Brian Murphy's Blog, page 39

There wasn't a whole lot going on in the 1940s for sword-and-sorcery. You had Skull Face and Others by Arkham House, published in 1946, Unknown published 4-5 Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories. There were a few other exceptions. But in general it was like someone pressed the pause button on the subgenre after the creative outburst of Weird Tales.

Then came Jack Vance's The Dying Earth, published by Hillman Periodicals in 1950. Boom. I want to talk about one of my favorites from that fine collection, “Liane the Wayfarer.” Apparently this story also appeared in the December 1950 issue of Worlds Beyond magazine, though the details of this are sketchy.

The main character Liane is a genuine prick—S&S through and through. Mercenary, but much worse than the selfish Cugel. He casually kills a merchant, and is put out that the man dared to splash blood on his sandals. The nerve! He’s ready to rape a golden haired “witch” named Lith after spying on her as she bathes in a stream. She barely manages to fend off his amorous advances with the threat of ensorcelled knives. Liane is possessed of a “manifest will and power” and so believes that gives him the right to take her.

But Lith is cunning. The witch is in possession of a beautiful tapestry depicting an idyllic valley, but it's ripped in half. The other half is with a being called Chun the Unavoidable. Lith tells Liane he can have her, if he gets the other half of the tapestry.

Liane is cocksure of his success, as he has in his possession a magic ring, which he found while digging a pit for the body of murdered merchant. When worn the ring transports him to an alternate plane of existence, rendering him invisible to the eye or perhaps whisking him away from this plane entirely. It works like a D&D bag of holding.

This is Vance, a master stylist, so the writing of course is exquisite. Describing the Dying Earth, Vance writes of “the red sun, drifting across the universe like an old man creeping to his death bed.” Vance does a brilliant job building up the suspense, dropping clues about Chun and steadily increasing the menace (and in turn the unease in the reader). For example, Liane mentions Chun to a group of wizards in an inn. They slink off, avoiding conversation. Liane finds a series of corpses, some warriors in armor, brave men, but all without eyes, staring up at the sky with empty sockets. 

But he presses on. Liane encounters an old man trying to warn him off from Chun. Liane casually kills him by dropping a rock on his head. Did I mention he's an absolute bastard?

Liane approaches Chun's lair, and you can feel the quiet and the dull thudding of Liane’s heart as he eyes the tapestry. This is so well done (fiction writers take note, and read this scene).

Then comes the ending, which is a terrible shock. “Behind came Chun” repeated, inevitable, “running like a dog.” And the end is simply chilling, utterly disturbing. Lith gets another thread in her tapestry.

One final detail about "Liane the Wayfarer"--it was converted into a brief D&D scenario. Does anyone remember the RPG magazine White Dwarf? White Dwarf no. 48 (October 1984, which I have, and bought fresh off the newsstand from a local game store, and you cannot have) contained the mini-module "Chun the Unavoidable" of course based on this story. The accompanying artwork was simple but effective, depicting Chun as a creepy ape-like being with a skull face and a cloak made of human eyeballs.

Nice.

I own this edition,
just a lot more beat up.Yesterday evening I experienced an unmitigated pleasure. The nonsense and hard work of the day was done, I had come back from a visit with my old man, it was drawing on 7:30. A delicious feeling had come over me that only comes in the lead up to Halloween. Out the window to my left was darkness. A weird glow on the front porch, cast by the orange lights we have around the door frame.
I was looking forward to the next bit from the moment I woke up, and it had arrived.
Getting back into my heavily tattered old paperback copy of  'Salem's Lot. 
In a few minutes I was back in the old Maine town, the creepy Marsten House on the hill overlooking the small-town characters and their petty affairs and gossip, and the horror that would soon be visited upon them from messieurs Straker and Barlow. I know this story very well, but nothing in it is diminished. I still get the old thrill from the terror that comes on Danny and Ralphie Glick on the shortcut to Mark Petrie's house. They were planning to see his Aurora plastic monsters collection (remember those?) but Ralphie would never be seen from again. And Danny would be... changed.
Accompanying this was the realization that if I never had to turn on the television again, I'm quite certain I would survive.
I watch essentially zero television. With amazing intensity and the conviction of born again Christians I hear as people talk about Breaking Bad, or The Office, or Ozarks, or The British Baking Championship, or whatever show happens to be the most awesome/best show ever/you can't possibly miss this/I can't believe you haven't seen this! fad of the moment (inevitably such show gives way to the next such show, which cannot be missed but I can't believe you haven't seen The Sopranos!). It's a language I don't understand. I smile, and listen, but can't participate in it.
I don't think I'm superior to them, I don't begrudge their habits (I have my own), I would even admit that TV has probably gotten a lot better from the days when Harlan Ellison wrote of the glass teat and the banality of The Mary Tyler Moore show.
I just prefer reading. It's my go-to medium for entertainment. It's amazing how much joy I can still wring out of a $2 Signet paperback. 
I would miss horror movies. I will say that I'm pleased to have introduced my 15-year-old daughter, a budding horror movie fan, to the likes of Scream, The Shining, Silence of the Lambs, and The Ring. But for pure joy even these films don't beat old Stephen King, or Lovecraft, or Poe. Words on a page that can captivate, and terrify. I wish I could get her into these stories, man.
Work in progress.

