Music And Comics: Anthrax

On Saturday nights while I was growing up, Headbangers Ball was a tradition and I would sit there, transfixed. Metal is my preferred music form. I love all music and can find something to enjoy in any genre, but metal is where it’s at. My father encouraged this, gifting me his extensive record collection when he had to move to a studio apartment, which means I had the first four Black Sabbath records before my tenth birthday. Every Led Zeppelin album. Blue Cheer. It feels like I came out of the womb throwing up the horns.

3-2-1 Contact was one of my absolute favorites growing up. My memory is quite hazy on the show except for one small clip they aired. The only reason it has stuck with me all these years later is that it led to my very first musical epiphany. Time-lapsed camerawork was used to show what went into setting up a KISS concert. It starts with an empty stadium and finishes with KISS taking the stage. They fascinated me. Who were these living cartoons? How did the guitar player shoot fireworks out of his instrument? That one guy is really tall and scary in a cool way. I do not remember which parent I asked, but it was probably my dad. We went to Sears with my meager allowance savings and purchased my first album, KISS Alive. Just for reference, my next two purchases were The Muppet Movie soundtrack and a Ktel compilation called Solid Gold, because it had Devo’s Whip It and that Shaddupyouface song. That album was the first place I heard Blondie.

That did it. I can legitimately claim to be a twenty-seven year KISS fan. For years, KISS Alive was the only KISS I knew until my first cd player, when I took my gift certificate to Music Plus and traded it for KISS Double Platinum and Van Halen’s 1984. KISS gets a considerable amount of flak for being merchandising whores, arguably deservedly so, but they do not get much credit for being solid songwriters. If one gets past the make-up and the glitz, there are some very good pop songs in there. Hey, I hate Beth as much as anyone, but songs like Love Gun, Black Diamond, and 10000 Years are catchy as all get out. Ace is a phenomenal lead guitar player when sober, Gene, for all his ego and weird quirks, is a funky, Motown-inspired bass player, Paul has an amazing range vocally, and Peter is a talented drummer and underrated singer in his own right.

Next up for devotion was Iron Maiden. My dad had a poster on the back of his front door of Eddie, Maiden’s mascot, ripping through the wall that stretched its entire length. I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen in my life. I asked him about it, but he didn’t now more than the fact that it was an Iron Maiden. They were a bit too heavy for his tastes. He just liked the art. This is actually a pivotal point in my development for both music and comics. A few years earlier, I had contracted the dreaded chicken pox. At this time, I was living with my grandparents and quarantined to the front room, which had no television. Boredom and I became very close during that time. My father came to visit and changed my life forever. He brought with him comic books, Amazing Spider-man, Avengers, and an Archie Digest, to help me pass the time. I had never seen such things. Reading and writing have always been dear things in my life, but reading with pictures?

I probably read those books one hundred times and just had to have more. See, my dad had read comics as a kid and thought I would like them. Boy was he right. So much so that I eventually helped manage my local comic store, Ralph’s Comic Corner, for a couple of years and still shop there every week. He did not still read the mainstream stuff but was an avid collector of Heavy Metal and some underground books, mostly Gilbert Shelton, all of which eventually became mine when he moved. A short time later, he started letting me read said Heavy Metals and Wonder Wort-Hogs, around the same time as the Iron Maiden door poster question. Curiosity is one of my better traits and television came to my rescue.

I started avidly watching Headbangers Ball and that is where the door question was answered. The video shown was Run To The Hills. Grainy black and white footage of cowboys fighting Native Americans interspersed with performance footage of Iron Maiden. Driving music with amazing vocals was sunk into me like a fish hook into flesh. The next day, I took what savings I had again to Music Plus and bought Live After Death. Ever since Alive, I have preferred live recordings, culminating in having a decent bootleg collection and an extensive live cd and dvd library. Live is where I live. Usually, it is a good way to get the hits and, in my opinion, if a band cannot pull it off live, they are not worth my time.

The Ball was also responsible for introducing me to my favorite band. Due to my steady diet of Moebius art and mostly buying my comic books from direct market shops like Ralph’s Comic Corner and Livery Books or scouring the back issue bins used book store Second Time Around or strange catch-all downtown store Truebloods, I was more willing to go outside of the mainstream and try out independent comics. Judge Dread, Grendel, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles became steady reads. That is when I saw it. A video came on that had been filmed live. It was metal and fast. The singer’s vocal style was similar to Bruce Dickinson, lead singer for Iron Maiden. They panned to the lead guitar player and he had Donatello, Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo decorating his flying v. Then they cut to the other guitar player and that image is what sold me: Judge Dread adorning the entire back half of the body of his guitar. Comics featured in a metal band!

At the store the next day, I examined their cassettes. By this time, my two constant companions were my mountain bike and my Walkman. I went everywhere with them. The first Anthrax tape I bought was Among The Living and it was the song title “I Am The Law” that sold me. Listening to it on the way home, I discovered that not only were they comics geeks but wrote songs about Stephen King stories I liked. I have never looked back and have stuck with them ever since. In fact, my dream guitar sound is what Scott Ian uses: clear and heavy with a lot of bottom end. He is my favorite guitar player. Unfortunately, I have never seen them live, but not for lack of trying. I won two tickets to see them when they were touring with Public Enemy and Primus. My best friend and bass player in FERN, Lance, offered to buy a friend of ours a ticket to the show if he drove us, as we were not quite old enough to drive. He agreed. We got the ticket and waited. He never showed. The following Monday at school, our now-former friend was on the receiving end of a black eye. I punched someone in the face for Anthrax.

The San Diego Comic-Con has been the source of several great memories for me, but one of the best is the year of the Mr. Show reunion panel. The panel itself was full of silliness but that is not the memorable part. On the way out, I see Brian Posehn walking down the hallway. Next to him is a short bald man with a large goatee. It was Scott Ian! I stopped in my tracks. All I could do was point and say “Holy shit!” He looks over, says “What’s up, man?” and flashes me the metal sign. My second greatest Comic-Con moment is getting the horns from my guitar hero.