xxxii. 1993

Early 1993 consisted mainly of myself writing material for my PENUMBRA project.  I got quite into it as this was a new leaf turned in terms of style and approach.  I was still struggling slightly with the new tuning system, almost like learning how to play again.  I departed with my trusty Profile distortion pedal, for a measly $25, as I was expecting to attain a new amp; an actual guitar amp.  However, due to a misunderstanding with my grandmother, whom I had worked for casually to earn the cash for the amp, the purchase was delayed and I was left to write my material without amplification.  This didn't really matter that much, in hindsight, because I write quite a bit nowadays in the same manner, but the idea of not having an amp and playing Metal guitar was beyond awkward for obvious reasons.  I recall walking out to my grandmother's house on Sundays and cleaning up my grandfather's face.  His Alzheimer's had gotten quite bad and he'd lost his ability to shave so he'd grow it out all week and I'd come by and trim him up on weekends.  It was a strange way to re-bond with him, looking back, as we were for most of my childhood like best friends.  As his condition had developed I felt a great disconnect from him, as if he truly didn't know me or I him.  During these weekends as 'the shaver' we were on a similar plain again, if only for a few months.  He'd accumulate quite a growth over a week, so I'd practice on him, giving him a handle-bar moustache or leaving a goatee on him sometimes.  Dreaded diseases then put you in check when he doesn't recognize or trust you one weekend and it's all over again.  On my walks home, on the tracks, I'd hum out my new riffs and try singing some lines, usually in the twilight during that mild portion of winter, and I'd be taken back to years past when I'd walk to my mom's house doing the exact same thing.

Clayton and I began to talk again at some point during spring, after I had acquired my new amp, a Hughes and Kettner 30 watt combo.  He had said that he had made some deal with a European indy label [Dog Eat God Records?] to release a 7" EP.  After conversing for awhile it seemed genuine and I began working on new material for the project.  PENUMBRA had dwindled into nothingness as the new material took form, due mainly to the fact that I no longer needed it to exist.  If MORBID DARKNESS was truly about to converge again I needed not to fill any void.  We had hung out a few times and rekindled our friendship as much as we could.  I had felt that the newer material was somewhat disconnected from the material of the past and in my ponderings had come to the conclusion that we should start anew and move forward with a new theme and incorporate new ideas.  MORBID DARKNESS was not just our band, it was rooted in our friendship and our common bonds.  Though we were still friends even after the conflicts things were different on many levels now, and I thought that it would perhaps a healthy idea to direct our new found friendship in a new found way.  I suggested to Clayton that we change our name to CRIMSON REQUIEM, and to take our lyrical themes into a different realm - one involving little or no religious tones at all.  At first he was quite receptive.  I had sketched out a logo which was well received and he seemed to be on the same page when hearing the new riffs I'd written.  It wasn't a week when he called to back out, however, stating his and his mother's concern for this change and so we went on, after all, as MORBID DARKNESS - with some of the said thematic changes.  In hindsight, this was probably for the best.  Or was it?  I will touch on this debate later, when things are more clear to the reader.

My mother had some problems mounting early in the year.  Due to some nosey neighbours in her area, who probably though she was a drunk - a common misconception when observing one who has Huntington's disease - she had been served an eviction notice from her pad.  She would move back into town, which may have suited her needs better anyway, into an apartment we later named 3545 DIVE.  I liked this because it brought her closer to me and made it easier for me to spend time with her.  The walk from town before this was quite lengthy and often discouraging, particularly during the winter months.  Now I could be there in 5 minutes.  I went there often, feeling the need to escape my father's and step mother's functional alcoholism.  I also enjoyed unabashed phone calls to Clayton here, where I could freely talk about things which I felt were held back in the presence of my father and step mother.  I remember John Greene coming up in the conversation more than a few times, a guy who had started working at Ebeneezer's - which was a mainstay for Clayton's and my used tape collections.  John had taken an interest in Clayton and was enthralled by Clayton's constant ramblings concerning MORBID DARKNESS.

