Slam One Down

Technology and Music

2011-10-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation the other day with a Grammy award winning producer and we discussed the progression of music and how technology has influenced it. We came to the conclusion that music as an abstract being has not progressed as much as its technological counter part. And technology is the reason for this. Here is what I have observed in myself and others. It used to be that a musician spent his/her whole day practicing and mastering their craft. Endless hours of study and performance, so that one day they go into an extremely expensive studio and nail a performance in one or a few takes, only because the technology was not savy enough to fix any mistakes. It would have sounded God-awful if it wasn't perfect. Then technology improved and now you can take a poor performance and magically turn it into a masterpiece. Along with that, we can now record in our own homes. The recording capabilites of computers is relatvely similiar to that of a video game. So essentially what happens it that the musician decides to spend half his time on his craft and the other half of his time playing the video game. So what happens is the musical piece starts to suffer. We dont even need to have other people their with us because the computer becomes every other instrument that we need. That also takes away from the vibe of connecting with other musicians in a live setting. So what I think is that music progression has a cap on it in its current state. Listen to popular music today and from many years ago, it literally sounds the same. Same song structure, same verse chorus verse chorus, the melodies are all the same. I mean the only real change is kick drum and the bass are a bit louder. Agian all songs are like 4 minutes or less and they always have the same hooky chorus. But I ask myself why???30 years or progression and incredible technology and we are just doing the same things over and over again.....However on a good note, I dont think its forever. I think as we move forward and learn how to balance the two, music is really gonna go places. Slam One Down is embracing technology and doing its best to keep the old school mindset involved. I am really excited to mesh the two together in the future. -J.R.

Friday and Saturday September 9/10th

2011-09-08T09:07:00.000-07:00

We have two great shows this weekend
Friday September 9 @ 10PM
Seaside Tavern
891 Cove Road
Stamford Connecticut 06902
we are jamming with Rezin and Super Monkey Death Grip

Saturday September 10th @ 8:00PM
Trash Bar
256 Grand Street
Brooklyn, NY
with Hellshot, World Lost, Ikillya, Resolution 15 & Slam One Down

Queens Metal Meltdown Aug 13th 2011

2011-08-08T11:57:00.000-07:00

For Tickets for $12 click this Paypal button otherwise pay $15 at the door...your choice

For the first time ever, Horns Up Rocks, Rock Sur, and Brutal Bitches Productions are joining forces to bring YOU a hard hitting Heavy Metal show!

Performing that night will be:

- The Judas Syndrome
http://www.facebook.com/TheJudasSyndrome
- Raza Odiada
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Raza-Odiada/322584801238
- Slam One Down
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Slam-One-Down/130550258953
- Scars Of Envy
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001117476186
- Viruzy
http://www.facebook.com/viruzy1
- Black Tears
http://www.facebook.com/blacktearsny

TICKETS ONLINE AT : http://www.rocksur.eventbrite.com/
Cost: $12 (in advance), $15 (day of the show)
Age: 21+ with ID

Hosted by Jo Schüftan from Horns Up Rocks and DJed by Alissa Shimansy from Brutal Bitches Productions (Official Sponsor)!

More information at:
http://hornsuprocks.blogspot.com/2011/07/queens-metal-meltdown.html

Links:
www.brutalbitchesproductions.com
www.rocksurny.com
www.slamonedown.com

Nikstock 2011 Owego NY

2011-07-26T12:16:00.000-07:00

Slam One Down is playing one day of a 2 day festival called Nikstock (http://www.nikstock.com/whatis.htm) The event is on Friday August 5th and Saturday August 6th. Essentially its a two day Metal/Hard Rock festival at the Champion Speedway in Owego, NY. About a 3.5 hour drive from NYC. We played this gig last year and it was a hell of a time...Basically hundreds of people set up their tents, cars, camping gear in this huge field and party for 3 days straight. We met so many cool people out their. Bands play all day and night. Hundreds of kegs and basically whatever else you wanna get your hands on too. There was go-carts and bikini contests. I highly recommend anyone who likes good music and fun times to jump on board. We have tickets for sale at $20 a piece and that covers you for the whole trip. You can email us at slamonedown@gmail.com or click the Paypal button below to purchase tickets and use a credit card.

To Purchase tickets for Nikstock 2011 for Friday August 5th & Saturday August 6th Click the Paypal button. Each ticket is $20

Nikstock 2011 Owego NY

2011-07-23T18:49:00.001-07:00

We are playing Nikstock on Saturday August 6th at the Champion Speedway in Owego, NY...We have tickets for both days for sale for $25 each. They are good for both days. Click the Paypal Button above.

To Purchase tickets for Nikstock 2011 for Friday August 5th & Saturday August 6th Click the Paypal button. Each ticket is $25

One for my brother, Garrett "I miss you already"

2011-04-27T09:58:00.000-07:00

My brother Garrett passed away yesterday suddenly. He was 30 years old and left behind a beautiful wife Jessie and their gorgeous German Shepherd, Brody. He was one of the toughest and strongest people that I have ever known and had been battling for his life for 20 years. He has been through 3 kidney transplants and suffered through an array of invasive surgeries and was on dialysis since he was 10 years old. The reason I am writing this blog is to do what I do best and remind people to celebrate life. After you shed a tear for Garrett, please remember to grab the people you love most in life, tell them how much you love them and then go grab a cocktail or whatever it is that you do and enjoy life. Please make sure you raise one up for Garrett. That's what I am gonna do.
The other thing is that Garrett taught all of us a great lesson. Garrett had many dreams growing up. Among them was to become wealthy, fall in love, get married, have a family and live the rest of his life in good health. Due to his health condition, he had to fight harder than everybody else in this world to achieve that. And you know what, he almost achieved them all. So think about that dream or goal that you have in your mind and go for it, forget about all the little obstacles that get in the way.
I Love you Garrett and I miss you already! Of all the heroes in my life, I look up to you the most. You are my inspiration for life.

The Big 4

2011-02-23T10:40:00.000-08:00

I was watching the big 4 with Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth. There was one thing really stood out to me that was said during the behind the scenes video. Dave Ellefson of Megadeth went on stage and backstage during the whole event before the show and showed the audience all the pre-production going on. He said that this show, like all others "Is just another Battle of the Bands, like the ones you have in high school." And as I watched the video, I could not notice that he was right. It is all the same shit. People running around trying to get their equipment on and off the stage. Making sure the sound is good and their equipment works. Also, all the bands didn't seem all that excited or emotional about the event. So what I realized, is that it is all about what you make of it. Heavy Metal is inside my heart and you know what, if that was me doing the Big 4, I would be having a lot more fun...just the way Slam One Down does at every show we play.

Complex chords

2011-02-18T11:42:00.001-08:00

It is very important to practice complex chords and inversions of them in Heavy Metal (Like 4 part harmony jazz chords)...Last night I was practicing Major, Minor & Dominant 11th chords in the key of D Major...the chords themselves are not really that appealing to the ear when strummed. However when I arpeggiated them...I got this really cool sound. I moved the chord to an open form... and then combined the chord with other notes within the key. By doing that I was able to add new chords to the progression, but the new chords where more simple. This riff will definitely makes it way to a Slam One Down album one day. In summary, I would bet that great musicians worked on stuff that was out of the box of their genre and by simplifying them, probably came up with some really famous simple riffs. J.R.

A night in the life of Roach McPoach

2010-12-06T20:41:00.000-08:00

Slam One Down had a show at Don Hills Friday night opening up for Anaka. We were the first band of the night so we were playing pretty early. All of us got there at a reasonable time and were able to setup our rigs comfortably. We play the set and crush it, albeit to a small crowd. Whatever. We figured it would be a glorified practice and treated it as such. People loved it and we got praise afterwards, just like we do at every show. So we did our thing and crushed it.

After packing up the trailer and my car, there were a couple of other shows going on in the city that I wanted to catch. So after a quick bite to eat at a burger place where my friend makes a racist/dorky remark at the Asian waitress:

Jose: (to the asian waitress) Make it so.

Roach: Did you just refer to her as Mr. Sulu?

Jose: Yes and thank you for catching the reference.

He also tries to steal the mirror from the bathroom and gets a woman to sing Winter Wonderland. These are the people I choose to hang out with. After eating we traveled to Brooklyn. Now I have in my car Mrs. Roach, a coworker of hers, Tania, and a friend of mine who came up from North Carolina to see the show, Jose. So the four of us drive to Trash Bar, but first we made a quick stop at Duffs because Jose hadn’t seen Laurie Anne, their regular bartender, in years.

I filmed him as we walked into the bar and he sang a partridge family song to announce his entrance. She immediately jumps over the bar and jumps on him, wrapping her arms around him in a huge hug. She then immediately gives us the finger and tells us to fuck off. This is what I love about Duffs and the people who work there. Once you get to know the bartenders and the owner, it’s like family. You can say whatever the fuck you want to them and everyone knows it’s all in good fun.

Now we immediately leave. We were literally in Duffs for 5 seconds to say hi. No drink or anything. We jump back into my car and head to Trash Bar.

We get to Trash Bar and the place is PACKED! I’m talking wall to wall, front to back, shoulder to shoulder packed. We make it into the back room for the show and we had to muscle our way to the bar for a drink. I see some people I know as well as the people who are running the show. Joseph Schuftan from Horns Up Rocks and ‘Evil’Steve Ventura who booked the show as a fund raiser for Toys for Tots.

Now my boys in Odd Man In were headlining this show and it was their record release show. I’m sorry to say I didn’t get to catch them this night because I had a birthday party to go to later on in the night where I was promised Spanish food, a bed, and a bottle of Jaegermeister. What I did get to catch at Trash bar were two bands: World Lost, who Slam One Down are playing with in March in Delaware. They were fucking amazing, let me tell you. Old school heavy beat and riff metal at its finest.

Once they were finished, some guys started passing around those light up devil horns you can buy at any Halloween stores. I get some and put it on and find it coincidental I’m wearing my devil shirt this night. The next band to go on was King Hell. If you haven’t heard of these guys then you need to. These guys brought the fucking house down; groovy, funky metal complete with character and style. They have two lead singers, one calling on the spirit of Rob Halford while the other one, with his red and black Zoot suit and deep voice, held the crowd in a metal infused trance. The guitarist had on football pads with spikes on it, the bass player had on a 70’s style outfit complete with glasses and a real afro. The drummer looked like a demonic samurai, wearing a giant black Chinese straw hat and a red and black kimono while he slightly grooved to the beats he was playing. Their charisma and stage presence was phenomenal. Go to kinghellmetal.com and check them out.

So now I’m done after seeing this amazing performance. The wifey tells me we need to go if we’re gonna make this party. We stop at Duffs one more time to drink some more and I see Alex Gugi, Pablo Diaz, and Johnny Kook, a band called Gas who my previous band used to play with all the time, and they’re close friends of mine. After talking with them and Jimmy Duff for a while, I leave my friend Jose there, Drop Tania off at a train, and drive to my friend’s birthday party.

My wife is worried that the party might be over. It’s only 1am and the birthday girl is Puerto Rican, I know better. The minute we get out of the car, we hear loud music. I know it’s coming from the party. At 1 in the morning I just start yelling her name out in the middle of street, Devil shirt and Devil horns still on my head. She looks out the window and screams when she sees us.

We walk up to her apartment and it’s packed with Spanish people, young and old, and the music is pumping. I down the first vodka and cranberry she gives me and quickly ask for another. The music starts getting good so everyone starts dancing. Now this girl bought a stripper pole and set it up in the living room for her birthday. I had my camera at the ready just in case a girl decided to do some crazy shit and totally fail at it. The music was good, the liquor was good, I was feeling good. Then at 4am her landlord comes up and shuts the party down. DJ’s pack their shit, the beds are set up and I pass out.