Here at The Silver Key I spend most of my time talking classic sword-and-sorcery, but I’ve been keeping track of some new releases that I thought were worth reporting on. My wallet will be feeling the pinch in the coming weeks. 

Swords & Sorceries: Tales of Heroic Fantasy: Volume 1. I’m really liking this old school cover by Jim Pitts, and the editor Steve Dilks knows sword-and-sorcery. Looks like a great new collection.

Necromancy in Nilztiria by D.M. Ritzlin and The Godblade by J. Christopher Tarpey, from DMR Books. DMR is the most committed publisher of sword-and-sorcery today, republishing classic titles and issuing original works. I haven’t been disappointed with Swords of Steel or Heroes of Atlantis & Lemuria, and Renegade Swords, another purchase, is on my TBR pile. These two new titles look excellent also.

New Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories coming from Tales from the Magician’s Skull. I’m a subscriber to Tales from the Magician’s Skull and am interested how they plan to handle these classic characters. Leiber had such a unique voice, and it’s not clear if author Nathan Long he will be using the characters to tell new stories or will try to imitate Leiber’s style (the way this release is written I’m leaning toward the former). I’m on record as saying I have no problem with pastiche, or writing new stories using classic characters, as long as they are not passed off as works of the original author. Adrian Cole has done some excellent work with new stories of Elak of Atlantis, for example.

Barbarians at the Gates of Hollywood: Sword and Sorcery Movies of the 1980s. Black Gate’s review by Fletcher Vredenburgh of this title convinced me I should give it a shot. Other than Conan the Barbarian and perhaps a couple others, sword-and-sorcery’s silver screen boom was uniformly terrible, but a detailed history of how this phenomenon came to be is up my alley.

Robert E. Howard: A Closer Look (Hippocampus Press). An update of a 1987 title by Charles Hoffman and Marc Cerasini. Looks like a solid study. More Howard scholarship is always welcomed.

Last night I spent the better part of 2 1/2 hours in an interesting, rambling discussion about sword-and-sorcery with the likes of Howard Andrew Jones, Jeff Goad, Bill Ward, and Jason Ray Carney, part of the ongoing Bride of Cyclops Con online convention. It was a blast. We covered a lot of ground in that time--the definition of S&S, its literary roots, must-read stories, a few dark horses, the late Charles Saunders, book porn (I couldn't stop myself from flashing multiple book covers), and many other fun side-trails and asides.

I'm far more comfortable behind the keyboard than on-camera, but I have to say the time flew by and I spent most of the panel grinning ear-to-ear. I hope I had a few insights to add about my favorite subgenre. I want to thank Howard and the folks over at Goodman Games for the opportunity.  

The highlight for me was learning that Jason owns a first edition, signed, hard-cover copy of Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword. That almost broke my geekmeter.

Check out the recording of the panel here.

Next Monday, Oct. 16 I'll be taking part in an S&S panel session, part of the (wonderfully named) Bride of Cyclops Con, an online convention hosted by Goodman Games. Goodman Games is the publisher of the fine Dungeon Crawl Classics line of role playing games, as well as the Tales from the Magician's Skull S&S magazine, of which I'm a subscriber..

Below are the panel details.

A lot more S&S goodness is going on in the track, with sessions with publishers, authors, and RPG designers. Apparently you can watch these sessions free of charge on the Goodman Games Official "Twitch" channel (what is Twitch? I don't know, now get offa my lawn!).

It's a great group of panelists and I'm honored to be part of it.

