Wyoming, Colorado, and the Wolves!!

Gravehill's priority this year was getting "When All Roads Lead to Hell" released and jumping on the festival circuit. The Maryland Death Fest was up first on our festival list and we played in front of at least a million people. I'm guessing on the numbers but I'm pretty sure that's a close estimate. Maryland was a great success for us and our next venture was the Central Illinois Metal Fest which was located in...uh...Central Illinois!



August brought us yet another fest, except this one was located in the most unlikely place...Cheyenne, Wyoming. You remember Wyoming, right? It's where Brokeback Mountain is supposed to take place. I didn't know this until someone told me. I haven't seen the movie. Did you know Heath Ledger is in it?? Anne Hathaway shows her boobs too which somewhat counterbalances the gay butt sex throughout. I mean, that's what people have told me. I'M NOT GAY! I'M NOT GAY! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7NeXSs2Z8M)



So what does any band say when the promoter offers to pay for your plane tickets and hotel so you can come out and play one show on a weekend? Reply in the positive of course. But I had my reservations and suspicions about the whole thing. Does the promoter know who Gravehill is?? Is he luring us out into the backwoods of Wyoming to kill us and possibly stew our genitals? Was it a conspiracy to wipe out Gravehill once and for all so no one would have to witness the disaster that is usually our live show???



Since the offer was out there, we certainly couldn't turn it down. Even if we played to 20 people, we wouldn't lose any money so why not? We only had a slight problem. Hellfiend was going to be on tour with Exhumed and when he got back to the States, he was supposed to go on vacation with his family. Like our San Diego show waaayyy back in April of 2011, we had to find a replacement guitarist. Tom Knizner of Cardiac Arrest filled in for Hellfiend for the San Diego date but he couldn't commit to Wyoming. The search went out and finally we found Neil Burkdoll from the Swedish Death Metal-inspired band Fatalist. By the time Neil came to his first practice with us, he had learned 80% of the set list with only a few open questions about certain sections. Otherwise he was on his game and he wasn't there to fuck around. Unfortunately Neil got to see Gravehill in our "practice" mode which consists of Bodybag and me drinking, Thorgrimm talking about various television shows and movies, and Abominator telling lots of off-color, racist jokes about white people (Abominator thinks he's a cholo). Since Neil is a pro, I'm sure he was very disheartened with our, "Let's-arrive-at-the-studio-for-practice-early-but-not-actually-practice-until-hours-later" attitudes.



The name of the fest was "Wolves of the Apocalypse" and was set for August 20. On August 19, we got one more practice in. It was a late practice and by the time we decided to leave the studio, it was almost 12:00 AM. Neil and Bodybag were going to stay at my pad so we took off. Unfortunately for Neil, Bodybag and I had already started drinking. Neil attempted to sleep in a separate room while Bodybag and me stayed up the rest of the night getting drunk. 5:00 AM came around quick, and in a bleary, still somewhat inebriated haze, we drove to the airport. (Note: Don't drink and drive kids!!)



The plane ride was smooth despite me vomiting in the bathroom and passing out on the elderly Asian man in the seat next to me. That's right ladies. I'm still single!!



My Saturday consisted of one hella hangover and all I wanted to do was sleep. The trip from Denver, Colorado (where we flew in) to Cheyenne, Wyoming is about an hour...maybe two and I was miserable. Meanwhile Bodybag is walking around like nothing is wrong but I know that fucker is hurting to! And if he isn't, then I blame his youth since he's 10 years younger and can recover from a hangover quicker. In any case, I hate him!!



We arrive at the venue and Matt from our label Dark Descent Records is there. He taunts me with beer from his cooler and every time I see him he says, "Hey, Jason..." and then holds up a beer. I turn green, everyone laughs maniacally, and I go quietly weep in the rental vehicle. Who am I kidding? Quietly my ass. Luckily we head to the hotel just a short distance away and I crash out immediately. A hour later I wake up and feel 100% better.



About the fest. I know I go on mostly about shit other than what's going on at these gigs, but in this case and at CIM, I get idiotic with the drinking so I wind up missing a lot of bands or can't remember who the hell played. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it sounds like I have a problem, but I don't. Really!! I just drink when I'm depressed, out with friends, by myself, playing video games, at lunch at work (and on breaks), or to wash down various barbiturates. Wolves of the Apocalypse is no different. I missed pretty much all the bands and wound up drinking in the parking lot with some nefarious people. This is the part where the promoter and all the bands can send a boo my way because I suck. I wound up chatting with this one dude who was an actual hobo. He said he jumped trains and went from town to town. He even got jacked by other hobos who wanted his sleeping bag. I realize that those paintings of sad hobo clowns are more poignant than ever now.