I wake up the next morning, the birthday girl makes everyone breakfast. Everyone wanted to make breakfast for her, but she’s Puerto Rican; having things done for her is unheard of. After some pancakes, eggs and bacon, me and Mrs. Roach left to go to Chelsea so I could teach a student. All in the life of a musician…

Slam One Down for the Holiday Season

2010-11-30T06:49:00.000-08:00

It is finally holiday season and I don't know about the rest of you but it is totally the season for good times. In the Slam One Down family it seems like every day there is a reason to get whacked but in all honesty, in the NYC area there is that unique feeling of good times, during December thru January. Now I really could care less about the actual Holidays specifically. At this point in my life they really do not have a lot of meaning. But, I do love the fact that everyone sneaks in a "Night Out" on a random day of the week. There is always some group of people in your circle "tying one on" somewhere. Sometimes its a couple of friends from work going out and grabbing a couple of drinks right after work. Its a couple of old-school buddies hitting up a strip-club for a once a year gathering to see each other. It could be a cool Metal show somewhere checking out a local favorite or a national act. Some people after they shop for whatever, just grab a quick drink by themselves and meet some cool new people. What is even better is that in every bar, there are lights and festive music playing, and there are always cool Holiday drinks that usually are good to the pallet. I dig it....any excuse to have a couple of cocktails works for me. So to my point...
In the Slam One Down camp we have a very specific goal in playing gigs and what we want to achieve in the Heavy Metal Music scene. We just don't play shows randomly, we set them up in a way that gives each show meaning to help get us to the main goal. However, every once in a while, you have to move laterally and stray off the path for one reason...."Fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
This Holiday Season, Slam One Down will be playing quite a few shows in the local NYC area. We typically do not do that, we usually like to spread them out. But for this Holiday we are going to play a bunch with only one thing in mind....sharing good times with all of our friends and Heavy Metal family. No rules, no playing 20 minutes supporting some national act, no bullshit. Just good times with no strings attached. I am sure you know how we like to roll in....lots of booze lots of good times. So if you are available come and join us this Holiday season, you know I will be buying my friends some cocktails and showing my people a good time. Don't miss these events and stay in and complain about all the bullshit in your life....I guarantee you a good time.
Happy Holidays
J.R.

Metal Sucks Review 11/22/10

2010-11-22T06:16:00.000-08:00

I want to post a review by http://www.metalsucks.net

We played a gig at Crash Mansion, for the No Mercy Metal Showcase. Metal Sucks was sponsoring the event and as part of their sponsorship, they do a write up on the event and I believe single out a band that stood out to them for whatever reasons. So we got singled out with a great review. For the most part they compared us to Machine Head and Revocation, which I believe is a great thing. Feel free to visit the page and put in your comments and become a follower of Metal Sucks here is the excerpt:

http://www.metalsucks.net/2010/11/22/no-mercy-metal-slam-one-down-slam-it-down-on-halloween/

As part of our sponsorship of the No Mercy Metal showcases here in NYC — the most recent of which was held the night before Halloween, October 30th (hence the above photo) — we’ll be highlighting one band from each show here on MetalSucks in an effort to bring the best of the piping hot NYC metal scene to the rest of the world.

This edition’s featured band is Slam One Down, whose deathy-thrash attack reminds me at times of Revocation by way of Machine Head. Though Slam One Down aren’t quite as refined as either, they sound like what I might imagine Revocation’s very earliest demos sounding like; there’s plenty of promise here and skill equally divided amongst all the band members. Peep the track “To Live Forever” on their MySpace page, my personal favorite.

-VN

This Week in S1D Darketst Hour/Powerman 5000 Part 2 of 2

2010-11-17T12:27:00.000-08:00

This Week in S1D Darketst Hour/Powerman 5000 Part 2 of 2

So this past Sunday we had the opportunity to open up for Darkest Hour/Veil of Maya/Periphery/Revocation and of course our good friends in Demilitia joined us. The show was held at Crocodile Rock in Allentown, PA. It was a Sunday show and we had to be there relatively early at 2:30PM and it was about an hour and a half drive their from my house. I got up early and grabbed the trailer, changed guitar strings, bought beer/Jaeger for the cooler and shaved my head. Bobby text me at 11AM to ask me what time to be at my house. I told him be here by 12 so we can be on the road by 1PM. Big mistake, you see singers are DOUCHE BAGS, its the only way they can write good lyrics. So he showed up at 2PM making us and hour and half late. MY man was 2 hours late and remember he is a singer, he has nothing to do. No strings to change nothing all he had to do was get to my house, which is max a 20 minute ride. Needless to say as I was passing the 2 hours by that he was late I was saying to myself, I am done with this kid I am firing him....He pulled up, like nothing happened, pounded my hand and we got on our way.
For this particular show, we were asked to provide the back-line which included 2 Guitar Cabinets, A bass cabinet and full drum set. Since I am such a nice guy, I agreed to this. I probably could of asked to got paid for providing back-line, but I didn't because the head promoter gave us the best time slot on the main-stage before the main acts, so I figure it was a decent swap...It probably would have cost him a couple hundred dollars to rent the equipment. BUt like I said Bobby was late so we had to be there at 2:30 PM to set up the whole event with our equipment. We didn't get there until 3:45 PM and the show started at 4:10 promptly and doors opened at 4:00PM.
When we got there we basically where running around frantically, trying to get all of our stuff on stage within 15 minutes. It was cool though because all the club's stage hands where like "Nice of you to finally show up" which was kind of funny. So we literally unloaded my trailer and loaded the stage within 15 minutes, I'm talking a whole concert ready to go. After we got our stuff in I pulled the car into the lot next to the venue and set up camp.
What's nice about a trailer is that it kind of automatically sets up a cool chill spot anywhere you go, because of its size and dimensions. So we set up shop in the parking lot, pulled out the cooler and started pounding beers, shots of Jaeger and this drink called 4 Loco. Bobby grabbed one at the venue and it supposedly has like the equivalent of 5 beers and like 2 red-bulls. It tasted nasty, we all tried to down it but it sucked. So we sat outside for like two hours and had a pretty good time, while I tuned guitars and warmed up. Speaking of warming up, I was trying to warm up on the guitar but it was like 40 degrees out so I asked Bobby's girlfriend Gio if she had those gloves where the finger tips where exposed and she did. Problem was they were hot pink. So picture this, wanna-be metal god warming up outside in all black and hot pink gloves on and I think we got pictures.
We went on about 6 PM and the deal was that all opening bands got 20 minutes to play and the main acts all had like 25-30 mins. Kind of weird. So I said to the promoter, " SInce you are using our stuff, would you mind if our set was like 22-23 mins. He said no problem, but he forgot to tell the stage hands. So we go on and start playing. And typically what happens when you are a band that no one knows of, most of the people basically stare at you very weirdly. They don't know what to expect. But this crowd was really not emotional. They just watched, but after each song they cheered really loudly with a lot of emotion. But during the songs, no headbanging, no bopping around, just statues. It could have been a lot of reasons or it could just be the way the younger audiences are. Because there was about 100 kids watching us during the show. But they where all very young....since it was all ages. I knew this because the place is sectioned off between 21 and over and under age by a gate and there was very few people drinking at the bar. And it seemed even the national acts where getting the same kind of response from them.
So we finish our second song and the stage guy says last song and 2 mins left. And I was confused. I said to the guy, "It is mathmatically impossible to have 2 minutes left. Plus the head promoter gave us extra time. I said we are only 12 mins into the set and we still have 2 songs to go, plus you are using my stuff for all the other bands. Anyway, that really through my game off a bit, I tried my best to not let it bother me but I HATE being rushed on stage. It messes with my playing. And now I have to tell Bobby to speed it up which is no fun. We did still play the whole set and I do think it went over pretty well because a lot of kids came up to us at the end of the gig and told us how well we did.
But they rushed us off the stage after we where done. So you can see the humor in this, we brought in 50 people making the club $750, provided the backline for the whole main stage event and where treated like ass. I would call that the typical respect in this business.
We never let things bother us....so we went downstairs to the second stage where our buddies in Demilitia headlined. They ripped it and a lot of kids really vibed with them. After the show us and Demilita met up by the Merch tables and hung out all night. We had a blast together. Funny story....we couldn't sell a t-shirt to save our lives....so I came up with the idea. How bout I offer people a Beer Funnel drink for $10 and they get a tshirt too. Well that seemed to work I sold like 5 tshirts like that. We went back to our trailer, everyone gave me $10 for a tshirt and they got to do one beer funnel from our cooler. Other than the fact I didn't check ID's it worked out really well.
That was basically it for the end of the night. Got to see some cool younger bands like Periphery and Veil of May whom had a much larger crowd then the headliner, Darkest Hour, which I thought was weird. I was not impressed too much by the crowd participation it was OK. I don't know what the reason was; but it is what it is. I have to say though after Periphery played and hung out at their own MErch table there was huge lines for them. They had a big following. One of the guitar players was nice enough to point us out and tell their fans to check us out. Totally cool so we gave him a free Slam One Down Beer Run Tshirt. Hopefully he wear's it on stage. All I got to say is thank God Demilitia was there or it may not have been as fun. Later, till the next one
J.R.

This Week in S1D Darketst Hour/Powerman 5000 Part 1 of 2

2010-11-15T11:15:00.001-08:00

This Week in S1D Darketst Hour/Powerman 5000 Part 1 of 2

We had 2 relatively large shows this past week. We opened for Powerman 5000 at the Crazy Donkey in Farmingdale (Long Island) NY and Darkest Hour/Veil of Maya/Periphery/Revocation at Crocodile Rock in Allentown PA. I want to give a recap of the events and some feelings about what I witnessed for those of you who missed the shows, would have loved to come or share similar feelings about the Metal scene.
Starting in chronological order, was the Powerman 5000 show at the Crazy Donkey. So we pull up to the venue in my car with a trailer attached to it. I drive a dodge charger (HEMI of course) with a (5x10) trailer attached to the back of it. So we have to pull in next to Powerman 5000's tour bus. Well if you see a tour bus and a dodge charger with a trailer attached to it you know that my car looks ridiculous next to this thing. I find it kind of funny, anyways we get there and start setting up. We brought a cooler with us with a bottle of Jager and a 30 pack. So I had about 3 shots and 3 beers before I went on stage. For the most part I was relatively sober. So we set up outside and it was definitely like 40 something degrees that night and it was definitely cold. The place has no back-stage so we have to set up right outside this kitchen-like area in the cold. SO there I am setting up my guitars and warming up in freezing whether next to a sink, an ice machine and the garbage cans outside very close to the dumpsters. I swear everyday we are getting closer and closer to Rock-Star amenities. Anyways, we go on at around 7 PM and in my opinion a little too early, but that's material for another conversation.
We start playing and I felt pretty good about the set and how we played. After watching the videos, I have to say we really killed it. My solo in "The Payback" was flawless. The people there were very receptive and I saw a lot of people singing along so, there was a definite connection there. However, what I do not understand is how terrible it sounded on stage. There was basically no monitors, soo I had to kind of stay in one spot the whole time, because it was the only spot on stage that I could here drums, vocals, bass and myself. Talk about professional club. You know it is so ridiculous. If these clubs would start doing the simple things like making it a little more professional for the bands, then the bands would play better and feel better about the venue and then in turn these bands would get more people to come and the club would make more money by more people coming. But the truth is, the place sucks, sound sucks now I have no reason to play there again hence now that's another band that is not gonna bring a decent following to that club.
So we get off stage after a very good performance and slowly start packing our stuff up. Since we had that cooler there that is when things started to really take off. You see I did something simple and it turned out really good for us. I went to the store bought a 30 pack and a bottle of Jager and offered it to all the people that were back-stage with us. ANd you know what, people were appreciative of it and we made some new friends with a simple act of sharing. We gave out our demos to people and some people actually told us that we had an awesome set. Of course I had to take it a step further and bust out the Beer Funnel. You see I thought it was a good idea to sell Slam One Down Beer Funnels. We have been successful at selling them but more successful at using them. So we started handing out funnels outside in the cold, in front of our trailer next to Powerman 5000 tour bus. I have to say our party outside was better than anything else going on that night. According to some sources, my friend Tim and I did like 6 funnels each. I ended up holding on to a friend to keep from falling on the ground, during the Powerman set. I passed out on the ride home. I woke up the next day and was like, "what the hell happened. I was like "Oh no, I blacked out... But I didn't wake up with that feeling like I did something bad to someone or something. SO I right away called Bobby and was like what happened. He was like "Well, you got a little too Drunk, you definitely where the life of the party, but you might want to limit yourself to giving out Funnels instead of doing them yourself." I then proceeded to my computer to find out through Facebook that a lot of people had a good time. We win again!!!
So Heavy Metal Road rule is: Start with an act of kindness and buy beer/cocktails to share with new and old friends at the event. Make sure after you play your gig, you thank people for listening and participating by offering them a beer/cocktail. Never pack up and leave after the event. And most importantly throw a party. I have to say our group of people had more fun then the national act did. So we kicked ass on stage, sold some T-shirts, had a killer party, made new friends and woke up with a solid Hangover.

rock prose from Judge Roach called "The Calm"

2010-10-28T14:11:00.000-07:00

“Alright we’re at the venue. That drive was fucking brutal. 45 minute wait across the bridge and no one lets you in. we’re gonna park in front of the venue and load off real quick and look for parking because everyone knows you can never find parking in front of any venue you play.
Help the guys unload the guitars, bass guitars, amps, heads, miscellaneous things (like merch chest, beer cooler, etc) and then unload my stuff, the drum stuff. I got the hardware bag, which i’ve codenamed “the body bag”, my snare bag, floor tom, rack toms, cymbal bag, and the goddamn bass drum case which weighs a ton.
Everything is out of the trailer, now all we have to do is get it into the….