“The Best Sword & Sorcery Stories of the 20th Century” – Friday, October 16, 6:00 pm-8:00 pm EST

Six sword-and-sorcery fans and scholars compare notes about the important works in the genre, starting with foundational fiction and moving on to more recent times. This panel will talk details, not just an author’s name, but why a particular story or novel is worthy of note.

Panelists:

Brian Murphy, author of Flame & Crimson

Dr. Jason Ray Carney, author of Weird Tales of Modernity, editor of Whetsone and co-editor of The Dark Man

Bill Ward, Online Editor for Tales From the Magician’s Skull

Howard Andrew Jones, Editor Tales From the Magician’s Skull

Jeff Goad, co-host of the ENnie nominated podcast Appendix N Book Club

Deuce Richardson at DMR Blog asked me to write something to commemorate what would have been Steve Tompkins 60th birthday today, had he had not passed at the far too early age of 48 back in March of 2009.

I chose for the occasion a look back at Steve's first official post on the old Cimmerian blog. "Maybe Not a Boom, But a Drumbeat" isn't a classic, sprawling, deep essay like the ones Steve carved out a legacy writing, but it's a fun, witty, inside look at the state of Howard scholarship and questions regarding his legacy circa 2006.

Check it out here if you're interested. RIP Steve (and since I'm in a mourning mood, RIP to the great Eddie Van Halen, who today passed at 65 after a long battle with cancer). 

(This is a story about how from 2011-2018 I hosted the ultimate heavy metal party and survived to tell the tale. Read parts 1 and 2 here and here).

Are you ready for some
Judas Priest-style heavy metal?
Despite the metal party to end all metal parties in 2016, my house was not destroyed, my neighbors did not unite to force the sale of my home, and so the metal party would return in 2017. As always it was a blast. We upped the costuming. I went with Gene Simmons face paint and an Iron Maiden T-shirt. Others showed up with big hair, leather pants, and denim jackets with back patches. We sang karaoke. Late night featured a bucket of ice cold Zima, that semi-nasty clear malted beverage which made a reappearance after disappearing from the shelves for more than a decade (after drinking one, I quickly came to the realization that it was probably better off staying retired). I suppose I didn’t need those Fireball shots at the bar but we did them anyway. KISS or Fiction made another appearance.

Later we voted on which videos had the hottest chick: “Kiss me Deadly” with Lita Ford, a recut version of Cinderella’s “Shake Me” featuring a gorgeous stripper, or “Here I Go Again” with Tawny Kitaen (if I recall, the latter won). We also cast our votes for worst heavy metal video ever, with Manowar’s “Gloves of Steel,” Thor’s “Anger is my Middle Name”, and King Kobra’s “Iron Eagle (Never Say Die)” competing for the dubious title. Thor was a runaway winner, for the record this video is bad beyond belief and I don’t recommend subjecting yourself to it, unless you’ve imbibed 6-8 Zimas to numb the pain.

But despite the fun I couldn’t help but compare the party to the year prior, when we had nearly blown the roof off the house with a live band. In hindsight it seemed rather anticlimactic.

For 2018, I once again put in a call for The Priest.

They responded, Screaming for Vengeance.

Moving in

I had upped my game and so had The Priest. They brought with them a roadie to help set up and break down, as well as a dedicated dude to run the sound board. It was more equipment, more lights, more everything. And it was glorious.

In addition after a one year absence Vin was back with the Tahoe, bigger and better than ever. Here are some photos to give you some idea of what this truck was packing in the back.

It was also a record turnout, with 46 total bodies at the party, band included. My street was loaded with cars, filling all of the circle in the cul-de-sac, and both sides of street, about midway down the straightaway.
The Tahoe

I felt far more prepared than 2016. I knew what The Priest was bringing and the space they needed. More importantly, I knew who they were, and I knew the band members by name. I felt far more at ease with their coming, they were no longer strangers, and as a result my guard was down, and I was able to warmly welcome them. In 2016 I had invited a group of (to be honest, rough-looking) strangers into my home to play music. Now I knew these guys, and two years later it felt like a homecoming. I had the right mindset going into the party, that it was not about the music, or the spectacle, but the people. My mind was on appreciation, not debauchery.

I dubbed 2018 “For the Love of Metal” and it was that, but it was also something more.

I had engaged in the unknown, took a risk, and it paid off.