Several bands canceled and the turnout for the fest was sparse. In any case, Gravehill stayed true to form. We took the stage and played like we were in front of 1,000 people instead of the 20 diehards who were still at the venue. Some even knew our songs and we treated it as a big party. We thrashed, people headbanged, horns were thrown high in the air, and our last song, Decibel Ritual, ended with an epic bang. After the show, we signed some guy's truck which had autographs from dozens of different bands all over it. It was super sweet and the guy was stoked.



Once everything was loaded up, we drove around for a while trying to find a restaurant to eat at. We found a Denny's instead. The waitress was really open with us and she mentioned getting ass-raped by something or other. I'm sure she meant it metaphorically. I hope so at least.

Sunday consisted of visiting a cool independent record store in Cheyenne which had a great selection of new and used heavy metal/punk rock vinyl, cds, and shirts. We all bought something and the store owner loved us for it. He even gave us free soda and discounts on merch! After that, we spent the rest of the day in Denver driving around, looking at the sites, and visiting another record store. Eventually, we had to return to Denver airport and soon we were in the air on our way back to Southern California.

THE END!!! Yaaayyyy!!!

Central Illinois Metal Fest 2011: Part 3

DATELINE: 11:10 PM - July 24, 2011



Pouring over the copious amount of notes I made from the Central Illinois Metal (CIM) Fest, I see that I mostly wrote the following:

• A rough picture of Mike's beard with two eyes that are crossed.
• A pentagram. I was obviously feeling very metal.
  
  
• "Where all the white chicks at?"
• "This pen feels buttery slick."
• "Black and white cat, black and white cake."
• An accurate representation of Cthulhu.
• Several games of Tic-Tac-Toe. Except instead of "Xs" and "Os" they were multiplication symbols and zeroes.
  
  

So obviously, this last installment of my CIM adventure will be filled with more misinformation than a Fox News segment (BOOYAH!). I'm all about the cheap shots.



I was reinvigorated with new energy on Sunday. I had been drowning in a vomit-filled vat of misery since early Saturday morning and now I was awake, hungry, and ready to get the hell out of the hotel room because the corpse I found lying next to me started smelling like an Asian grocery. Rhett, Lili, Mike, Tom, Jill, and myself all decided to head across the street to this family run restaurant to get our grub on. We met up with the guys from Exhumed (and Cephalic Carnage and Withered I believe) and soon the restaurant was filled to the brim with out-of-town Hessian degenerates. The owners didn't mind at all since we were paying with cash for once and not small trouser buttons and pieces of lint as is usually the case.



Belly full, we left for the venue around 4:30 PM to catch our friends from Texas, Hod, take the stage to crush and kill. They did as such, playing some newer material as well as older stuff. They were definitely one of the highlights of the fest for me. I even bought a shirt. After about five minutes of digging, Dustin from Hod found a suitable size Large. By the way, that Celtic Frost shirt I bought? What a fuckin' ripoff! $20 and the Large I bought shrunk down to almost a medium. Cheap-ass t-shirt fabric is bullshit guys and dolls! T-shirts are a BIG part of the heavy metal scene correct? Sure, music will always be numero uno, but t-shirts sell just as much, if not more, than the music itself! You'd think the people who decide to get into the business of selling heavy metal merch would produce something of quality instead of finding the cheapest grade shirt available and slapping a band logo on it. Take a little pride in what you sell ya stingy fucks!



Let's see, where was I...oh yeah, just bought a t-shirt from Hod! After that, I mostly hung out at the bar with my friend Deedee who was working with Exhumed as their merch person and also Bodybag Bob Babcock (Gravehill/Exhumed for those not in the know). I started drinking but not as much as Friday. I was still haunted by the past two days so needless to say, my beer consumption was considerably lower. Bodybag certainly tied a few on and a few hours later he wanted to either wrestle you or kiss you (gender isn't of specific concern to Bodybag in either case hahaha). I'm used to his drunken antics by now after being in a band with him for 3 years so it wasn't too bad. The strangers he wanted to wrestle probably were a little more put off though!



As the night wore on, I caught Engaged in Mutilating (TX) who were good but I can't remember anything from them that particularly stood out. By this time, The Canopy Club was getting sparse. Like masturbating five times a day, 3-day fests are always a test of endurance. With the heat and humidity punching everyone in the nuts and the constant eardrum imploding sounds of death/grind/hurble-scurble metal for two days straight, by Sunday, most people were tired and started the drive back to where ever their hometowns were in the wasteland of the midwest. I stuck around and caught Flesh Parade (LA) who were grindy as hell but since I'm not much of a grindcore head, they didn't do much for me either. The band that did stand out was Embalmer (OH) which had Lou Spencer from Manticore playing bass. The dude's a madman and is such a pro on the bass that I wish he lived closer so I could get lessons. Apparently Embalmer has been around for years but this was my first time seeing and hearing them. I was impressed as it was a nice old school death metal sound which was a considerable change of pace since Hod took the stage hours earlier. I think their set was just a bit long though.



