The Strange World of Davidh - Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE (Originally Written and Posted Sunday, December 17, 2006)
"The Courtship of a Monster"
With two weeks to go before the Linda's show, me, Mike, Tony and Andy rehearsed about 12 songs for this one off show, we assured Matt that this would be no problem to Mammoth and that those practices would resume as normal, and they did. Andy and I also took the time out to play an acoustic set at Mitty's for fun. Andy, Mike and myself also recorded an acoustic session which turned out 3 songs, Try, Wasted Away and Boss Dj(Sublime)during this time.
Now, we needed a name. Me, Andy, Mike and my brother Artie were sitting in my home studio one night watching a movie, not just any movie but a horror hosted movie. back in the day Horror Hosts were common place on the television airwaves, every town had one and when i was a kid growing up in the eighties we were fortunate to have more than one at any given time like Dr. Madblood and Count Gore De Vol. This night we were watching Dr. Cadaver who presented movies in the late 1990's out of Florida. (i collect these kids) The movie he was hosting on this videotape was "The Son of Godzilla", my brother just calmly stated we should call the band The Sons of Godzilla and with out an afterthought we agreed, the name was perfect.
We had plenty to rehearse, we just brushed up on some of the old stuff we used to play and worked on a few new songs. One song i really wanted to get in there was "Sara" from the last Ghoulland Jubilee we did but it didn't translate well as a live band song so we scrapped it, we threw in "Attitude" by the Misfits, reworked an old BLISS / DavidH tune that was now titled "Roman Holiday" (that was actually Marc's title for another song which i mistook for this one), and created one song exclusively for this one off performance titled "Monsters Everywhere".
On March 19th, 2004 The Sons of Godzilla would debut playing along Jack's Smirking Revenge, Mammoth, Going Nowhere, . The night was double fun for me because i was able to play in two bands, not to mention that the Sons of Godzilla were headlining. The Mammoth set was tight as usual but it was the Sons of Godzilla set that stood out....for just two weeks of rehearsal we came out with guns ablazing and played a dirty set that brought new meaning to the word heavy to me, it wasn't about the speed or the solos, it was about a mood, a feeling, a feeling of a million bricks falling on your head and loving it, the feeling of wanting to destroy everything around you....it was kinda like being on drugs, i had no control over what i was doing, some weird force was just leading the way. We didn't anticipate the turnout for the show either, the original charge to get in was 4 dollars, as the night went on and so many people were turning up they started to charge 10 dollars at the door and the place just kept filling up. By the time we were to go on the place was to full capacity and they had people waiting on the outside to come in so that if anyone left they could squeeze in, it was crazy.
In the following days after the show we decided after that kinda of reception and the self satisfaction of playing the music we would just continue booking shows and rehearsing. We knew we would need a demo handy for shows and club owners so we wasted no time booking a session at Wintersound. We kept our plans a secret for awhile because we didn't know how we were going to tell Matt we were going to moonlight as Sons of Godzilla while we were in Mammoth, eventually we did book some double shows out in Virginia Beach with Jack's Smirking Revenge and both bands (Mammoth and Sons of Godzilla) played the first annual Jasonstock in Chesapeake, Va.
The Wintersound Session was solid, our third trip there. (me, Mike and Tony) Another blink and you'll miss us sessions, we went in with 250 dollars and came out with a 5 song demo. I think out of all the times we went there this was the band that guy who ran the place really liked. Bob Gurske, former drummer himself he always liked to push the drums up too high in the mix, i don't think he liked the idea of all the filming i did when we were there.
