Into the Eye of Chaos...
Wednesday November 16, 2005
I distinctly remember where I first read the name "Bolt Thrower" - I was in my mom's minivan (the light beige one with faux wood trim that I would later total in an accident only four months after I got my license) reading some metal magazine (I'm tempted to say it was Metal Mania, but it might have been Thrash Metal). The article was a profile of the then-new British label, Earache Records. The bands on that label played something called "grindcore" and they had the best names ever: Napalm Death, Carcass, Morbid Angel. And Bolt Thrower. What a name! My 14 year old mind was agog with the awesomeness of that moniker. Bolt Thrower! What did it mean? I originally envisioned some horrible science fictiony machine that hurled hex bolts at high velocities. I always imagined it operating on the same principles as a lawnmower tossing whatever crap was hidden under the grass out the side - something fast, random, and totally violent. When I first saw Bolt Thrower (on which more later), the ticket had a little cartoon of a Zeus-like hand holding lightning. As it happens, the name was inspired by the ancient siege weapon called the ballista, which was basically a giant crossbow (and if you'll recall, crossbows shoot bolts, not arrows, for some reason). Bolt Thrower! They had just released their first album for Earache, called Realm of Chaos, and you have to see this to believe it:
Check out that logo! Check out the giant pile of space guys, shooting lasers! Clearly this was the greatest metal band of all time, I thought. It wasn't long before I begged my mom to drive me to South Street in Philadelphia to hit Rock 'N' Roll Plus, the one store I knew carried obscure heavy metal. (Sadly, Rock 'N' Roll Plus finally closed in the last couple of months. I didn't buy a lot from them anymore, but I would always stop in if I was on South Street. It's very sad for me to see it all boarded up.) I believe my friends Vanessa Danese and Dave Comeau came along for the trip. I remember the look on everyone's face when we popped my brand new Bolt Thrower cassette in the player on the way home. It was fast, and heavy, and totally insane. It was awesome.
I damned near wore that tape out. I'd probably still have it today, if it wasn't taken from me on the bus in high school by this rotten kid named Jeff, whose (equally lame) stamp-collecting dad was shacked up for years with my friend Rich's mom. I never got it back from Jeff because he decapitated himself in a motorcycle accident. Good riddance (and not just because he took my tape - he was a real blight on humanity.)
Since that day, long ago, when I first heard Bolt Thrower, I've held them to be one of my very favorite metal bands. I was lucky enough to see them once, in 1991, at a dive in a bad part of a bad city (Pennsauken, NJ.) This particular dive was a haunt of the local skinhead gangs, who apparently made trouble at every show. They were doing their stupid fucking zeig-heil arm wave through the band's set and picking fights with surly metalheads who really just wanted to thrash and headbang and enjoy Bolt Thrower. About a half hour into the set, a circle pit opened up, but it wasn't for moshing. The skins were brutally beating and kicking a guy who was lying on the floor in the fetal position, trying to protect himself from the boots. A tall, skinny skinhead ran off to the back of the club, and when he came back, he had a baseball bat, which he used to pound this poor guy's head into mush. The PA was unplugged. The band kept playing, but the crowd erupted into a proper riot. Bolt Thrower's singer, Karl, jumped into the crowd to pound on skinheads, god bless him. My friend Evan and I hightailed it out of the venue, which was already being surrounded by the police, who were putting up cones to block off the street from other cars. I have always assumed that the guy on the floor died - I mean, his head was completely smashed up! but I don't know for sure. That was the last time I saw Bolt Thrower. I bought a ticket to see them in Pittsburgh when I was a freshman at University of Pittsburgh, but the tour was cut short for some reason that I have since forgotten, if I ever knew it.
The art for the Realm of Chaos album was taken from a game called Warhammer 40,000, a tabletop miniatures war game system made by Games Workshop. Owing to Bolt Thrower, I have spent a lot of money and time over the years collecting and painting tiny lead figures not unlike the characters pictured in Realm of Chaos Except for Evan (who didn't care for the painting), and my friend Joe, I never really met anyone else into the game, and as a result, I did a lot more painting than playing.
Suffice it to say, Bolt Thrower has had a pretty significant impact on my life, for better or worse. I've had the opportunity to interview the band twice, for their 1998 album Mercenary and for their 2001 disappointment Honour - Valour - Pride (the only album to feature a singer other than Karl). I own a not-inconsiderable number of Bolt Thrower shirts (and I used to own more - a very nice In Battle There Is No Law shirt was cut off me when I got into a car accident my senior year in high school.) I've collected every disc and single they've put out, a few bootlegs, and I even have a 7" with an unreleased recording from some German fanzine in the 80s. So it should go without saying that the release of a new Bolt Thrower album is a special event for me, and yesterday, I received my German import copy of the limited edition digipack (with bonus track) of the band's first release in four years, Those Once Loyal. I'm not going to go into details about the album itself, except to say that it's good and I like it. (For my full take on the album itself, have a look here.) I just wanted to muse for a while on the subject of a great inspiration in my life. I'll freely admit that my love of Bolt Thrower is inextricably wound in nostalgia, but for once, it's the kind of nostalgia that only makes me happy.
Posted by Matt at November 16, 2005 02:47 PM
At that Bolt Thrower show there were roughly a million unendurable local opening bands, but Matt recognized Karl and Andy among the crowd, so we sauntered over to them to chat. What friendly fellows! At one point, Karl mentioned that he had no idea where they actually were and put his head on Matt's shoulder in a very touching gesture, I thought. In retrospect, they may have been drunk or stoned, but they just seemed to be happy, friendly guys, and they were probably eager to chat with real Americans, rather than merely to perform for them nightly before moving on the the next shitty town.
I also clearly remember the look on Karl's face, when he noticed what was going on in the pit and instantly decided to fly off the stage and join the fray on the side of good. It might have been nice to stick around and see how the whole thing played out, but, as sensible teenagers whose parents were probably not too keen on our venturing into New Jersey for a heavy metal concert anyway, we decided the wiser move was immediately to am-scray and avoid any awkward explanations or calls from the police.
I should point out, also, that Matt's Warhammer fellows (and they were the Chaos troops, if memory serves), turned out really nice. I guess an obsessive attention to detail does have its benefits!
My comment is as long as your entry.
Posted by: Evan at November 16, 2005 04:15 PM