Shit, there’s stairs.

That’s fine. My body is so amped that we’re playing a show tonight I’m running on pure adrenaline right now. I haul my drums into the venue and find a corner to tuck them into, we won’t be playing for a while. I sit at the bar and order a beer from the hot bartender who gives me no smile, she’s all business. Oh and another beer for the wife.

The first band is already playing and they’re ok. Couple of people mulling about in front of the stage. Some are bobbing their head to the music, others are just staring, like people at a zoo looking unimpressed at the exotic animals they’ll never see outside of a cage. I notice some people i know and go over to say what’s up. It’s usually a “how you doin?” since i haven’t seen them since the last time i played. Sometimes I’ll have real conversations with someone I haven’t seen in a real long time. But I always manage to find my way back to the bar to get another drink and meditate in deafening silence.
I’m calming myself before the storm. The storm of the set we’re about to unleash. The adrenaline i had coming into the venue has long dissipated and now I’m at a low. I need it. The low recharges me and prepares me for the high I’m about to feel when i get up on stage and perform. But I know that before i do that, i need to set my shit up. That’s the hardest part.
Sometimes my low will include going outside with the wife and catching something to eat. Sometimes I walk around the block once or twice, to stretch out my legs and clear my mind. The low is great for me because it allows me to collect my thoughts and center my perception to the one goal, rocking out.
Couple of bands and beers in, the time is drawing closer. I do some stretching warmups and maybe do some rudiments with my sticks. This is about the time I start to set up my drums.
It starts with the bass drum. Everything in rhythm and music starts with the bass drum so i set that up first. Then i insert the arms for the rack toms. Once that’s done, I’ll set up my snare stand and snare drum. Then comes the most tedious part, the cymbals.
I have a couple of cymbal stands and a couple of cymbals and each time i do it a little differently depending on room on the stage, what i want to use that night, what I’m able to use that night. All my cymbals have a specific place on the stands, however, so its hard for someone to help me with this. That means i usually do it alone. I put the stick depot on the hihat stand and thats the finishing touch. Back to warming up.
The band before us is finishing up their last song and we’re getting ready to attack the stage and setup as quickly as possible. Time is key here because depending on our time, we either get to play our full set, or we may have to cut out a song. It doesn’t really matter in the long run, but that ability to play one more song is actually one of the best feelings in the world. I wish i could live my life playing just one more song.
The band is finally finished and it feels like forever to wait for them to breakdown. Its not proper band etiquette to jump on stage and start setting up while they’re breaking down, mostly because there’s no room for it. Once they’re finally off, we get on stage and setup.
Everyone is handling their own instrument while the singer is lending a hand wherever he can. (hey that rhymed!) That means im on drum duty by myself. The pre show adrenaline is pumping again and thats good because i need all my strength to muscle this combination of bass drum/rack toms onto the stage. I make sure that the bass/toms are in the exact position i need them to be on stage, everything gets built around it and won’t move once everythings done.
Now i get the floor tom and place it on the right side of the bass drum. Snare goes next but first i have to get my throne. Gives me something to sit on while i do this. Cymbals come next. Hihats go next to the snare, crash and china cymbal go above the floor tom, oh but first i have to put the ride cymbal in first. Ride goes over the floor tom, then the crash/china go over that. Other crash and any extra cymbal stands go to the left of the drums, where i have more room.
Everyone else is almost done with their setup and I’m the first one finished. Everything is going smoothly. I sit on my throne, grab my sticks and start to warm….shit. I forgot the fucking pedals. I slide my way around the drums and jump off stage and powerwalk to the corner my drums were in. My pedal case is tucked away and hidden in the shadows. No wonder i didn’t notice it. I take the bungee cord off, the only thing keeping the case together, the clamps had broken off long before. I flip open the case and grab the two pedals, connector bar, and the drumkey.
I hope up back on stage. Everyone is not finished setiing up yet so i still have some more time. I’ve become an expert at putting these pedals together fast. Just adjust the bar to the appropriate length, unscrew the screws, connect the bar between the primary and slave pedals, tighten as much as i can, and there. All finished.
Now i have to snake this thing in front of the snare drum but behind the bass drum and place it in the correct place so my feet are comfortable. Tighten the clasp onto the bass drum and now im ready. About this time, guitars and bass are already making sound and adjusting levels and tuning. I play a couple of beats to make sure everything is comfortably placed. Maybe adjust some of the cymbal stands to be closer or farther. One last run through of the setup and its perfect. Another setup succesful.
The singer announces us to the crowd and the people start to populate the front of the stage again, awaiting the rock thats about to pound them. I get the guitarist and bassist’s attention. Everyone’s ready?

1..2..3..4…

-The Judge

Pour One Out lyrics

2010-09-10T12:14:00.000-07:00

POUR ONE OUT

Here’s to tonight

Here’s to eternity

Here’s to the good life
Here’s to the ones we keep

Pour some out for love
Pour some out for sanity
Pour some out for fun
Pour one out for you and me

I am madness
I am the baddest
Not even I can understand this

CHORUS 2X
You wake up and you realize
Last night is not over
Sober you can’t believe your eyes
I‘ll drink to that

Pour some out for friends
Pour some out for family
Pour one out again
Pour one out for you and me

I am madness
I am the baddest
Not even I can understand this

CHORUS 2X
You wake up and you realize
Last night is not over
Sober you can’t believe your eyes
I‘ll drink to that

You hate me
Cause I don’t love you
Like you love me
Unless you’re on your knees
You blame me
Cause I don’t need you
Like you need me
I don’t even know your name
I’ll drink to that

Was this everything you dreamed
Was this everything you thought it would be
Was this everything you need
This was everything to me

CHORUS 2X
You wake up and you realize
Last night is not over
Sober you can’t believe your eyes
I‘ll drink to that

Slam One Down @ Nikstock

2010-08-24T14:12:00.000-07:00

A funny road story for all of you....
We were asked to play a 3 day Metal/Rock festival up in a town called Owego, NY on Friday August 13th. The town is right near Binghamton, NY about a 3.5 hour drive west from NYC. The Festival was called Nikstock. Basically some guy Nick from California puts on this festival in the Upstate NY area every year. He invites like 50 bands to come and play at some campsite. Well it was more like an open field next to some raceway. He put together some half ass stage and rented a PA for a decent sound I guess. It didn't sound so good on the stage but facing the stage sounded decent.
The festival started on Friday and ended Sunday. We were asked to play Friday night at 8PM. So we packed up the trailer and this time brought with us a couple of tents, a canopy, some zero gravity chairs, a beer pong table, and a cooler of about 5 Thirty packs of beer.
Of course, Slam One Down is always late, so we arrived around 7:30PM and we were supposed to be there at like 6PM. So we pull right up to the stage and it was kind of funny because as you look around the field it was all covered in tents. We pull up to the stage and we are of course rushing to get our gear on stage.
Perfect for us, was that we went on right before the bikini contest. Now I guess a bikini contest in upstate NY is the kind where every guy grabs a chick and throws them on the stage and then they basically have to take off all of their clothes. I thought that was pretty cool. So now picture this; Slam One Down on stage with all of our equipment and watching about 10 naked drunk girls on stage dancing all over and around us. I guess that is enough to put a smile on anyone's face.
As soon as the contest was over. We started playing and we crushed it as usual. Made some new friends/fans of the band and converted people to the Slam One Down family.
So we finish up playing and get all the equipment back into the trailer and now have to set up camp. We basically drove right into the middle of the whole party and set up two tents, a huge canopy, chairs and a beer pong table within like 30 minutes. Unfortunately for them, Scott and Roach had to leave because of work and other engagements. So all you have left is Bobby, his girl, and me all by myself. Bobby starts playing beer pong and really gets a huge crowd around us. I have to say our little camp was the funnest party of all the little campsites. We met some great new friends and had some good times. There was go-cart races and everyone was really cool and kept screaming out "Slam One Down" to us as we walked by.
As the night rolled on, I thought to myself, "Wow, these upstate NYers really like to get (Fucked Up)." I would say like 90% of the people there were either tripping on Acid or Tripping on Ecstasy. I sat down next to one dude and he was like, yo the trees are flying up into the sky. He took his first hit around 4am, I was like whoa that is harcore. Than everyone was talking about some drug called Molly, but with their accents it sounded kind of funny. Towards the end of the night everyone ran out of beer except for us. Everyone kept asking to buy a beer from me and me being the Entrepreneur that I am, gladly provided the service. I woke up the next morning with all of these dollar bills in my pocket. Needless to say every party must come to a close so I passed out in the tent only to wake up to the 6am sun beaming down on my tent. I swear I must have sweated out like 10 pounds of booze and water through my pours. Bobby woke me up around 10am and I had the biggest hangover ever, with that pounding headache you get right in the front of your head. One good thing was that I woke up around 6:30 am to hear somebody playing the whole "Slam One Down" CD from beginning to end on their car stereo.
Bobby and I did nothing but lay in a chair until around 2:30 PM Saturday afternoon. The campsite was disgusting, it was like a Frat housed exploded in the middle of the woods. There were beer cans and garbage everywhere. So we packed up and I slept the whole way home as Bobby drove....sucker!!!
In conclusion, we had a great show, made some awesome friends, got wasted, and saw some naked women. I guess, .....We win again!!!
Love ya's
J.R.
Slam One Down

our first three day road trip - part 1

2010-08-04T09:44:00.000-07:00

Roach here wanting to talk about the insanity that was this past weekend. S1D went on their first three day road trip to three different states to play some shows outside of New York City. A lot of shit happened so let's get into this:

first stop was friday July 30 in Bethlehem, PA. we get to the place and its a nice, small place. Some sort of gathering hall for members of some community. The beer was cheap, the people at the bar were nice and it seemed like it was going to be a good show.

I won't lie to you folks, the show didn't go the way we expected it to go. First off, almost nobody but the other bands showed up. There were maybe 8 people there in total. I'm not saying this to shit on the promoters. They were awesome people and they worked their asses off promoting and trying to get people to the show. It just didn't work out the way they wanted.

We set up our stuff and start our set and even with the small space, hard walls and hardwood floors, making for bad acoustics, it actually sounded really good. Of the people who were there, though, nobody is moving. Nobody is getting into the show were trying to put on. We do our covers and I see that one guy is wearing a Metallica shirt so I'm thinking "he's gonna love Seek & Destroy." He doesn't move at all when J.R. goes into the opening riff. He doesn't move for the entire song. Not...one...bit. He doesn't sing along, He doesn't even bob his head. He just stands there with his arms folded half sitting on the table behind him.

