Part VII: Limbo
Chapter Forty-Nine
In the summer of 1999, I had a second job working at Office Depot in Charlottesville. I came up with an idea for a new style of music which I would christen “Gorecore” and it would be so heavy it would make Fear Factory quit music and become grocery baggers and would have lyrics so gory it would make Slipknot puke. The pioneering band for this new music would be called Pain.com. I only wrote a couple of actual songs, but had plenty of ideas for song titles such as “The Margin Of Terror,” “On Your ‘Cide,” (as in homicide, suicide, genocide…you get the picture…) “Beyond Agony,” and “The Slow And Horrible Death Of (Your Name Here)” among others. I also had a couple of ideas for album covers, which I got from Gore Gallery on the Internet. One was a girl who had been mauled by a dog and half of her face was missing. The other was of a guy who had jumped from a very tall building and had splattered on the sidewalk. I called it “Legends Of The Fall.”
There was one song that I liked more than the others. I called it “Last Man Standing (The New Eden).” I came up with it while at work in a roof truss factory, and kept it in my head until I could get to my guitar. I never wrote any lyrics. I never had to. They were written three years later by someone else.
Chapter Fifty
I didn’t do a whole lot musically for the next couple of years. In early 2000 I got a job in the entertainment industry. Well, sort of. I worked for Technicolor, which manufactured CDs and DVDs. Everyone there thought I was a devil worshipper because I was always wearing black jeans and heavy metal t-shirts. At least they hadn’t seen me when I had my hair dyed black too.
I was always singing songs there that I’d made up, usually on the spot, using the alarms on the machines as backup instruments. There were classics such as “Don’t Touch Me There,” “Don’t Say Goodbye,” (I was told I sounded like a singer named Radney Foster when I sang that) and “Cafeteria Lady.” The funny thing about these songs is that they’re all country. I would also translate a lot of rock songs into country. Imagine Alan Jackson singing Def Leppard’s “Photograph” or Travis Tritt singing AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells.” Pretty damned funny if you think about it.
Chapter Fifty-One
In early 2001, Kelly and I left Charlottesville for the little town of Shenandoah, which is about five miles north of Elkton. I was sick while we were packing up, and possibly a little depressed. I started writing a song called “Out” in the week before we left. It was one of the mellowest and musically disturbing songs I had written so far. The chords by themselves would sound horrible, but within the context of the song, they were perfect.
I was further saddened by the news that Jason Newsted had left Metallica and I spent seven moths in intense emotional therapy. I’m just kidding. I figured it would happen sooner or later, and I knew my heroes would not quit because of that.
I continued writing a song here and there and creating other ‘bands’ such as “Nihilistic Choirboys” until I came up with another killer idea. I would create a punk band and call it “Nerve.” The catch to this band was that the song titles would all be spelled out by the chord progression in the song itself. The first song I wrote with this idea was called “G.E.D.” and the chords to the main verses were G, E, and, you guessed it…D. The second was called “Faded” with the verse chords being F,A,D,E and D. I really liked that one. The other songs on the ‘album’ existed in title only, such as “Bad,” “Dead Fag,” (fag being used in the Australian sense meaning a cigarette) and “Face.”
I also wrote what Kelly says is one of my best songs ever while living there. It was called “Skinny Machine.” I was at work at Technicolor one day when I walked past one of the machines and told it that it was too skinny and needed to eat something, at which point I started singing “Skinny machiiiiine” in a high voice. Everyone also thought I was on drugs, which I hadn’t touched in over five years at this point. I just have a very whacked sense of humor that not everyone understands, sometimes not even me. So I went home, wrote the song and recorded it. Kelly loved it. Another friend at work told me she thought it would be a hit. Of course, I’ve never tested it. One of these days, maybe…
Chapter Fifty-Two
There were a few musicians at Technicolor that I jammed with on occasion, but it wasn’t until late 2001, a couple of weeks before Christmas that I met AJ Lipa, a drummer from Detroit. He met his girlfriend over the Internet and moved to Shenandoah. He was ten years my senior. Unlike a lot of drummers I’ve met, he actually had a drum kit. He noticed me playing air guitar one day and asked if I really played.
I’ll preface my response by giving a little background. Everyone at work had a badge with their picture in a little clear vinyl pocket, which we were supposed to wear. Most of the people there had pictures of their kids or grandkids on display on the blank side of the pocket. I had a picture of my guitar. People would be showing their pictures to each other, and I’d ask ‘Do you want to see my baby?’ and they’d say ‘Yeah!’ and then I’d show them the picture of my guitar.
Needless to say, I showed him the picture of my baby.
We started talking about music, discovering a mutual respect for Frank Zappa’s music among other things. He turned out to be a nut job in his own right. Sometimes I seemed downright normal by comparison. I figured I had to jam with him at some point.
Around the same time AJ started, a new technician came aboard Starship Technicolor named Brian Bernard. He was a singer.
I started to get an idea.
To Part VIII
Home
