I come back from seeing everyone wearing keffiyehs in Iraq to seeing everyone wearing keffiyehs in California. The term Urban Outfitters has never been more ironic.
That trend is kind of dying though. After attending a few shows outside of Echo Park, I now see kids growing their hair down to their ass, wearing Exodus, Overkill, and Anthrax t-shirts, tapered jeans, bullet belts, and motorcycle jackets. All I have to ask is, “Where the Hell were these kids when I went to high school?”
I come back to the Southland only to witness thrash metal/crossover kids completely dominating every other rock subculture in full force.
You might be rolling your eyes now, and yeah I know there’s been a thrash metal revival for a while but it has grown exponentially in the past year. But somehow the press is still pushing for garage punk and all those post-punk bands. Even though that shit was a fucking GODSEND back in 2001. This was when all those nu-metal rap bands were peaking and people actually took the Insane Clown Posse seriously. Once the masses started to like the other crap we said good bye to those bands and said hello to less (or even more) irritating bandwagons to follow.
I grew up in the worst years of heavy metal. I graduated high school in ‘05 (how old did that make you feel?) and by that time kids were still hardcore dancing and doing windmills listening to Lamb of God. Then there were the other side of the coin headbangers whose main obsession was Scandinavian black metal, castle music, and DragonForce. The only token thrash band to like was Slayer and early Metallica. Come to think of it, it was a bad time for punk too. Most guys were still vegan crusty punks or straight edge two-steppers. Oh and I almost forgot, every other kid still wasn’t over listening to grind core and all those GSL bands from San Diego like the Locust.
My best friend Sean was seriously the only fucking kid in high school who listened to thrash and had the old school thrash look down. I can testify that in “cooler than thou” court under oath:
This is him in ‘04:
As for myself, I don’t know what the fuck I was going for:
When Municipal Waste came to Los Angeles for the first time in 2002, they were a three piece and played at the SMELL of all places. Back when the place actually allowed any band less art school than Abe Vigoda to perform. I saw CROM and Annihilation Time open for them a few months back only to see the would be metal heads and crusty punks of my high school days have united to become retro thrash punks. I was glad to see a pretty insane crowd with kids literally stage diving from the second floor. It’s as if 1986 never ended.
“I didn’t know Jimmy Eat World was still a problem”
Now since all that garage punk and post-punk bullshit has peaked, thrash metal will become the next big thing if it isn’t so now. But then I realized, actually talking to a lot of these guys who are only a few years younger than me, they are completely obsessed with thrash metal. It’s like there’s nothing more to life than that specific genre of music. Which probably means either they are fucked for life with that mentality or they are gonna drop it all, cut their hair, and shill out for college and indie rock. The way it is with things always changing, only time will tell.
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everyone goes through their heavy metal stage- and i mean everyone. or their punk stage, then they ‘grow up’ as taeil eloquently put- “cut their hair” “go to college” “make babies” “get in debt” “become alcoholic and heavily addicted to kiddie porn sites”
or join the military….
11.20.08 at 2:01 pm
I saw Municipal Waste at the Commodore in Vancouver and they were boooooooooring.
11.20.08 at 2:20 pm
I don’t know….I still listen to pavement for god sake, “post-punk” isn’t so bad. Then again, I am old, so fuck it. Thrash on, my asian friend
11.20.08 at 2:42 pm
Did you get paid to write this?
11.20.08 at 2:52 pm
thrash was coming back around 2000 in portland and portland is full of anarcho punk whiners but they all got into thrash and vintage motorcycles around 2000 now it’s really big here thrash was always huge in the union sheet rocker, taper/mudder, and painter community you where just looking in the wrong places. sodom rules yours truly, Marcel Schirmer
11.20.08 at 3:23 pm
fuck this revival thrash shit. It was played out when municipal waste stopped playing house shows.
11.20.08 at 3:50 pm
that china man is only two years older than me? then why does he look like a 36 year computer engineer with a chubby white stay at home wife that watches the view and continues to breast feed their three year old 50% china baby?
11.20.08 at 4:02 pm
why am I wearing a raver bracelet?
11.20.08 at 4:10 pm
maybe streetfaggot is right that I don’t belong on this site.
I mean, I feel like I’m the only grownup at a primus concert.
Let me guess, you all hate primus too. They’re old, or something.
I just can’t imgine anything being less interesting than this post. It’s so unbelievably stupid be childish, like it was written by a junior in highscool or something.
