ASUH, MY DUDES.

Alright, no breaks on the train of loudness. Let’s kick off the week with our topic for the day: Getting Plastered.

I’m talking about the kind of drunk where you end up right pissing in your neighbours garage because you and I both know our bladders aren’t going to make it another 20 seconds. Those nights where you wake up to go to the bathroom dazedly, return to bed and then realize, “Fuuuuck. This isn’t my house”. That sweet sweet flavour of inebriation where you are absolutely 100% positive that your ex-partner want you to call them at 3 AM to try and “Get back to how things used to be”.

Alcohol covers a multitude of sins, but it does it almost exclusively by making you unable to pronounce said sins or walk in a straight line. Now, I’ve been a “Whisky Neat” kind of lad since I was a lil gaffer, with the palette expansion into craft beer when I got a bit older, so needless to say friends, “Yes. I have absolutely walked a half marathon home which included seeing both the sunset and the next days dawn, and I’ll be right tucked if I remember anything else”.

Without a doubt, there was a time that the lifestyle that went along with being a famous musician/recording artist was truly lavish, and if you were the ones on top you would never want for A THING. First off, never would you have to go get your own fast food in the wee hours, or drive, or get arrested for buying your own drugs, and if you really wanted it, I bet you could have a swimming pool filled with nachos.

*Sigh*

One day, nacho pool.

One day.

Our first number to trudge staggering into frame is Alkoholizer. A bunch of speed freaks from freaking Sardinia with one very obvious topic on their mind, brain-cell mass genocide. Sounding like Slayer dropped Tom Arya is not the worst thing for a band to sound like. They separated briefly in 2010-2013 and reformed to release a new album this year “Free Beer. . .Surf’s Up!”, which I may talk about at a later date but not at this juncture.

“How many metal bands sing about drinking, Bear?”

I WILL TELL YOU, AUDIENCE.

God-damn all of them…

Everybody and their neighbours dog’s butt has a metal band with a song about liver destruction. Few bands try to carry that moniker further than just a song or two, but when they do they go the absolute whole-nine yards. Take for example one of the most OG “Drinkin’ Bands” in history, Tankard. These boys eat, sleep, and (more than likely) breathe Pilsner.

From name to song content all across the board, you don’t really need to say much about Tankard to know that you are going to leave their show missing at least one important item you need to go home, smelling like yeasty bread and dude sweat.

Next on tap is something my local hobble of miscreants brewed-up a few years back, a band to make Jim Lahey proud if there ever was one, “Shithawk”.

Raised on Motorhead, rye, and a deck of darts a day, there ain’t nothing clean about ’em. Greasy from sun-up to sunset. Matt Bailey dropping signature vocals throughout, and more twelfth fret mega-bends than your body has room for, baby. The ‘Hawk were a staple at are shows, probably because tearing through their tab at the bar was second nature. Eventually they began to wind-down, playing less and less shows until the fatal day came when Ol’ Yeller had to be taken out back, but out of those smoldering 40 Oz’s and empty cigarette packs a new band was birthed, encapsulating the spirit of a V8 Interceptor and refilling those same 40’s with gasoline, KING HUMUNGUS.

And as the bar tender places an awkwardly large glass of tequila in front of you with a devious smile, you know that the night is coming to a close. Faces become a little less clear and that girl in the back of the room who has been witch-riding that pool cue suddenly goes from Gary Busey to Scarlett Johansson reeaal fast. That’s when you saddle up, settle up, and get those boots a’clinkin’. Ain’t nothing good happening past that point, so listen to what Canadian hero’s “Trooper” had to say about getting to that point.

“You looked a whole lot better to me from twenty feet away”

ALRIGHT THAT’S IT, THAT’S ALL. HERE’S AN EXISTENTIAL REMINDER THAT YOU ARE UNPREPARED FOR XMAS AND YOU PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN SOMETHING NICER FOR YOUR MOM.

-BEAR