Metal Madness Night at Gilman Street

January 31, 1998. Metal Night at Gilman Street featuring Creeping Death, Rocket Queens, Iron Vegan, Motley Jews, American Metal, Schnozzy, Anal Tap. As the list of bands may indicate, this was intended to be a showcase of punk bands doing interpretations of their favorite metal band. I was under the assumption that ever-jaded Gilman-sters were the last people to appreciate and respect a tribute to heavy metal, but when 400 people packed the place I stood corrected. The show was listed as a metal show, so I was excited when tons of real-life hessions showed up clueless to the fact that this was "punk" club, and they were confused why they were getting in for a dollar off ("…but I didn't dress up!). In all honesty, the clientel looked no different from a Spastic Children show at The Omni back in, say, 1987: the bulk of the audience were trashy metalheads, dawned in denim, hightops, and a shitload of hair, while the rest were either dirty punkers or flaming glam-rockers.

I missed Anal Tap, but the next band, Schnozzy (Astrollyd in disguise), were amazing. The outfits were good, but their incredible reproduction of the songs made their clothes and blood-spurting teddy bears and headless bats and bags of cocaine go almost unnoticed. Their final song, Mr Crowley had lighters aflame and even our very own Mikey on the Casio.American Metal were actually the least metal band of the night. They played Motorhead songs, which is punk enough as it is, but they didn't dress up. They did do a decent sounding rendition, but it just wasn't schticky enough.

Motley Jews (Wet-Nap) easily made up for the schticki-ness by bringing fire, booze, masterful recreations of costume, and overdoses into their set.

All proceeds go to get their lead singer out of jail.

Is it safe to say "Tommy Lee" is now an official penis-size?

Shortly before Nikki overdosed and was carried off-stage in convulsions.

All was forgotten, though, when Iron Vegan (Neurosis, Lost Goat) hit the stage. They were DEAD-FUCKING-ON. The band was note for note, like Schnozzy, but the two guitars just bowled the place over. Scott from Neurosis had the 3-fingure-gallop and Steve Harris bass-hoist DOWN. DAMN, they were so good.

Notice the bass posture.

Powerslave to machine?

This is Pete-sa's favorite shot, so I'm throwing it in. This guy did some kick-ass solos.

This naturally made us pretty nervous, I mean, they were a pretty tough act to follow. I'll just say that, whether we Rocked or not, girls were on guys shoulders taking their tops off in full arena-Rock fashion. And, being that we only played selections from "Appetite For Destruction" there was no room for poof.

Look at how aggro that guy in the white shirt is getting. You'd think he was too drunk to notice we were just a cover band.		For authenticity's sake, Mikey even took up smoking for the night so that he may better emulate Izzy's persona.. What a dick!
Notice Asshole had pants so tight he could only bend at the waist.
		It's always like The Man is Out To Get Me.

Creeping Death (A Minor Forest) have impressed me beyond words when they play even their normal songs, but when they played Metallica songs as a three-piece, I was left spellbound. Unfortunately, they decided to add another guitar player and a singer, and instead of amazing us, they sounded dirty more like a Mission band than a talented understudy of Metallica. But hey, they played nothing after Master of Puppets-era Metallica and that is a good thing. Oh, and they didn't really dress up that much so I don't have any good pictures of them.