War Pigs and my adolescence

As a kid in rural Appalachia, I knew Black Sabbath by reputation only. Because my community regarded them as pure, coal-black Satanic evil, it was dangerous to possess a Sabbath cassette, and since I had no older brother or stoner friend to introduce me to music, I was on my own. I never heard any of Sabbath's music until I got to college.

I was, however, an avid music geek. I would get a cassette by a band (my first was Red Hot Chili Peppers "Freaky Styley") and then get cassettes by every band listed in the "thank yous." I also read Rolling Stone and SPIN (which weren't bad magazines back then) with a red marker to circle all the albums listed in "Artists' Picks" features. I also taped every episode of 120 minutes (and Alternative Nation, when it was on). [Unfortunately, I didn't really discover how awesome Headbanger's Ball was until my college years, so I missed out on a lot.]

This lengthy prologue is my way to tell you how I discovered the Meat Puppets before Nirvana's Unplugged appearance, and that the spectre of Black Sabbath will return later in the story. So I loved the Meat Puppets, and I heard that they were opening for Blind Melon during their (as I called it) Bee Girl tour. It just so happened that Blind Melon was coming to Radford, VA, and I got the chance to go. It should be noted that then as now I couldn't stand Blind Melon's hippie shit. But to see the Meat Puppets--and let me note that I had recently gone to a Spin Doctors concert in order to see Screaming Trees and it was totally worth it (let me also note that I kind of like the Spin Doctors)--I was all about it.

So we get to the show, and there's an opening opening act called Alice Donut. I'd never heard of this group, and since everyone else in the auditorium was there for the Bee Song, I was in a group of 50 at the front of the stage while 12,000 or so sat on bleachers or milled about in the back of the venue. Alice Donut became my favorite band ever within about five minutes, right after lead singer Tomas Antona started the show by saying, "This song is about having your head cut off in a construction carbine and staying conscious for a few minutes while the blood drains out. It's called, 'My Severed Head,'" and they played this incredible song. I was in love.

Later in the show, the singer said, "This one's for Bush and his bullshit war for oil. You might think it's over [this was 1994], but it's not, so long as there's oil and religious warfare." He then headed back to the drumkit while the drummer came up front with a trombone. This is what they played.



War Pigs. On a trombone. It was awesome. I still love Alice Donut, who are still putting out albums (having just celebrated their 20th year of total obscurity). Turns out the drummer works at a wine store near my sister's apartment in New York. She met him and told him that her brother was obsessed with Alice Donut. I think (hope?) he hit on her.