During the latter part of the year Clayton had told me that John was going to front the dough for us to record our 7" in the studio - the same studio, I'll note, that we had wished to record in back in 1990 and 1991 but could not afford.  This certainly added some fuel to the proverbial fire and put me on a writing stint which I hadn't seen since late '91/early '92.  I recorded a few rough tapes for Clayton to hear and perhaps write lyrics for and maybe work out a couple of solos.  He seemed to like the material and these compositions seemed to be on the path to becoming our long awaited second demo.  Actually, it turned out that the 7" deal fell through, and this opened up more freedom with song length, etc.  I had worked during most of the summer at a poultry packaging plant, so this would help to fund the demo as well.  At some point, Clayton busted up his Morris Hurricane bad.  It had taken its beatings over the years but had finally come to its end.  I had bought the same guitar in a white finish a year ago and as I had some cash around now decided to present the guitar to him as a gift.  I took his as a future project [which incidentally never happened] and went out and bought myself a used guitar at Raven Traders, the same pawn shop I bought the Hurricane a year earlier.  It was a Profile, which for some reason I thought was a good thing.  The neck was like half cooked fettuccine, flimsy as fuck, though it did sport DiMarzio pickups.  A part of me wished I would have bought this thing for Clayton and kept the goddamn Hurricane.  It served it's purpose, however, and we ended up recording a DSV tape called 'Is Anything Worse?...'.  This tape served as probably one of the best DSV tapes ever made and really lightened the mood for us.  We also recorded a MORBID DARKNESS improv tape, titled 'Underground Warriors' [at least, I think this is the tape and title I'm referencing, as was suggested to me recently by Clayton during a phone conversation - two other unknown titles were recorded in 1994 and 1996 which could in fact be the title in question].  We certainly still had something together, albeit something a bit different than before, but it seemed to work and for the most part we were getting along.

The day before school (almost in the same manner as last year) we moved into a new house in the Gardom Lake area past Enderby - roughly half an hours drive from Armstrong.  I attended a new school in a new town.  What a change.  I didn't much care for being further away from my family again and most weekends I was taken back to stay an my mom's or sometimes into Vernon to hang with Clayton.  I made some good friends in Enderby, most of which I haven't seen or talked to in ages and whom I do miss.  I never could open up 100% to them, though, it seemed.  I was always of the mind that this new town shit would be temporary and that I best not get too attached to it, which in hindsight is strange indeed.  As it turned out it was only temporary in some ways, but I made great friends and lost a couple of them [RIP Otis and Chris].  Enderby had established a new facet in my musical journey, however, with Evan Panchuk.  We became friends in Music Composition class and began writing and recording class projects together on a cheap 4 track recorder.  It was a good outlet to have besides MORBID DARKNESS and it opened me up to experimenting with new influences on current material.  I played some of our tapes to Clayton, who of course laughed or scoffed, but which I paid no great mind.  We continued writing and recording up until my departure from Enderby in early 1995.

December 1993, during the recording of our 'Rehearsal 12/93' tape @ 3545 Dive.

At some point in late 1993, we had established that we'd be entering the studio some time in early 1994, so we decided to let off some steam by recording a rehearsal tape.  After xmas, I began laying the rough backing tracks on drums and guitars.  I had been given a Boss MT-2 distortion pedal which beefed up the weak overdrive channel on my H and K amp and I was really feeling that vibe.  I decided to quickly learn a handful of old Metal songs to include on the b-side as bonus covers.  Days later we convened at 3545 DIVE to track the main guitars and vocals live.  After recording 'Rehearsal 12/1993' we embarked on a late night photo shoot around town, with my sister Jessica shooting many of those photos.  We ate a turkey dinner that night and discussed our future.  It all seemed exciting again and it hadn't for so long that I simply relished in it as long as I could.  Things would change eventually, as nothing stays perfect too long, particularly where this duo is concerned, but as I truly do believe - it all happened for some reason.

CHRIS I. SHAVER, February 29, 2012.

Yields for 1993:

DSV 'Is Anything Worse?...' Tape [Status: Preserved on Disc]
MORBID DARKNESS 'Underground Warriors' [?] Tape [Status: Unknown]
DEMONIC 'Rough Morbid Darkness Demo Sessions'  Tapes [Status: Preserved on Disc]
MORBID DARKNESS 'Rehearsal 12/1993' Tape [Status: Preserved on Disc]
[This demo is available as a free download via Mediafire: MORBID DARKNESS 'Rehearsal 12/1993']


Top 15 Albums of Inspiration:

xxxi. 1992

After having released our first recorded effort even close to being worthy of release, we entertained the activities which would follow, and a lot of them became real.  We did interviews with some underground 'zines and began receiving the odd order for one of our demo tapes, usually by very enthusiastic and passionate underground Metal followers.  I immediately began working on new material which was direct lineage from that which I had been toiling over for the past 8 months or more.  I had found my groove and it was a personal-best level of output which was coming forth.

