Alright, so its the middle of February and I'm back with another blog. Since there isn't a ton of interesting stuff going on with Toxic right now (just a lot of boring stuff like writing and demoing new songs and studio crap) I'm gonna use this blog as a space for me to interview some people I look up to or find interesting, plus do some top 5's, current playlists, maybe some movie reviews and to just rant. Keep looking for these, I have some killer interviews and ideas coming up.

For this installment I decided to interview Matt of WILD DOGS and Kyle of the pedal building company BLACKOUT EFFECTORS.

Currently listening to:
Wild Dogs – S/T CD (1983)
Randy Uchida Group – Deathly Fighter 7” (1984)
Deicide – S/T LP (1990)
V/A - Phenomena Soundtrack CD (1984)

Toxic Holocaust News:
I'm currently demoing and writing new tracks for the next Toxic record. To get an idea of the direction of this next record let me start by saying it's fast! I'm kinda in the same head space as I was during the making of the Critical Mass demo: short, fast and EVIL. I have lots and lots of ideas, so I'm gonna keep demoing.

HELLBENT FOR COOKING: The Heavy Metal Cookbook just came for me in the mail today. It was written by my friend Annick Giroux, and is put together in an easy to follow and visual appealing way!! I think even with my limited knowledge of cooking I could make some of these dishes.

Toxic Holocaust has a recipe in there, as well as Abigail, Abscess, Accept, After the Bombs, Alcoholic Rites, Amebix, Anthrax, Anvil, Armored Saint, Arphaxat, Atomizer, Autopsy, Bastardator, Beehler, Blackfire, Blasphemy, Brutal Truth, Budgie, Bulldozer, Cauldron, Children of Technology, Control Denied, Countess, Cruachan, Dantesco, Deadmask, Death, Death SS, Deiphago, Denial of God, Desolation Angels, Destruction, Devastation, Dissection, Doro, Dusk, Electric Wizard, Elixir, Envenom, Exciter, Eyehategod, Faustcoven, Funerot, Goat Horn, Gorgoroth, Grimorium Verum, Gwar, Hidden Hand, Holocausto, Impaler, Inepsy, Judas Priest, Killers, Kreator, Lamp of Thoth, L Impero Delle Ombre, Lord Vicar, Mantak, Master, Master s Hammer, Mayhem, Melechesh, Messiah, Midnight, Minotaur, Mortal Sin, Mutiilation, Necromantia, Necrosadist, Nuclear Assault, Obituary, Obscurity, Orodruin, Pagan Altar, Pentagram, Piledriver, Possessed, Procession, Repulsion, Reverend Bizarre, Rigor Mortis, Rotting Christ, Sadistik Exekution, Saint Vitus, Sepultura, Shackles, Sigh, Sir Lord Baltimore, Skyforger, Slaughter, S.O.D., Spirit Caravan, Stiny Plamenu, Tankard, Thanatos, The Gates of Slumber, The Obsessed, The Rods, Lord Weird Slough Feg, Thin Lizzy, Trench Hell, Trouble, Tygers of Pan Tang, U.D.O., Uriah Heep, Warlock, Warpig, Weapon, Wino, Witchfynde, Witchtrap, Xibalba, and Zemial.

(The drawing above is in the book, it's me and Yasuyuki of Abigail eating Ramen)

Awesome book all around. Great work Annick, and thanks for letting me be a part of it!

I also wanted to talk a bit about a fest that Toxic Holocaust played a few months ago in the UK called Hard Rock Hell Fest. I didn't really touch on this in the last blog, so I wanted to mention it here. Let me just start this by saying we played with: Girlschool, W.A.S.P., Ratt, Angel Witch, Onslaught, Rogue Male, Witchfynde, Cloven Hoof and more. When I saw the lineup I really thought my head was gonna explode! This was an insane couple of nights. Lot's of partying! They put all of the bands up in the same hotel. It was cool looking out the window and seeing the other bands just hanging out and drinking. Let me also mention that Girlschool are some of the raddest chicks ever! So down to Earth and cool. After a whole day of watching one great band after another it was time for us to play. Right before our set was about to start I look out of the corner of my eye and I see Steve Grice (the drummer of Onslaught), he gets my attention and I walk over and introduce myself. He said that he's heard we've done some Onslaught covers in the past. I told him we used to do “Power from Hell” and “Thermonuclear Devastation”. The he tells me he wants to play Thermonuclear Devastation with us and that Sy Keller wants to sing!! It was a bit rough at first, but it came together. I don't anything could have topped the night off better than that.