We finish the cover and Bobby immediately goes to us and stops the show. He then proceeds to yell at the people who were there for not interacting with us or even reacting to what we were doing. We seriously could've been playing to a morgue and we would've gotten a better response. And it wasn't because we weren't on our game. I think we sounded and played tighter than we ever have. The people just weren't into it for some reason. So we brushed it off and finished our set.

We go downstairs to drink some more and i notice a little sign behind the bar that saids "Hot Bologne in a cooler: 75 cents" J.R. tells us he's ordering a pizza pie for us before he disappears. We wait for the pie and laugh our asses off when it finally comes because its one of those personal pan pizza. The diameter was no longer than a dollar bill. We all took a bite before J.R. comes back to see the tiniest slice a pizza can be.

So everyone else notices the hot bologne sign and we're intrigued. How can a bologne be hot but also in a cooler? I couldn't let this question get away from us. So i waved the bartender over and with a wave of my finger i ordered up 5 hot bolognes in a cooler. She gives it to us and we're about to dive in when she immediately stops us and saids "YOU HAVE TO TAKE THE SKIN OFF" After removing the thin layer of skin from the bologne we tried it and, while it was cold from being in the cooler, it was sort of spicy but really good. We all approved.

Day two: Worcester, Mass
We drive up to Mass and we found out we were going to be playing with Hemlock. If you haven't heard Hemlock then you NEED to we also got some friends of ours on the bill too, Odd Man In. There another band you should be on the lookout for.

The drive wasn't bad. We get to the venue and I don't know about you people, but Worcester looked as ghetto as can be. I mean when I see a Fried Chicken place, bullet holes in the restaurant next to it and iron bars on the window of the pizzeria next to that, something tells me "ghetto" right away. We unload our stuff and for the first time I think we weren't the ones who brought the most equipment. Anyone who has seen us knows how much equipment we bring, but i think Hemlock beats us out. Odd Man In goes on first and they kill it. There's a drunk guy dancing, moshing, jumping on stage with them. Guys were running around acting crazy. It was a fun show.

Fuel of War goes on next. This band features a midget paraplegic in a wheelchair on guitar and this guy is amazing. He's fucking shredding and rocking out more than most guitarists I've seen. People were definitely into them and they kept the metal going.

We go on next and we destroy this stage. Everything is tight as hell and everything is working. Odd Man In jump in and start singing some of the songs on the mic with some of the audience, including Beer Run. Let me tell you its fun as shit to see a bunch of guys grouped around a mic yelling Beer Run as loud as they can.

Hemlock closes out the show and, after packing up my drums, i jump into the fray to mosh and bang my head to this amazing band. Their music is tight, their stage show is phenomenal and their talent is undeniable. These guys are amazing and if you haven't seen them live, you should see the next time they're in your town and check them out. Not something to be missed.

Now before i move on i want to tell you a mini story. A story of getting food in Worcester Mass. As i mentioned before there was a chicken place, a diner, and a pizzeria next to each other a block away from the bar. So me and the mrs go to get food before the show starts. The diner is closed. its 6 in the evening. So we go to the chicken place. There's a indian/spanish guy behind the counter and saids hi to us. we look at the menu and my wife wants shrimp. So i order the 21 piece shrimp with fries (not 20...21. i dont know either) the guy looks at me confused. So i point to it on the menu and say shrimp again. hes still confused. So i say the number of the order. He goes to a back table to get his glasses, which dont have handles. he looks at the menu for a longer period of time than i thought was necessary, but he finally saids shrimp in spanish which i understood and agreed with. He then proceeds to go to the back room where another guy is and converses with him while looking in the cooler for the shrimp. They're not looking for the shrimp, they're trying to figure out what shrimp is. at this point i look at my wife and say "thats ok. thank you." and we walk out of the chicken place to go to the pizzeria. we get pernil sandwiches (pork shoulder for you non spanish people out there) and it was actually quite good, but that one things nags me to this day. how do you not know what shrimp is? i mean i can understand if he was retarded or something, but he wasn't. he just simply did not know what shrimp was. and the fact that he had to go to a back room to converse with someone else who also didn't know what shrimp was boggled my mind even more.

this story isn't over by the way...

so we're walking back up the block to the bar when a car screeches up the hill beside us and spins out right in front of us. it literally was two steps away from hitting us. the two guys in the car just stare at us for a minute before reversing the car and parking it on the street they just spun out on and then run up the hill past us laughing. they almost killed us and were laughing about it.

needless to say i wanted to get out of worcester as soon as possible.

we rented a hotel for the night in Auburn Mass to save time for the drive to Walden the next day. I passed out right away while J.R., Mrs Roach, Gio, and Bobby explored the hotel and had a party of it.

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion...

-Roach

this past weekend at the Pickwick Pub

2010-07-13T10:48:00.000-07:00

So we drive up to Poughkeepsie, New York to play with our friends No Remission, Left In Ruins, and Assault (F.Y.C.) J.R. and I drive up together while Bobby and Scotty took their own cars. We get there around 7:30 and start having some drinks with some of the other bands who are already there. Scott arrives and we unload the trailer and have more drinks. After a pizza dinner, we find out that Bobby is going to be late to the show. People are already filling the bar and are getting a little antsy. Before we even play one note a guy walks up to us and asks to buy a shirt because he loves the BEER RUN on the back. This was already turning out to be a good experience.

After a couple of more drinks, J.R. is feeling the buzz and sets up his guitar and starts warming up. He plays some old school Metallica and Black Sabbath tracks and the people start yelling. I jump on the drums and Luigi, the lead singer of Left In Ruins, grabs a bass and we start to play any and every cover song we know. Metallica, Ozzy, Pantera. The crowd is going nuts. People are taking turns jumping on the mic to sing whatever parts of the songs they knew. We were having way too much fun.

Bobby finally shows up and we crush our set. The fans are going crazy and we loved every minute of it. Definitely a fun show to play. Afterwards we go outside and start mingling and selling t-shirts. A couple of people buy some shirts before a guy walks up to us and saids "I'll take a shot in the nuts if you give me a free shirt." Everyone starts getting in on it, taking bets and egging people on to do it. This girl raises her hand and offers to do it. Turns out shes a dancer and a martial artist. She's stretching her leg right in front of me and her leg seriously went straight into the air. I was like "holy shit!" Everyone starts to call foul, however. She has flip flops on and everyone saids that its not going to hurt. This dude then raises his hand and saids "she can use my steel toed boots!" Everyone starts to go nuts.

She laces up the boot and starts warming up. Everyone is chanting. This dude assumes the position and, while the kick was not full force, it still obliterated him. He's on the floor for a good 20 minutes and he was coughing the rest of the night. We decided to give him two shirts for each of his testicles.

We go back inside and No Remission is picking up where we left off, destroying the stage. Left In Ruins keeps it going, always a pleasure to see those guys, and Assault finishes up the night in true metal fashion.

More drinking, more partying. J.R. tells me to get some sleep because I'm driving us home. at 2AM i jump in the passenger seat, lower it, and take a nap. He wakes me up at 4AM. The bar is closing. The owner and the bartender are leaving with everyone and the party is over. I'm still a little groggy and A LOT hungover, but i managed to keep it together enough to get us back into Jersey. We stop at a MCdonalds and J.R., having recovered enough, drove the rest of the way home. We unpack the trailer and i realize its 6:30AM. I have to be at work at 7AM. J.R. throws me the spare keys to the car and tells me to go to work. I drive to work on two hours sleep, take two aspirin, and get through the workday. I drive back to J.R.'s to return the car and then he drives me home.

Insane insane fucking weekend with a lot of booze, a lot of cool people. A lot of new memories were made and a lot of metal was had. We're definitely coming back to Pickwick in the future.

The Underground Heavy Metal Scen in New York City Part 1

2010-06-29T14:25:00.000-07:00

I am writing this blog not to complain but to talk about some of the things that I have observed being a member of one of the Heavy Metal Bands in the Underground Heavy Metal Scene. I also am writing this to offer some guidance to all of the bands that make up this scene. You know who you are. I bet some of the advice that I offer here can help other Metal scenes throughout the country or the world, but this is specific to NYC only because it is all I know.
The greatest thing about the underground is the freedom of musical expression that is so readily available. I mean lets face it...if you call up a local venue or promoter and tell them that you will bring 20 people to one of their events, you are pretty much guaranteed to play a show no matter how good or bad you are. And that shouldn't be too hard, 4 guys in a band all bring one girlfriend and 4 friends each you got your 20 right there. Like I said, this is a good thing because I think everyone should have a platform to express themselves musically. So if you are honest about the fact that all you are there to do is express yourself and you are not trying to reach a larger audience, the underground is a great place for you....however....
Most of the people that I run into are using the underground to get to another place. I would say a lot of them are looking for a record label to "discover" them and offer them some sort of recording deal, and an avenue for them to tour the world playing their music....Slam One Down is for sure.
The New York City Underground is a double edged sword. And when I say NYC underground I mean NYC, the 5 boroughs, Rockland etc., North Jersey & Long Island etc. The reason that it is a double edged sword is because there are a ton of places to play. This is a good thing and bad thing...the reason that it is a good thing is because it is very easy to get a show and play live. The reason that it is bad is because....
....So here is the problem...there are soooooo many bands and sooo many venues and we have a very small and concentrated scene (or better said, not a lot of people). SO what happens is every band takes their 10 or 20 people and take them to wherever they can get a show. Then what happens is the band plays 1 week in NYC, the next week in Brooklyn, the next week in Jersey and the next week in L.I. The problem is that now they keep asking their friends to follow them to every show and their friends go to the first 2 shows and then say to themselves I wont go this week, I'll go next week because they will obviously be playing again next week or so. I mean let's face it, even if Metallica played every Friday for 6 months at the Garden, by the end of the first month there would be like 100 people there. What Metallica does is plays once and then leaves and does not come back for a year and makes people come out everytime they play. It's a simple strategy.
You can ask anyone in the scene, I go to almost every underground show that I can. The only time i don't is if we have a show or practice. If someone invites me, I go and you don't even have to call me. I go on facebook and look at today's events and I go to whoever is playing wherever. But I have to, because I am a true supporter and I have to promote my band. I also hope and expect people to do the same for me. But guess what, most people are not like me and do not care about the scene the way I do.
So here is what is happening, their are about 20 or 30 solid bands that are really doing well and making some noise in the scene. They perform well, write good music, get the crowds involved, bring 20-60 people and throw a good party. But most of them are not getting anywhere because the whole scene is being watered down. Everyone is playing every week in the city and all the time. So I have a bit of a solution to the problem. This is not a perfect solution and is going to take time to organize but if we all start working together it can work well....to be continued!!!!-J.R.

Slam One Down to open for Devildriver

2010-06-28T10:43:00.001-07:00

S1D needs your help...we were asked to open up for Devildriver & Kittie at Eleanor Rigby's in Jermyn, PA about 2 hours from NYC on Thurs Aug. 26th @ 7pm..tix are $20each we need to know if people are willing to come with us on a bus road trip again and if people near the PA venue will buy tix from us...otherwise we cannot afford to do the show, we need to sell 100 tix, this could be huge for us...please respond.

Who gets thrown out of the woods?