I got news early on in the new year that Clayton would be going in for surgery, at last, for his failing lung.  I could not help but take it all in on a bit of a negative bend.  My mother was deteriorating (though minimally when compared to later years) and that whole situation with her brother also being around now and showing evident symptoms of the same dreaded disease brought unto my reality an amplified feedback which was at times unbearable.  And now this; my blood-brother to go under the knife and perhaps he might not make it out!  It was certainly a horrific thought, and many cigarettes were smoked out in the fog and the cold, during those few days when I couldn't talk to him, in the shadows and in the dark corners of the property...pondering what may or may not be.  What a ghastly glance into one's future - and it flung me into a bit of a depression - but after hearing of the success of the surgery, my melancholia moved away from all that and into my own introspection...many questions of my own life and the future on a personal level came into being and I laid on my bed most nights in the early year listening to music and just wondering about what was going to happen in my life.

My recorded efforts were mainly done early in the year.  The first was an EP type tape which contained a song I had written solely dedicated to Clayton called 'The Ascending Sorrow, The Ascending Frost' [aka Sorrow In Frost] with rehearsal cuts on the second side.  I also recorded some other DEMONIC tapes, which included some cover songs as well as containing a lot of the new material I was putting together for the second demo.  In March, after Clayton's own work with DEMI-SORCERER, we decided to record an improv tape, under the moniker of APOLLYON SUN.  It wasn't anything much like our past material, perhaps more inspired by Clayton's solo stuff and maybe ORDER FROM CHAOS (which I was personally digging via a 'Stillbirth Machine' advance tape I got from Pete) than anything else we had done before.

By late spring I had written the second demo; about 60 minutes worth of material, what I considered to be great material, in fact.  Something by this time was astir, however, during phone calls with Clayton.  A great deal of negativity was tormenting him and in usual fashion, I was feeling the brunt of it in our conversations.  He couldn't seem to just come out and say what was bothering him, rather, he'd express it through some sort of metaphor or some rabid philosophy which often left me feeling opposed in some way.  At some point I stopped calling him.  I did not want to be unkind to him or to leave him in his despair but I couldn't relate with him on many levels any more - or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I didn't want to.  We each had our share our hardships but I no longer wanted to let them fuel my existence, which is what seemed to be coming across in recent conversations with Clayton.  I was moulting my despair and depression and finding new friends and activities which felt less threatening or contrary to my own well being.  I began to jam with new friends, even entertaining the idea of starting another band with them.  By this time I had adopted standard tuning, which left the material for the demo obsolete, as I hadn't yet figured out how to adapt it to the standard tuning.  'Enter The 7th Sacrificial Domain' would never happen: and it seemed all for naught.  I sold my first guitar [Hondo Fame Strat copy] to a friend and soon after bought a white Morris Hurricane, which was the exact model as Clayton had [his in a black finish]. We briefly got back into hanging out during the summer, and even recorded a DSV tape in the process.  Things were not the same as they once were, and as one should expect given some of the things which were happening, but something really felt off, like some magic was absent and was unsure if it wanted to return.

For the remainder of 1992, we talked very little.  I had moved to my father's before the school year started and he cared little for our relationship or our activities together as a musical act.  My move resulted in more than a few awkward situations when it came to many things in my life.  I hadn't lived with my father for at least 5 years and one might understand the strangeness of such an arrangement.  Of course, this did not stop me from communicating with Clayton from time to time or me from caring deeply for him and missing him a great deal.  Clayton had been assigned to exclusive band correspondence as I was needing to concentrate more on my education.  My grades were horrible last year and I was warned about hold backs and all that shit if it continued.  I definitely missed writing to the few friends that I had made over the last year and a half, but I hoped that Clayton could continue where I left off.  It certainly didn't look as if any recorded efforts would be released this year so I set my attention to a solo project named PENUMBRA and began to write what would eventually be a demo but which never went beyond rough tracking.  I also began writing for a 30 minute song, the likes of which I had been recording for the last 3 years in December, but this too fell short and did not make the production stage.  And though MORBID DARKNESS was not officially defunct during this time there was a lot of doubt and the determining factors would have to be the ones which were mutually apparent.  I'm not sure, upon reflection, what really was apparent between the two of us.  We were embarking on our own paths now, without one another to be at the other's side during any shit storms, and we each came out with different scars, different wounds, different views.  Eventually, next year, we'd repair our bonds and proceed on our path together and so would continue a roller-coaster ride on almost every level fathomable.

CHRIS I. SHAVER, January 31, 2012.