(Me and Girlschool!!!)

WILD PUPPIES!!

The first interview is with a band that it seems not to many people know about. Their name is Wild Dogs. They are a real old school Heavy Metal band that was formed back in 1980 in the city I live in, Portland, OR. I am a huge fan...I even named a song after them!! I decided to interview the singer Matt McCourt after he came over my house a few times and got to know him. He had so many great stories that I knew I had to ask him some stuff. He's the real deal!

Hey Matt, how are things going today? What have you been up to lately? I think last time I talked to you you were planning on doing some recording with Dr. Heathen Scum of the Mentors, how did that go? Any prostitutes or other illicit acts during the recording session?
We laid down 4 basic tracks. Heathen had been on a 2 week tour and did a couple recording sessions, one at the Nirvana producers place in Seattle, so he was kinda tapped for songs. I played drums, which is my first instrument that I learned at age 7. Both my uncle and grandpa were drummers here in Portland when the big famous jazz scene was happening in the 40's and 50's. They were full of personality (my uncle became a well known radio host on NBC in Burbank and before that he was with KGW as a sound effects man for radio shows.... before TV). They urged me to hit things (my grandpa was also a boxing manager who had the welterweight camp of the day and a gym, so I used to hit his son... technically my uncle but he was a year older than me (not the same uncle of course), Heathen and I did some songs, had a few beers and since he was exhausted and had to travel to China the next day on business we didn't finish any. By the way, Dr. Heathen Scum is a PhD in engineering!!! While in China he went to the Gibson factory and picked up 8 guitars and a Les Paul Standard for me...looks like they are assembled in China but say made in USA.....and cost 220 USD. Two Hundred Twenty for a real Les Paul Standard!!!! No hookers and no trip to the boom boom room this time....he will come back and stay a weekend and we will debauch. He had to decompress form all of the craziness of the Mentors tour. He's one of, if not my best friend ever. We've made 6 Cd's together since 2002. He got me back thinking the old way I used to think when I started and made it fun again. We make up songs on the spot. I think the only illicit act was we were burning some Amsterdam medicine when crazy Steve Shades (who worked for Napalm Beach in their heyday) dropped by. and we thought it was the cops! Hehehe....

How did you get involved with Heathen Scum, did Wild Dogs or Dr. Mastermind ever play with the Mentors? Did you personally know El Duce and if so what was he like?
Heathen Scum has been my friend since 2002, but I've known him since 1984. I knew El Duce. When they played here he was really funny. He told me I should shave my head like Bozo. Chicks dug El too. Heathen contacted me on email after a gig I did in Seattle with British Steel and then we started recording together. He'd come up here from Riverside, CA every couple of months for a few years.

You have been involved with a lot of different projects over the years, most notably Wild Dogs and Dr. Mastermind. Can you tell us some things about the lesser known stuff like The Ravers, Evil Genius and Mayhem?
The Ravers started out as Rude Awakening and was a new wave group. Before that I was in a band that did early Scorpions, Judas Priest, Rush, Budgie, Black Sabbath etc. This was before Judas Priest even made it to the states. 1978 it was. I met Pig Champion of Poison Idea who roadied for this band and we became traveling and drinking mates. We both found Punk that year and gravitated to that cuz it fit better. I cut off all my hair which was already standing up due to a flash pot accident which turned me from “Greg Allman to Bernie Taupin” as they said. I always wrote my own songs since i started playing guitar at age 10. Later I did my first real recording session at a studio. Before that I was recording with 2 tape recorders and bouncing for the overdubs. I've always been interested in recording and shit like that. At age 4-18 I would hang outside this club by my house called No Dogs Allowed and helped the bands load in on Tuesday afternoons. When I got older I had a reputation from all these touring acts. I would come back at 2 am and load out meanwhile making out with some older women in their cars in the parking lot. That was fun. Girls my age didn't do that. Hehehe. The Ravers were born after my first session, which I got a record deal by way of radio guy Rob Sample who produced my demos. I did 3 sessions with him. He was aced out of The Ravers album, and the name The Ravers came from Andy Mckaie, the producer and label guy who had come from Arista to start the first indie label. He was at CBS in the 60's and later MCA and is now the senior VP at Universal. He's taught me a lot. He was a promo man at the labels. Barry Manilow called during one of our sessions. He was schoolmates with him and Lou Reed. I heard lots of great stories. Andy gave me an education you can't get anywhere else, so I dropped my expectations of the fantasy real soon. Evil Genius actually started before Wild Dogs. Evil Genius had Kip Doran (later of Malice) on guitar and a couple other guys. We recorded some songs and got some new guys and wrote some more which eventually became Dr. Mastermind. I had a full band in a few months. One of the guys was a 2nd stringer for the Mentors and that's how I met Heathen. He was a fan of Wild Dogs. When Wild Dogs weren't taking my songs serious anymore, I started up Evil Genius again and because I got shit for my punk rock attitude and look and our big bellies and lack of long luxurious hair we donned wigs... all of us! All the wigs were the same to poke fun at the scene. Twin leads, I sang, it was great. Then I started playing bass. During this time I got a job at a shit hole apartment as manager and I'd known the Slayer Hippie (of Poison Idea) since he was a squirty kid of 13. He knew I wasn't doing much so he asked me to join Mayhem after I was replaced in Wild Dogs (with a guy who possessed the luxurious hair and small ass that according to our label our all male crowd wanted to see... hmm that label was based in San Francisco....now it makes more sense). In Mayhem we did a bunch of gigs with Hirax, Raw Power, Megadeth and King Diamond. All hooked up by the then 16 year old Slayer Hippie who had been promoting shows at the Satyricon even though he wasn't old enough to be in there.

