Tag: Minnesota

Malice The Band That Almost Killed Us All

This is the 2nd story I wrote working at DFF Magazine in 1991 for their August issue.

Malice isn’t one of those bands that was poised on the threshold of Fame, but never made it to the Big Time. Malice is a band that most people don’t remember and theres a reason for that. You see  Malice’s rise to International Fame was extremely rapid. In fact it was so rapid its considered a once in a lifetime phenomenon in the Music Industry. That combined with their Hardcore intensity on and off the stage Malice crammed a full 20 year career of Sex, Drugs and Rock’n Roll into just 2.  Malice was the epitome of “Live Fast, Die Young, and Leave a Good Looking Corpse.”

The Story of Malice started in Slaughters Kentucky when Drummer Robbie Rage met Bassist Vic Vile while they both were attending The Gus Hubbard School of the Vocational Arts. Rage was there learning the in and outs of welding while Vile was there learning the fine art of Landscape Maintenance. The two quickly became inseparable friends and decided to start a band together a Black Metal duo called Aborted Faith.

Vile managed to get  Aborted Faith a weekly gig on Friday Night’s at Lane’s Lanes a near by neighboring Bowling Ally. The Aborted Faith was going no where fast as playing in a cramped corner of the Bowling Ally Bar hidden behind a heavy cloud of cigarette smoke. Further more the open concept meant the band was constantly drowned out by the continuing Bowlers.

It was at one of these shitty shows when future guitarist Gar Fisch got stupid drunk and wondered over to where the band was playing and started playing along with them on air guitar. After the show Rage and Vile had a brief meeting and then promptly asked Fisch to join the band. Fisch took the guys up on their offer with one exception that they ditch the Black Metal schtick in favor of becoming a Hardcore Punk Band. Rage and Vile agreed to Fisch’s condition and their new band Stank Breath was Born.

Stank Breath went on to build up a local fan base by playing house party’s and by winning every “Battle of the Bands” that they entered. Stank Breath Shows were known be raucously violent fueled by Fisch’s outrageous stage antics (such as shoving high powered fireworks in his ass Actual M-80’s for example and lighting them) catapulted the Band even farther words fame. The only issue the band had was that they all seriously sucked at singing. After a late night of drinking Rage introduced the idea of hiring a singer to which both Gar and Vile agreed. So they put an Ad in a small music magazine, sat back, cracked a beer, lit a joint, and waited. Instead of getting plenty of replies by people who were no better vocalists than the rest of the band, They got no replies at all.

Pissed off and confused Rage and Fisch went on a beer run and outside of the liquor store pan handling was a rather tall and slim man with long greasy hair wearing a leather biker’s jacket. The man asked for spare change   as the two exited the store Fisch asked what the man needed money for to which the Man told Fisch he needed the money for Beer and Smokes. On a whim Rage asked the Man if by any chance he could sing worth a damn. As it turned out He could so Rage asked the Man his name and if he would be interested in joining the band. The Man said his name was Von Dire and since he had nothing better to do than beg for beer money he’d be glad to join the band.

It was after Dire’s joining the band in January 1988 that it once again changed their musical style to Heavy Metal and name to Malice. Not long after the switch Malice was killing it at the Minnesota “Battle of the Bad Ass Bands” in when Dire literally bumped into Clive Mangina who was the front man for competing Hair Metal Band known as Rectal Invasion at one of the plentiful Beer and Booze stations. This lead to one of the most heated and out of control Rock’n Roll Rivalries of all time. You see Clive was a snark and bitter little man with a raging Napoleon Complex who took great exception to Dire accidentally staggering drunkly into him in line.