Yields for 1992:

DEMONIC 'The Ascending Sorrow, The Ascending Frost' Tape [Status: Preserved on Disc]
DEMONIC 'IV' Tape [Status: Lost]
DEMONIC 'Memorial Memoriam' Tape [Status: Lost]
DEMI-SORCERER 'Sorrow And Frost' Tape [Status: Unknown]
DEMONIC 'Haussibut Arise' Tape [Status: Lost]
DEMI-SORCERER 'Goat Feast' Tape [Status: Unknown]
APOLLYON SUN 's/t' Tape [Status: Unknown]
MORBID DARKNESS 'Enter The 7th Sacrificial Domain - Rough Tracks' Tape [Status: Lost]
DEMONIC 'Forests Of Equilibrium' Tape [Status: Lost]
DSV 'Question Mark' Tape [Status: Preserved on Disc]

Top 15 Albums of Inspiration:

xxx. December 1991

Early December was a blur of promotional activity, including a few interviews and send-outs of the demo for prospective reviews.  During the early month we had decided to embark on a photo shoot which would take us up some foothills which we had planned to climb for some time now.  We were especially attracted to a treed crevice which we could see from town and which in the fall had appeared very dark and atmospheric.  There was very little snow this year, so the hike was fairly easy.  After the very steep climb at the start, a path traversed around the berth of the hills and led to the areas which were out of view of town.  It was quite interesting to see this part of Vernon, and felt it was a bit more like my home in Armstrong, where you could easily escape civilization when it was necessary or when one needed some space.  We spent hours up there, scouting out new backdrops for our Metal poses, being especially drawn to anything that appeared dead or evil.  It was a great new experience to wander out of town and off the grid into a space which almost seemed as though it was there just for us.  We filled up only a 24 roll of 110 film during the shoots but felt we had captured what we needed for the upcoming promos and shit.  Speaking of shit, I distinctly remember being panged with the need to shit about an hour into the shoot.  One can often tell the body to hold off for a bit, but due to the fast food breakfast I had eaten that day my ass was being more than a bit insistent.  Look, I was not at all opposed to the idea of dropping a coil out in the bush, but there was literally nothing in sight which would serve even remotely as ass wipe, and I firmly believe in wiping.  Peanut butter ass is something I vaguely remembered as a toddler - and those days were over!  Instead, I pinched and refrained as best I could without shitting myself and slowly my bowels became numb enough to their discomforts that we could continue.  When we returned to Clayton's, I headed straight to the shitter and had the longest shit I can remember.  Anyway...

Back home, some developments were afoot.  My uncle Daryl, on my mother's side, had showed up early in the month and had stated that he'd be staying with my mother and sister, I suppose to help out, as by this time my mom was getting more and more affected with her condition.  In a bitter twist, my uncle, too, was showing very prominent symptoms of the disease, sometimes seemingly worse than my mom.  I was doing my best not to think of the implications of all this, though it creeped in at times.  How could it not?  But at this point I felt I had more things to offset realities such as these.  I played the demo constantly, very proudly, but also to fuel my need to continue writing.  When I finally began spacing out playback of the tape to a more normal basis, I began writing the odd riff for what would eventually be material for the second demo.  I for one was eager to proceed to the next stage, having had relished in the pride of putting out the first demo for what was becoming more than enough time before moving on.

Clayton's health was still a concern and he was being scheduled for surgery in the coming months for his collapsed lung issues.  Though it was not overtly manifesting itself as an obvious drawback I believe he was deeply affected by his problems.  I believe his concerns morphed into anger and eventually into resentment towards the world.  I suppose I was probably doing the same exact thing with regards to the concerns of my mother, my concerns for everyone, in fact.  We each ended up hating God and blaming religion for everything.  This may be a stretch, but there was obvious hatred for something.  It was easier to hate something which was already established than to use that energy to create our own beliefs and to live according to our own concepts.  Looking back on this topic seems a bit vague to me now, and I trust it was because some things were changing between us.  It was no overnight thing.  We had seen a few things differently of late and it became somewhat of an evolution, is suppose.  Clayton was becoming very taken by all things underground, making many new contacts and attaining many new recordings.  Though I, too, was making contacts and enjoying the new demos and sharing my fervour with fellow musicians, I couldn't help but feel it was in some ways a bit of an escape from not only the sad aspects of my life but also the necessary responsibilities I had with my family and with my education.  Of course, I did not act on these impulses immediately.  I kept saying to myself that it was a necessary sacrifice in order to get somewhere in this business.  I often sat in class at school, failing exams and being reminded of overdue homework, and just saying to myself, 'yeah, well I'm sure Quorthon didn't give a fuck about failing a math test' or 'when we score a record deal I can just drop out once and for all'.  These of course were attitudes that didn't stem from my love of Metal or music in general, but from my internal angst and my rebellion against the injustices I felt were all around me in this life which I was leading and it seemed to compound more and more as I got older.  I probably should have talked to more people about some of the things which were crawling around in my mind and in my heart at this time but it honestly felt like no one would have listened anyway.  I felt that having a bad attitude about all this shit was enough armor to block out the real heavy shit in my life.  I suppose it worked to some degree, but with a few consequences I have no doubt.

