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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.