2010-06-27T09:33:00.000-07:00

This has to be the most ridiculous story ever. We were asked to play a 3 day mini tour in upstate NY near Niagara Falls, called the campfire sessions by a management company called Kalamazoo Recording and Management Company. The company invites 10 metal type bands to campsites all over the country for 3 day mini tours. So what you do is go to a campsite and set up your tents and so on and then drive to three different venues, play a show and then return to the campsite to sleep and then do that for three days from Friday through Sunday. So we thought that sounds like a cool way to get out of the area and invite more people into the Slam One Down family.
So everyone tried to get out of work as early as possible and we hit the road to Niagara Falls which is about a 6 hour drive. Our navigation system told us that we were going to arrive at the campsite around 10 and when I told the promoter that he said we were going to miss the first show. We were kind of pissed about that but new we would make it up somehow. We finally arrive at the campsite at 10:00PM. And the whole place was closed and shut down. The promoter told us where to go and we found the site.
When we arrive we saw about 6 other bands with their campsites set up. It looked like everyone was having a good time. SO we start setting up immediately. We had a canopy, two tents, a beer pong table, acoustic guitars, a fire, 6 chairs and a cooler full of about 6 thirty packs, a beer funnel, a bottle of crown royal, and a bottle of Jagermeister.
So we start attacking the booze like every good metal band does. Now remember we are in the middle of the woods, with about 6 other metal bands, a cooler full of beer and its about 11:00 PM. We are now having a party in the middle of the woods. We were singing songs by the fire, playing beer pong, laughing and having a fucking amazing time. The weird thing was out of 6 bands only 2 people came over to hang out. All the other bands went to bed around 11:30PM. Now no-one said anything to us about noise or being loud. We just went about our partying like everything was OK. It didn't seem like there is anyone around us.
Then at around 2AM, out of nowhere in the pitch black night someone walks up to us yells, "What the FUCK are you guys doing." We were completely freaked out and didn't know where he came from. It was a cop in the middle of the woods and he snuck up on us. He was flashing a light at us and Bobby was flashing his light back at him, because we didn't know what was going on. That pissed the cop off. He starts asking for our IDs and what not....One of the guys in our group was mouthing off to him a little because the cope was very rude for no reason. Now think about this for a second. What kind of cop sneaks up on people in the middle of the woods. He didn't ever pull up in a cop car he came out of the blackness of the woods....who does that. So he takes our IDs and disappears back into the blackness of the woods. So we continue to drink and do funnels.
Then all of a sudden 3 more cop cars come pulling up. I guess he called for back-up. And returns to us and says he is not going to do anything and said we have to leave the campsite at 10AM tomorrow morning. SO we are like "Cool" now we will get a hotel room and not have to sleep in the fucking woods. Most of us passed out around 3-4 AM.
We wake up around 10:30 AM to pack up and now drive to the show that we were supposed to play. This time a different cop comes back around 10:30 and said that we need to leave around 1PM which was perfect because that was the time we needed to go to the show. However, he walks up to the promoters and tells them what happens. These two kids are like 17-years old and proceeds to tell us that we are off the tour and have to go home. We couldn't understand why, we didn't do anything wrong. We didn't break any rules. See the way we look at it....if we were causing a problem, why didn't we get a warning. Someone should have come up to us and tell us we were being "TOO Loud" in the middle of the woods and we would have gladly brought it down a notch. So these 17 year olds who we have never met and apparently were at the campsite monitoring the campsite says to us well you guys were kind of loud but we didn't want to stop you from having a good time. They then allow someone to call the cops on us and then have the nerve to tell us that we cannot play the shows that we already paid $125 to play. They kept blaming it on their boss, but I didnt see any boss anywhere. At that point there was no reason to argue, we were dealing with morons.
Now that I think back, who the hell would call the cops on us. Was it one of the other "Metal" bands that we were camped out with. I mean is that the weakest thing ever. You call the cops on us and not ask us first to quiet down. That is pathetic. Or could it have been some neighboring campers who were not part of the group. Those people had to be pretty far away for our voices to travel that far and have them call the cops. Either way I would say that is the promoters fault because he should have made sure that we were far enough away from people that 10 metal bands couldnt bother them. I mean lets be realistic...there was hundreds of miles of open space I hope you didnt put us that close to other people. Plus these guys will not give back my $125.
Anyways we drove home around 11AM laughing the whole way home. I mean how does anybody manage to get thrown out of the woods by cops who sneak up on you in the black of the night. Only Slam One Down can. I guess this is the stuff that "Legends are made of" Thanks for reading....J.R.

http://www.slamonedown.com
http://www.myspace.com/slamonedown
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Slam-One-Down/130550258953?ref=ts

show this last saturday. meeting Eddie Ojeda of Twisted Sister

2010-06-15T06:22:00.001-07:00

So we had a show this past saturday night in honor of J.R. and Scott's birthdays. It was at a bar called The Blue Room. Nice place, nice stage. Thanks to our good friend and unofficial/official manager Stevie, a couple of people showed up to the place, including Eddie Ojeda. If that name doesn't ring a bell then I'll spell it out for you. He's the lead guitarist for Twisted Sister. Coolest fucking guy in the world. Now i have a bit of history with this guy before i even meet him.

A band i was in two years ago recorded in a studio in Long Island run by a guy named George Marshall. That name is not familiar to you, but he's the guy who does ALL the sound for Twisted Sister on their tours. They take him everywhere. We instantly became family with this guy and we had a blast at the studio. He told us stories of touring with Twisted Sister and all the places they went in the world. So seeing a member of the band was doubly amazing for me.

After he had a conversation with J.R. I sat next to him and introduced myself. I mention that i recorded with George Marshall and he immediately lights up and i knew right away that this was the right thing to do. We get into a conversation about playing on the road when Steve comes back into the picture and mentions were both Puerto Rican. We look at each other and give each other five. We start talking about the Puerto Rican Day parade, being young and Puerto Rican in the city, about being close with family, and even how the Italians treated us like family as well. In summation, Eddie Ojeda is the coolest fucking guy I've ever met.

Its our turn to go up on stage. We set up everything and this was a special performance. It was our first one hour set show so we were debuting some new songs, including Hell Doesn't Want Me, which marks the first time Bobby Brazen sings instead of screams. He was obviously nervous and we had rehearse the song hundreds of times before the show trying to get it perfect, but i was confident he would pull it off. The opening goes fine, we're getting into it, then comes time for HDWM. The minute Bobby started singing, I knew he hit it. He was on point with every note and he didn't crack once. Even the part where I jump in sounded amazing.

The rest of the show went without a hitch, Eddie and company loved every minute of it and the birthday show was a complete success. Afterwards the crew went next door to AJ's, which is a strip club connected with the bar. That story can't be told by me, probably because it would get some people in trouble, but mostly because I didn't get to go. I had to hop on the 2:18AM train back into NY (last one for the night) so i can get home and get some sleep. I had a funeral and a procession to play the next day. Me and my endless weeks.

So thats it. Met a bonafide rock star and he was awesome, great show, and great friends to hang with. stay tuned for more from SLAM...ONE...DOWN!

-Roach

www.slamonedown.com
www.myspace.com/slamonedown
www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Slam-One-Down/130550258953

Hellyeah show last night - Roach's thoughts

2010-04-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

Roach here. J.R. will probably write one of these about the show last night, but i thought i would chime in with my thoughts on the show.

I get there at 730 and doors are still closed. J.R. says hes leaving his house at that moment, which means i have an hour and a half to kill seeing as how he lives in north jersey. After a sandwich and water i come back to the venue and they're letting people in. now for people who don't know music hall of williamsburg, its a nice venue to be at. there's a separate bar where you can sit and drink before the show starts and bullshit with your friends. i sat there by myself, had a cup of beer, and watched the other fans yelling and act like fools, thinking i was only going to drink a little before the show actually started. Black Water Rising started their set and after a couple of SECONDS listening to them, i decided to go back to the bar and drink some more. 6 beers in J.R. finally shows up and im already feeling the beer. I don't know if this goes for anybody else, but when im drunk my body suddenly becomes numb and all the pain i feel from working the day suddenly disappears. We go into the main hall and Hellyeah just started their set.

As soon as the first song started, a giant circle pit formed and about ten guys were moshing and running around. i originally wanted to lay back and watch the show without getting pushed, but the combination of being drunk and seeing the pit, i thought "fuck this" and ran into the fray. I still had my leather jacket on and didn't bother going to coat check to put it away and i damn sure wasn't going to put it down somewhere so i moshed with my jacket on.

Chad on vocals was amazing and i don't even have to say anything about Vin Paul on drums. The guitarists didn't seem to be into it though. They played their riffs and bobbed their heads a little, but compared to Chad and Vin, it seemed like they were standing still. The music was amazing, though, and all the shit from their new forthcoming album sounded just as good as the old shit. No Pantera covers, but oh well maybe next time.

So I'm pushing people around, getting pushed around, elbowing people, got punched in the jaw, got knocked down, helped some people up, gave guys i don't know pounds and probably made 6 new friends from the show. I spent the entire set in the pit, with my jacket on, and it was the best thing ever. i haven't moshed in a while and it was just what i needed. Two fights that i saw broke out, but nothing serious happened.

Right after Hellyeah finished their set, i met up with J.R. again and he gives me a stack of cds to give out. let me tell you, I've never seen a stack of cds go so fast. i just kept yelling out "FREE CD" and people just took them. One person didn't take it and i yelled out "YOU DON'T LIKE FREE SHIT?" to which he gave me a weird look and kept walking. seriously, who doesn't like free shit?

I saw a couple of people that i know at the show too. I ran into a friend from another band in the pit and a friend of my wife's rockin out too. We also ran into some people who knew of us and had seen us perform at a previous show. Small metal world we live in. After talking with them, we drove to Duffs and had some more drinks there. I was talking to Jimmy Duff, the owner of the bar, and we're thinking of doing a summer show there sometime. We were just about to leave, when Hellyeah comes in. We're in the car ready to drive away when we see Vin Paul walk into the bar and J.R. said's "i think we can stay a couple more minutes."

I saw each member of the band and congratulated them on the show. I'm not one of these guys who shits himself when he sees a celebrity of any kind because, not to sound full of myself, i know someday that i will be at that status and i want to be a colleague, a contemporary, and hopefully a friend to some of these guys and not just another fan. Chad finds his way to the bar and orders a drink while this super hot chick is talking his ear off about her tattoo and how it has something to do with him and i'm thinking "this super hot chick, who knows shes hot, was playing it all cool before he showed up and now shes throwing her vagina at him and all he wants is a drink. i love this guy."

after meeting the band and saying whats up, we leave, stop by at another bar in the city, say hello to some friends, stop by a pizza place, get a slice, and J.R. drives me home. I stumble past two people sleeping in my living room (my wife had some friends over and killed a bottle of wine and half a cake) got into bed and went to sleep. An awesome night of metal, an awesome night of drinking, an awesome night for meeting new people and saying hello to some old faces. The night couldn't have gone any better.

Mastodon

2010-04-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

I checked out Mastodon and Between the Buried and me the other day and I was very impressed by both bands live sets. It was an excellent night of music. It definitely got my creative juices flowing again to write new music. I love when that happens. We here at Slam One Down definitely want to write music from all different styles and we don't ever want to box ourselves into one style. I would love to implement more progressive type riffs into our songs, but of course S1D style!
....funny story though...both bands stopped in the middle of the set to yell at either people in the crowd or their road crew. BTBAM- yelled at someone in the crowd for cursing at them. Mastodon's Brett Hinds, started yelling at his roadies' saying that they get paid too much money to tune his guitars and they must have been out of tune. Then he yelled at the sound board engineer and told him to lower the subs, because he couldn't hear anything. I understood what they were going through. It sucks when you get rude people or you can't get into the vibe of your own music, due to technical diffuculties. However, it totally disrupted the vibe. One lesson I learned is always keep the party going, never let your emotions get the best of you. Nothing is perfect, but the fact you are up there and playing live and playing in front of 2000 people should be all you need. -J.R.

Roach's thoughts on Slam One Down Part 3...

2010-01-16T07:00:00.000-08:00

Well here it is folks. you've all been eagerly awaiting the last installment in this series and i finally have some free time to write this. I'm at work right now but its a saturday and it is shit slow around here let me tell you. Its days like these i wish i was already touring and doing what i love behind my baby. Anyway lets get on with this...

When i left off, the bass player from my very first band called me and asked if i wanted to join his current project. I agreed and sat in on a couple of practices. Heavy metal, right up my alley, with a little humor, another one of my alleys. I already knew the guys he was working with and everything seemed to gel naturally. We did a couple of shows together and the music was sounding good and the show aspect was getting better. We were starting to get buzz. We made a full fledged album out of our own pocket and it was good. we had enough material for a second album that was forthcoming. We made it to a final of an international battle of the bands and got to play at Webster Hall, which i find to be our crowning achievement. People were taking notice of us, our music, our antics on and off stage, and it seemed like we had nowhere to go but up.

this was to me the long term relationship girlfriend. the one you marry. the one you have kids and get a house with.

there were a couple of things going on in the band, however, that raised some concerns, not just to me, but everyone involved. some things can be argued, some things cannot. I always thought we would be able to get through those issues and come out the other side in one piece. The fates proved me wrong.

