Goin' back a couple of years,
nearly 20 to be rough, I was heavily involved in the local metal scene. At some point, maybe 15 or 16 years ago?, myself and a Really Good Mate of mine came up with this fucking awesome idea while pissed on double Jim Beam? and Coke?, at an Allegiance? gig maybe?
(feel free to jump in Dave, where ever you are, at anytime and correct me).
We reckoned it'd be a good idea, seeing as how he was an internet genius and working for an ISP (he was the webmaster for the Allegiance? website at the time), and I was pretending to be a graphic artist? we should collab in order to start a website to promote our friends bands and any gigs they might be playing, mainly so we could get in to those gigs for nothing, seeing as how we were promoting it, but also in the hope that more than 7 people would rock up to the gigs, and maybe a few chicks would show up too!
Not long after we got our first page up we organised a little gig at the Whitesands to launch it. I think we got about 15 paid people through the door. I got so drunk that night, I slept in the bushes on West Coast Hwy somewhere between the old Observation City and Quinns Rock.
In the early days of the Western Front the main aim was simple,
aside from the free gigs, it was an easy way for dudes in bands to contact other dudes in bands in order to organise gigs. There were so many young bands from so many genres that didn't really know any other dudes in bands, so they'd play at party or some shite pub somewhere with 5 old men and bar maid with saggy tits as an audience. Not really a character building environment for an upcoming brutal death metal band.
It kinda sorta worked, kinda. Instead of a gig every 3 months, we started to see one a month, then one a fortnight, then Satan? forbid, some nights we were spoilt for choice. We could catch Choke and Kin at Grosvenor, or Pagan and Impact Winter at the Whitesands on the same night. Two metal gigs in one night was unheard of back then.
I'm not saying this was all happening purely because of the Western Front, but it certainly had an influence on what was happening around the city, bringing bands who normally wouldn't associate or didn't know each other together, which for us at the time, was
exactly what we wanted it to do. It performed it's task. And it performed it fucking well.
Although I've not been involved with WF or the local metal scene for a number of years now, I'm am a Metal Head of the Highest Order?. It only just recently occurred to me that I really wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for this little website, conceived on a drunken night watching Perth's premier thrash band. The music is and has always been a massive part of my life. The people I've met and been privileged to remain friends with even after all these years remain to be my biggest influences and inspirations.
I'm not 100% sure what bought on this outburst of metallic emotions. But I do know this. The heavy music scene in Perth is one of the finest on the planet. So fucking what if we don't churn out best selling albums or international touring acts. Who the fuck cares?
It's the camaraderie, the mateship, the drunken good times. That, folks, is what it's all about.
And it makes you who the fuck you are.Stay Brutal Sick Puppies
Clay
http://hammersmashedmag.posterous.com/I'm wanting to add to the above gallery photos from the early days. I have a shitload of my own from the old days, most are drunkenly out of focus, are of backs of heads and close-ups of feet and beer puddles. If you have any reasonably good quality gig photos from the Old Days, or something you reckon I might be able to use from a recent gig, please email them to me with relevant details and i'll get it sorted.