Clive called Fisch a “Drunk Dickhead” and Fisch hauled off and head butted Clive. Clive went down like a ton of bricks with blood pouring out of his now broken nose. At this point the other members of Rectal Invasion saw what was going on and jumped in. Fish undeterred by being out numbered (5 on 1 as Rectal Invasion in addition to 2 guitarists, singer,drummer and bassist had a keyboardist (I told you they were Hair Metal so what did you expect?!) Fisch put up a good fight but ultimately he was overpowered by his 5 advisories. Rage and Vile who were vomiting exited the bathroom and immediately came to their fellow band mates aid. Rage ran around kneeing every member of Rectal Invasion repeatedly n the balls until they vomited. Vile proceeded too break $182.99 of the Bar’s glassware over the various heads of the members of Rectal Invasion.Von Dire broke several chairs across the backs and over the heads of Rectal Invasions members.  When inevitably the Police showed up with Billy Clubs a blazing everyone scattered like roaches when the light is turned on.

In spite  of the brawl Malice went on to win the Minnesota’s “Battle of the Bad Ass Bands” and just their luck Jerry Jerkin the owner of a local Record label was in the audience. Jerkin fell head over heels for the Band and enthusiastically signed them to a 3 record deal on his label RatFuck Records. Now RatFuck Records was home of other small time bands such as The Young Cocksmen, Guttural, and Spit Shine. Right away Jerkin booked them on a 10 show tour opening for fellow label members The Salty Yogurt Slingers. The “Mad As Hell” tour was set to hit the road just 2 days after Malice signed their contracts, but that was no problem for Malice. The entire band had been couch surfing at friends places and owned next to nothing.

The “Mad as Hell” tour went so well that Jerkins called up The Salty Yogurt Slingers and told them that they would now be opening for Malice since Malice was a bigger draw at this point. The Salty Yogurt Slingers responded by quoting the tour on the spot under great protest. Malice went on to finish the second half of the tour on with another RatFuck Records band Grind Spine. Malice built a huge following and was expanding their fan base faster than a Crackhead at an all you can smoke Crack Buffet. By the time Malice ended the tour (in the first week of February) they had racked up a slew of business cards from much larger record label reps.

Stay Tuned For Malice Part 2 Posting Next…..

Thanks for Reading,

Les Sober 

The Tale of the Small Town MothMan Mural

When We moved from the Southern Swamp to the Southern Country one of the advantages of the move was there were several structures located out back behind our new home offices. There was a large one car garage which We unceremoniously designated for the usual trivial shit like  Lawn Mowers, Various garden tools, Paint cans, and for a few months 2 large puppies (who now have their own Dog House complete with Heater and Air Conditioning)

The second structure was a run of the mill silver, 10 foot high, 20 foot long, 8 foot wide, sheet metal shed supported by an internal  basic wooden frame. When We purchased the property the shithead previous owners failed to give us among many other things the keys to unlock said shed. We could see through the 4 small windows (2 per side) and do a very general assessment. From what we could see the only real issue other than getting a new lock was the plywood floor was rotten in 2 separate places and would need patching.

Once We got the shed lock changed and were able to enter the structure things looked as if the shed was worser for the wear than We had anticipated. Even if it needed more TLC than We thought it was still a viable option to be My Art Studio (Yes I paint and Draw in a variety of various mediums such as CharCoal or Oil Paints. I have recently decided that it is at this point in my life I will be pursuing Sculpting as creating a 3 dimensional project is going to be fucking awesome and intense.) The first thing I did was load it up with all my various art supplies (Canvases, Paints, Brushes, Assortment of Project Materials etc.), but the floor fix would take time, and I have NO PATIENCE, NON AT ALL. Its A Virtue I was born without and I’m totally fucking fine with that.

It took less than a day before I was wallowing in frustrated boredom and thought to myself that if I couldn’t currently use the shed I could still in the mean time decorate the outside. I drove to the local hardware store in the neighboring town and loaded up on Spray Paint big time. I had no idea what I was going to Paint on the side of the shed so first I selected which side I would do first. The rightsize of the shed made a small alleyway between it and the garage so space to work was limited. The same was true of the back of the shed even more so as our fence came in even closer proximity than the garaged and the sheds right wall. That left me with the choice of either the front or the left side of the shed to choose from. I chose the left side since it was bigger and had the best area in which to work.