One thing we didn't do enough of was advertisement. The fact of me writing this blog is me learning from my own mistakes as well as the band. the online community is so vast and easy to connect to, but you have to put the work in to connect with them. I didn't do enough of that on my own and im trying to fix that.

Another mistake we made was coasting with booking shows. We allowed the head of another band, whom we were real good friends with, book shows and include us with them. The only problem was that this guy didnt know how to book cohesive shows. Everything was erratic and utter chaos. We always swore we would never use him again but then he would call and we'd go "alright lets do it" and start the cycle of pain over again.

we didn't promote ourselves as much as we should have. We gave out the cds for free, which is cool, but at the same time we weren't seeing any returns on the money we put into making the album. We also had a lot of ideas for merchandise, videos, shows, comics, movies, etc, all pertaining to the band, but we never followed through with them. Its like those times your drunk with your friends and you spew out all these ideas about taking a road trip to alaska or climbing the adirondack mountains. Then the next day you totally forget what you were talking about.

In short, the music was good and tight, but the business side was lacking.

being in a band and trying to make it is not about the music. its probably 10% music actually. Most of what you do is what im doing right now, write about your band, promote, advertise, get the name out, let people know you exist. I get people complaining to me that Slam One Down posts 500 times in a single day on facebook or myspace. but look at it this way, they're noticing that my band is there and alive and kicking. The music industry has very little to do with the actual music. Look at Britney Spears, The Spice Girls, the Jonas Brothers, and Miley Cyrus for references.

So after our last show, we sort of drifted apart and didnt talk to each other for months. I wondered what was going on, but in the back of my head i knew what was coming. We started to email each other and have meetings about whats the next step for us. We had the answers, but we were wondering if it was worth it. a couple more months passed by with no correspondence and what i had originality thought happened, we were breaking up. After three years of playing non stop shows, recording, joking around and coming up with great ideas that fell to the wasteside, we broke up. It wasn't a fast and clean break either, it was slow, tedious, and painful.

The girl who i thought was the one drifted away from me and sort of broke up with me without actually saying it.

Thats the worst kind, because for years after on top of the "what if?" factor, you have this nagging feeling that you might actually get back together if those differences got patched up, but you know they never will.

While the slow breakup was happening, i went back online to look for more bands to play with. I get an anonymous email from someone in jersey who has a band and is looking for a drummer. I was interested and because of the slow breakup, i was left bandless, so i decided to reply. the guy, J.R., sent me the music and i immediately loved it. i replied and we set up an audition day.

TO BE CONTINUED?...hehe you guys guessed this was the last part, well its not. im throwing a curve ball. The Epilogue is coming. With that, i bid you guys an adieu and remember, kids, KEEP IT METAL!

-Roach

Our First Press Review

2010-01-11T15:29:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, we had our first press review of our demo entitled, "The Basement Demos." It was published this January 2010 in the magazine, "More Sugar." It was written by Jaymz Delisle in Chris Rush's column entitled "A little more Metal." Thanks to both of those guys!! Here it is.

Hey More Sugar readers, it's Jaymz from Left In Ruins back to give you Metalheads my first brutal review of 2010!!! So I was recently at the Metallica/Lamb of God show at MSG, in NYC, and in the midst of Lamb of God ripping my face off with their brutal Southern Fried Thrash Metally goodness, my buddy J.R., former guitarist of NY Underground Hardcore veterans 4 In The Chamber, greeted me with a hug and put a disk in my hand. He said "Check out my new band, Slam One Down!!!" I thanked him, we went our separate ways and enjoyed the rest of the show. After 2 full listens to this disk, I immediately went to my computer and went to www.myspace.com/slamonedown and to my surprise, this band also enlisted in their ranks, the vocal skills of former 4 In The Chamber front-man Bobby Brazen!!! As you could imagine, Slam One Down does pay homage to their hardcore roots much in the same way 4ITC did, but the guys in Slam One Down also bring a mighty *#@%-load of old-school Metal to the table here as well!!! Thrashy riffs, often give way to catchy choruses, killer guitar solo's and yes, even the occasional mosh-friendly breakdown. Mr. Brazen sounds as evil as ever, with a throat full of whiskey fueled fire, and all the attitude to boot! Slam One Down is, as Jimmy Bower would put it, "All About The Riff!". These guys know how to tear it up the right way, and there is absolutely no lack of groove or rhythm on Slam One Down's "The Basement Demo's". For me the ultimate surprise here, comes in at track 3. "Hell Doesn't Want Me" starts off very mellow, with clean acoustic guitars, and Bobby Brazen crooning with a voice reminiscent of Down-era Phil Anselmo and Zakk Wylde. And c'mon, how can you not love a band that not only does the "Beer Run" song, but also does an acoustic version of it which reminds one of Pantera's "Planet Caravan" cover?!?! Personal favorites of mine on this CD are "Too Far Gone" with it's thuggish Hardcore stomp, "Music,Money & Girls" with it's Pantera meets Crowbar sludginess, and "To Live Forever" with it's gallopy, Iron Maiden-esque main riff. While Slam One Down may be a relatively new band, it's members have been doing this for a long time, and I gotta say I'm looking forward to seeing these guys at a lot of shows ripping it up in the near future and hoping to get the chance to share the stage with them myself!!! These guys will be at Popeye's Pub along with CT. Black Death Metallers Theogonia and more on January 9th, so make sure to come out and catch another killer FYC Metal show!!! Also hit them up at www.myspace.com/slamonedown to keep up with the band and their other upcoming gigs.

this week in shows, Trash Bar, Connoly's, Popeyes

2010-01-10T14:04:00.000-08:00

Hey this is Roach again from Slam One Down. I posted something the other day about our show at the Trash Bar and how sick that show was, but its Sunday now and after two more shows this week i wanted to give the full week in review.

Now when I first heard we were booked for three shows in one week, i 'll admit i wasn't sure if all three of those shows were going to be great. The problem with a band with no national notoriety that's just starting out is that you always get your friends to come to your shows. Most bookers and agents all agree that doing more than two shows a month is not a good strategy because all you end up doing is annoy your audience (basically your friends) by forcing them to come to the same show over and over. You also run the risk of getting stale really quickly because your playing the same songs in front of the same people. This is within a month, mind you, let alone a week.

Well if you read the last blog you know how the Trash Bar went. It was a sick show and we met new bands and people. Connoly's I wasn't too sure about because it was a late show (we went on at midnight) and it was Times Square, a place where metal fans don't tend to frequent anymore. My fears were crushed, however, when i saw the crowd that was there. We met a couple of them beforehand and just like true metal fans, they stayed till the very end of our set. The most surprising thing i saw at that show was that more girls were moshing it up than the guys. Now I'm not going to point any of you out, but fellas, the girls were showin you up at this show. If i wasn't behind a drum set at the time, i would've jumped into that. You guys have no excuse. You better make it up to us on the next one.

The last show we did was last night at Popeyes Pub in Cortlandt manor, ny. Before we even get to the show disaster almost struck. We took two cars, Bobby J.R. and Scotty took the S1D-mobile with the hitch up and Me and the misses took my car with my drum gear from the city. We both get stopped by the cops. Now my comrades were stopped because they had a trailer on a parkway, something you're not supposed to do apparently. They were let go, however, but given a warning. I, on the other hand, was stopped because i was speeding in a small westchester town. The cops comes back and tells me my license has been suspended since November. The city, in it's infinite wisdom, failed to notify me.

They actually arrested me and took me to the precinct. The cops, however, were really nice and after i told them about the show and everything, were very accomodating and fast tracked the paper work that needed to be done. After about an hour waiting in a jail cell, the paper work was done and i was back on the road (needless to say, my wife drove the rest of the way)

we get to the venue and lemme tell you, it is TINY. We barely had room enough to get our gear into the back where the stage was. after a drink and a laugh about our excursions with law enforcement, it was our turn to play. we set up our gear and went on with the show. We threw all the bullshit and drama to the side and rocked the fucking joint. Everyone was banging their heads and moshing. just like the last two shows this week, this was starting out to be a great show.

then something happened. During one of our songs, I'm looking down, concentrating on the certain part i had to play. I look up and EVERYONE is on stage, moshing, head banging, yelling and screaming. The place went absolutely nuts. Scotty got drenched in beer, people were air guitaring with J.R. and Bobby joined in the moshing. After 8 years of playing live shows, i thought i'd seen it all. This was probably one of the sickest things i'd ever seen. The crowd was fuckin hot and we gave them what they wanted.

This was also the first crowd that got Beer Run right. We like to turn the mics around and let the fans sing this one, but the last couple of shows nobody's been willing to participate. Well Popeye's destroyed that. We had the entire place singing B-DOUBLE E-DOUBLE R-U-N BEER RUN! BEER RUN! it was such an amazing experience and i hope Popeye's has shown the rest of you how it's done.

So with all our fears and apprehension of playing three shows in one week, we rose to the occasion and crushed all three. each show was better than the last with Popeye's being the culmination of all this. We're learning our lesson from this experience, though, and we're going to stick with a two show a month formula. Of course if someone throws us a free show here and there we won't turn them down, but we're gonna focus more on picking and choosing our shows, working on more original music as well as covers, and getting merchandise for you crazy fuckheads.

be sure to check out our sites myspace.com/slamonedown reverbnation.com/slamonedown. and also on facebook search for Slam One Down. Also on Facebook search for our mascot Brew Ski. I'm getting a lot of people asking who Brew Ski is, thats the mascot for the band. So if you get a friend request from a ripped metalhead with a chump in a headlock forcing a tap into his mouth, accept it and check out the music. Until next time, keep it metal!

-Roach

Trashin it up at the Trash Bar

2010-01-06T10:54:00.001-08:00

hey this is roach from Slam One Down. Just wanted to reflect on last nights show. It was an awesome time as usual. a few of the regulars showed up and rocked the house, but since we were playing in brooklyn, i had a couple of my own close personal friends show up to check us out. it made the night even better. I walked into the show after a day that i was up since 8am running errands and a weekend where i got 4 hours sleep combined. i was dead tired when i got there and i didnt feel like participating in anything until the show started. two Jaeger shots later, my friends showed up and just like popeye i reenergized and went into the fray.

We met a band called savior from long island and these guys were awesome. They shot a promo video and included us. we were our roudy selves as usual. they took the stage and rocked brooklyn to its core. old school metal at its finest. the bassist broke his strap and the guitarist broke a string on the same song. Thats fucking brutal. I jumped, i yelled, i moshed, i was feeling good. One of those natural highs you get when you're doing something you love.

we took the stage and the crowd was already warmed up. We slayed the stage and everyone in that place and left only a few survivors. Technical issues aside, the band was tight, the songs were brutal, J.R. shredded, Scotty head banged, Bobby turned into the American Psycho we all know and love, and I damn near broke a hole in each of my drums. I saw people moshing, people jumping up on stage to sing along, and although i missed the boob shot (yes there was a boob shot), i can always imagine and imagination is the greatest gift of all.

All in all it was a great night. I personally love the Trash bar. I've played there several times with several other bands and its always a guaranteed good time. Last night was no different. Till next time, Cheers.

-R

Backline

2009-12-23T17:49:00.000-08:00

Another thing that I wanted to talk about was back-lines. I used a back-line the other night and I had to say it sucked. I don't mean to brag but my rig sounds so much better than any back-line. I would be doing myself and my band an injustice by ever playing through anything but my rig again. For instance, we have a live recording from Dingbatz this past Sunday and I cannot distribute it to anybody because the sound just doesn't live up to Slam One Down standards. The performance was great but it sounded weak. Lesson learned.

To Play Every show or not?