On a more positive note, I was liking my new drum kit, and I played it a lot; to the dismay of my grandparents, and no doubt close neighbours.  I decided to record a new 30 minute song during my Xmas break using most of the new riffs I had written this month.  I had read a review of CATHEDRAL's debut album and was taken by it.  The prospect of something very doomy and apocalyptic was just what I was feeling right about now, so I opted to call the recording 'Forest Of Equilibrium'.  It had instilled a vision and a concept which was so fitting it felt like fate.  I hadn't seen the cover art or heard the album, but I knew that I would eventually.  For now, and considering this would be a personal recording anyway, I felt it wasn't a total sin to lift the title.  I recall recording it on some dollar store blank cassette (not a good idea at all) and having to dub it onto a more decent tape before it ripped.  The atmosphere of the tape was exactly what I wanted for our next demo, perhaps with a few tweaks, and I was confident that our upcoming recordings would take us places in every sense of the meaning.

Shortly after recording the tape and having spent a few days with Clayton in Vernon, I became very ill.  I recall feverish dreams and deathly sickness.  Perhaps this was a personification of the state of coming events between me and Clayton.  It couldn't be predicted.  But we both had developed ways of thinking and ways of dealing with things which would eventually drive wedges in more than one facet of our relationship.  For the time being, however, thoughts were on a new demo and on hoping for the best in our future.  Reflection often unearths the obvious, but in many ways we each had suspicions of what may be.  Every time we hit a wall we built a new wall around it, one which would hide the old one.  Eventually the walls would collapse and we'd have to rifle through the rubble and detritus in hopes we'd find ourselves again or at least the hidden path which we had once embarked upon.  1992 would bring many such things and a lot of those walls came crashing down on and around us.  And though that path was again found it was very, very many years later and after many life changes.

This concludes my coverage on the monthly activities of MORBID DARKNESS.  In 1992, we became less and less active together recording very few improv tapes and eventually we weren't talking much at all.  I've opted to continue these historical recollections in years rather than months, as monthly activities would often not warrant much at all in the way of blog material.  I will continue to post new blogs monthly until the story is done and will offer a conclusion in the end.

CHRIS IAN SHAVER, December 28, 2011.

Yields for December 1991:

DEMONIC 'Forest Of Equilibrium' Tape [Status: Lost]

Top 5 Albums of Inspiration:

xxix. November 1991

At the first of the month, on a Saturday, I began tracking the first guitar tracks for our demo.  As I recall, it all went pretty smooth.  I had, after all, been jamming on most of these songs for months and I had passed the awkward learning curves (much to the joy of both my walls and my fists).  The CRUCIFER tape had established firmly that we could manage a home recorded demo and the prospect of using my aunt's stereo instead of my shitty ghetto blaster for playback during the second guitar tracking and then again during the vocal/guitar solo tracking, which was a solution we discussed on our last visit, seemed to instill a confidence that the quality would be increased substantially.  In hindsight, knowing what I know now and faced with the same circumstances, I would have done a few things differently, but considering our knowledge at the time I'd say it worked out just how it should have.

That night, I ended up staying at my dad's house.  I had brought a tape recorder with me with the intent of writing and recording some intros on my dad's Technics keyboard.  I managed to invent 'Morbid Darkness' using the organ voice, which was the only one that seemed usable.  I tracked it early on Sunday before returning home, balancing my recorder on a book so as to pick up the quiet sounds through the keyboards speaker.  I would have cranked it had I not been a bit bashful to play for my father to hear.  I always gathered that he disapproved of my involvement in Metal music.  I'd learn later that it was my involvement with my cousin which concerned him.  I'd learn later, too, that though he never really understood what I saw in the whole thing that he was proud of my dedication and humble accomplishments...and that he would also warm up to the fact that my cousin was my best friend and had been for a large part of my early life.