Unfortunately Mike and I had to prepare to leave the fest early as we had to wake up, turn in the rental car and be at the Bloomington airport on time the next day. We slowly but surely extricated ourselves but it wasn't an easy task as there were a lot of people to say goodbye to. Despite my disastrous Saturday, I still had a good time and always love events like this. I feel more at home amongst my own Hessian friends than I do anywhere else. And that includes my family who live 3,000 miles away.



The next stop on the Gravehill train is in Wyoming for the one-day Wolves of the Apocalypse Fest on August 20. We are actually headlining! Hahaha Well, hopefully there will be some people there. If not, then we'll make it a party anyway!

Central Illinois Metal Fest 2011: Part 2

DATELINE: 11:10 PM - July 23, 2011

Today started off in Hell. After passing out, throwing up, passing out, throwing up...ehhh...you know what? Repeat this cycle on and off from the wee hours of the morning to the early afternoon and that’s what I was doing half of Saturday. I probably had a minor case of alcohol poisoning that left me out of commission the entire day. Well, most of the day...I still had a show to do!!

The phone rang early this morning around 7:30 or 8:00 and it was Lili asking if Mike and I wanted to grab some of the free continental breakfast the hotel was offering. I was in no mood. In fact the phone ringing so early in the morning enraged me and I let out a string of expletives that would make Satan blush. Mike took her up on her offer though and left to go eat. This granted me a little reprieve as Mike’s snoring is notorious within our circles. As soon as his head hits the pillow, he’s out and it sounds like a tornado is raping a herd of cattle. I was out of it most of the time to pay attention but once he left, I noticed how quiet it was and quickly drifted off. Ahhhh, the blessed sweet dark oblivion of sleep!

As the day wore on, I started to feel a bit better. My knees were a little wobbly and I still hadn’t eaten anything since that stop at Arby’s the day before and some nibbles on stale donut sticks which were still open and sitting on the dresser. Mike, Lili, and Rhett took off to the fest early while I stayed behind and tried to get more rest. Around 5:00 PM, Mike came to pick me up so we could start getting ready. We were supposed to go on around 7:30 or 7:45 PM.

Of course the heat and humidity are still oppressive as hell and does nothing to help my condition. I was sweating profusely which is saying a lot because I’m not really a sweater. I’m not a cardigan either! HA! Ehhhh...I’ll edit that out later.

I headed inside and talked with a few people but I was in no condition to chat. I found some water backstage and just proceeded to drink like I would never drink water again. I was extremely dehydrated and I could feel it. The cold darkness of the backstage area was comforting though so I sat in a dark corner and suffered in misery by myself while The Horde played. The Horde impressed the hell out of me and even in my delirium I was jamming along to their thrashy style of metal. Gorgasm was next. They had brought their own drum set which added to the set up time and when they started playing, they were late. They also played their entire set which cut into our play time. This annoyed the guys and also some fans. In a way, it was probably for the best because Bodybag (who is playing bass in Exhumed) was back at his hotel trying to fix a chainsaw for his performance. If Gorgasm would have been on time, Bodybag would have been late and that would have been a disaster. But the stars aligned somehow and we were all ready to go.

The show itself went off great. I pulled from the last of my energy reserves and thrashed around on stage. Hellfiend, Bodybag, and myself did some Judas Priest type antics while Mike entertained the crowd with his comedic banter. One of the best lines involved Amy Winehouse being more Death Metal than Morbid Angel now (she died this weekend). We had to cut out one or two songs from the set so the setlist wasn’t exactly correct but it was nice to hear the crowd chanting for “one more song” at the end. That’s a real ego boost! We would have done another song but we didn’t want to throw off the fest schedule more than it already was. Many thanks to Dave Holland of Cardiac Arrest for letting me use his bass head. He had all of these other fancy bass gadgets I could use but in the end I stuck with the basic head and a bass overdrive pedal.

After the adrenaline of playing wore off, I quickly started feeling like shit again and packed up my bass gear and spikes. Mike was gracious enough to drive me back to the hotel where I showered up and fell into bed.What really sucked about today is that I was looking forward to it for so long. I wanted to hang out and talk to my friends, drink, watch some killer bands, especially Bodybag who I had yet to see play live with Exhumed. But I missed the entire day. Of course this was all my stupid fault and I say that I’ll never let it happen again, but it probably will someday. Maybe not in the near future, but I have to get really shit-faced, puking drunk at least one time a year. It’s the hard liquor that does it though. I’m not a whisky man and that’s what I was pounding and I paid for it. Luckily I’m feeling ten times better and my appetite has returned. Those leftover donut sticks on the dresser are about to be devoured!!!