It’s always a blessing, as any working band will tell you, when you have one of those nights when everything falls into place. And that is because they so rarely happen. A night when every thing goes smooth. The venue sounds great, your gear is humming and the band is tight. The show is sold out and so is your merchandise. Everything clicks. Unfortunately this night was not one of those nights. Oh quite the contrary my dear friends, instead of things falling into place, they were just falling into the depths of the abyss, and we stumbled through the night as if tripping on rocks on the edge of the mouth of hell.

    But this story’s roots run deeper than just one night’s misfortune; otherwise it could be chalked up to one very lousy gig. No, the tentacles of the forces at hand, that culminated in the events on the night in which I speak, stretched and squirmed to snare us far earlier. We felt their first clammy touch when news came that all the other bands were being canceled for this venue and we were doomed to be on that list. And oh, if only we had heeded this unforeseen fortune of divine providence. Mabee then the monsters grip would have loosened, satisfied with its treachery. But we, like the foolhardy fighters of forces unknown that we are; arrogant in our cloak of metal bravado, shrugged off the chill of doom and persuaded the booker to keep our show.  I will recap, to the best of my literary ability, the events that led up to, and occurred on the night in question.

     As the days grew short and the day of the show draws near, our sense of foreboding does not decrease but hightens. One of the worst things for any performing act is to have one of it's members be incapacitated, with illness or injury. Three days before the show I'm facing the reality of a head cold, and what could potentially turn into a nasty case of laryngitis, as has so often plagued me in the past. Like Van Helsing preparing for battle with the undead, I attack this with everything in my arsenal, from handfuls of vitamins to copious amounts of chicken soup. The day of the show comes, and I'm still feeling as if those insidious tentacles glimpsed earlier are now tightly wrapped around my throat. Yet luckily their damage to my vocal chords I’ve managed to hold at bay. The oracles of our local weather station threaten us with rain and did not disappoint. Loading up the trailer goes smoothly though soggy, and roadies and band member alike are all on time and geared up to go. As we get underway Bill, our recording guy tonight, phoned us to let us know he was short a few mic cables, so we swing by to pick them up for him. Jim turns up the radio. During a newsbreak the announcer informs us that our intended route is now blocked buy an accident, so we divert our course to take a longer way around. A moment later the announcement continues with notice of yet another accident and detour in our path. So far so good, after all, we aren’t IN the accident this time (see trailer of tears part 2).

    We arrive at the club and scope the place out, taking time to gorge ourselves on what was left of the red meat of the animal sacrifice at the free buffet. We approached the bar and ordered our first round of drinks. We are told that they are going to be running us a tab. Nope, no free drinks for the band in this case (guess they know musicians pretty well). We are wondering if we will have to make a classic Blues Brothers ‘drink and dash’ at closing time. Very coincidentally at that moment, someone in the bar cues up a country song on the jukebox and we all agree emphatically that we wished we knew ‘Rawhide’.

Shuffling out into the rainy night, we and our crew gather around the rear of the trailer. I get a strange shiver that runs up and down me as I watch the light of passing cars glittering off the wet pavement like the eyes of scurrying rats. I attribute it to a rush of cool humid air. Jim tugs at the roll-up trailer door. Then again. Tim gives it a try, but it’s sealed tighter than a rusted dungeon door. Tug and kick as they might at the large steel door; unseen fingers hold their grip. A quick ‘séance’ is held to devise a plan. Ideas such as crowbars, explosives and black magic are bandied about. Tim gives the door one more try and as mysteriously as the door held fast, it now gives way allowing access. We all breathe a sigh of relief, not wanting to have had to face the prospect of breaking into a rented trailer.

