Reign In Blood...or Booze

The following statement is not my opinion. It is fact:


Slayer is the greatest metal band of all time, end of story.


If you don’t agree, feel free to write me, to tell me your opinion differs. It will only prove you are obviously a worthless Linkin Park / Puddle of Mudd loving poser. I will be forced to find your name on Google, acquire a picture of you, photoshop a giant black herpes-laden cock into your mouth (if there’s not one there already), and include it with two pages of text on how you are the biggest faggot poser on Earth for my next editorial. As a bonus, I will send a crew from PETsMART over to install a homo-habitrail in your ass for all the gerbils that are obviously running loose through your bowels. Once that nasty business is finished, the mafia will show up and shoot you in the face. You will be buried in a shallow grave, simply marked “POSER”.


Like I said, this topic is not open for debate.


Now a little history: Slayer was formed on the hard-ass ghetto streets of Huntington Beach, CA, in 1992, under the express orders of The Infernal Lord Beelzebub. Their seminal effort was 1983’s Show No Mercy, which showed early signs of the quartet’s promise with the uplifting gospel stylings of “l Am the Antichrist”.


In 1984 came Slayer’s first undisputed classic - Hell Awaits. I remember when I first heard “Necrophiliac”: “If feel the urge, the growing need / To fuck this sinful corpse.” I was so inspired by this music that I actually did go to the graveyard to fuck a sinful corpse. Maybe Tipper Gore was right about the harmful side effects of listening to heavy metal music -- you get maggots in your teeth when you muff-dive dead chicks.


Meanwhile, during the late 80’s in Europe, the wheels were already in motion to import a delicious, opiate-laced liquor named Jagermeister into the United States. One little known fact is they weren’t trying to import it into the US, as much as they were to get it out of Europe. Kind of like how the upper-class white people mixed baking soda with cocaine and unloaded it on… well I won’t go there.


In 1986 Rick Ruben, knowing a thing or two about music, realized that Slayer could kick the shit out of any metal band on Earth. He signed-on to produce what would become the greatest Slayer / Metal CD of all time: Reign in Blood -- a lean, 28-minute chunk of thrash metal so brutal that that Jews who ran CBS refused to distribute it. Maybe the disc’s opening lyric “Auschwitz, the meaning of pain / The way that I want you to die” hit a little too close to home. Who knows? Regardless, Reign in Blood represented Slayer and metal music in its prime.


Later efforts South of Heaven and 1990’s Seasons in the Abyss were great albums, but paled in comparison to Reign in Blood. It was some time in August of 1990 that a then 14 year-old, John Alim...(fuck off, stalker) got into his first strip club with a fake ID. During the nine hours that followed, he was introduced to a powerful potion by one of the strippers there: Jagermeister. Yes, this was some good shit. At least 15 shots, most of his savings, and a bottle smashed over the head later, he left that bar a changed man. Up to that point he had lived his life only to smash people’s heads in at Slayer concerts – now he had Jager and strippers. Now he is me, and I was becoming quite the Renaissance Man.


A man of such diverse tastes, I found myself less wanting to get in mosh pits with a bunch of sweaty guys. Pounding the last nail into the proverbial mosh coffin, was a night in 1991 when, at an Obituary concert, I drank five 40oz Mickey’s Big Mouths, took some acid, slugged half a pint of Wild Turkey, moshed like a madman in the pit, blacked out, and woke up in the drunk tank of the Brooklyn County jail with a laundry list of assault charges.


So, what I’m trying to say is it takes a fucking lot to get me to get in a mosh pit these days.


As rare as the astrological alignment of Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Saturn, once every 100 years, November 5, 2003, brought an unholy union of the highest order: The Slayer / Jagermeister Music Tour on Cheetah Wednesday. Only now, almost a week later, has my head finally stopped pounding and my body stopped aching long enough to be able to describe that evening’s proceedings.


The combo alone should be enough to have any proper metalhead shoveling his own grave, but the word on the streets was Slayer would be performing the awe-inspiring Reign in Blood in its entirety.


Making things worse, the not-so-subtle Jagermeister marketing was working. While impatiently waiting for Hatebreed to finish droning away, I watched the two giant spinning dear heads go round and round on the side of the stage.


They seemed to say, “Join us, join us, drink me, drink me – I am a big spinning German deer head…DRINK MY BLOOD!”


Who am I to argue with that kind of logic? The Jaguar people are shameless self-promoters, and at the Jagermeister Music Tour they also make sure that you are never more than an arm’s length reach from a delicious cold refreshing Jager machine.


So here we go: Shot one, shot two, shot four, five, six, Slayer plays “War Ensample” -- I jump in the pit.


As the Slayer set continues, those spinning deer keep speaking to me: “I am a big spinning German deer head…DRINK MY BLOOD!”


OK, chill out you fucking spinning deer head -- shot seven, shot eight, nine, ten, eleven, and twelve, then Slayer starts playing “Angel of Death”…


Holy fucking shit. They were doing it; next followed “Piece By Piece”, “Necrophobic”, and if you don’t know the rest of the track order by heart then you better study your metal, you fucking poser. I don’t know what was spinning faster: the pit, my stomach, my head, or those deer. I moshed like a retarded drunken imbecile, and elbowed people in the face for a full 28 minutes until Slayer ripped through “Post Mortem / Reign in Blood”.


As the venue cleared out, and I was still reeling from the awesome power which is Slayer, it dawned on me: Dear God, I still have Cheetah Wednesday to go.


Thankfully for the Brooklyn public, I grabbed a cab to Cheetah Wednesday, went in, and sat at the bar just like I do every Wednesday. You know you spend too much time at a titty bar when you start to come up with nicknames for all the strippers. So there I sat looking at Beef Lips, The Stand-Up Comedian, and The Short Bus as they plied their trades on stage. Then I look for my favorite bartender in the ATL, Cheetah Paul, only to see that same fucking spinning deer head behind him staring back at me…


“I am a big spinning German deer head…DRINK MY BLOOD!”


You can’t argue this that kind of logic! I did one final shot, puked on The Subculture Mixer, and took it to the house. What a glorious night!