I had opened up myself—a piece of me, laying bare a part of who I was, who I’ve always been, to a big crowd. I’m a pretty quiet and reserved guy, despite what these stories may tell. This was a unique expression of me.

I celebrated a group of people who I love, and who I was so happy to host, like a Viking jarl in his mead hall. My speech (see below) reflected that.

As I type this I realize it sounds cheesy and the stuff of Hallmark movies, and probably overblown, but it’s honestly how I felt. And still do.

Will I host the metal party again? I don’t know. I’m 47. I have done something I wanted to do, and in a bad-ass way. For a few hours I was like Homer Simpson punching the respectable Ned Flanders right in the face, revealing a side of myself that hides beneath a veneer of white middle class low key suburban dude.

2018 in particular felt cathartic, like a farewell to all that. The growth of the party placed a stress on me, and on my wife (which in turn lends added stress to me). There is always a minor risk of accident or property damage. In 2019 I took a voluntary and needed break. After eight straight years there would be no metal party.

2020 of course has been the ultimate party and live music killer, so nothing this year either.

But I’m SO GLAD I did all this. I made memories to last a lifetime. My closest friends still talk about 2016 and 2018 with a “I can’t believe that happened” air and incredulity.

Sometimes, neither can I.

 

My speech

There are many things that have brought us here together tonight. Vin’s Chevy Tahoe for one. Let’s raise our glasses to the Tahoe, which is a basically a giant fucking stereo on four wheels!

Who knows the song TNT? AC/DC? I’d like to talk to you about PMP, and why we are here. People, metal, and … I’ll explain the third P in a minute.

Let’s start with the people. There are some damned cool people in this room.

·        It’s a chance to hang out with Wayne Coffill for four hours! That alone is worth it. But seriously, Wayne is one of my oldest friends, I’ve known him since grade school, and since then we’ve seen dozens of metal shows together. Maybe 40-50 KISS shows alone. It’s rare to have a friend like that in your life. So here’s to Wayne!

·        My sister. Lauren Jurta. Let’s hear it for my freaking cool sister, who is a party in and of herself. Lauren almost couldn’t make it but pulled it out at the last second, with an assist from her husband, a firefighter and an active member of the U.S. military. Cheers to him. Also, you may not know it, but today, is her birthday!

·        Let’s hear it for Janet Wyman, who is, by far, the biggest Judas Priest fan here in this here room. Sorry guys in the Priest, maybe you can make a case, but if I had to bet money it would be on Janet. Any else here have a Judas Priest tattoo, or tapestry? Let’s get out that fucking tapestry one more time!!

We’re also here to celebrate the M--metal—heavy metal, the greatest genre of music ever conceived by god or man. My actual goal with this party is not to hang with friends, eat chicken wings, or drink to excess. Though I am currently doing all these and will do all of the above. No, the real reason I do this every year is the since hope that I will convert at least one person to the cult of heavy metal, and in particular Judas Priest.

Who here is a fan of metal? I’ve probably been to 70-80 shows, at least. Some great ones, I’ll bore you with later, but let me tell you about a local show, at the Chit Chat Lounge in Haverhill, when I saw a band called The Priest.

I had a great time, and they were good—outstanding musicians. There are guys in this band that have played gigs in Europe and had a video on MTV’s Headbangers Ball. But they were missing something. Then they landed a guy named Ron Finn, and when I saw them again at Uncle Eddie’s in Salisbury—I was blown away. The pieces came together.

So enjoy this great music from this talented band. And welcome to the cult of Judas Priest.

Finally its about our final P.

For years I was afraid to throw this party. For years I thought, how fucking awesome would it be, to host a heavy metal party? I kept waiting for someone to do it, and then hoped I’d get an invite. Neither happened. So you know what? I did it myself.

Judas Priest has a song called Heading Out to the Highway.

Like all good songs, it works on multiple levels. The highway is a metaphor, you see. It’s your life. There is a verse in the song, and it says:

I’m going to do it my way

Take the chance before I fall

The chance … before I fall.

So I ask, what chances are you going to take, before you fall? Before you grow too old and settle in to a comfortable life watching Law and Order reruns on the couch? Before you’re on your deathbed and it’s too late, and you’re full of regrets, and thinking, I wish I had done this, or that?

I’ll tell you what I’m going do, which is the second P and the purpose of this party—its an expression of me, and I’m doing it because I love my life. Metal is a passion. One life, and I’m going to live it up. Purpose and passion, manifesting in this party.