     We haul the gear into the club and proceed to set up the stage. Space is tight and we do the sparring dance of a typical stage crew positioning drums, stands, and speakers. Bill and I run cable, and in the limited space the floor is wrything with them like a carpet of black and orange snakes. He grabs a large roll of yellow tape and begins the task of subduing them. Tim and our rodie Will get behind the drumkit and assemble the frame that holds the large black banner bearing our logo. I dig in my bag for the banner hooks I had packed with my spare strings. Strings come out, pedals come out.... I dig down into the cavernous recesses of the black bag. Where are the hooks? I think back and see clearly in my mind's eye my hand placing them in the bag, thinking they were safe from the prying slimy tendrils of our unseen nemesis. Tim’s resourcefulness comes to call as he strings the banner up with electrical tape.

   The space we are given as our stage is an awkward long run on the far side of the bar and we are concerned about getting and decent mix on the PA. We look forward to doing a sound check until we find we don't get one. Our anticipated sound check is now a black bat, in the dark and on the fly. We set things up and hope for the best. I place my plastic flaming skull prop on top of my amp and give it a kiss for luck  (if I had know how much I would have need it I would have given him tongue) then wait for the ok to start our show.

    I go out to the van to grab our setlist. I had been in the processes of rewriting it at our last show and planned to finish this task now. I grab the 4 sheets of paper. One with my previous scribblings, two blank sheets, and the original list. Only this time there exists my scratch paper, three blank sheets, and no setlist! What the hell is this? I fumble aghast as my brain tries to comprehend how the same setlist from the previous week was now nothing but a blank white sheet of paper! What demonic hand had erased, so irrevocably, the writing on that page? I show my band mates this new phenomenon and every one shakes their heads in disbelief.  I could no longer assume the explanation of the cold chill running down my spine as a result of the damp night air. Now I know. I sense what evil lurks and stalks us and has been plotting against us for the past week, perhaps waiting since time began, its existence and conception perhaps for this purpose alone and us and here and now. I warn those around me the best I can; " Something seriously weird is going on here! Something else bad is going to happen! Something is going to break or go down!" My premonition is scoffed at. Oh the fools! The hapless fools!

    I casually stroll over to the bar and order a plain glass of ice-water, gathering mental motivation for the looming task at hand. As I stand waiting for my water to be poured, I hear the hushed sound of shrouded voices behind me. Whispered words of ‘cutting’ float through the smoky air. Cutting? Cutting what? Not only what, but whom? I turn to glare at the source of these emanations. They tell me, while grinning like cheshire cats, that they are beauticians and would love to get their hands on my hair and cut it. The only sound I can utter at this disturbing scenario a rather loud and somewhat high-pitched “EEEWWW!” as I ran to the safety of my guitars from these Barberesses of Seville.

   Our hour is at hand and we take the stage.  Despite confusion with the newly rearranged songlist, we are playing well, and the raised hairs on the back of my neck start to smooth. My feeling of ease was short lived for new terrors awaited us. Tim declares a tribute to the satanic as we launch into 'Hells Bell' by AC/DC, a crowd favorite. How often since the mummified hand have I warned the others not to invoke dark spirits! Half way into the song, my amplifier lets out a super sonic squealing and the room if filled with the sound of a wailing banshee, bent on our ear's destruction. I nearly jump out of my skin and wheel round toward my now possessed amp in shock and horror. I, and our roadie Will, scramble to find the source of the problem. Just when we think it’s licked and I continue playing, the screeching and howling returns again and again. By now the patrons closest to this nightmarish cacophony are holding their ears, with grimaces of pain wracking their faces. We try unplugging every thing and shutting it down but the demons that have invaded my amp (no doubt minions of the invisible squid-like creature from the pit that stalks us) are have having themselves a damn good time. "Boy that Sonicide sure knows how to throw a party!" I can hear them laugh and giggle in their deafening, squealing cackle. In desperation I grab my whole amp, head and all, and shake and pound it violently, screaming back unintelligible insults in an attempt to perform an impromptu metal exorcism all the while wondering when pea soup will start flying out of my speakers.

