The Striker-Mini-Ep-Tour was a major success. Our good buds Striker and Speed Metal Clayton arrived in Toronto Thursday morning armed with guitars and lots of leather pants and even a yoga ball. It just happened to be that the weather got hot and shitty as soon as they arrived. They're used to their faces cracking in the semi-arid desertlike climate of Calgary and were not impressed with the grease factor. They slept at Craig's until the Cauldron boys were off work and ready to load into Sneaky Dee's for Striker's first show in Toronto. Everyone did the usual nacho thing downstairs before the doors opened. The nacho's there are just not what they used to be. The chi's were out in full force at this show. Diemonds kicked things off with a pretty greasy set of rock n' roll. Maniac played a murderous set, unfortunately it was their last show ever. Word on the street is drummer Chris Six Stix is forming a new band using only inward Udo Dirkschneider screams, to be called Terrordactyl. Striker blew everyone away when they hit the stage. I don't think anyone was prepared for the piercing screams and Racer X leads. We played our first show with new drummer Chris. Oh yeah, our old drummer Chris Rites quit, but our new drummer's name is also Chris so we figured, what's the point? Considering we only practiced four times with Chris before the show, it was pretty fucking good. After the show everyone got drunk and went back to Craig's to drink some more and sleep on the floor.
Montreal, August 14, 2009
Everyone got up early, around 9, to plan for a 10 am departure to Montreal. Of course we didn't end up leaving until noon. Striker had to rent a second guitar amp instead of bumming shit off people wherever we went. Laurie baked chocolate chip and banana muffins for everyone to eat in the van, and they went down like a storm even though the chocolate melted everywhere, but at least they didn't stick to the muffin wrappers. After a couple delays and people forgetting stuff, we made it onto the highway. I rode in the van with Striker and we listened to the new Steel Panther album, which would have been better had we been flying down the highway and not stuck behind old people for an hour. We played 20 questions, which was pretty easy considering the answer was always boobs or dildo. As soon as we crossed the border to Quebec we stopped at Nasty Ronnie's for a bite and to be ogled at by the locals. We loaded into the venue around 6 something and our favorite banger Matt Wrath of Abusor came to help set stuff up and get the show running. His other band Black Kut played opened the show to a sea of bangers. There might have been some confusion because they were listed in The Mirror as Black Nut. A lot of disappointed Black Nut fans had to leave the show. Craig, Laurie, Jason and I all drank in the van in between sets and pretended to be mannequins when the hobos kept knocking on the van window looking for smokes. Striker put on a better show this night than the last (I thought) and made a healthy dent in the Montreal metal scene. We played a decent set even though the sound in there was total ass. After the gig we went to some guy's how, his name was Roy I think. He lived in a giant warehouse loft and his son was a pro skateboarder or something. He said it was the safest place in the city because it was guarded by 3 giant dogs who would tear anything apart that tried to approach. When we arrived, "Huey" "Bumpy" and "Raul" were all fast asleep on the couches. They were really nice. Any burglar that came face to face with them would be in a sorry state. A few of us headed over to Tyson the drummer from Black Kut's place to get some sleep. He took care of us well and had some cool cats there called "Pierro" "Nibbler" and "Burger".
Kingston, August 15, 2009
Before we left for Kingston, the Cauldron crew went to do some afternoon record shopping. There's always good shit to find in Montreal, and we weren't disappointed this time either. I scored Mercyful Fate "Melissa" for $8 and Samain "Vibrations of Doom" for $8 too. Craig got the second Madison record (Swedish metal) and some other stuff like Picture and Thor. Jason got Mad Max "Stormchild" which is a great album. There were some hefty bags of records by the end of the afternoon but I can't remember all of them because I was really shrivelling up in the shitty weather. We drove to Kingston after and stopped by Brian's Record Option which was closed. Uh, so we went to Bar None which was really close and waited for the promoter to come back from Dairy Queen and open the doors so we could load in. Craig and I hit up the Beer Store and drank in the van and ate shawarma's while the opening bands played. We didn't know what to expect in Kingston but there were quit a few bangers at the show, not to mention a bachelor party. Those guys loved Striker and us. They bought so much shit, we made a killing in merch. They probably woke up the next day wearing our shirts surrounded by cd's thinking "What the FUCK is this shit!?" Well, we gotta make a living too. Anyway, I walked in for Striker's set and headbanged next to Speed Metal Clayton by the merch table. The sound was really good in Bar None and Striker played a great set. The Cauldron set was pretty good and Chris was really getting the hang of stuff at this point. After the load-out we hung around for a few minutes to check out the techno party that was going on. It sucked so we drove back to Chris' house in Ottawa, where his mom had made around 9 beds for everyone to sleep. It was a quiet night because everyone was already hungover from falling asleep in the car during the ride to Ottawa.
Ottawa, August 16, 2009
Mrs. Stephenson was awesome and made everyone breakfast enchiladas. They instantly cured all hangovers and we hung out at the house all day and had a few sips. Everyone minus me, Craig and Laurie went to see parliament and see the sights. We met up at Maverick's around 6 and didn't have to do anything because those guys had already loaded in. Thanks guys! We hit up Vertigo records and hung out with Uncle D before the show. We went back to the van and had a few drinks before heading back to see Chris open the show with Aggressor. Lots of bangers came out to this show, including Exciter drummer Dan Beehler who was really cool! Our Ottawa buds Joe Thrasher played next, and I must say they sounded really good with their new 3-piece lineup. We headed back to the van for a few more drinks and ran into Brandon Wars and Steelrider on the sidewalk. Goat Horn reunion! Brandon and Steelrider have formed a new band called Flying Fortress which sounds like The Rods. Cool! The van started getting really greasy so we went back inside for the start of the Striker set. Could this have been their best show so far? It was either this one or Kingston. Dan's voice sounded as good as ever and the crowd was rite into it. The Cauldron set was good with a couple minor bumps. The crowd wanted one more song, so we tried to get Steelrider to come up and play something like Chains Around Heaven or anything else he knew, but he was having none of it! Afterwards we headed back to Aggressor's house and let it rip. Everyone was hammered and thought it would be a great idea to ding-dong-ditch Jeff Water's house. At first what sounded like a 5 minute walk turned out to be 45 minutes in sweltering heat. Brandon and Steelrider said their goodbyes after Mrs. Stephenson made quite possibly the best dinner ever. I think it was slow cooked all day... steak, potatoes, apple pie for desert. It was good. We all got up around 10 the next day because Striker had to be at the airport around 7. They got back to Toronto before us because we pulled into Kingston to see if Brian's Record Option was open. It was, but that place is like sorting through wreckage from an explosion. Craig somehow found a Motorhead 1980 tour program which passed the time in the car. We got back on the highway but got stuck in traffic for an hour. Craig joked that what if it was Striker who had caused the accident and there were leather pants strewn all over the highway. Traffic cleared up after we passed the camper van that had been impaled by a tractor trailer. Everyone got home safe and memories were made. Are these not the best days of our lives?
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