As Judas Priest said in “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming”:

If you think I'll sit around as the world goes by
You're thinkin' like a fool cause it's a case of do or die
Out there is a fortune waiting to be had
If you think I'll let you go you're mad
You've got another thing comin'

The man, the myth... Tom Shippey
As a Professor Emeritus of Saint Louis University, Tom Shippey understands the current trends shaping historical research, far more than I. For example, I did not know that historians have been re-interpreting the record to paint Vikings as well, less Viking-y. Less savage, more tame. Less raid-y, more farmer-y and trade-y. Many of the corny old myths surrounding Vikings—horned helmets and drinking wine from skulls of their enemies and the like—have rightfully been reframed as romantic sentiment rather than historical reality, but I didn’t realize the extent to which this re-evaluation of the Viking character was working overtime in the halls of academia.

Laughing Shall I Die: Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings (2018, Reaktion Books) is Shippey’s semi-bombastic rebuttal to the revisionists and whitewashers. It’s not that Vikings weren’t also great traders, or slowly shifted from raiders and slave-takers to land-owners and eventually settlers, but Saga literature and even the archeological record paints a picture of savagery and warrior ethos that can’t be so easily explained away.

“Academics have laboured to create a comfort-zone in which Vikings can be massaged into respectability,” Shippey writes. “But the Vikings and the Viking mindset deserve respect and understanding in their own terms—while no one benefits from staying inside their comfort zone, not even academics. This book accordingly offers a guiding hand into a somewhat, but in the end not-so-very, alien world. Disturbing though it may be.”

Shippey lays out these uncomfortable facts in entertaining style in Laughing Shall I Die. This book takes a close look at the old Norse poems and sagas, and uses them to create a psychological portrait of the Viking mindset. But it also goes a step further: It interprets the findings from archeology and recent excavations to lend these literary interpretations tangible and physical reinforcement. For example, Shippey describes the discovery of two recent Viking Age mass graves in England, one on the grounds of St. John’s College, Oxford, the other on the Dorset Ridgeway. Both were organized mass executions, the latter the single largest context of multiple decapitations from the period. Fearsome stuff.

In Old Norse, the term vikingr means pirate, or marauder. “It wasn’t an ethnic label, it was a job description,” Shippey writes. “If people weren’t raiding or looting (and land-grabbing, and collecting protection money) then they had stopped being Vikings. They were just Scandinavians.” Many modern studies embrace the Scandinavian aspect and shy away from murder and plunder, “retreating to the scholarly comfort-zones of exploration, trade, urban development and distanced narrative history. All of which is admittedly part of the story. Just not the only part,” he adds. So too were shield-walls and slave-taking and trading, even human sacrifice.

(This might be a good time to boast that I met Shippey at a sci-fi and fantasy convention in Boston 10 years ago. Recap here).

I can’t say that this book is of the same extraordinarily high quality of his Road to Middle-Earthor Tolkien: Author of the Century. Those books set a standard in Tolkien criticism that has yet to be surpassed, at least in my estimation. Shippey knows Tolkien, and I learned more about the art of philology and Tolkien’s use of that discipline to build Middle-Earth from reading Shippey’s works than I would in a semester of study.

Shippey also knows Vikings, but this book was not full of the stunning revelations I learned in The Road to Middle-Earth. Still, it was an entertaining read, and full of some startling details about this incredible culture of sea-borne raiders that wreaked havoc across England, Scotland, Ireland, and into Eastern Europe and parts further. Vikings didn’t always win and occasionally suffered terrible defeats, including at the likes of Clontarf and the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066, the latter of which saw the death of the great King Harald Hardrada and essentially ended the Viking age. But what made them so unique was their fearlessness, fueled by a culture which valued stoicism, inflexible honor codes, and a belief in the myth of Valhalla, in which they would die on the battlefield but be reborn into a violent and eternal afterlife in the Halls of Odin, until Ragnarok and the ending of the world. Something akin to a “death cult” in Shippey’s words.

Laughing Shall I Dieis also a very accessible, readable book and a great way to experience the stories of the likes of Hrolf Kraki and Egil Skallagrimsson, Signy the Volsung and Gudrun the Nibelung, Ivar the Boneless, Ragnar Lodbrog, Skarphedin Njalsson, and others. In other words, mainlined “Northern Thing” for those that enjoy such things.

