ALINA SQUEAK!!!
I laugh. Flashback to September 24, 2006. The place is Orangevale, California, at a club called The Boardwalk. It's already been a bitch of a day for everyone - Hypocrisy got stuck at San Francisco International Airport because of the whole Suffocation tour bus snaffu... Suffocation can't make the gig so now Hypocrisy is headlining ... Decapitated has to make a major detour to rescue Hypocrisy from the airport... Abysmal Dawn has to loan Decapitated their drumset so they have something to play on until they get to L.A. ... Horgh has to borrow Vitek's cymbals and the drumset because his aren't there... and it takes me 4 1/2 hours to drive the 1 1/2 hours it usually takes to get to Orangevale from my work. Yet, somehow, between all this stress, the first thing Vitek says to me, with his trademark goofy grin, is...
ALINA SQUEAK!!!
Wow, that's a new twist to my nicknames, I say with amusement. It seems that all of Hypocrisy and half of Decapitated (Vitek and Vogg) know me as Alina, and the other half of Decapitated (Covan and Martin) remember me as Squeak because of my myspace account. So, in typical Vitek comedic style, I get the new hybrid name of Alina Squeak. I love it. As stressed as the entire situation is, Vitek still manages to find something silly to say.
Did we put you on the guestlist? Do you need to wear my laminate tonight? Do you want a soda? (he knew I don't drink) Those next three questions were also typical of Vitek. He always made sure his friends were taken care of, and if he wasn't sure, he'd ask you everything under the sun. Vitek was the type of guy that would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it - and as happened to me, the sweatshirt off his back when the weather turned 35 degrees colder at night and I'm standing there with just a tank top on, shivering. He was the type of guy who, even though we're good friends, would feel bad asking me to drive him down the road to the nearest gas station so he could buy a pack of smokes, just because he thought it might inconvenience me. He was the type of person that I loved to see sauntering up to me with some goofy look on his face, making him one of the most loveable people in the world in a single instant. Oh, how I loved catching him offstage with my camera with one of those looks on his face!!! One of those that reminds you of someone saying, hell-llllo? May I help you???
He was also about one of the most open-minded metalheads I possibly know. One of the VERY funniest things I can remember is sitting on the bus outside The Pound in San Francisco, January 20, 2006. It's fucking freezing outside, around 1230am. So we go sit in the bus with Richard, who was helping Decapitated out on bass for that tour. We start playing a bunch of music, while we talk about his wife, his daughter, life in Poland, my work situation, how stupid close-minded metalheads can be sometimes, European history... all kinds of stuff. Lo and behold, Richard decides to pop ABBA into the stereo. I shoot him one glance, a combination of what the fuck, and damn, you like this too??? Next thing you know, Vitek is sitting there, half-wannabe-singing the lyrics to Dancing Queen, and Richard and I are singing right along with him. Willie Gee comes up on the bus to ask us if we'd seen someone, takes one look at us, and walks right back off the bus without even asking us anything, all the while Richard, Vitek and I are doubled over with laughter. If someone would've ever, EVER tried to tell me before that day that I'd one time be singing Dancing Queen with someone from Decapitated, I would have had them sent to an insane asylum. But, as you can guess, that is how Vitek was.
Oh yes, then flash back to the Summer Slaughter Tour on June 17th, 2007, again at The Boardwalk in Orangevale, CA. The day was EXTREMELY long for me, since I had to get up at 530am (on a SUNDAY!) to go to my sister's college graduation at UC Davis and also had to be at work the next day. Even though I knew that was happening, I also knew that the show didn't start until 3pm and I REFUSED to miss Decapitated. I had never missed them playing here on any tour, even way back many years ago. It was BRUTALLY hot that day (104 degrees with about 85% humidity), and absolutely suffocating in the club. Being that I was already dead tired and they all had had a rough night, we all decided to stay put in their wonderfully air-conditioned van. Even though I missed every band except for Decapitated, I am now ever thankful since that would be the very last time I would see him. We all talked about a shitload of stuff, per usual. After the show, Vitek popped into my car once Covan and I returned from a Taco Bell run, and after playing most of the new Horrorscope album for them, they asked if I had Amon Amarth as well. Yup, you guessed it. In goes Amon Amarth, and I remember Vitek saying, wow, so THIS is what viking metal is!!! HAHAHA Then they both got Vogg and Martin over to the car so they could have a listen, too, and all of them agreed they really liked it. They had already told me about the Amon Amarth/Decapitated tour that was probably happening, but until that moment, I hadn't realized that none of these guys had really HEARD their music, just heard OF Amon Amarth. I'm glad I could help them out. And then there was the whole deal with him getting into the Raider car, acting like a gangster... and then Covan running around being a papparrazi with my camera, per usual, taking about 50 pictures of Vitek and myself and probably another 50 of people on the tour and others I have no idea who the hell they were... and then there was the drumset tshirt I had just bought that he had to have, so I gave it to him... and then there was the party he went to on the Necrophagist bus... and then all the times I tried to learn new Polish words (oh yikes)... and then.. and then... and then.