Anyway, respect to you taleil. Thanks for serving in iraq.
It’s not you, it’s me.
11.20.08 at 4:20 pm
I like your best friend Sean. He looks cute in 2004.
11.20.08 at 4:40 pm
retro is lame, even if it is good ole thrash. wear a turban if ya wanna be a rebel.
locust suck, godstomper rule
11.20.08 at 4:46 pm
the ergs! made the only thrash songs worth listening to. aint that some shit?
11.20.08 at 4:52 pm
oh i see. thrash metal is back. unless its been back since 05 and you just don’t know about it. i got on that bandwagon and hopped right back off 10 months later. kreator and slayer still rule but the 17 year old circle pit party crew in chicago is getting on my nerves. i just can’t wait until sweatpants death metal and too-much-leather 1st wave black metal come back in force. nonetheless, good to see this stuff getting exposed to the hipsters, and thus playing itself out faster.
11.20.08 at 4:55 pm
Thrash is lame and boring. Death Metal is not. Go to Portland, Oregon to find the best Death Metal. Thrash is lame.
11.20.08 at 5:57 pm
I hope you guys realize, anybody who comments, “Oh I was into thrash so so many years ago and I’m so over it.” Probably was never really into it in the first place. It’s called the self-hating metal hipster complex.
11.20.08 at 6:04 pm
Hahahha “self-hating metal hipster complex”.
11.20.08 at 7:28 pm
p.s. there’s too much hate in music. too much obsession with image. everyone should wear whatever the fuck they feel comfortable in, whether or not it fits the scene they’re in, and listen to whatever makes them release anger and/or happy at the end of their shitty work day. i don’t care if you wear bright red lipstick, a pinstriped bathrobe over a pop-collared shirt and grungy cords, and a cowboy hat with a shitty godsmack patch on the brim. if it makes you feel good, then by all means, go for it, and i’ll wear what i want as well.
taeil, i love your posts dude. keep ‘em up.
11.20.08 at 7:35 pm
Preston you’re a FAGGOT
11.20.08 at 8:46 pm
my older cousin was way cooler than all you dudes when i was ten in 1986. he used to shoplift transformers and sniff glue and was into all this cooler shit than you and he’s still alive. i dont worship him as much as i used to, but its cool to know that he was COOLER THAN YOU GUYS!!!
11.20.08 at 9:52 pm
Just like how hair bands became grunge most thrash bands turned to nu-metal once they realized their fan base were no longer in highschool.
The most (de)pressing example is Sepultura. Their pinnacle was Arise until the singer heard Korn one day and transformed his band into Korn2 overnight. Then he quit Sepultura and formed his own shitty nu-metal band.
11.20.08 at 10:33 pm
Thrash went away?
11.20.08 at 11:07 pm
ill say it again, municipal waste is fucking shit.
11.20.08 at 11:22 pm
Holy shit I’ve been listening to this guy like he was an authoritative 28 year-old for months… only to find out now we graduated high school in the exact same year.
It’s depressing to find out that he was that much cooler than me in 2004 when we were both 17 (I really liked Xiu Xiu). This fucking sucks. Just tell me you’re 28 and I’ll happily believe you.
11.20.08 at 11:23 pm
Todd, Sean and I were definitely no way the coolest kids in high school. Just look at my hair cut. We were total music nerds way into punk and metal and treated it like a contest until we grew a pair of balls.
Don’t you worry man, thrash and I will be irrelevant as Xiu Xiu in a few years. God did that band suck. I was really into the Coachwhips at that time.
11.21.08 at 12:24 am
duuuuuuuude the trash comeback has been this gay since 97 or like charles bronson even.
where were you for bones brigade, What Happens Next?, the lolin return of Vitamin X etc etc
“thrash metal will become the next big thing” ? taeil, you’re kinda a starter punk nerd.
11.21.08 at 12:26 am
glendon rusch is a retarded douche
new jersey like had to apologize for the the ergs! like publicly
11.21.08 at 12:30 am
li is a retard wow seriously do you think that sepultura broke up becasue of korn and that soulfly sounded even remotely to korn too?? hahaha im not that much into trash but i know that those bands where completely different anyway metal sucks now. like sword …dragonforce…wow that shit is more gay that people that post on here and bitch about music……..ooh shit!!
11.21.08 at 1:20 am
i think im the person thats ever even seen a vagina to read this post, except for felicia, who saw a whole bunch in his m to f surgery brochure.