2009-12-23T13:21:00.000-08:00

So we had some great shows this past week. I just wanted to tell everyone how they went. We were asked to play a show at the all famous Crocodile Rock in Allentown, PA. Some of the most famous heavy metal acts have played there and we played our first gig there. How we got it was kind of interesting, but it goes to show you that you have to play every show that you can get, "within reason". The "within reason" part is a very gray area, as Bobby and myself argue about all the time.
We were asked to play a show in Keyport, NJ at a VFW hall. Not too many people showed up but we met some really cool people, including our friends, Symbol of Sorrow. They really liked our sound and style and mentioned that they could get us shows in PA. Well two weeks ago they came through and said that they were headlining a show at Croc Rock and needed a band to fill the night. We packed the trailer and took our first road trip. Roach slept all the way there and on the way down, I dont think any of us said a word to each other until we started drinking backstage before the show. I guess that is because the 4 of us are all deep thinkers, or just selfish sons of bitches.
As you know in the scene you are ranked based on how many people you bring. And that night we brought a whopping zero people. How do you expect us to bring anyone 2 hours away with a one week notice. Anyway, We ripped shit on stage again. We played so well that we impressed the promoter and he gave a spot on the Atticus Metal Tour in March 21, 2010. We are so stoked to be sharing a stage with so many good bands and of course the all mighty UNEARTH. It was nice to know that our performance alone got us the gig. We ended the night at Wendy's
That bring's to the following week at the almighty Dingbatz in Clifton, NJ. We opened the show for the one and only Full Blown Chaos, Waking the Cadaver, Doomsday Prophecy, Severed, & Undivided. All those bands were amazing and there was definitely an amazing crowd there. The club was pretty much filled up. It was probably one of the biggest crowd's we played to yet. I will be honest, we didn't get the full crowd participation that we would like, but there was one noticeable thing. As a band we noticed that all eyes were on us. Nobody was doing anything but starring at us. It was great. We all felt like we won some new fans over. By the end of the night we were all fucking wasted. Roach and I actually ended up leading the mosh pit for the other bands. So we will see what comes out of that event. A big thank you for Black and Blue Productions for having us.
As for one of my previous comments. The big argument in the band lately has been should we play every show we get or do we be extremely strategic about when and where we play? Let us know what you think.

J.R.
Slam One Down

people who don't like music

2009-12-15T06:53:00.001-08:00

im writing this because for the past two weeks ive been playing in little italy with this brass festival band that ive been playing with for 4 years now. we play for the restaurants down there to get people in the christmas spirit and for tips (if it wasn't for the money i wouldnt be out in 15 degree weather) in the past two weekends of doing this, ive noticed something about people. its something i always knew about certain people but this year it just really irked me for some reason and i feel i should talk about it. The fact that certain people in this world dont like music, period. they dont want to hear it and they're annoyed by a band playing in their vicinity. This idea culminated when a restaurant, who we're really good friends with, told us not to come in because one table, ONE table, of people didn't want to be disturbed. The rest of the patrons at this restaurant were denied a little entertainment because the minority won over. Now this idea can be analogized into other situations not pertaining to music, but for the sake of your time and patience, im only sticking with the music aspect.

This is where i put in my tagline: Really? Come on....

i mean seriously. you dont like music? i mean its one thing to not like music. maybe you never had the chance or opportunity to learn a musical instrument or appreciate music when you were a kid or maybe you had a bad experience with music as a child, but to rob everyone else in the restaurant of some entertainment simply because you dont want to hear it is selfish and stupid.

on top of that, your in little italy. the band that i was playing with has been playing in little italy for over 30 years, we do this EVERY YEAR. If your coming to little italy for dinner and you dont expect the band to come around, your a fucking moron. Besides its little italy, people go down there to have a good time and be loud. you want a quiet dinner, go to the upper east or west side. dont come down to little italy. There are a lot of people and groups we see who love the band and totally appreciate what we do and get into it and i respect those people because they know what they're gonna get in little italy and thats why they come there.

Ive also noticed that most people who are guilty of this non appreciation of music are people in my generation. People these days are so used to listening to cds or digital music that live music has been taken for granted. I have my ipod and i listen to itunes and pandora, etc, but i try to listen to live music as much as possible. There is something about live music that recorded music will never be able to duplicate. With the advent of DJs and turntables, more people are more inclined to hire one person who can play their favorite songs from a cd rather than pay a group of guys to play the same song right there live in their faces. I know people like to save money (especially in these times) but for me live music blows recorded music out of the water. Im getting married next year and im hoping to get more than one live band for the reception, the money is not a matter.

so what does this tell us about ourselves? The worlds getting smaller, our attention spans are getting shorter, our speakers are getting smaller and our appreciation for the finer things is almost completely gone. Will it change? i dont know. i hope it will, but as a realist and a cynic, i find it highly unlikely. i would weep for society on its journey down this hole of unappreciation and this lost of something that made humans worth looking into, but i have no tears for a species that devalues all of the stuff that make it worth living. that is all...

-roach

Dimebag's Recipe with a touch of J.R.

2009-12-13T14:05:00.000-08:00

Besides being one of the greatest heavy metal guitar players of all time, I happen to be an Italian. That also means I am an amazing cook. I am writing this on Sunday and I just finished making a homemade red sauce, which is totally superb. The sauce is now simmering with sausage and homemade meatballs. I have to admit the whole recipe is Mom's with my added touch. Kind of like my guitar playing is Dimebag's recipe with a touch of J.R.'s style. The rest of the guys in the band will be here shortly. I am drinking a bottle of Chianti right now. Eating some appetizers which consists of fresh Mozzarella, Roasted peppers, fresh Soppressatta and NY Italian Bread. When the rest of the band gets here we will eat like gentlemen or la famiglia. And then we will have band practice with a full stomach and nice wine and beer buzz, with a little THC twist. That is the Slam One Down family tradition. Welcome to our family. Open invite every Sunday to anyone who wants to hang out, eat, drink, and jam our favorite Heavy Metal tunes.

JR
Slam One Down

Dimebag thoughts

2009-12-08T06:59:00.000-08:00

It's pretty obvious that Dimebag was my favorite guitar player. I really miss that guy even though I never got to know him as a person. But I guess I didn't have to. He seemed like the kind of guy who told you who he was through his music and obviously on his crazy videos. He seemed like he has nothing to hide.
I have basically mimicked every aspect of his guitar playing. I have learned everyone one of his songs from beginning to end, every solo, every squeal. I remember being like 15 years old and watching all the home videos in my room and saying to myself..."That is going to be me one day." I made that promise to myself almost 15 years ago and I never stopped believing that I am going to do something like he did. THat is pretty amazing that a guy like Dimebag could do that to not only me but millions of 15 year olds to this day. I also remember wanting to be able to party like him. So when we were kids we would get beers and fucking rip shit up. I mean still to this day I throw bottles of beers in the middle of clubs and break them on the floor. I still smash shit, break shit and drink until I cannot see straight. I often say to myself, "What would Dime do at this moment?" Another great thing I learned from Dime was to shred on the guitar while being drunk. That took me years to master but it was well worth it.
My whole rhythm and lead style is based around Dimebag's influence. I would say 80% Dimebag, 10% all the other greats and 10% J.R. It's pretty cool to know that I have my own style and that you can recognize "JR's style". But it was Dime who gave me the drive to create it. As I continue on my musical path, my goal is to one day have Vinnie, Rex, & Phil hear my music and tell me that Dimebag would be proud. It's kind of my life's purpose at this point to make it happen.
Not to change subjects, but I am glad to see that they are doing an album for Dime. There are some cool cats on there. I think Metallica should man up and do something for him. But most importantly, the existing members of Pantera should start a festival, kind of like what Ozzy did with Ozzfest. They can even alter guitar players every year. At this point it would make sense to have Zack Wylde do it. Hopefully I could do it one day. It think it is absolutely ridiculous that those guys aren't jamming together. Get over it already. We only got one life on this planet, do the right thing. I often think to myself, how would the heavy metal world be different if he were still alive. I would guess that by now they would have settled their differences. They kept metal going in the right direction. I dont think that anyone is doing that right now. BUt you know for sure I have no problem taking that responsibility. I will raise the flag again for metal and show the world what its all about.
In closing, I felt the need to write this for a lot of different reasons. I didn't plan it out or anything I just typed my thoughts as they came to me. I really miss that dude even though he never really left me. He is in my heart everyday at least. His music has guided me through everything in my life and I cannot thank him enough for all the great things that he gave me. So it has now been five years, I remember when it happened. I was in Atlantic Çity that night partying away and I heard it while I was sleeping. As I digress...thank you Dimebag for everything you've given the world and hopefully some of us down here will make you proud.

J.R.
Slam One Down
or as Dime would say"Getcha Pull"

Respect Amongst Bands

2009-12-03T14:07:00.001-08:00

Just want to send out a reminder to the world about respect amongst fellow bands. We are the kind of band that brings a cooler of ice cold beers to every show and makes sure to offer every other band and their friends a cold one on the house. The reason that I bring this up is because we have played some shows lately and the bands that played before us actually left the event before a good portion of the show was even finished. They even took their friends home with them. As a band, we make sure to get everyone of our friends to the show right before the show starts and we don't leave until the last band has finished their set. We do it out of respect. We are always interested in hearing new music and meeting new people. It's the only way that we are going to make it to the next level. Besides you never know who you are going to meet at a show and where it can lead you to.
In fact, just the other night we played a Sunday show that we didn't think was going to turn out so good. Well it was one of our best interactions with fans that we have had thus far. Because we "STAYED" the whole night; we got new gigs and contacts out of it. The moral of the story is, if you want Heavy Metal to progress and keep extreme music going strong. Make sure everyone in your band brings a couple of friends to the show and make sure you stay for the whole event to finish. Do it out of respect.

Roach's thoughts on Slam One Down part 2

2009-11-24T09:26:00.000-08:00

Hey its roach again. its been a while and its been a busy two weeks for me (work, my birthday was the 22nd, thanksgiving preparation etc.) It was an excellent birthday surprise party and i wanna thank everyone who came, including the other guys from slam one down. that fact is gonna factor into the last part of this blog so stay tuned...

alright lets continue.

when i left off, i told you about my first performance with the first band i played with. it was shit. nothing worked that night. we berated our "manager" after the show and we were all in low spirits. It would prove to be our first and last performance together. Through inner turmoil and not seeing eye to eye the band broke up. Most of the guys that were in that band i'm still friends with to this day and i love those guys, but we just didn't mesh well as a band.

for the next couple of months after that i continued to look for other bands. I joined an acoustic rock band that had a good singer, good bass player, and the music was excellent. We did a lot of shows together over that year i was with them and we recorded an EP. I really got to know those guys and even though the music wasn't the genre i wanted to get into, i still had fun playing with them. I got a lot of experience playing with those guys. The light style of the music helped me to relax behind the drum set, but I helped them rock out a little bit and make a show out of it.

While i was playing with them, i was still searching for bands to play with. I found a band that was looking for a drummer. It was Industrial Metal, something i was interested in and had experience playing in. They were already sort of established, indie label, getting ready to tour, all the good stuff. I thought this would be the opportunity i was looking for. I learned the songs forwards and backwards. The audition was in Long Island. I drove there, my brakes grinding into my rotors, running out of gas. i was gonna get there by hook or crook, dammit. I finally get to the place, meet the band, and we played together and i nailed it. Everything fit perfectly. They said they loved me and i loved the music and the vibe i was getting. they said they sort of had a problem with me being in another band, but i told them i was willing to quit that other band if it came down to it. I loved the other guys and the music, but acoustic rock is not my genre. I needed something more. They said they would be giving me a call in a couple of days.

So i waited and waited and informed the other band that i was possibly joining this other band that were getting ready to tour. They were cool with it. I waited two weeks before losing patience and contacting them. They replied saying they were going with another drummer who was a friend of theirs. I went back to the acoustic rock band and told them i didnt get into the band and they had already found a replacement drummer. I tried to leave my current girlfriend for a hotter girl and got dumped by both. I was left alone. no band, nobody to drum with.

needless to say, i was heartbroken.

i was left without a band to play with, something that i hadn't experienced since i started playing. Now Meanwhile, the bass player from my original band had a side project he was working on in those years and they seemed to be gaining momentum. After their drummer decided to leave to take care of his family, he called me up and asked me to sit in with them.

to be continued...

