Tag: exhumed

October Surprise

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So, after coming back from Hawai’i with Exhumed and playing a one off with Impaled at the California Death Fest pre-fest show one day later, I had less than a week to make preparations; it was time for the slack-jawed hooded menaces to once again hit the road and for some good old fashioned monster-on-monster crime. This was to be immediately followed by another short Halloween run with Exhumed. FML.

Our first gig was at the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma. I’ve played here twice with Exhumed before, once with Revocation. The other time was my very first show with Exhumed in the 1990s where I happened to give myself a nasty little scar on my chest by cutting myself, purposefully, on stage, in a moment of extreme edge-lord-ness. Don’t let your babies grow up to be edge-lords.

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Volcanic Strike 2 with Exhumed

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Back in 2020, when Exhumed was planning to jet set to Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, and Australia, I told Matt we should book a show in Hawai’i on the way. “Why? he asked. It’s a reasonable question, to be fair. It’s a smaller population, it’s expensive to get there, infrequently booked by bands, and we would’ve certainly lost money doing it. My only reason was because I wanted to flex that I’ve played Hawai’i. Well, the world shut down, all the plans were cancelled.

Somehow, however, I willed into being Exhumed playing in Hawai’i. In summer of 2024, the people behind Volcanic Strike made the call and we were booked for an October date. Being part of a fest was a much more attractive offer. Sure, airfare and lodging were sure to eat into our budget significantly, but now we’d at least have a guaranteed audience of festival attendees. We made the plans, and the plans grew. It’s fucking trip to Hawai’i; there was no way we were not going to take advantage of a trip to the lush island of Maui.

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Who Wants Some Head

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Sebastian from Exhumed was getting pretty tired of the same old spark guitar gag he was doing for the Exhumed set over the last few years. For our Decayed Decades tour, Matt suggested we bring back an old gag, the guillotine. Sebastian would solo, then Dr. Philthy would come out and behead him. Exhumed had done the guillotine bit with Bud, the old guitar player, years ago, but that severed head looked REALLY bad. I offered to make something a little bit better for Sebastian.

I had very little time to get this together between tours, so it was definitely done under a crunch. And there were a few missteps on the way to making this…

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Exhumed in the Land of Oz

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It was a longer flight than I’d anticipated from Japan to Sydney, Australia. It was about nine hours and I was just slowly doling out my ibuprofen to deal with the summer of sciatica. There was some more customs hassles to deal with getting into Oz, namely a carnet, a document we had to provide that listed ALL our gear, computers, etc. It went as well as it could, and we entered the airport to find our lovely host, Anthony of Your Mate Bookings, holding a sign displaying a traditional Australian greeting.

I can’t lie, Anthony’s handsomeness put me off a bit. It’s hard to trust a sexy guy who’s decided to denigrate themselves by working in the metal scene. But his humor and typical Australian friendliness did a lot to ease my nerves. He ended up being a great host and our adventures in Australia would prove to be extremely positive.

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Exhumed in Japan

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We headed out early the morning of July 5 to make it to Los Angeles Airport, shit hole of the West. We had to get their very early to take care of three things: checking in, visa forms for Japan, and having our last decent Mexican food for awhile. We made it into Japan without incident, besides maybe some leftover bean farts. 

Our first stop was Tokyo. We met with two members of what was to become our amazing fucking crew, Bastian and Benoit. In a weird twist, our hosts in Japan were French expats. Incroyable! We packed into the very, very tiny van, my sciatica flaring in full force after the long flight, and made our way to the Shinjuku region of Tokyo. 

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Welcome to Hell – Exhumed with Venom, Inc.

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Immediately following the Ludicra shows in New York and Texas, I had agreed to a tour with Exhumed in late June 2023 opening for Venom. Well, I was cajoled into it. We’d been offered the gig after we’d made plans to go to Japan and Australia, and frankly, my time was growing thin. Matt was worried about our expenses for the overseas trips, however, so he talked me into it. And then they added days. My original plans to go home after Ludicra for a break were dashed. I had to go immediately from Austin to Dallas and meet up with these turkeys and start shows with zero in-person rehearsal.

Complicating things further was the absence of our actual drummer Mike Hamilton. He had asked for this time off to tech an Exodus tour and get some more face time with with his family. Our friend Adam Houmam of Cartilage had stepped in during the last show of our 2022 tour when Mike fell ill. The silly boy accidentally ate someone’s weed gummies because he didn’t ask and he understandably freaked out. Adam was actually able to play like six of our songs with 20 minutes notice. It was Mike’s suggestion to call him in to fill in and Adam was down. Without rehearsals, I was only going to find out how he played our songs live on stage!

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Fixing Latex Clothing

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Kind of an odd post for this blog, but music often includes theater and theater includes costumes. On the last Exhumed tour in 2022, I was fortunate enough to have my lovely girlfriend accompany us for three shows. At the last minute, our guitarist Baz remembered a photo shoot I had done with her featuring my teal “sexy nurse” GB-4 bass and my girlfriend in a sexy latex nurse costume she had from before we met. It just HAPPENED to be the exact same colors. I call it kismet. Anyway, he suggested we invite her on stage with us to perform with us and our own inimitable Dr. Philthy! It was a grand idea and she assented.

what a doll

Latex clothing is a tricky beast. It needs to be tight but this can also make it difficult to put on. It doesn’t slide on like normal cotton, it’s got tack to it when applied to skin. While getting ready before our show in Philadelphia at Johnny Brenda’s, we moved a little too fast and undid some of the seams on the collar of the dress. The seams are glued, not sewn (obviously) and we were lucky we didn’t actually rip the latex. Also of some luck, our direct support had red duct tape that matched the collar’s piping so I was able to make a quick fix for the night and the show went on. This dress wasn’t cheap, though, so we needed to do a REAL fix. So, I learned how to fix latex clothing.

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Operating Theatre: Peavey VTM 120

Doktor Ross Sewage5 Comments

The Peavey VTM 120 is [looks around to see who is listening] a great fucking amp. Don’t tell your friends, because you can still get ’em relatively cheap. It’s essentially a JCM 800 clone with a set of DIP switches “to avoid any Imperial entanglements.” Sebastian Phillips, my bandmate in Exhumed, swears so much by his that he has one for each coast. He even got our other guitfiddler, Matt Harvey, to get one as a back-up for his 5150 (or 6505… I can’t keep track).

Of course, even a good amp has a bad day. This trooper made it through a marathon six-week tour, but upped and quit on us the very last day. It just stopped turning on. Luckily, Matt had that back-up, so Sebastian didn’t lose his groove. I took the amp after we unpacked our shit and did my doktor thing.

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