Growing up in New Orleans in the 80’s might sound like really exciting but in all honesty, it wasn’t really all that. I wasn’t old enough to drink, I wasn’t old enough to go to the French Quarter after sundown and I definitely wasn’t old enough to get into the clubs to see local music. The 80’s in New Orleans was like the 80’s in just about any other place but to a kid like me, New Orleans was the world and it was all I knew. Well, not true, I knew Biloxi, MS but other than that, any place else might have well been mars. Reading magazines like Metal Edge, Circus and many other magazines, I would read about all these bands coming up out of the LA/Hollywood scene only to find out that there was a thriving and exciting metal scene in my own backyard.
Sometime around 1986 a tape made it’s way into my hands. I’ll never forget it. It was a 90 minute BASF cassette and written in red ink and pointy “metal” letters was “AXE ATTACK”. I took it home and popped it in and I was floored as to what I was hearing. At first I was convinced I was listening to some rare, unearthed recording of some LA band called Axe Attack. What I learned later was that this band was a band from my own hometown of Metairie, LA called Lillian Axe.
Lillian Axe – Picture Perfect (Live 1985)
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEnTG3XAbzo”]
I was so floored that a band like this was from the neighborhood. If this band was THIS good, there had to be other bands that were similar. Soon enough I would learn about other local bands like Victorian Blitz, Razor White, Hagan and even Zebra who, at that point, was pretty much based in Long Island and putting out albums on Atlantic Records. I was so excited to hear such great music coming out of my own home town and I just couldn’t wait to see them live but unfortunately, the venues that these bands performed in were usually 18 and up.
Victorian Blitz
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0kqir_l1aM”]
While browsing at my favorite record store of all time (Warehouse Records & Tapes) one day, I saw a flyer for a show at St. Christophers Gym (one of the local schools), ALL AGES show featuring Lillian Axe, Dark August and Victorian Blitz. Me and my buddy were so psyched to see that the bands were thinking of the younger crowd and doing shows where we could actually get in. All I remember about that night is that Lillian Axe was amazing and they were like rock stars. Long hair, tons of half naked girls, it was bad ass. I also remember Victorian Blitz doing some really cool Priest and Iron Maiden songs and their guitarist Kirk Windstein would later go on to form legendary New Orleans sludge masters Crowbar.
Razor White
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRKyXxVhU6M”]
After that show, I remember seeing some other really great shows at the gym. Bands like the hardcore/metal band Graveyard Rodeo (which had COC’s Pepper Kenan on guitar), thrash legends Exhorder and again, Razor White. I even remember going to this corny ass teen club called Teazers in Metairie to see this band called Hagan who did a TON of covers and their singer even wore a black and white striped jumpsuit like Nikki Sixx on the Theater of Pain tour. I don’t remember them sucking but isn’t it funny that I can remember being really impressed that the guitar player nailed the solo in “Still of the Night” and that the drummer could really play double bass on Motley Crue’s “Red Hot”? Aside from that Teazers was a cool place because you could smoke there and then tell your parents that you smelled like smoke because of the people there that were smoking. SCORE!
Looking back on those years is really cool for me. It was my first taste of a “local” scene and it was one of the things that made me realize that it was possible to do that myself. Seeing those bands in my own town made the dream seem a bit more realistic to me. Seeing bands like Lillian Axe, Razor White, Victorian Blitz and the others made what seemed like a far fetched dream all the more possible. They made the impossible seem possible and for that I am forever grateful.
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