Wild Dogs started in 1980 right? What was the Portland, OR scene like then for Hard Rock and Heavy Metal? I love bands like Wild Dogs and Black N Blue who kinda blurred the lines between Hard Rock and Heavy Metal, the kind of stuff you wanna crank at a party and get sleazy with some chicks. Was it hard to find your niche after bands like Metallica and Slayer came onto the scene?
The PDX scene has always been behind the times, so it was mostly bars where you couldn't play originals and a couple of punk and new wave places where you could. Black N Blue was a top 40 cover band who tossed in some originals. Back then they were called Jet (and later Hell) and were the coolest band in high school. They did a showcase at the Starwood when we were all 18. I tried out for them but I was actually too good on guitar and again didn't possess the luxurious long hair required. They all looked like an ad for Pantene.....and they had a gay manager. Oops, there it is again, I'm seeing a pattern. So all of the bands that became somebody were cover bands. Tom Petty, the Knack and the Cars were big, so they all sounded like that. Limp wristed pop bands. Before Metallica hit there was only one big rock umbrella, then it split and it wasn't cool to go to a lot of the gigs that it used to be. Wild Dogs were on the fence. By this time we had met Deen Castronovo. We had a lot of KGON airplay and were on a comp album they put out. We were like the sore thumb in a sea of twinkie toes. This was long before we ever played a gig, we just recorded and brought songs as it wasn't yet a “real band”. We had Wild Dogs for a long time, we just had no name. Actually we recently got together again. That was fun. Jeff seems kinda happy and ready to rock and Danny has been bugging me to let "a chubby gray haired guy play bass behind the best front man in the biz". His words!! HE MAY HAVE GRAY HAIR, BUT NO SHORTAGE OF IT!! Once we got going there was no loss in musical ability, it was just remembering the songs that was the problem. I played drums and will continue to until we get running and will probably have Robert Braune (a drummer I was paired up with in Germany) come over and do something with us. He's an amazing drummer and one of the driest senses of humor ever. Back to Slayer and Metallica. They came a couple years after us. We had a niche but the people couldn't pigeonhole us. We were kinda thrashy and also song oriented Van Halen Judas Priest power rock. When we started Heavy Metal was a term used for Deep Purple and a line in the Steppenwolf song “Born to be Wild”. I think Iron Maiden had one video with Paul Dianno on the very first cable music show “Armchair Concert Hall” It aired alongside the Dickies and Gary Numan.

Man's Best Friend has one of the coolest pictures ever for the cover, is there anything you can tell me about this photo shoot? I've heard that the guy in the picture actually did suffer an injury from the Doberman.

First we went to a dog training place and got in the pens with dogs...hahaha funny sh*t. Those pics are somewhere. Yeah, the guy in the picture did get bit! He was a dog trainer and was taken to the hospital. Those dogs would stay on guard until a German command was spoken. We used egg whites for the foam on the dogs mouth and I mixed up some theatrical blood and spit it allover the backdrop paper (which was also used for Boy George's Time Magazine shoot the day before). It was at Pat Johnsons studio. He's shot everyone from the 60's and up: Hendrix, Rolling Stones, lots of the Grateful Dead. It was a museum in there. I love looking at those pics. The Dr. Mastermind cover was taken there as well.