I have a million stories I could tell about silly stuff we'd all done with him, but I think for right now, I will close with this. While he was known by most people as being an absolutely phenomenal drummer and accomplishing so much by such a young age, he was also the most sincere, down-to-earth guy I have ever known. He was always concerned about his wife and his kids, his brother and his bandmates, his touring partners and his friends, yet never once did he let his status in the scene or his "metalness" make him ever be any different than who he really was. I will miss not just his talent, but also the laughter, the dimples, the emails, the pictures of his family, the happy-go-lucky attitude and his never-ending zest for metal. Metal has indeed lost a truely unique person... I have lost a great friend. Rest in peace, Vitek.
Below is a list of galleries that I have taken of Decapitated:
November 19th, 2005 - San Francisco, CA
January 20th, 2006 - San Francisco, CA
January 21st, 2006 - Orangevale, CA
September 24th, 2006 - Orangevale, CA
October 26th, 2006 - Orangevale, CA
October 27th, 2006 - Oakland, CA
June 17th, 2007 - Orangevale, CA
728 galleries / 31,183 photos / 351 bands / 19 interviews
AUGUST 13, 2007
You guys wanted a massive update, and finally, here it is! There are a total of 76 new galleries, over 3,700 new photos (after I sifted through over 9,600 to give you the best of the best!), and I have now surpassed the 30,000 photo mark on this site! Such a great amount of milestones I have achieved for this update. I must apologize for the length between the updates. If you can imagine me working between 10-12 hours a day since the beginning of June up until now, packing 90% of our entire office at work so we could move a couple weeks ago, attending four festivals, seeing 76 bands in 17 different shows on 17 different days, and traveling all over the
Bay Area, Sacramento, down to
Los Angeles and even flying out to
Texas... well, then I think you can understand why it took a bit to get this update up. I haven't even been home! And Archie had a much-needed vacation. So, we are now back in action for your amusement and entertainment!
First, I had an interesting dilemma. Not only was my sister graduating from college on Father's Day, but the
Summer Slaughter Tour was the same damned day!!! I had to wake up at 530am, go through the entire graduation (which was awesome to see), then go over to the Boardwalk right away. It was 105 degrees outside, so you can imagine how hot inside the club was with no air conditioning! I had wanted to see quite a few of the bands that day, but it just wasn't going to happen. I had to save all my energy for
Decapitated. So I sat with
Decapitated in the van (to keep cool) and actually let
Covan run around with my brand-spanking new digital camera, as he is a closet shutterbug and very good at it. All those pictures are also included in the gallery. Show was great, but we all looked like drowned rats after their set. Totally worth it though.
I had an incredibly rockin' time at the
L.A. Guns (with
Tracii Guns and
Paul Black),
Jetboy and
Dirty Penny gig at the end of June, along with the
Michael Schenker, Doug Doppler and Moreality show and
Heartbreaker (a very, very good Led Zepplin tribute band) and
Long Gone Bon (an equally entertaining AC/DC tribute band), all of which took place at the
Avalon Nightclub in
Santa Clara, CA.
L.A. Guns with
Tracii and Paul is REALLY damned good - I know a lot of people are skeptical, but it really is as good as the other version with
Phil.
Paul is a very talented frontman, whom loves to involve the crowd in everything, including getting a ton of them up on stage during a song! I never get tired of watching
Jetboy, Dirty Penny or Moreality, as they never disappoint. This was also the first time I was able to watch
Doug Doppler live - this guy can NOT miss a beat to save his life! I love him!!! Absolutely phenomenal.
Michael Schenker was indeed also very damned good live, albeit after taking over an hour to grace the stage. His backing band and vocalist were absolutely KILLER - too bad he can't keep everyone together. :/ Thanks as always to
Mike, Julia, Midnight Rocker and Forte Records for putting on these awesome shows!
Next for me was the 10th annual
TIDAL WAVE festival, held in
San Francisco's McClaren Park. What a great place to see a bunch of thrash/black metal bands!!! It's held outside in a type of greek ampitheatre setting.
Tambre and
Tonus did an incredible job with the lineup this year - I mean, where else are you going to
Mordred reunite, along with
Avenger of Blood [
from Las Vegas],
Exordium, flamenco-flavored
Flametal, Hatchet, Hellhunter, Kaos, female-fronted
Manslaughter [
from Los Angeles], newly-reformed
Mercenary, Noctuary [
from Los Angeles],
Scarecrow, Ulysses Siren, Warning SF and Winterthrall [
from Los Angeles] all play on one stage? This year also grabbed the largest turnout - I'm hoping that having this at the beginning of July (just a day after my birthday, no less) will be more promising for them. Can't wait for next year! By the way, for those of you in the
Bay Area or wanting to play here,
Tambre and
Tonus are now booking shows for re-opened club,
The Mab, in
San Francisco. If you wish to get more info on that, contact them
BY CLICKING HERE!.