    Every patron of the bar is now also staring toward the stage in shock and horror at this violent other worldly display of the battling forces of evil and, well, not so evil. During this battle Jim is fighting one of his own on the other side of the stage. With the sweep of the hand of some ghostly specter, something flings half the stuff off of an overhanging stone ledge, dumping everything including a large drink on to his wireless rig and other gear, amazingly with no ill effects! But then he is the Sinister Minster and by rights is benefited by some measure of supernatural protection.

   With my amp’s power shut down, we announce that we are taking a break due to 'technical difficulties'. I can see we are not fooling anyone as I spy a dark-haired lady at the back of the bar making the sign of the cross and hurrying out the far door. At this point I too consider getting some religion but would have even settled for a string of garlic. We take time to enjoy this short respite, and while the guys mingle I belly up to the bar. I order a drink and sit slumped over it stirring it as if conjuring a witch’s brew hoping this magic elixir could calm my frayed nerves and ward off evil spirits (and I don't mean cheap liquor!).

     Back to the dilemma at hand, Bill, Will and I ponder the mystery of the noise from beyond and change cables, pedals, and settings. Stripped down to nothing but a Boss Overdrive pedal, the rig stays remarkably inconspicuous the rest of the night. We settle back into the groove and play a ripping rendition of War Pigs. I throw my fist in the air and shout  “Never say die!” triumphantly at having thwarted my sonic adversary.

   Possessions of one form or another continue through the rest of night with the frantic contortions of members of the audience as they get in front of the stage (of what little room there was) for some moshing, with one wild fan even licking my microphone stand. Hey there are bones on it and we did kinda wipe out the buffet before he got there. (hee hee)   :)

   What turned out to be our last song of the night, though not the last in our intended set was a happy little ditty titled 'Touch of Evil' from our upcoming CD 'Rip'. A spooky plodding metal blues tune born of the dark inner workings of Rev Jim’s creative songwriting cranium. I really get into it, eyes shut, rolled in my head. I am in shred heaven now, swept up in the singing wires beneath my fingers, pouring all the agony of a lifetime of tribulations into my sweet resonating aurora of sound. As I look up with the last dying note, I see the club is empty, our audience vanished, like a dissipated fog, or perhaps disintegrated by the fires of hell.  I check the floor for ashes as I wind back up what now, with the night waning and every fiber of my being aching with fatigue, seems like miles of cable and stow them away for the next gig.  Perhaps the people were never really there, the club is actually closed and they were just ghosts. Mabee this club isn’t really here anymore and this is some sort of supernatural mirage of a club that burned down years ago. I chuckle to my self at these musings as I break down the PA.

  Our weary troupe, moving understandably a little slower than when we arrived, talk amongst ourselves as we pack cases and carry out the drums. We share our versions of the events that took place this night as if reassuring each other that they really did happen and weren’t just imagined.

   Gear packed we head off, the wheels of our van splashing through deep moats of water left by the previous deluge (that no doubt fed the strength of our unseen tentacled horror) as we exit the venues parking lot. We ride a while in silence and again reiterate some of the scares of the evening, now able to laugh and joke, and even come up with a fitting poem in response.

    In the morning as we unload the trailer and prepare it for its return to it’s place of origin, we divvy up last nights spoils. We also notice that there is merchandise unaccounted for. The agonizing wails of my amplifier from the night before echo in my memory as I picture little gremlins on the other side of our reality, dancing around in their pilfered Sonicide T-shirts, moshing to our CD. I shudder and write it off as a loss

   And with this I contemplate now, as I narrate this to you, what strange mysterious the universe may hold. I do recall tales and biblical passages that make reference to dark overloads from another dimension, older than recorded time. Entities with names such as Magog and Yogsothoth, which, when conditions are right, can be called forth once again into our dimension to rule over us. I wonder which of these it was we dueled with in our brief encounter. And I thank the gods of metal that the sonic bombast of Sonicide drove them back from whence they came.

Or did it?