The Quilt, made of Judas Priest concert TsMurph's 6th annual Metal Party is back, and this one goes to 11! The can't-miss metal event of year will feature the live music of The Priest, New England's premier Judas Priest tribute band. Wear your faded concert t-shirts and denim jackets and strap your leather cod pieces on tight. Prepare for yet another round of "classick" metal trivia, bad late night videos, and oft-told, slightly exaggerated stories of metal concerts from decades past. Metal rules, my friends, so "head out to the highway" to celebrate.

Food, some booze, and locale provided, but bring your own favorite drinks and apps or desserts welcomed. Hat will be passed around to defray some costs of band.

--Description from the Facebook page of Murph’s Metal Party, 6th annual

I knew I was in trouble when Tom, aka, KK Downing, pulled into my driveway with a minivan LOADED with equipment. I mean, this thing was jammed floor to ceiling with amplifiers, sound board, wires, guitars, god knows what.

“Holy shit, you guys brought a lot of equipment,” I said, bug-eyed as I stared at the pile of noise generating electronics that would soon be making its way into my living room.

“Oh no, that’s just mine,” Tom replied. His face was utterly dead pan and humorless.

Oh shit, I thought.

Tom “KK Downing” was the first to show up on July 30. He was there EARLY, before even my friends. But I had no idea how much setup was required. My friends began to trickle in, and we stared in awe as the great room filled up.

We watched them do some sound-checks in shorts and t-shirts, including a brief bit of “Breaking the Law.” We’d hear the full version later. We were in awe, just of the equipment.

It was AWESOME. There was so much anticipation and energy in the air, as the band members mingled for a while and had a few drinks. During this time I busted out trivia. Later the band made their way downstairs to change into full leather, wigs, arm bands, and other paraphernalia circa early 80s Priest. I walked downstairs to grab a beer and caught a couple of them in mid-change, awkwardly throwing up my hand to avert the sight. Fortunately (to quote Nigel Tufnel) they were only “semi-nude.”

Then it was time.

We started the chant, me and a couple friends. Eventually the whole crowd of party-goers, some 25-30 strong, all got in.

“Priest! Priest! Priest!”

One by one, each band member came up from the basement and made their way through a cheering crowd, in MY FUCKING HOUSE (did I mention this), and took their place at their respective instrument. Tom aka, “KK Downing,” Bryan aka, “Glenn Tipton,” Everett aka, “Scott Travis,” Dave aka, “Ian Hill” and of course, Ron Finn aka. “Rob Halford.”

At this point I’m going to let the pictures, and videos, speak for themselves. Anyone who has ever captured concert footage on a crappy cell phone knows that the post-video does zero justice to hearing it live, and the same goes with these clips. But they’re not bad for all that. Give them a listen.

During the show my brother in law opened up a few windows strategically to make sure the sound could escape, or something. Maybe he was accommodating a few of my neighbors who had showed up to watch the show from outside. It was loud enough for them to hear it, and the light towers flashing purple and blue and red through my great room window made for a hell of a visual.

In case you’re wondering, yes, I sang Turbo Lover with the band playing.

No, you cannot hear a clip of this J

The Priest took a well-deserved intermission during which I delivered my annual metal speech. I barely remember delivering it, so I’m including the full transcript below.

It was three hours of sheer fucking volume and power and awesomeness. I should add that not everyone who came liked metal, or perhaps liked only the likes of Bon Jovi or Poison. They left impressed.

I think I made a couple new Judas Priest fans.

The band did play until just after midnight, so technically we were “Living After Midnight.” Breaking down and carrying out took a lot less time. Afterwards they hung out with me and a few die-hards. I stayed up until almost 3 a.m. with my brother-in-law, Ron, Dave the bassist, and Bryan/Glenn Tipton, sitting around a fire and shooting the shit about life and metal.

What is best in life? That experience. It was so worth it. A peak, top 10 memory for me.

There is a Part 3 to this story… more madness, and the end of the Metal Party? Stay tuned.

 

My speech

So who here is a Defender of the Faith?

Donald Trump wants to make America great again, we are here to make metal great again.

I’ve been a fan of the genre the whole of my adult life. KISS was my first love and while they are hard rock for the most part, not metal, they were a gateway to the harder stuff. Soon I was listening to bands like Iron Maiden, Metallica, and eventually Judas-fucking Priest!

It was the late 80s! I was thin and had most of my hair, was 30 pounds thinner and better-looking, and life was good.