Jasonstock fell on the 3rd of April in 2004 and was a very pivotal point in the Sons of Godzilla story, this was the show where the realization that i did not want to be in Mammoth anymore started. The Sons of Godzilla was just more of what i wanted to do, horror imagery, horror lyrics, everything about was so the opposite of Mammoth. This was my very first outdoor night show and i loved it, a perfect setting for this kind of band, the only bad thing about this show is i was plagued with a sickness of biblical proportions but i fought through it. We played so late into the show and had been there all day as we played with Mammoth earlier in the evening that Andy and Tony were quite drunk when Sons of Godzilla went on, Andy changed the lyrics to Thirteen and for what it was worth it was a little shocking at the time, but it fit right in with what we were doing, just pure heavy aggression. Another thing he did with those lyrics that night was to talk smack to people through the lyrics, i don't know about you but i find this to be very funny....it always warms my heart to think of that night because of that, Andy was like the voice i never had, we had a very screw you, we are the most important band in the world! thing going and it suited me just fine. It's the Oasis fan in me. By the end of the night Mike had to drive a drunken Matt home and the flags that there conversation through up led me to believe Matt knew it was just a matter of time before the Sons of Godzilla were the only ones left standing once the dust settled.
We played a few more shows with Mammoth and a few double billed with Sons of Godzilla until finally we had a show as Mammoth booked at the Halfshell in Virginia Beach with Bully and we just turned up with Andy and played as the Sons of Godzilla and that was it, Mammoth was no more.
We played a show at Gil's in Norfolk with Bully, we were a little nervous since it was a new place we had never played before so we loosened up a bit before we went on stage. I was getting an ashtray from a table to put on my amp so i could smoke while we played and when i went back to get on stage instead of stepping up on the stage i stepped into the shadow of the stage and totally busted my ass, hurt my knee really bad, fortunately for me at the time i barely felt and just had a good laugh. The audience of this place consisted many older people and i think our music didn't go to well with them, they clapped anyway though, thanks. This show was captured on DAT by Tim Yonkers and sounds great.
We had been doing a lot of shows at this place in Virginia Beach called Classics, this was the place where we started bringing Artie out with us to road test him and see if he was ready to do some guest spots at our shows, for awhile this was a success.
We had also begun playing shows at this strip club called Chippendolls in Newport News on sundays with a band called Broke Loco, no dancers though, would have been a novel idea, kinda like we were Motley Crue or something. They were kinda sketched out at first when we were filming in there but after awhile it was cool. By this time Tony was starting to miss practices, we knew he was leading two different lives but we figured as long as it wasn't hurting the band he had everything under control, well now it was effecting us.
We played a 4th of July show at a friend of Andy's house, Dude, the son of the Doody of Doody's Junkyard. I had a long talk with Tony that night letting him know how important he was to me and how important to the band he was, i offered anything i could do to help. Artie made it out for this show and delivered his finest performances ever with us on the tracks "Spring Heel Jack" and "Faces in a Cave". The night ended with a unbelievable encore of everyone drunkenly singing along but unfortunately the tape ran out just as it was starting.
The next show was at a new venue for us called Bar York in Yorktown, Va, it was an old Pizza Hut converted into a bar. We had finally got the song "Try" up to speed at this time and it was sounding better than ever. During the time when Tony had missed a few practices we wrote 2 new songs, Going Back in Time and Without Saying a Word, neither of these were ever introduced into the live sets and were pretty much forgotten, luckily they were recorded.
The next show would be last show for the 4 original members of Sons of Godzilla, Artie's last ever show with Sons of Godzilla, and the last ever show at the venue Classics. The show was pretty bad, Artie was off, we were off, by the end of the night the owner of Classics suggested to us they we should take some time off and he was right, we were burned out. We began in March of 2004 and up until this point in July of 2004 we had played out almost every weekend, we were having problems with Tony, which he needed a break more than any of us. We didn't have the time to write new songs because we played out so much so we decided to take four weeks off and reconvene in the middle of August.
During the 4 week hiatus me, Andy and Arty recorded a session that turned out 2 songs, Bad Mommy Burn and Sewn Lips. These sessions turned out well and let us know that Artie was still more than capable of delivering the goods...when he wanted to. Also me and Andy did a few sessions where we would just hit record and jam and try to work out bits and pieces we had been working on in the last few months, more fun than progress, these sessions didn't evolve into much useful. Another session was held with me, Andy and Mike and we demoed out all our new songs and a few older ones, after writing this part i have come to realize that that wasn't much of a hiatus but more of a break from playing out.
Once we got back together after the 3 weeks were over we found ourselves with 2 new band members and we were about to embark on the greatest part of this crazy journey.......
