November to Dismember Metalfest - Friends n Fun
November 10-11, 2000

The November to Dismember Metalfest was quite a weekend to remember. When in the past 10 years had so many metalheads gathered around in one place at one time to hang out and enjoy metal -- all kinds of metal, from the copious amount of death metal bands to power metal, and a bit of everything in between. It was a meeting of kindred spirits from all over the world and a chance to see bands from other places whom I would have otherwise never got the opportunity to see. That Testament's set got cut prematurely short after a few songs, that Venom and Nevermore never played, seemed to matter very little, because Metalfest wasn't about the big bands. It was about the small bands and the fans. It was a reaffirmation that Metal in Los Angeles was alive and kicking.

I spent a lot of Friday's Metalfest promoting for my band Raven Mad's set that night, but Saturday was spent hanging out with friends, making new friends, and enjoying the show.

The ticket price for the two-day event seemed a little dear at first to a lot of people, even with the local bands selling discount tickets. Still, the posse was out en force! Here are members of the posse joined by Rick from Steel Prophet. The posse are: (front, l to r) William "Fro Boy" Rustrum, Glenn Watson, Ana Greco, Derin Aragon, Rick from Steel Prophet; (back, l to r) Carol Anderson, Tny Stray, Mike Bear, Metal Mom Susan, Matt, n Jeff Jacobus.

Here's the posse again, joined by me and Mike Grant and members of his band Onward. Notice how gray the sky appears in the picture above. It was FREEZING!! Fortunately, the show itself was held inside two buildings.

There was a small courtyard between the two buildings were concessions were sold, and where we spent a lot of time just hanging out, as we are in this picture. The only thing that would send socializers inside was an occasional downpour of rain. This picture looks upon the main building and includes Denis "The Moshking" Recendez, Joe Verastegui of Raven Mad, and Carol Anderson in the bottom left-hand corner.

Here are two members of Raven Mad, Fro Boy and Joe, in the second building which housed the Necropolis Records and the Nightfall Records stage, with our friend John. A curtain divided the two stages. The Necropolis stage was easy to find, but the room was so dark, people found it hard to find the Nightfall stage behind the curtain. I think I only caught one or two bands playing the Nightfall stage, but all my friends' bands and some of my favorites of the show were actually on the Necropolis stage.

Doug Tarry, Carol Anderson, and Tony Stray (with Ana Greco peeking from behind) take a moment by the Necropolis stage to pose for a picture.

Here I am on Friday (dressed in my stage attire) in the main room, joined by Long Paul of KNAC.COM (left) and Kirk Scherer, Kragen Lum, and Vince L. of Prototype. Behind us is the Relapse Records stage, where Raven Mad performed and various booths which sold killer metal CD's for cheap!

In the center of the main room was the KNAC booth, where you could find the current schedule of bands and the friendly KNAC.COM crowd. As it was back in its on-the-air form, KNAC still manages to inspire a great metal community around it, although now the community extends across the world.

I took lots of pictures, including some of my friend's bands:

Pictures of Daemos, Prototype and Onward

And check out the Madsters live and in action at Metalfest:

Pictures of Raven Mad