As if I wasn't tired enough from a weekend of metal, the very next day,
To/Die/For, Virgin Black, Urn and Embers of Euphoria played in
San Francisco. Now, I was absolutely exhausted, especially with all the problems we had trying to get
Avenger of Blood back on the road (stupid U-Hauls!). BUT, there was just no way I was going to miss
To/Die/For! I have been a huge fan for many a year, and being this was their first time in the States (as well as
Virgin Black's), I wanted to make sure I was there. A MILLION thanks to
Jes and Embers of Euphoria for helping me out with everything! This was a very, very, VERY good show - I just wish it was promoted a lot more. Even I didn't know about the gig until less than a week before! I also decided to do an impromptu photo shoot with
Embers in the backstage rooms. The mirrors, colorful lighting, and the green room proved to be great backgrounds!
Not but three days later, I hopped in a car, drove all the way to LAX (Los Angeles Airport). As soon as I got there, I hopped on a plane to fly all the way to
Houston so I could cover
Texas Madfest. Never in my life have I been in crazier weather - holy hell. It was 87 degrees at 1230am and I'd say 120% humidity - 100% humidity as is, plus another 20% because there were severe thunderstorms. Talk about thick and sticky! I will say it was entirely worth it, as I got to see a damned good lineup -
Outworld (whom I've been waiting to see for YEARS and were phenomenal on stage!),
Dark Empire (another favourite),
Eternity Black, Krucible, Magistral, Meyvn, Mindflow, Prymary and Six Minute Century. Every band was spot on on stage and delivered a great set full of energy, even in the heat. Being able to also witness
Scale the Summit right before the show was in itself a great thing, as these youngsters are way beyond the majority of the talent out there.
John and Tammy did a great job keeping everything together - much kudos to them! Thanks to
Shane for having a great BBQ on Saturday. And a hundred million tons of thanks to
Bobby and
Outworld for getting my butt out there in the first place! I won't ever forget that trip.
The very next morning after
Madfest, we rushed to
Houston's airport so that I could hop on the plane back to
Los Angeles. No sooner did I land than I had to jump in the car and race to
Hollywood so I could cover my most-anticipated show - the reunion of the mighty
IMMORTAL. This was literally the best concert I have EVER been to in my life, and I've been to over 3,500 of them! It was everything I expected and more, right down to the BS I knew that would happen with the venue itself. LOL Many, many thanks to
Hakon for getting me as much as I could get at that show and of course to
Immortal for gracing the stage again. Nothing will ever get me to forget being snuck up on while I was getting my laminate, only to be hoisted up in the air (under the legs no less!) and swung around in a huge circle by
Abbath as his way to say hi to me. Funniest thing ever.
Not even two days later, I am slammed by the fact that
Ozzfest 2007 is in town! Of course I wander over there (I never miss
Behemoth!), since it is so close to my house. Had a GREAT time seeing
Behemoth and 3 Inches of Blood, as always, plus the first time I finally got to see
Chthonic (yes, I was a fan BEFORE Ozzfest). Also liked watching
Ankla, Circus Diablo, Daath, Hatebreed, In This Moment, Nile, The Showdown and Lamb of God. Many thanks to
Brian from
Adrenaline PR and
Bari from
MSO PR for helping set all this up. Keep your eye out in the next update for an interview I did with
Freddy, lead vocals for
Chthonic - what an interesting interview that was!
Yet another three days later went by before I attended a spur-of-the-moment gig with
Scarecrow and Destroyer (KISS tribute band). I'm really glad I went to this show because I had a ton of fun that I wasn't expecting for a normally boring Monday night at home. I even borrowed my co-worker's digital camera so I could take pics and went to the gig in my work clothes! HA (I work at a law firm, so that could give you a funny picture for a thrash show)
Then came the 1-2-3 punch just days later. On a very last minute booking,
Mindflow from
Brazil, whom I saw at
Texas Madfest, booked a gig locally in
Concord on the 27th. What a great, great show! They ended up actually having to OPEN for two local bands. If you could've just seen the looks on the faces of these two local bands - priceless. They were floored by the musicianship of
Mindflow and everyone there was hyped up from their set.