I walked around the to the left side of the shed and stood there just looking at the shed without a thought in my mind waiting. It didn’t take long before an idea popped into my head MOTHMEN/MOTHMAN. Now before the first fool blurts out how much they loved the movie “The Mothman Prophecies” shut the fuck up. True it was a some what decent movie, but the Mothman is not solely limited to the Point Pleasant, West Virginia 1967 Silver Bridge Collapse that killed 46 people. The Mothman or Mothmen if you will have been seen in different areas before an impending disaster strikes such places as Chernobyl circling Reactor 4, before 9/11 in New York City, The I-35 Bridge Collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and The Swine Flue Outbreak in Mexico in 2009 for instance.

Now I don’t claim to believe or not believe in such things as UFO’s, Ghost’s, Monsters or Cryptozoology but it all fun food for thought because who actually knows, and all I’m saying is I don’t know. What I do know is I utterly LOVE UNDERDOGS and to me the Mothman is just that, The Underdog of Cryptozoology. The main debate surrounding the Mothman is simply this is the Mothman coming and bringing death/doom/disaster with it OR is the Mothman a supernatural being/creature that comes to WARN US of immediate impending danger?! I hold with the latter of the two believes myself. It all added up to a quick decision that the mural I’d Spray Paint on the side of the shed would be The Mothman. (Yet myths, legends and lore interest me to no end ever fueling the fires of my undying curiosity.)

I should take a moment to add that the left side of the shed faced the street in a small neighborhood in a tiny town located along the Bible Belt. For this reason and this reason alone I wrote “Mothman” across its chest because while the Mothman was enough to turn many a head I didn’t want (nor need for that matter) for the locals to think the new guy was painting Devils or Demons on the side of his shed.

In a few days the Mothman was finished and I decided the silver background was fucking up my visual of the Mothman. I thought about background colors to use (My wife suggested blue and I should have listened, but I was thinking Navy Blue not say Sky Blue) and some how I chose Orange. On top of using Orange for the background I used a VERY DEEP AND INTENSE shade only to realize when it was all said and done the Orange background made it look more demonic than I’d liked or intended. I didn’t want to change the mural so Mothman with Orange background and all remained vigilantly watching the passerby on the road for months.

Unfortunately upon a proper inspection of the shed, the shed was found to be structurally unsound. The floor was completely shot and would need total replacement. The supporting wood infrastructure was compromised beyond belief. This was apparently due to the fact the previous owner had tried to wire up the shed with electricity themselves and fucked it up causing a fucking fire. The fire had burned a majority of the roof supports right through so if you tapped on them with a hammer they disintegrated.

I called my contractor and informed him that the shed was shot and I’d need his help tearing it down so as We could replace it. 3 or4 days later my contractor showed up with a small handful of workers who set off demolishing the rickety old shed. It only took them a few mere hours to reduce the standing structure into piles of scrap.

That evening I was talking on the phone to my Brother in the Great Northern New Yonder and he asked what was new. I told him about the failing inspection of the doomed shed and that it had been torn down and hauled off. I also told him that for a split second I thought about asking my contractor if the Mothman Mural could be salvaged, but in the end I just let it go. My Brother started laughing, not in an at me type manner, but a “He hasn’t figured it out yet” kind of way. Once he paused to catch his breath I asked him what he found so fucking amusing about the whole ordeal?! I had spent all the time and effort to paint the Mothman mural just to have it crushed and carted away in the end.  He responded by saying that if I believed the Mothman was a Warning of impending danger, then painted one on the side of the shed, and then ultimately the shed met its demise then it followed my Mothman belief to a tee.

I couldn’t help laughing because he was dead right. A dilapidated shed, a Mothman Mural painted upon it, and 4 moths later the shed and the mural are gone having been destroyed in the dismantling process.

 

Thanks For Das Read,

Les Sober