Noise Pollution #17: Songs of Summer Pt II: The Season of Sodom
I don’t know what really brought it along, but sometime after we recorded Rise of the Imperial Hordes I started listening to old thrash more than I had in awhile. I’d been into the big three German bands (Kreator, Destruction and Sodom in case you weren’t already aware), Celtic Frost, Bathory, and Venom for about as long as I had been into underground metal, and it coexisted nicely with my death and black metal CDs, but never really stuck out. Then, around late winter/early spring I’d decided I was taking a bus trip to upstate New York to visit a friend with the intent of going to NYC at some point and meeting a girl. While preparing for this, I decided to make a mixtape with some of the shit I didn’t listen to constantly as a change of pace since I was going to be in a Greyhound for five or six hours. I don’t remember everything I had on but I know I kicked it off with a song off a bootleg of Tormentor‘s Seventh Day of Doom that was recorded from a seventh generation dub judging by the sound of it. The title was Branded the Satan, which years later I learned was wrong (it’s either “with” or “by,” depending on the release) and it remains a favorite.
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I even made sure to find a rip from the actual bootleg because I want to give you the most authentic experience possible.
I wasn’t too big on Anno Domini, but there was something about Seventh Day of Doom that really grabbed me. I think it really reminded me of the “unreleased Mayhem tracks” that were on the Mayhem/Thou Shalt Suffer bootleg that ended up really being Zemial‘s brilliant Sleeping Under Tartarus EP, just recorded from another seventh generation dub.
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Included here because, authenticity. Please keep up.
Besides Tormentor, I peppered the mixtape with Sodom, Venom, Destruction, etc. The trip to New York was eventful. I got drunk for the first time in my life and I ended up “dating” the girl I met for a brief period until she fucked an ex in the bathroom during Ancient’s first NYC gig. By that point I didn’t care, I was more concerned with talking to whoever was opening (I think it was Abazagorath but I could be wrong), and this was before Ancient did whatever it was they did after The Cainian Chronicles. Thinking back on it, this was probably my first black metal show and the first of many excursions to NYC I would take over the next few years.
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(This show, actually)
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By the time I got back home I had become enamored with the bands on the tape and needed more. Fortunately, thanks to Vintage Vinyl (RIP) a deep dive into the world of old school thrash was just a two hour car ride away. The initial roadmaps for me were Sodom‘s The Best of Destruction, and my friend Craig’s ample cassette collection. The winter faded into the spring and slowly approached summer. By this time I was obsessed (by cruelty–GET IT?) with Sodom and had curated a two hour mix tape of theirs that never left my car’s tape deck. It wasn’t too different inside my house either: I had become hooked on old German thrash and ancient Brazilian black metal. If it wasn’t Sarcofago or early Sepultura playing, it would be Tankard, which had become my favorite behind Sodom of the German bands, but most of all it was Sodom and that fucking tape that led the way.
I was really into the later material. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the early proto-black metal and first two thrash full-lengths, but I was really digging into Better off Dead, Masquerade in Blood, Get What You Deserve, and so on. There was just something special about these records for me. All of my memories for that part of my life were entangled with them. I had taken a date to see King Diamond and had planned to stay the night but something felt off, so I decided to drive back home in the middle of the night. The next day she told me her mother asked her if she blew me for being nice enough to take her to a concert. She now raises sheep on a farm somewhere on the west coast.
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When the news that Sodom were going to perform at Milwaukee Metalfest that summer hit, I don’t think I’d ever had a clearer mission in my life: I had to see Sodom at any cost. I understand that this now sounds like I was 12 and trying to go see BTS or whatever awful shit kids (and stunted adults) enjoy now, but I was 19 and had never experienced anything like that.
Between part time work and selling old shit like comics off I was able to achieve this goal. Milwaukee Metalfest in 1998 could (and will be) its own column by itself, being the first US performances by Emperor, Impaled Nazarene, Mayhem, and a slew of great underground metal as well as being the first time I got shitfaced in public… but the main takeaway for this piece is that it was Sodom’s first (and, to this day, only) US performance. And it fucking crushed.
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The internet tells me they played for around 35-40 minutes, but it felt like two hours. Apparently they had their set cut short because of the sad pantomime that was mid-late ’90s Destruction went over their allotted time. It left me awestruck and still stands as one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. The only thing I can compare it to would be seeing Motörhead where you’re struck with how well oiled and confident a machine they are. It makes me hesitate to watch the footage I just posted because I have this memory built up in my head of the grandiosity of the performance that I’m sure I would find something to be disappointed in. Natural pessimism aside, I also got the chance to meet them at their autograph signing and they were exceptionally warm and nice gentlemen who, upon hearing I was from New Jersey, told me that Bon Jovi and Springsteen sucked. That’s the sort of sentiment that will endear someone to me eternally. Even after several moves, a quick bout of homelessness, and a near-decade long drug problem I still have the signed CD. I chose Masquerade in Blood because I felt then (and still do) that it’s their most underappreciated yet best work. It hits like a fucking nuclear hammer.
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The summer continued to run on, as the long summers of youth tended to, and by the time winter rolled around I’d lost my insatiable thirst for the old school, probably because I began to venture into power metal and that’s enough to soften the most turgid amongst us. My life began to change, my priorities shifted, my (then) guitarist fucked my (then) girlfriend, and I began recording an overly ambitious yet undercooked Krieg record. The season of Sodom marked a decidedly last stand for innocence for me, once that I definitely look back fondly upon. My one regret is that I don’t know what happened to that Sodom tape, if it’s sitting in a box or a landfill somewhere. Maybe one day I’ll go through the boxes of old tapes and try to find it. Maybe one day I’ll win the fucking lottery, too.
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I’ve got two more in the pipeline for the summer theme, maybe three if you’re lucky. See you in two.