The very next day, I wandered over to see
Dream Theater, Redemption and Into Eternity. It was a great show for all of them, although it was held at
Berkeley Community Theater, so one would feel like you were at a high school assembly. LOL I was also quite pissed that most of the shows on the tour had been scheduled for 8pm, yet
Into Eternity had to start at 730pm! You want to talk about a lot of pissed off fans. I had gotten to the ticket window at 725pm, so you can imagine the mad dash I had to do to catch the beginning of the set (only were allowed 15 minutes or first three songs for the set to do photos). Yikes. Thanks to Tim for finagling a way for me to do photos - I appreciate what you went through to get that! It was also great to see
Mike and
Sean from
Prymary actually teching for
Redemption! I thought I just got rid of them a week before that. hehe
As if I weren't tired enough, the day after those two gigs was the much-anticipated
Symphony X, Sanctity and Echoes of Eternity
gig at
Slim's. More kudos to
Brian from
Adrenaline PR and
Carl for setting me up with this.
Echoes of Eternity was good live, although they needed to turn the vocals up a bit more.
Sanctity, as usual, ruled their set and
Symphony X was - INSANE. Check back on my next update to see an interview I did with
Mike LePond from
Symphony X.
On August 3rd, I had the pleasure to attend
Sounds of the Underground, which was held in San Jose this time, instead of the usual
Mountain View (
Rush was playing that night). Much thanks to
Kelli from Metal Blade for setting all this up and for the turn-by-turn directions out of lost-ville for me!!!
Goatwhore did a great set and had lots of energy.
Amon Amarth - man, what can I say. It's been a while since I got to see them last and has their stage set gotten bigger!!! Talk about a commanding presence, especially loved the crowd response for them. It was also great to see
Shadows Fall again as well as the ever-entertaining
GWAR. Hell, I took pics almost the entire
GWAR set! Talk about being risky. I was also VERY happy to FINALLY witness
Suicidal Tendencies.
Chimaira, Darkest Hour, Every Time I Die, Job For a Cowboy, The Acacia Strain, The Devil Wears Prada and The Number Twelve Looks Like You also put on great sets. I had a long talk with
Amon Amarth as well as doing an interview with
Olavi and Johan S, so look for those in the next update. You can also read more about what I thought of their set
BY CLICKING HERE. Can't wait for their tour with
Decapitated in the winter!
The last three shows I got to do were
Dirty Penny at
Orchard Valley Coffee, down the street from my house, which actually went really well. It was funny to watch the people walking by and stopping to watch through the window.
Exodus put on a GREAT show at the incredibly packed, incredibly hot
Blank Club. I must say thank you to the guy in the
Flametal shirt who got me in right before their set. I didn't catch your name, but I owe you big time! Last but not least are the boys in
JBD, who put on a great show at the
Red House in
Walnut Creek. I also put quite a few more scenery photos up that I took around the
Bay Area. Most of them are flowers, although there are a few other things as well. Hope you like those, too!
I have decided to place
TWO bands in the spotlight this time around,
Embers of Euphoria and JBD, both of whom are unsigned and from the
Bay Area. Thought it was high time to shed some light on the scene I frequent all the time!
My Symphony of the Damned section here on the right is a spotlight on the top things I have been listening to. It in no way represents all the stuff I get to hear, so here I will list some random stuff I have also been playing as of late:
1. Morgana Lefay - Aberrations of the Mind
2. Kalmah - The Black Waltz
3. Scariot - Momentum Shift
4. Lions Share - Emotional Coma
5. Evidence One - The Sky is the Limit
6. Hellfueled - Memories in Black
7. Nuclear Blast Allstars - Into the Light
8. Shinedown - Us and Them
9. Trixter - s/t
10. Dark Haven - Your Darkest Hour
11. Pain - Dancing with the Dead
12. Nazareth - The Very Best Of
13. Sanctuary - Refuge Denied
14. Outworld - Demo
15. Cydonia - Dark Flower
16. L.A. Guns - Cocked and Re-loaded
17. Into Eternity - The Scattering of Ashes
18. Samael - Passage
19. Dirty Penny - s/t
20. Necrophobic - Hrimthursum
21. Kreator - Past Life Trauma 1985-1992
22. Opeth - Blackwater Park
23. The Eagles - The Early Days
24. Erasure - Cowboy
25. Enslaved - Isa
26. God Dethroned - The Toxic Touch
27. Camouflage - Voices & Images
28. Edguy - Theater of Salvation
29. Waltari - Big Bang
30. Chris Isaak - Heart Shaped World
Next update will be up pretty soon and I have a lot of things coming up. A lot of photos of the
142nd Annual Scottish Highland Gathering and Games, along with photos of
Brother and
Stand Easy there, as well as spotlights on those two bands as a way to get the Scottish bagpipes and rock n roll genre out there more. I will also have photos of
Jetboy, Dirty Penny, Megadeth, Cannibal Corpse, The Black Dahlia Murder, The Red Chord, The Absence, and possibly
Katatonia, Scar Symmetry and Epica. I will also have interviews up of
Unearth, Cannibal Corpse, Chthonic, Symphony X, Amon Amarth, Goatwhore and a couple of other bands. Stay tuned!