"The Courtship of a Monster"
With two weeks to go before the Linda's show, me, Mike, Tony and Andy rehearsed about 12 songs for this one off show, we assured Matt that this would be no problem to Mammoth and that those practices would resume as normal, and they did. Andy and I also took the time out to play an acoustic set at Mitty's for fun. Andy, Mike and myself also recorded an acoustic session which turned out 3 songs, Try, Wasted Away and Boss Dj(Sublime)during this time.
Now, we needed a name. Me, Andy, Mike and my brother Artie were sitting in my home studio one night watching a movie, not just any movie but a horror hosted movie. back in the day Horror Hosts were common place on the television airwaves, every town had one and when i was a kid growing up in the eighties we were fortunate to have more than one at any given time like Dr. Madblood and Count Gore De Vol. This night we were watching Dr. Cadaver who presented movies in the late 1990's out of Florida. (i collect these kids) The movie he was hosting on this videotape was "The Son of Godzilla", my brother just calmly stated we should call the band The Sons of Godzilla and with out an afterthought we agreed, the name was perfect.
We had plenty to rehearse, we just brushed up on some of the old stuff we used to play and worked on a few new songs. One song i really wanted to get in there was "Sara" from the last Ghoulland Jubilee we did but it didn't translate well as a live band song so we scrapped it, we threw in "Attitude" by the Misfits, reworked an old BLISS / DavidH tune that was now titled "Roman Holiday" (that was actually Marc's title for another song which i mistook for this one), and created one song exclusively for this one off performance titled "Monsters Everywhere".
On March 19th, 2004 The Sons of Godzilla would debut playing along Jack's Smirking Revenge, Mammoth, Going Nowhere, . The night was double fun for me because i was able to play in two bands, not to mention that the Sons of Godzilla were headlining. The Mammoth set was tight as usual but it was the Sons of Godzilla set that stood out....for just two weeks of rehearsal we came out with guns ablazing and played a dirty set that brought new meaning to the word heavy to me, it wasn't about the speed or the solos, it was about a mood, a feeling, a feeling of a million bricks falling on your head and loving it, the feeling of wanting to destroy everything around you....it was kinda like being on drugs, i had no control over what i was doing, some weird force was just leading the way. We didn't anticipate the turnout for the show either, the original charge to get in was 4 dollars, as the night went on and so many people were turning up they started to charge 10 dollars at the door and the place just kept filling up. By the time we were to go on the place was to full capacity and they had people waiting on the outside to come in so that if anyone left they could squeeze in, it was crazy.
In the following days after the show we decided after that kinda of reception and the self satisfaction of playing the music we would just continue booking shows and rehearsing. We knew we would need a demo handy for shows and club owners so we wasted no time booking a session at Wintersound. We kept our plans a secret for awhile because we didn't know how we were going to tell Matt we were going to moonlight as Sons of Godzilla while we were in Mammoth, eventually we did book some double shows out in Virginia Beach with Jack's Smirking Revenge and both bands (Mammoth and Sons of Godzilla) played the first annual Jasonstock in Chesapeake, Va.
The Wintersound Session was solid, our third trip there. (me, Mike and Tony) Another blink and you'll miss us sessions, we went in with 250 dollars and came out with a 5 song demo. I think out of all the times we went there this was the band that guy who ran the place really liked. Bob Gurske, former drummer himself he always liked to push the drums up too high in the mix, i don't think he liked the idea of all the filming i did when we were there.