By the following weekend I had tracked all of the guitars and made a couple of failed attempts at the drums.  I couldn't get the sound I was looking for and the microphone I had set up inside my 'snare' (a square sewing stool) was sounding like ass.  This wouldn't be the weekend for the demo's completion, but I was scheduled to go to Clayton's anyway.  We recorded 'Blasphemous Desecrations' on the Saturday and were pleased with the dark and eerie vibes that were present.  Of course, we were a bit pretentious at this time in regards to the whole anti-christian thing.  What did we really give a shit about what complete strangers chose to put their faith in?  What right does anyone have to covet that type of control?  Nazis, I suppose.  We were no Nazis, I assure you this.  It was simply misdirected angst.  It was how we chose to rebel, I suppose.  Nevertheless, and despite some misguided input from some of our contacts, we mostly were ourselves, acting like teenage punks and mostly we were just trying to have some fun.  We took Metal serious, which is perhaps why we got so dark and moody sometimes.  Despite our side project in DSV, we had a great disdain for some of the silly Metal which was surfacing.  To us Metal was serious shit, not to be fucked with or treated with disrespect, like some hair-Metal or funk-Metal or the portrayal of Metal heads being clowns or morons.  That whole cliche was blasphemous to us.

The following week I played around with the drum shit and by Thursday I had them all tracked.  We were collectively quite nervous about releasing anything without a real drum kit, but circumstances outweighed choice so we proceeded, though cautiously.  I had often used the mic stand which held up the one small Kimala crash I had as the 'ride' cymbal, simply by tapping it sideways with my drumstick.  Its sound was quite obvious to me so I abandoned its use during these sessions.  Similarly, the crash cymbal was hella bunk, and I chose to omit its use as well, instead accenting any crash hits with my hats, which were at least passable.  The toms (5 of them) were all empty buckets but at times they were almost reminiscent of roto toms or octobans or something (or whatever Ventor was using on 'Pleasure To Kill' - ie. the intro to 'The Pestilence').  There was no kick drum so I simply tapped my shoed foot on the tiled floor to achieve a snappy bassy sound, on some of the slower riffs.  Of course, the frequencies which I heard while recording couldn't be translated with the crappy tape recorder microphone that I used.

I arrived at Clayton's on the 15th, equipped with my guitar and amp and a tape containing the first guitar and drum tracks.  That night we toiled over vocal and lyric arrangements.  My lyrics had been done for months, and though Clayton had more than enough lyrical material it was in quite a random manner.  Although he had a few references to the music he would be singing over, the final drafts of those songs were going to be slightly different.  We spent a few hours sorting it all out and I helped him to assign any given lyric to its corresponding part.  Finally, once this was finished, we wrote the 'Deicidal Execrations' lyrics together.  It was quite organic.  I wrote one line, and he'd write the next.

On the 16th we got up at noon (or later) and headed downtown, I believe to walk with Clayton's mom to her part time job - it was detrimental that she NOT be in the house while we record...in fact if she were there it wouldn't have happened, because I'm still not sure she knew we would be using her stereo in the recording process.  On our way back we both wondered whether our one-take vocals would work.  We were in a strange place between anticipation, determination and fear and we were desperate for a distraction.  As we approached Clayton's street we noticed a couple of young ladies checking us out from the mall parking lot which was across the railway tracks from us.  There seemed to be a lulling flirtation in the air and as they walked towards the mall and we walked towards Clayton's house it was quite evident to us with their constant glances and smiles that they wanted us to follow them.  Look, our imaginations were exceptional, which didn't help, and the fact that we both had blue balls from checking out some skin mags the night before made this situation one of great temptation.  Thankfully, as we watched them enter the mall and almost sadistically glance back smiling one last time, we snapped the fuck out of it!  Believe you me, if we hadda taken the bait it would have ended in failure anyway, believe it!  Besides, we had four hours to track this demo and it was our job to do...the ladies would have to wait (and wait, they did...).  Back at Clay's we set up in the living room and began our tests.  The first session, the second guitar tracks, took about an hour.  Then we moved on to the vocal and guitar solos track, which took a bit more than an hour.  Afterwards we rifled through the takes to sequence the final master.  We realized we'd have to cut one of the songs in order to bring the playtime to 30 minutes.  Look, we hated when we bought demos from bands and the 16 minute playtime was at the first side of a 90 minute tape.  We wanted to offer a tape which you didn't have to rewind a million times or fast forward for 3 minutes so you could get to the repeat on the 2nd side of the tape.  Flip-repeat...that was our goal.  We each agreed that 'Witchdom Worship' was perhaps the weakest song vocally, as by that time Clayton's voice was quite tired.