The lyrics of Wild Dogs always have a totally "us against the world" kinda vibe. Some of my favorite lines are "No time for authority, everything I do is right by me" and "Envy the young who don't have time to die, their time to rule the earth has come". What was the mentality you had then while writing these lyrics and do you still have the same thoughts now?
Well, the words originally had more meat and street to them but Mike Varney (the producer) changed a lot of them. I had to relearn a lot of shit and wasn't really happy with the outcome. Same with Dr. Mastermind...

If you had to pick one track to sum up your whole musical career, what would it be and why?
”I Want You To Believe In Me” because of the statement. I wrote that when the band was not giving me the time of day. Deen has a way of separating people. He was great, but morale wise I think he killed the nugget we had as a songwriting team. I wanted to say this and got drummed over at practice so I put it in a song. I wanted to do Motorhead's “Ace of Spades” but that was called “sh*t music” by the other guys. they just aren't weren't and never will be punk rockers. You know, clean pressed jeans and tee shirts in matching black kinda guys. If we get together again and go do some German fests, I think they may be really uncomfortable and expect way too much.

Are you still in contact with any of the ex-members of Wild Dogs? I heard that Deen Castronovo is playing Journey now?!?
Well as of this week I am. Jeff friend-ed me on Facebook. 10 years ago we worked for a band called Johnny Limbo and the Lugnuts as the road crew, so we spent a lot of time in a 35 foot truck shleppin up and down the highway with this 9 piece 60's band. We are planning some live shows since our get together last week.

I know you were the singer in Wild Dogs, but you are an amazing guitar player. When did you start playing guitar and what are your influences?
I started playing guitar to Beatles records at age 4....WITH NO GUITAR. Then my mom got me a plastic one with strings, after that I got a real wooden acoustic around age 6...and a little Remo drum set at age 7. I was taking drum lessons and I'd wake up my step dad in the middle of the night playing to Sgt. Peppers at 2 am. I was inspired....he wasn't. At age 11 I really got into guitar. I got a book and learned the chords but I only had 4 strings left on the guitar. Then I got the courage to go buy strings. My major influence was the Beatles. When you're an only child of a working Mom it's best to have something to occupy your hands (something other than your johnson and a playboy....which I had 24 issues of and was quite popular due the fact that my Mom would let me put the centerfolds up on my bedroom wall....my grandma had given them to me in hopes I wouldn't turn out to be a "sissy"...hahaha) Other influences were Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Ted Nugent. The first real lead guitar I ever heard was on the Amboy Dukes “Journey to the Center of Your Mind” song. I had the 45 of that and wore it out. I still like that song and the intro lead. Ted is awesome. I did my fist gig with Bill Hoffman as a duo at a Jewish community center doing bits and pieces of different songs. they unplugged us, it might have been because I was a blue eyed blonde guy and obviously not Jewish. My step dad was Jewish, and so was the neighborhood I lived in. They treated me like shit. Bill's brother had a great record collection and we'd borrow his records like “In Trance” by Scorpions and a lot of progressive rock and fusion.

What are some of the craziest stories from back in the day? Legal troubles, bizarre live show experiences, basically the more bizarre or sketchy the better!
No legal problems, but I did smack some chick who was spitting on me in Seattle. We were on a bill with Metal Church and Slayer. We were co-headliner and had a great following in Seattle. So we're playing and these chicks keep spitting on me, so I stopped the show and offered them some money to go out and have a drink and come back in 15 minutes when Slayer would be on. They wouldn't stop so I yanked the major offender up by her hair and gave her a WWF face smash ( i didn't realize that until I saw a video) Another time in Seattle I got headbutted by a guy right in the temple and saw a flash of light. And yet another time in Seattle (I loved playing there man, nothing like it anywhere else) I jumped off the bass players 3 Ampeg's that were stacked on their sides and landed on a bottle that someone tossed after I poured the contents all over my head. I jumped off and my foot landed right on the bottle, which is square. It turned and snapped my ankle. Ironically enough this was during “Evil In Me” so I was singing “whips and chains and baseball bats, I do not like this pain as a matter of fact”. Hehehe. I stabbed a guy with a flag pole once. There's always one guy who gives ya trouble. Another time with the band Rail in Longview, Washington a guy was screaming at me from the balcony of this paramount sized movie palace. He made his way to the front of the stage still yelling at me, so I stopped the show and said “OK, now let's hear what ya got to say”. He pointed at me and yelled “F*G!!!”, so thinking quickly I said “WOW that takes guts for you to come out to all these people. Ladies and gentlemen give this guy a round of applause for being so honest and telling the world that HE IS GAY”. He went completely gonzo.... like a grand maul seizure. Theres a trip to the Hollywood sign in there somewhere but for the life of me I can't remember it. I do remember hurting from laughing so much though. Also, it was my turn to sleep in the van to protect our gear...some protection I would have been. I used to have blow up dolls, spit blood, bring people onstage, it got pretty crazy. No wonder they wanted a guy where they wouldn't have to deal with stuff that. It would have upped their chances of girl action for sure. I've been told recently that I used to scare the sh*t out of girls... which was my intent. I was married at the time (well almost.... to a groupie I met on Van Halen's tour bus. She was very protective of me. To say that she was a b**ch to any other woman and the band was an understatement, and guys....LEAVE YOUR WOMEN HOME! There is no place for a girlfriend on a hunting trip....it breaks up bands.

