jacket!"

The stick!!!

I continued to repeat the same line, not looking for trouble, just walking home.

First guy put his hand in his trackie top pocket. "Gimme your jacket or I'll knife ye!"

Ah fuck.

"I'm not looking for trouble, man, I'm just walking home."

At this point, one of the circle, probably seeing there was no sport in this hunt, intervened and said to them "Ahh, he's alright! I know him!"

He turned to me and said "You're alright, John, go on." and nodded at me to move on. I'd never been called John before, but I was happy to be John right then.

I mumbled thanks to yer man and walked to the memorial gate of the Green and, once out of sight, ran in a manner I was never capable of, before or since, to the far end of Harcourt Street until I could barely breathe. I still kept walking, though, and didn't stop for another 6 miles or so until I got home.

I still have that fucking stick, all the same.

Xentrix at McGonagles, bought a shirt and walked outside, looking round for my mate (supposed to meet him, as we were getting a bus back to Dundalk.) Then a few guys surrounded me, the leader, some floppy haired cunt in a multicoloured Harry Enfield Scousers tracksuit top goes. "Give us your shirt."
I say. "Eh?"
"Give us your shirt. Now."
"What?
"Give us your fucking shirt."
"No. "
Give us your fucking shirt. I'll not ask ya again. I've a fucking knife."
And looking back, what was probably the dumbest thing to say in reply: "Let's see it."
Guy's jaw actually dropped. Proceeded to try and knee me, then he and his mates fucked off.
Saw a cop van coming down the street a couple of minutes later, told them what had happened, and they were decent enough to give me a lift to Busaras, where I made the bus by about a minute.

Over the next few weeks in the pub, had to endure various people pointing large knives in my direction going "That's not a knife, that's a knife!".



A few months later, I was in college in Letterkenny, and one of my classmates had a friend who lived in Letterkenny, introduced us, he looks at me and says, "You were at Xentrix. In a Nocturnus shirt." So we got chatting about the gig, and Mr Colourful Tracksuit top came up. It turned out he did actually have a knife, and he learned from his dealings with me, because he already had it visible when he robbed the guy from Letterkenny later that evening.

[Eoin McLove]

The quick version is Andy tagged along to the festival the year Vircolac played, and was sharing a bunk bed in our accomodation. He  opted for the top bunk, which proved to be a bad choice as the next morning owing to an knee injury he'd temporarily forgotten about while shitfaced, it took the bones of 20 minutes for him to get down from said bunk. You had to be there.

Also I got woken up in the middle of the night by a flying shoe - I was in the bunk beneath- that Darragh was aiming at Andy because his snoring was apparently unreal. that whole weekend was hilarious in retrospect, (as was pretty much any weekend away with the Wolfpack  with the exception of our tript to Lodz)... Mr and Mrs Purcell's shot belts and breakdancing to Autopsy also being two particular highlights.

I think it was more a case of that being the only available bed left. I could barely even get up on the fucking thing in the first place. I also had no money as I had been off work for several weeks with the torn cruciate so it was a bit of a stressful weekend until heading on the Malthusian/ Negative Plane tour directly afterwards where my food, accommodation and booze was all paid for