By MaryAnn Bayer
In 1987, I discovered Heavy Metal. I was 12 or 13, in 8th grade and had a Best Friend named Gina. Lots of people at school hated Gina, partly because she beat up a girl on her first day of school, but mostly, it was because she was metal. Gina, with her Megadeth back patched jean jacket, introduced me to the ‘big four’; Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer as well as Rip magazine, smoking and sneaking my parents’ alcohol. But, that’s getting off topic, back to metal. We would lock ourselves in her room with a couple of stolen cigs, her Soundesign stereo and all our favorite tapes and then we’d friggin’ recite the lyrics at the tops of our lungs to each other! Anthrax’s “I am the Law” was a favorite, and we LOVED to ‘perform’ “Peace Sells” furiously head banging our awful, 80’s perms all the while. Ah, memories..
Anything by California’s Early Man would have been in that pile of cassettes in 1987. Comfortably sharing stereo time with our favorite future metal classics. Currently, I am celebrating the newest album ‘Death Potion’, 2008’s ‘Beware the Circling Fin’, both on The End records and 2005’s ‘Closing In’ on Matador recs. I’ve been living with the newer stuff for only about a week, but I already have a few of the songs’ lyrics down solidly! “Fight” is classic, with lyrics that I swear were pulled from my first boyfriend’s notebook. I can’t think of a better tribute than loud, sing-along-ing. I find myself mouthing along to the awesome guitar noodling, which is kind of embarrassing both at my job and my age. Lately, I’ve been dubbing Early Man “Summer Metal”. I just want to drink cheap, cold beers, and hangout in a blisteringly hot amphitheater parking lot while blasting this band and anticipating something awesome like Master of Puppets era Metallica.
A few years back I caught Early Man while on tour with High on Fire and was thoroughly destroyed by them live. They also had the best T-shirts depicting unicorns with skull faces. Sadly, I lost my shirt in a bloody, on the job, kitchen accident a year ago. Anyhoo, that night, Early Man were crushing, metal technicians and if I closed my eyes tight enough, I was 13 and Gina was thrashing along with me. Ah, memories.
Early Man just announced a fall tour with Evile and Bonded by Blood. Nice!
“Death is the Answer” vid