What's next? What do you have planned? Any new releases, upcoming shows and new projects?
I've got a few albums I need to finish: a blues album and 2 Wild Dogs and Dr. Mastermind things...a live album from the Roseland that Jason recorded. It sounds good so out it goes. Nothing is too shitty to put out in my book. I just price it cheaper. People who are interested in the overall run of my music and need it for their collections can get it here: http://www.cdbaby.com/all/usmetal

Thanks Matt, I'm gonna wrap this up, anything you wanna say for the Vans website and True Heavy Metal fans everywhere?
Thanx Joel, I hope this reuniting thing goes well and that we get to do a few good gigs or fests. It'd be a good closer and closure for the guys and myself.

Feedback, Blood & DISTORTION!

I love the insanity that only fuzz pedals can deliver, but when my Big Muff just wasn't cutting it anymore I decided to start looking around for something more. After some recommendations I checked out the MUSKET by Blackout Effectors (http://www.blackouteffectors.com/) from Asheville, NC, and after I heard it I knew I needed one of these right away!
Check out a demo here:

Ever wonder how a guitar effects pedal is made? Probably not. But I did, so I've decided to talk with the owner Kyle about how they build 'em, how they got started, etc.

Hey Kyle, how's it going today?
Other than it being a Monday, swell.

When did you start Blackout Effectors?
It officially started in the beginning of 2008. I’m no mathematician but I swear that makes us two years old now. Back then the whole company was just me sitting at a table in the corner of a tiny Vancouver apartment. Things have changed a lot in those two years.

What brought about the move from Vancouver, BC to Asheville, NC? Do you like living in the states?
Well I’m a Floridian, genetically, so moving back to the quasi-South was a bit of a homecoming for me. I was envisioning the return to the South being like a warm embrace, but the reality is that I’m freezing my ass off in the mountains of North Carolina. A big part of the move had to do with cost of living and cost of operations in Vancouver. Everything was just so expensive; the rent, the cross-border shipping and the cost of getting our parts in Canada. Blackout is just much more viable in a place like Asheville. We can afford to employ more people and work out of a kickass space, which we could never do in Vancouver. Basically, we outsourced to the US, which I find endlessly amusing.

How old are you and how and when did you get started in building electronics?
I have to be at least 30-31 now. I’ve always been a big nerd, but I didn’t get into building pedals until a few years before starting the company. It’s the cliche “started out with DIY intentions” story I guess. I just wanted to build cool shit for myself and for my friends. I did that for a while until it just wasn’t satisfying enough anymore.

Are there any new effects you are planning on building?
Of course. We have a bunch of new stuff on the go, most of which will probably never see the light of day. I think at this point we have a very clear vision of what a Blackout pedal should embody, so that means tossing aside a lot of otherwise cool, usable circuits because they just don’t fit the Blackout mold. We’re only going to release the coolest of the cool stuff.

What are the differences between the FIX'D FUZZ and the MUSKET FUZZ?
The Fix’d and the Musket are very different. The Fix’d was designed to be like a swiss army knife of dirt/fuzz tones – it has so many wildly varying sounds that it’s always really hard to describe – from clean boost, to overdrive, to mild vintage-y fuzzes, to sputtering velcro fuzz, to all-out apocalyptic doom fuzz. The Musket on the other hand was designed to be an extremely tweak able version of one particular sound – the big muff-type fuzz. If the Fix’d is a Swiss army knife, the Musket is a samurai sword. It’s massive, super-saturated fuzz/distortion.

Any final things you'd like to share, or any thing you wanna mention thats coming out soon or being worked on?
We’d like to share with everyone that Nuke The Cross rules!