But times change, and fast. Metal fell into steep decline starting around 1992. Within a couple years Bruce Dickinson left Iron Maiden, Rob Halford left Judas Priest, and Metallica cut their hair. Immortal acts like Hootie and the Blowfish and the Spin Doctors ruled the airwaves, and Pearl Jam was being declared the next Beatles. And I started a slow decline into the sad mass of flesh you see before you now.

It was dark times for my favorite genre, and for me. I still listened to metal in my dorm room, shivering under a crusty blanket while strains of Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” echoed down the hall, but there were no Dio posters to be found, no Exodus t-shirts, no denim jackets with Manowar back patches. My favorite bands were gone underground or on life support.

It was my first realization that, to quote Axl Rose, Nothing lasts forever.

But neither do the hard times, or the cold November Rain. People got sick of flannel and hackey sacks, and songs about teen angst and how bad the world sucks. Soon grunge was happily becoming passe. And by 2000 or so, metal was back. You can’t keep a good thing down. The music, as it turns out, was pretty damned good after all.

And I’m proud to say I never left it. I stayed a Defender of the Metal faith through the dark times, and I still am. But that experience made me realize how fragile this all is.

And so I got tired of waiting for the party I always wanted to attend. And I threw the one I always wanted tonight!

I learned something in this process: Get rid of your restraint. Do the big, grand, over the top gesture. Do what you love to do, as long as you don’t hurt anyone else.

Recently I’ve finally come to the realization about who I am.

I’m a Rocker, and no one can take that away.

So let’s raise a glass to metal! And please keep that glass raised for a second toast for someone special—my wife, for putting up with this nonsense. She’s the best, and even though she’s not a heavy metal fan she’s metal in her own way. She’s made this party rock 10 times harder.

Let’s move on to the main event.

Judas Priest would make most self-respecting metal fans top three heavy metal bands of all time. They are not the first heavy metal band of all time—that was Black Sabbath, by most counts—but they were the ones who created the template for metal as most of us know it today. Twin guitars, operatic vocals, a sound of clean steel, divorced from the blues. A sound like roaring motorbikes and lyrics about Sentinels from some distant apocalyptic future. Also revolutionary was their leather and studs look.

If you want to understand what metal is all about, start with Judas Priest.

We first saw Hell Bent for Judas a couple years ago playing the Chit Chat Lounge in Haverhill. I remember being very impressed with how tight they were. Since then they’ve added a new lead singer and renamed themselves The Priest. I called Ron Finn back in April to ask if he’d play a private event, Tom and I worked out the details, and here we are. He’s awesome, they all are.

At the 6th annual metal party we’ve turned it up to fucking ELEVEN.

So let’s head on out to the highway! What do you say? Are you ready for some Judas Priest style heavy metal? I give you The Priest!!

 

For five years, from 2011-2015, I hosted an annual heavy metal themed party. And had a blast. Ultimately it grew into something much more. Here’s the story…

It started out modest, a gathering of 8-9 buddies. My wife and daughters were out of state visiting my sister-in-law, a girls’ weekend. To celebrate my short-term bachelorhood I decided what I needed was a guy’s weekend, a gathering to drink beer and listen to heavy metal with some dudes. No more no less. We’ve all been there.

That first year we drank too much beer and ate ribs off the smoker. My old man did the cooking and stuck around for a few cold ones. I threw a few bags of chips on the table. We may or may not have ended up at a gentlemen’s club late night. No different than your average guy’s hangout. If there was one underlying commonality an outsider to the gathering might have noticed, it was the soundtrack and the garb: We listened exclusively to heavy metal, and many of us were wearing metal t-shirts.

A theme began to coalesce.

I think it was my friend Scott who eventually dubbed the gathering “the metal party” because of the music, the general crude nature of the affair, and the scarcity of women (metal concerts are largely sausage fests). The name stuck, and an informal guy’s hangout became something more.

You bent over, baby, and let me be the driver 

(KISS. Yes, they wrote this little bit of brilliance for a song called “Burn Bitch Burn.”)

 I’m like a pounding hammer and I wish you were the nail

Girl you’re not 18, but they can’t put my mind in jail

 (Fiction—I made this one up. And am immensely proud of myself for doing so)

Aside: I am a huge KISS fan and think they are the best at what they do, which is theatrics, spectacle, and writing fun, entertaining rock songs. But if you can’t laugh at some of the nonsense they’ve put out over the years, you’re doing it wrong.