After we were done, we sat comfortably at the table over coffee and chain smoked while playing back the finished demo.  We were jubilant!  Ecstatic!!  Proud.  Any flaws were transparent to us because the moments which were magical far outweighed them.  The real saving grace was the use of Clayton's tape recorder and his mom's stereo system.  Of course, when she arrived back home, we were reprimanded for having hot boxed the house with our constant smoking and having made the place smell like a sweat shop.

The following week I did the cover layout and near the end of the month I hooked Clayton up with the masters.  We were in a big rush to get the tape and our interview out to Mike May (Infected Voice 'Zine, SARCOMA, later ABOMINANT) as well as a couple of other close friends.  Before the end of the month, I had gone back to Clayton's to finish the interview, to type it out and to also type out a lyric sheet.

In a strange twist, I felt a pang of depression moving in near the month's end.  Perhaps it was in sensing that our relationship would be changing because of our new accomplishment or maybe it was completely unrelated.  I do know that Clayton had become slightly more cold, having been pissed that it took me a bit longer to come up with the master cover print than I had hoped.  This coldness would progress.  In another twist, I was given a drum kit by my uncle Colin at the end of the month.  The stipulation was that I had to keep up on lessons for a year.  It was a blue sparkle Westbury 4 piece with no cymbals but the hi hats.  I used my other hi hats as crash cymbals.  I thought I was a pretty good drummer before and was humbled to realize that adding a kick pedal into the mix was going to create a learning curve.  Nonetheless, I was happy to announce to Clayton that our second demo would feature real drums.  That was tomorrow, however, and we tried to relish in the excitement of today.

CHRIS IAN SHAVER, November 27, 2011.

Yields for November 1991:

BLASPHEMOUS DESECRATIONS Tape (Status: Preserved on Disc)
MORBID DARKNESS 'Morbid Darkness' Demo #1 1991 (Status: Preserved on Disc)
[This demo is available in its entirety on the recently released 'Tomes' along with the 1994 'Return From Death' Demo.  Follow this link to purchase: MORBID DARKNESS 'Tomes' 2011]

Top 5 Albums of Inspiration:

xxviii. October 1991

Clayton had now moved back to Vernon, and despite a loneliness which at times felt unbearable, I was filled with that slight bit of fervor which sometimes accompanies changes in a persons life.  Phone conversations were lengthy again after 3 months and Clayton's descriptions of his new place were attention grabbing, particularly as it was an area of Vernon which was essentially unknown to me.  Soon enough I'd be going for a visit and I awaited the occasion desperately.

In the meantime, on a Friday night early in the month, having just reached my mom's house, a knock at the door  turned out to be a couple of acquaintances from school.  They had informed me that they were going up the mountain to camp for the night and indulge in some under-age drinking.  I had no money and wasn't sure I wanted to partake, but upon hearing that one member of the party wouldn't be making it and that I could have his portion of the spirits and almost on a whim, I opted to join.

Wow, did we get shitfaced that night, and I had a really fun time bonding with what was becoming my new group of friends.  I talked with most of them at school, of course, but I had become quite a loner outside of school.  After a few hours of intoxication and almost unbroken laughter, people started either puking or passing out or both, and suddenly I remembered that I had told Clayton I would call him this night.  Realizing that I was not really equipped to camp out for the night, I decided to go for a piss and then just keep going down that dark forest path back to civilization (okay, a 5 minute walk down the mountain back to the trailer park) as quietly and unknowing as I could, so as not to offend my new pals.

I staggered back to mom's house where I fell in a drunken giddy heap on the easy chair, still clutching a bottle of beer.  After expressing my new experience with my mom, who was probably mortified at my babbling demeanor, I decided to make my tardy phone call.  Clayton seemed less than impressed at my out-of-sorts behavior, though it didn't really bother me that much at the time.  New experiences often cancel out any objective criticisms, after all.  I don't exactly remember what we talked about, but I'm sure it included much about our demo and how I had been working at length on the music and how much I missed him being around.

