Ray's post

The last guest blogger of the week is Ray who writes Pulses, verses and other flotsam. Ray is also one of my oldest friends and I am not just saying that because he is nine days older than I am (hehehe).

Metal Memories with Metal Mark
By Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Thanks to Mark for inviting me to blather at his dedicated readership for a few... Mark and I have been friends since 1983 and he was my main metal brother in our farmstead Palookaville known as the North Carroll region.

Collectively we may have had less than ten serious metalheads in our area, so we didn’t really have what you’d consider a “scene,” but we had about as many punk rockers that we assimilated with just before the crossover phenomenon of the late eighties, which is something I personally had always wanted to see and was something I discussed with the punkers in our high school because frankly, an outcast is an outcast, and if we’re digging the same music or similar-oriented music, why not dispel with the division lines in light of the common enemy, which was the preppies and princesses that looked down upon us?

I think my friendship with Mark started over comic books before metal, but that avenue became the core of our association and even as a metal journalist who now writes for nine magazines and a handful of websites, I still defer in many ways to Mark. He’s always been the real-deal (though a little stuck in his ways…just kidding, man!) and to me that’s why I think we’ve remained friends for so long, at least from my perspective. Mark’s always been true to himself and his thoughts on metal and other things in life we’ve discussed over the course of 23 years.

I can honestly say I miss the simplicity of our lives when we’d be yakking on the phone most nights, slagging the people we hated in school, slagging the poser bands out there and the poser fans (Mark will recall a certain permed Bon Jovi freak we used to torment incessantly, who ended up being right that Queensryche was a great band), but most importantly, we’d celebrate our love of metal in different ways, most of which were obnoxious to our parents.

Back then, you had tapes before CDs came out….ugh, how archaic…and Mark would always drag a small tape player and play something that would freak his parents out, Mercyful Fate, Raven, WASP, all sorts of good stuff, and I would do likewise, though I had to turn my stereo up to make it sound through the phone, annoying my folks in the process…

Mark and I briefly bagged groceries together at a local store and we had a small little record store in the same shopping center that we’d both piss our paychecks away at. I think together, Mark and I couldn’t be beat between our collections. If anyone was talking about a certain metal band, either of us was likely to have it. Mark started following the black and death metal scenes that I was initially leery of, but I soon saw the value of what was coming out and then it was game on for me. I can honestly say the more extreme side of my music tastes was initially nurtured by Mark.

We were both quiet, pissed-off teenagers who gave the finger a lot…even to each other on occasion! We hated normal people and bellyached frequently about them (more so me than Mark, depending on the situation). We were quintessential mall rats always on the prowl for metal and we’d loudly criticize the stores that didn’t have a proper metal section, which was most of them if you’re talking about malls! I think we did have one in the Cranberry Mall (now known as The Town Mall of Westminster) that had a pretty good metal section back in the day, now that I think about it. Who would’ve thought? Kind of funny now, since metal today is a big mall commodity…

I kind of wish we’d been able to go to more shows than we did back in the day, but we did catch some cream of the crop concerts back then such as Priest with Megadeth and Testament, Anthrax with Helloween and someone (Mark, help me here), Monsters of Rock ’88, Government Issue, and he’s been with me a couple of times recently for Mastodon, GBH and one of the most memorable nights of my metal life, Joey Belladonna’s solo gig right before he rejoined Anthrax. Joey let us hang with him and I conducted a rather lame, off-the-cuff interview, but he treated us like guests and we spent about two hours with Joey before he took the stage to a miserably-attended crowd of maybe 40 people, but he played like it was sold out, and Joey even took the drums…

Before this drags on too much longer, I’d have to say that I enjoyed having Mark as my compatriot in metal back then, and even though our lives have changed a good bit over the years, it’s good when I get the rare opportunities to visit him that we still yammer on about metal, and Mark, true to his fashion, plays snippets of albums for you to sample by. His presentation is unique, because you leave his house wanting to hear more from like 3 or 4 bands that he’s put into your ears. He’s always done that. Damn you, Mark…

A final thing that comes to my mind was when Mark and I got together with another mutual longtime friend Bob, and we took our shot at starting a band. Mark ponied up the money for me to play drums and I was slow paying him back. It’s too bad we couldn’t get anything going with our little band, but I sold the drums, paid Mark back and the biggest testament to that whole failed endeavor is that the three of us remain friends to this day, and I’m probably the only one willing to admit we had the band at all! The point is, Mark’s as close a friend as I’ve had in my life, and it’s a pleasure to write this little (well, maybe not little) piece on his blog that I’m quite proud of him for doing…