11.21.08 at 2:12 am
yeah, what dude said about death metal. you can have my suffocation tapes if you want, i don’t care.
11.21.08 at 2:31 am
hey, i waited for the black album to come out, does that make me old?
anyway, what are slipknot, slayer or dimmu borgir compared to throbbing gristle?
so nerdish, i feel like 17, and it makes me wet all over.
11.21.08 at 3:26 am
Of all the DRI albums, I enjoyed Four of a Kind the most. I was disappointed when Thrash Zone came out. I still play How Will I Laugh Tomorrow… and Age of Quarrel in the car. The problem with this stuff is that people generally roll in groups of 3 or 5 dudes with only one of them having a girlfriend. That guy is the king of the group and then he gets dumped. This stuff can’t really compete with cocaine and chicks. Its suitable errand music. Works well on both Monday mornings and Friday afternoons.
11.21.08 at 4:50 am
You know what? Fuck y’all. I’m more metal than all of you.
I gave Cliff Burton bass lessons since I was 12.
11.21.08 at 5:38 am
I feel like that one dude’s nipple is staring at me.
11.21.08 at 9:58 am
“Go to Portland, Oregon to find the best Death Metal”
seriously??? portland fucking blows, a bunch of lazy hippie trustfunders.
11.21.08 at 5:28 pm
Yahh thrash was cool way back when, I sang Hang the pope
with Danny boy at the Exodus, N.A. concert in Augsburg
Germany in ‘89 (you know your old when you can’t say
anything without telling a story…) I did my first stage
dive(s) at this show and learned fast not to dive with your
eyes closed… lets just say my buddy (who’s date I kicked in
the head accidently getting up on stage, and later got
caught by her mommy having a satanic ritual to fry my
brains in acid ) heard my head smack the
floor 8 rows away (he was right at the stage…with said
date) any way, before we all get old here, he heard my head smack
louder than the wall of noise kreat ed by N.S. No blood
no injury nada just a cool crack between my brow….
If you want to know how thrash evolved without turning
prog or mellow or whatever check out
Sindrome
http://www.sindrome.net/
“Vault of Inner Consciousness”
fucking genius
the “Halls of Extermanition” (the first
demo was pretty generic)
great crossover from Voi Vod- Killing Technology (only!)
Testament-”The Legacy”, and “New Order”,
Nuclear Assault “Game Over” and “Survive”
the all Mighty WEHRMACHT!!! ” Shark Attack” is mostly just noise,
but “Biermacht” amazing fucking amazing! Still to this day kills all.
Tankard esp “Chemical Invasion” (666 packs!)
Dark Angel, Death Angel (esp. Ultra Violence and Frolic)
Kreator (of course) early shit prime before Mille lost his voice
Destruction everything before the god awful “Cracked Brain”
Holy Moses, Midas Touch,”Passage of Disaster” Possessed of course (kinda more death metal)
ok this is getting out of control ,
Exodus esp “Fabulous Disaster”, “Bonded by Blood”
Forbidden, Violence, Sacred Reich,
etc etc etc This is by no means an unexpurgated (cool band name!) list, and I
know my brain damaged uh… brain can hardly remember everything, but along with
Metallica (everything before Cliff Burton died R.I.P.) or Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth, etc,
etc, this is what I was listening to.
12.15.08 at 6:19 pm
BTW “Raven All For One” (ONLY!) Check out Accept “Breaker” album definitely
one of the founding fathers of later day thrash. Ntm Metal Churchs first one
I thought it was funny how
a lot of thrash, speed, etc metal bands back then, spent a great deal of
time in interviews proclaiming that
A. they weren’t really metal they were ____ insert name of band here…
B. so what if they had song name like “kill all christians” or “Satan is my
father and we worship Satan” “We are not Satanist per se’ we just like
“dark imagery”
Hail Satan!
12.15.08 at 6:27 pm
And oopse before I really get a lot of shit VENOM!!! yes they were early thrash… as well as D.R.I.
god I have way too much time on my hands
12.15.08 at 6:33 pm
Necronomicon (old German band)” Mosh the ABC!”
Blood Cum (Slayers brothers!) check out the song “Happily Married”
Death Row -All
12.15.08 at 6:47 pm
whats up with all these people changing their styles like music,clothing etc.
just be yourself if you like thrash,punk,classic rock,crust,etc. just be yourself.
some of these guys follow other people “mainstream” stuff etc.
03.30.10 at 10:18 pm