Roach's thoughts on Slam One Down part 1...

2009-11-11T10:48:00.001-08:00

hey this is Roach from Slam One Down. This ain't my first time wranglin this thing called a blog, but it is my first time writing about my thoughts on this band. this is part 1 in a 3 part series...here we go...

I joined this band about four or five months ago through, of all things, an email i got from a profile i made on a website that i had forgotten about for years. I haven't played drums for many years, but i've been playing music since i was 9. I started playing drums around 2001 and since then i've played with and auditioned for what seems like millions of bands. I've played some good shows, ive played a lot of bad shows. I auditioned for shit bands and never gave it another thought. I auditioned for really good bands and sounded like shit myself. Especially living in new york, I've had almost every experience a musician can think of.

getting an email from a band looking for a drummer is probably the most common thing i can think of. I've had bands come out of the woodwork, finding me through whatever link they could and contacting me to jam with them. I've also done my part and searched for bands that were looking for drummers and dropped them a line. Joining an already established band is like going out with a girl who already has a house and a job. you really have to show her something spectacular to get her to even notice you.

When i first started playing drums, i auditioned for bands right off the bat. any bands too...acoustic rock, folk rock, heavy metal, punk. you name it i was there jamming with them. my first choice is heavy metal so that was what i was focusing on. My drum teacher had shown me everything he knew, from polka beats to jazz to latin beats, but he was a broadway show guy and wasnt knowledgable about any metal at all. So i decided to learn it myself. Listening to any music, any band that i could, i listened to the drum parts and memorized all the beats, fills, etc.

The first band i was in was an industrial metal band (think rob zombie with a dance beat) i did pretty well in that band and it was a good and easy way for me to learn how to play in a rock band setting. We played our first show and it was utter shit. i won't lie to you folks, i was not happy about this show one bit. aside from the technical issues (amps going out, mics not working) we just werent together and sounded horrible. it was a learning experience and something that hung on my mind from then on. i needed a lot of work...

...to be continued

Halloween Weekend

2009-11-02T12:30:00.000-08:00

I figured I give everybody a recap of this sick weekend. Friday couldn't have been more perfect. I picked up two kegs and got them on ice around 2:00PM. A couple of friends came by and we started drinking around 5ish. We basically started pre-partying for the show from 5-9 PM. We packed up all the equipment and then put on our Halloween costumes.
I obviously dressed up as Dimebag, Roach was Fred Flinstone, Scott went as a Viking, and Bobby's costume was the best. He was a mix between the devil from Legend the movie and basically Lucifer. The Makeup job was incredible thanks to Gio.
We arrived at the show at around 9:30 and were able to see some great bands that night. They were Grimus, Unstable Foundation, One Brick Down, Homicidal and we went on last. All the bands played excellent. There were about 100 people in the place that night and we brought exactly 50 of them. So for all of you promoters out there, we proved that we can bring people. We are proud of that.
We finally got on stage around 12:30-1:00 and I would say most of the people stayed. Some of the bands left before we went on but I have no hard feelings. I can tell by the crowd reaction that it was our best show yet. For all of you Pantera lovers out there we covered two of their songs.
After the show we spoke with the promoters and management of the bar and it seems like we just earned ourselves some really good shows and we should be opening for some big bands.
That brings us to the after hours party. About 30 of us came back to my house, and kept partying straight through Friday and into Sunday Morning. It was the perfect weekend. Thanks to all of you who came out and showed your support.

J.R.
Slam One Down

2009-10-26T18:23:00.001-07:00

This past Saturday night we planned to have a typical band practice at Slam One Down Headquarters. After practice we planned on seeing our friends in Will Killmore and Egokill and show some support to the local metal scene. Two seconds before we ripped into the newest track, "Cut Me Down," our singer Bobby got the idea to play the show instead of go to it. So he picked up the phone and he asked our friends in Will Killmore if we could jam. They were all for it and instead of having a true band practice, we played at a local bar in Pearl River, NY.

It was totally cool because there was a good 75-100 metal heads there showing support to all of the bands. Beers were like $4, which is good for any NY bar and there were really hot chicks there, courtesy of Slam One Down.

However, there is nothing worse than playing in a club/bar and there isn't any sound system. There was like a microphone for vocals and that was it. Actually now that I think about it, playing in a shit hole with no sound system and getting your fellow metal heads to scream and dance along is what it is all about. That is what makes metal real. That is what makes metal heads so unique and wonderful. We will go anywhere just to hear newest and most extreme underground music. I bet guys like James Hetfield, Kerry King, Phil Anselmo, Vinnie Paul, etc. remember the days playing in those shit holes so vividly and probably would say that they miss those days. It is for us and was for them the days that the music was the most important thing. All the glam, money, hot chicks and success is always second to the real music. When we get all the glam, money, hot chicks and success, I will remember this past Saturday.

J.R.
Slam One Down

We have to work harder

2009-10-15T17:56:00.000-07:00

Really cool trip to see the underground metal scene in Vegas. All my fellow metal fans were totally cool. There were about 75-100 people that showed up. The bands that played were excellent as well, but we have to work harder!!!

As a band we consider ourselves part of the New York underground scene which truly incorporates NY and NJ. The reason I bring that up is because when I go to a heavy metal show either in NY or NJ and see a popular metal band like, Metallica, Lamb of God, Slayer, Megadeth, etc. there can be as many as 30,000 people showing up to the show and sometimes even two nights in a row. Now, most bands are not of that caliber, but in a city like NY, there is no reason why we cannot get at least 500-750 people to an underground event every time (at least on the weekends). Weeknights should have at least 300.

The point is that we have to work harder as heavy metal fans. We need to go to every underground show that we can. We have to prove to the local bars and nightclubs that when you book a metal act, that place is going to make money through attendance and/or the bar. Through Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter, we can communicate with each other instantly. We have to start picking up that ancient thing call the "phone" and making each other go to shows and supporting the local scene. If there are 4 bands a night playing and 4 members in each band; each band member should bring 5-10 people. Thats anywhere from 80-160 people right there. And promoters need to really go the extra mile and get people to come to shows.

I guess what my question is what can we do to grow the underground scene?

Bobby's Lyrics

2009-10-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

What's up everyone...this is J.R. from S1D and wanted to tell everyone to go to www.myspace.com/slamonedown and download Bobby's lyrics and read them. These are some of the best Heavy Metal lyrics I have heard in years. I want everyone to comment back and give some love for Bobby for keeping it real and being true to his soul and sharing it with the world. My personal favorites are Hell Doesn't Want Me, To Live Forever & What I've Done...What are yours?

Slam One Down's Biography

2009-09-21T17:59:00.001-07:00

Slam One Down

Slam One Down was formed in June of 2009 when Bobby and J.R. decided to start a new Heavy Metal project based on a musical vision that incorporated every style of metal influenced by all the great bands that preceded them. As soon as they met Roach and Scott they new they had a unique sound and style. The focus was to create a hard-hitting extreme style of music that people can move and sing to. Period!

Bobby Brazen

Raised in Rockland County, an upstate suburb of New York, he started singing for his first band Mental Casket in the late 1990’s. Joined by three childhood friends playing drums, guitar, and bass, Mental Casket was unscripted, rough around the edges hardcore.

After a handful of local shows played, and almost three years together, he was confronted by his band mate’s desires to take their music down a different, more mainstream path.

Unwilling to exchange his old school and underground metal and hardcore values, Bobby decided it was his time to leave the band.

Less than a year after leaving Mental Casket, Bobby tried out for the Bronx based hardcore legends 4 In The Chamber. His guttural vocals and take-action attitude landed him the spot. With only a month to learn the lyrics to 4 In The Chamber’s already recorded full-length, he played his first show with the band at CBGB’s, opening up for Most Precious Blood.

During his almost six years with 4 In The Chamber, he’s lead the band to a plethora of headlining and supporting shows up and down the East Coast, Canada, and Puerto Rico. His vocals were featured on the New York Hardcore band Lockdown’s “Hard to the Core” track and he’s also formed a side project called Meatball Tanktop.

After a conversation with his band mates concerning 4 In The Chamber’s future it was mutually decided this was no longer the place for Bobby Brazen.

Following a short hiatus Bobby started playing in his current project, Slam One Down, and describes the sound of the band as having “an absolutely crushing attitude on top of a laid back party metal aspect that will fester inside everybody’s brain that hears it.”

This is something you need to be a part of.

Bobby Brazen

Support Those Who Support Others

www.myspace.com/bobbybrazen

J.R.

J.R. started playing guitar at 9 years old. He originally started playing guitar after his older brother Vinny introduced him to heavy metal. “I’ll never forget the first metal song that grabbed me. It was, “Orion” by Metallica. I remember listening to it with him in his car and being amazed at how heavy and powerful it was. It was then that I started my musical journey.”

J.R. went through every possible medium to learn how to play. For 16 years, J.R. worked extremely hard to improve his skills. He used ear training, books, tablature, and lessons from many different teachers. He even took music classes at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore. MD. But it wasn’t until he meant his mentor Ed Fuhrman that changed everything for him and took him to the professional level that he was seeking. Ed Fuhrman was the lead guitar player for the heavy metal band, “Hades.” It was Ed who helped him learn all aspects of music theory including classical, jazz, blues, rock and of course Heavy Metal.

J.R spent most of his young days in bands that never really went anywhere. J.R. spent most of his beginning years writing his own songs and developing his own style for writing songs, riffs, and leads. It was not until 2008 that he met with Jimmy, Terry, Shane, and Ed of Beyond Redemption, from Newburgh, NY. J.R. joined the band and spent about a year with them.. According to J.R. “I love those guys from Beyond Redemption. They taught me a lot about hardcore music and how to get the crowd moving. “ Unfortunately for Beyond Redemption, they had to split up.

After Beyond Redemption, J.R. joined 4 in the Chamber. 4 in the Chamber allowed J.R to get the live experience that he needed, and was fortunate enough to play all over NY, NJ & Puerto Rico. It was in 4 in the Chamber that he met with Bobby Brazen and the two of them shared the same musical vision. After a conversation with their band mates concerning 4 In The Chamber’s future it was mutually decided this was no longer the place for Bobby Brazen or J.R.

Slam One Down was created in June of 2009 with its members Bobby Brazen, J.R., Scotty, and Roach. The bands goal was to bring together all different types of metal and hardcore with party-like hell-raising attitude. The music speaks for itself.

J.R.

www.myspace.com/slamonedown

Roach

The man known as Roach McPoach has been playing music since he was 10. Starting out with the clarinet and eventually branching out into the conga drums and saxophone, he was already on his way to making a name for himself when at age 11 he performed at Carnegie hall. The next year he had the privilege of playing conga drums with the legendary Tito Puente during a performance at Lehman College in the Bronx. After being accepted into Fiorello H. Laguardia high school for performing arts, Roach performed many times at Alice Tully Hall and Lincoln Center and even performed for events such as the ABC fall release party and art auctions. During his high school years, he played in various orchestras and groups, taking time away from percussion to focus on his clarinet playing. He spent two years at Mannes prep college where he learned composition and played in the orchestra. He attended Queens College where he lived music. Music History, Music Theory, Composition, playing in the orchestra and even conducting were some of the classes he took. After transferring to Lehman College, Roach felt like he needed a change. He had done everything he possibly could with the clarinet and he felt the need to go back to something he loved but left a long time ago. The drum. After two years of lessons, Roach had learned enough to start picking up marching band jobs, playing military style snare and bass drum. After a year of marching in parades, Roach joined his first band, an industrial band. It was the first step toward something he wanted to do all his life. Through the next six years, Roach has laid a path of destruction, leaving no stick unbroken, leaving no drum unbeaten. Through a chance meeting on an Internet networking site, Roach crossed paths with Slam One Down. Just like serendipity, it seems it was destiny for Roach to meet this band at this time. With the chops of all his years playing, all the different bands he’s participated in, Roach has finally arrived into something that he truly enjoys. He currently plays with a brass band in the city and still does the military marches, but his first love will always be metal and Slam One Down is the band that gives him what he enjoys most.