NEWS (original) (raw)

Don't shoot your entire wad tonight, continue the ABSOLUTE FUCKING ST. PATRICK's DAY debauchery through the weekend with this SPECTACULAR show!!!

Handsome Dick Teratoma says: This show is an ABSOLUTE FUCKING HONOR for us because I cut my ear-teeth on BLOODSPASM. I just can't tell you how much of what I do and have always done has to do with the influences of PAUL YOUNG, BOB McKINNLEY, ERIC SNYDER, and MIKE MARTIN. Not to leave anyone out, I have nothing but respect for TOMMY O & The AWESOME MR. MIKE GORMAN - it's just those first four that have been close pals at various times in the past 20 years.

Paul Young was one of the first people I met as a teenager wandering around downtown Tucson & the U of A area. I remember being taken (in 1984) to Roads To Moscow, a PUNK ROCK record store which was where Mama's pizza was later, in a building which no longer stands, by my older friend Troy. My mom would let me hang with him because she went to church with his mom. He was a pretty upstanding chap even by their standards but the world he introduced me to was as subversive as they could ever imagine. Paul was up on a ladder stapling a display together, looked down and saw the pimply 13 year old that was me and said "Heh! Youth Brigade." Paul always remembered me every time I saw him after that though, and if you knew the guy, you know what people mean when they talk about his heart and his overall warmth if he liked you. And I didn't know many people that he didn't.

And though I might not agree with some of the things Bob sang about, I took pleasure in knowing that the guys providing the INCREDIBLE SONIC BACKBONE that was the sound of BLOODSPASM were skaters, anarchists, and drug enthusiasts. BLOODSPASM came out at a time that a lot of us were listening to crossover metal stuff. Tucson hardcore has always had a healthy dose of that going for it and BLOODSPASM was no different. But when I pointed this out to Paul (I might've said something like, "BLOODSPASM is my favorite Tucson SPEEDMETAL band!" Remember when they called it "speedmetal"?) he got indignant and insisted that they weren't metal at all. As a result of this, he attempted to play the next 2 or 3 shows without using any "palm-muting" (the technique that Black Sabbath uses to go GUNKAGUNKAGUNKAGUNKA) ...This technique had a lot to do with the way those songs were written and were supposed to sound though, so later Paul actually came up to me and told me that I was right, and that "We ARE a metal band," and that "We sound really shitty if I don't play our stuff that way." Oh and he also said "So FUCK YOU KEVIN BYRD!" But the next time they played he really laid the GUNKAGUNKA stuff on thick, and they were the most metal EVER!

And that sound has so much to do with the way I play guitar that I just can't contain myself and must babble incessantly about how cool it is to share the stage with these guys playing that material for what will probably actually be the last time. Plus I'm drunk. It IS St. PATRICK'S DAY you know.

Check out a few BLOODSPASM songs:
http://myspace.com/bloodspasm

and a cool Paul Young tribute page:
http://www.shavedneck.com/paulyoung/index.htm

DON'T MISS THE SHOW!