We had no idea what to expect and the crowd was huge and knew our songs even singing along.. we drove all night from Portland to get there arriving at noon 12 hours later in the 'city by the bay' unloaded our wall of amps and Deen's giant drumkit and set off on a foot tour of the city. On road trips we would travel in 2 vans, Jeff took the guitar and bass cabs and Danny and Jesse our soundman and the drums and the road crew piled in with me and Deen in the 'Zoo Bus' Kip Doran who had recently moved back up from living in northern California for a few years was our guide in and around the city Brian Murphy our lighting guy and Deen's drumtech Bill the show incluided Culprit headlining and Mike Varney;s band Cinema who featured harry Carry on vocals and Pet Marino ( later fronting Le mans and Cacophony) MTV was on hand to film the show and use it for a follow up to varney;s appearance on the 'new Music TV network looking for guitarists where most of the US METAL VOL 2 compilation bands came from this segment Culprit came down from Seattle and i think they already had a following this show is historical in that it was the FIRST gig to feature shrapnel artists and also meeting the soon to be very well kown group of fanzine and magazine publishers and the writers who covered the bands KJ Doughton from NW METAL had done an interview with Matt McCourt and Brian Lew Ron Quintana Bil Hale were on hand taking notes and shooting photos this was the beginning of upper west coast metal Deen Castronovo a 17 year old drummer with immense talent Had played large arenas with his band the Enemy prior to this but the rest of us had only played in clubs The Stone was a theatre with graded seating and the place right on the main drag across from the mabuhay gardens with strip clubs and porn shops lining the streets with their barkers outside haling customers and a burger joint that was exactly like the skit on Sat Night live ( Cheeseburger pepsi) Cinema was on first with a guitar solo by Brad Gillis clad in a spandex jumpsuit in powder blue ( i had no idea it was him til Geoff Thorpe of Vicious rumors reminded me ) then we took the stage and BAM! off we go.. we rehearsed in Danny Kurth's basement bedroom at his parent's house., a cozy 7 foot ceiling and a room that was 8 x 10 ( jeff insisted on using 2 marshall cabs and 2 heads and danny not to be out done 2 svt cabs... ( Deen was so loud they needed that gear) I had never been a lead singer before only a bassist or a guitar and singing fond of Daltrey i practiced swinging the mic by it's cord in the backyard ... and got quite proficient at not hitting myself in the head and practice the prowling the stage bit.. something not possible after deen brought in his 'symphony of drums' ( we managed to talk him out of bringing the Timpani drum(S) on this trip.. As a band we had never considered playing any live gigs when this recording school needed a band to record we were just out of work 20 something year olds and a fee demo in a studio was a big deal (no home recording was available like today) so we do the gig it goes down like a house on fire and scottt earl the bassist form Culprit offers us a gig in a week up in Seattle i had never been to the emerald city but i knew groups who came down to Portland to gig when i was a teenager who would load in gear for them they always seemed alot more professional than the local bands we got excited for that and the line up was TKO who were very popular and well known at the time Brad Sinsel the lead singer was deinfitely a real Rockstar awesome peformer and culprit and Geoff Tate's band before Queensryche Myth i don't think we gave it much thought BUT we were smack dab in the middle of a 'Happening' the beginning of a great run that would eventually spit out a few dozen bands and players that would make it up past the rim some slam dunkin it like our Deen who has been in the drum seat for Journey for nearly 2 decades and before that a list of luminaries that ARE the top of their league... very excitng time and THIS record is where it all began... The KGThis is a new, unopened CD in its original packaging.