Rosie (left) was a good sport with "KISS or fiction"

We continued to layer on the fun over the next two years, adding a karaoke machine one year and belting out our favorite songs in my living room. The list of attendees began to grow, including our friends Janet and Allen, who drove down from New Hampshire and brought with them a Judas Priest tapestry, made by hand from dozens of concert t-shirts. We had a grand unveiling and worshipped its magnificence. We did Jello shots, stuffed a bathroom, someone brought metal-themed cookies. I started doing a rambling kickoff speech, celebrating friendship, and heavy metal, roasting various attendees with embarrassing anecdotes from our past, and in general making an ass of myself.

In I believe 2014 my friend Vin showed up in his tricked out Chevy Tahoe, basically a stereo on wheels. I have no idea what type of equipment he hooked up in this rig, but I can tell you there was no room for groceries—because the entire storage compartment was jammed full of speakers. Recently I asked him to confirm the technical specs, and here’s what he said:

Dual batteries, Dual alternators, 2/0 ga power cable, 300A main fuse, Orion HCCA sub amp pushing 4 precision power PRO12 4 ohm carbon fiber flat piston subs wired in paralled 1ohm and 1200 watts bridged.

The sub box was 6 cubic feet, had 6 gallons of fiberglass body filler and weighed over 300 pounds. Vin needed to run air shocks in the back for support, and it needed a second battery and alternator to run the stereo and the car at the same time.

It put out 3000 watts of power.

For the record I have no idea what most of this means—only that it was REALLY FUCKING LOUD. We opened up the back, rolled down the windows, and cranked songs like “Raining Blood” and “Revolution Calling” loud enough to rattle teeth. The appearance of the Tahoe and our gatherings in the driveway quickly became a highlight.

In short, the metal party was rocking, hard. But changes were afoot. 

I’ve always been a big concert goer and in October 2014 Janet made my year when she got me a pair of tickets to a backstage meet-and-greet with Judas Priest. That’s a story that will have to wait another day, as it’s too good to tell here. I’ve always loved Priest, but this singular event kicked up my appreciation of these metal gods to new levels.

A couple weeks after that, Chris alerted me that a Judas Priest cover band called Hell Bent for Judas was playing over at the Chit-Chat Lounge in Haverhill, barely 15 minutes away. Priest being in my top three favorite bands of all time, and flush off the high of the Lowell show, I didn’t want to miss the occasion.

Hell Bent did not disappoint. As my buddy Chris and I left the club, ears ringing and a shit-eating grin on our faces, he turned to me and said, “the metal party is always fun, but I’m starting to think it’s a little stale and needs something else. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a live band?”

Brilliant, I thought. “Yeah, that would be awesome,” I replied. “I bet these tribute bands do private gigs.”

A seed was planted. I found Hell Bent for Judas’ Facebook page and followed and liked them.

In 2015 the lead singer of Hell Bent for Judas (a nice bloke, but an average talent at best) left the band and/or was booted out, and replaced by a more talented singer. He too left, within a few short months (this band was going through lead singers like Spinal Tap goes through drummers), replaced by a third dude named Ron Finn. Ron is a local legend, a hugely talented singer perhaps best known as the frontman of Wildside, a fun and talented party band known for 70-80s covers, mainly hair metal and classic hard rock like AC/DC. Ron also recorded a few albums with his band Easy Rider, and experienced some moderate fame and following over in Europe. Ron has one of those voices with huge power and range and sustain. I’ve heard him crush everything from Whitesnake to Quiet Riot to Rainbow. The guy can sing.

Redubbed as The Priest, these guys tore the roof off another semi-shady but fun local venue, Uncle Eddies on Salisbury Beach, that we attended in June of 2015. I was blown away watching them play classic Judas Priest hits like “Desert Plains” and “Devils’ Child.” I was mesmermized and screamed along with the crowd as Ron nailed Rob Halford’s high-pitched scream at the end of “Victim of Changes” (you know the one). I remembered Chris’ words from the Chit-Chat, and during intermission of the show we revived the conversation.

“I’m going to do it man, I’m going to see if I can get these guys to play the metal party,” I said. “This is who I would want to play. The Priest!”

Fast forward a few months later. Sitting in the calm of my living room, my finger hovered over the “contact the band” button on their website.

I’ll just ask some questions, satisfy my curiosity, I mused.

Press.

The metal party was about to go to 11.