Jasonstock fell on the 3rd of April in 2004 and was a very pivotal point in the Sons of Godzilla story, this was the show where the realization that i did not want to be in Mammoth anymore started. The Sons of Godzilla was just more of what i wanted to do, horror imagery, horror lyrics, everything about was so the opposite of Mammoth. This was my very first outdoor night show and i loved it, a perfect setting for this kind of band, the only bad thing about this show is i was plagued with a sickness of biblical proportions but i fought through it. We played so late into the show and had been there all day as we played with Mammoth earlier in the evening that Andy and Tony were quite drunk when Sons of Godzilla went on, Andy changed the lyrics to Thirteen and for what it was worth it was a little shocking at the time, but it fit right in with what we were doing, just pure heavy aggression. Another thing he did with those lyrics that night was to talk smack to people through the lyrics, i don't know about you but i find this to be very funny....it always warms my heart to think of that night because of that, Andy was like the voice i never had, we had a very screw you, we are the most important band in the world! thing going and it suited me just fine. It's the Oasis fan in me. By the end of the night Mike had to drive a drunken Matt home and the flags that there conversation through up led me to believe Matt knew it was just a matter of time before the Sons of Godzilla were the only ones left standing once the dust settled.
We played a few more shows with Mammoth and a few double billed with Sons of Godzilla until finally we had a show as Mammoth booked at the Halfshell in Virginia Beach with Bully and we just turned up with Andy and played as the Sons of Godzilla and that was it, Mammoth was no more.
We played a show at Gil's in Norfolk with Bully, we were a little nervous since it was a new place we had never played before so we loosened up a bit before we went on stage. I was getting an ashtray from a table to put on my amp so i could smoke while we played and when i went back to get on stage instead of stepping up on the stage i stepped into the shadow of the stage and totally busted my ass, hurt my knee really bad, fortunately for me at the time i barely felt and just had a good laugh. The audience of this place consisted many older people and i think our music didn't go to well with them, they clapped anyway though, thanks. This show was captured on DAT by Tim Yonkers and sounds great.
We had been doing a lot of shows at this place in Virginia Beach called Classics, this was the place where we started bringing Artie out with us to road test him and see if he was ready to do some guest spots at our shows, for awhile this was a success.
We had also begun playing shows at this strip club called Chippendolls in Newport News on sundays with a band called Broke Loco, no dancers though, would have been a novel idea, kinda like we were Motley Crue or something. They were kinda sketched out at first when we were filming in there but after awhile it was cool. By this time Tony was starting to miss practices, we knew he was leading two different lives but we figured as long as it wasn't hurting the band he had everything under control, well now it was effecting us.
We played a 4th of July show at a friend of Andy's house, Dude, the son of the Doody of Doody's Junkyard. I had a long talk with Tony that night letting him know how important he was to me and how important to the band he was, i offered anything i could do to help. Artie made it out for this show and delivered his finest performances ever with us on the tracks "Spring Heel Jack" and "Faces in a Cave". The night ended with a unbelievable encore of everyone drunkenly singing along but unfortunately the tape ran out just as it was starting.
The next show was at a new venue for us called Bar York in Yorktown, Va, it was an old Pizza Hut converted into a bar. We had finally got the song "Try" up to speed at this time and it was sounding better than ever. During the time when Tony had missed a few practices we wrote 2 new songs, Going Back in Time and Without Saying a Word, neither of these were ever introduced into the live sets and were pretty much forgotten, luckily they were recorded.
The next show would be last show for the 4 original members of Sons of Godzilla, Artie's last ever show with Sons of Godzilla, and the last ever show at the venue Classics. The show was pretty bad, Artie was off, we were off, by the end of the night the owner of Classics suggested to us they we should take some time off and he was right, we were burned out. We began in March of 2004 and up until this point in July of 2004 we had played out almost every weekend, we were having problems with Tony, which he needed a break more than any of us. We didn't have the time to write new songs because we played out so much so we decided to take four weeks off and reconvene in the middle of August.
During the 4 week hiatus me, Andy and Arty recorded a session that turned out 2 songs, Bad Mommy Burn and Sewn Lips. These sessions turned out well and let us know that Artie was still more than capable of delivering the goods...when he wanted to. Also me and Andy did a few sessions where we would just hit record and jam and try to work out bits and pieces we had been working on in the last few months, more fun than progress, these sessions didn't evolve into much useful. Another session was held with me, Andy and Mike and we demoed out all our new songs and a few older ones, after writing this part i have come to realize that that wasn't much of a hiatus but more of a break from playing out.
Once we got back together after the 3 weeks were over we found ourselves with 2 new band members and we were about to embark on the greatest part of this crazy journey.......
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