A week later I was in Vernon, at the Greyhound station, making another call.  This time to Clayton letting him know I had arrived and if he could meet me halfway, about a 15 minute walk.  It was an exciting day, to finally see Clay again and to see his new digs and to check out this exemplary new batch of music he had been informing me he'd acquired.  I believe we stopped at a White Spot on our way back.  He had brought with him a duffel bag full of new tapes which he unveiled in his inimitable way; one at a time, very strategically.  When we got back to his new place, we played a bunch of the new tapes and talked fervently about our upcoming demo.  I had expressed to him my many failed attempts at producing multi-track recordings which would meet the level of quality I was looking for.  I had decided that the best bet was to proceed with my usual techniques and hope for the best.  He agreed.  We had been waiting to do this for what was becoming almost an eternity and we were both very eager to get it going.  Of course, the material wasn't really ready yet...Clayton still had to assign his many lyrics to his share of the songs and there was still the matter of which songs I was going to decide to put on the demo.  Despite the check list of things to do, it was definitely getting very close.

The next day we recorded an improv tape called 'Voices In The Dark' just to cut loose a bit and to get back to form.  The tape had an unmistakable vibe to it, which was both eerie and evil, or something close to it.  There was emotion, however, that wasn't there before.  When we stopped doing serious improv tapes in early summer, we had stopped on a low note.  The tapes at that time weren't coming across like they had once, which was one of the main reasons we stopped in the first place.  This was new energy, new emotion, new inspiration.

Back at home and having completed all of the music for the demo, I was still struggling to develop that recording technique despite having decided to just go for it.  I opted to make a couple attempts at mastering it.  With a huge quantity of material that wouldn't make it on the demo, I decided to record a full-length demo under a new moniker, CRUCIFER, which would act more as a test recording for our upcoming demo than as an actual serious release.  I worked on it for about a week before finishing it up on Halloween night.  I was quite proud of the tape, despite its shortcomings in the production area.  I went so far as to design and print a cover for the tape, but opted not to release it.

In only a few days I'd be seeing Clayton again and I'd play him the tape, both to show him what I had created as well as to point out some problems which we would have to straighten out if we were to produce something better.

CHRIS IAN SHAVER, October 30, 2011.

Yields for October 1991:

VOICES IN THE DARK Tape (Status: Unknown)
CRUCIFER 'Crucifer' Demo (Status: Lost)

Top 5 Albums of Inspiration:

xxvii. September 1991

Back to school, again.  But before this we had a couple of adventures.  Firstly, we both got just as sick as fuck of some viral infectious strain...oh, the lung butter that was coughed up in those few days rivals most any other sickness I've had before or since and still brings about some nausea just thinking about it.  When our spirits improved a bit, we decided to perform a string of prank phone calls and record them to use as intros for any upcoming DSV recordings.  It started out mild enough but soon got out of hand.  We started acting more hostile, acting like crazed lunatics and finally Clayton made a call which, to sum it up without naming names, would undoubtedly be traced back to us....it was a crazy call, one which was sickeningly exciting to listen to but equally nerve wracking because it would be a miracle if some consequence would not soon be upon us.  We sat drinking coffee and blasted tunes for about half an hour before the dogs started barking.  I rose to look out the kitchen window to find two police cruisers pulling up to Clayton's place, where his mother was at the time, probably enjoying her day in peace.  Within minutes the fuzz was at the front door; the terror of what would transpire mingling with the tunes still blasting and all 3 of our dogs barking and growling, fighting, all at once in a cacophony of gut wretching doom.  Of course we denied it all, though these officers were no fools, and we were warned that if anything like this happened again that we'd be charged heavily for the crime.  That was our final prank call.

There was an underlying sense of melancholia during this month because our summer of 'Darkness' would soon be over and Clayton would be moving back to Vernon.  His father had returned from his trip a bit early and the combination of Clayton, his mother and his father was tense to put it mildly.  There was also some mild friction between Clayton and myself, much like back in the days of 1989 and 1990, on Sundays when I'd be leaving his house; those days we'd always fight about something...kind of a shield of defense against our own disappointments of our separation.  We didn't work on any music together this month, but I did record a Sac Metal tape for DEMONIC, which incidentally included some of our recorded prank phone calls as intros.  I was writing a lot of material this month, part of my dealing with my emotions, and a lot of new ideas came about during these sessions.  I was desperately attempting to find a way to record which would yield the best possible quality for our impending demo sessions, and in some instances became very frustrated and angry at my failures.  A couple of holes were punched in the wall at one point.  It was then that a lot of reality came flowing in for me.  If music was going to be this large a part of my life, it can't be bringing about these feelings.  I mean, sometimes people have bad days, this I can accept.  But for something like music creation, I couldn't accept that it was going to make me feel like this all the time.  So I took a step back and tried to remember what music really did mean to me.  I decided to record all the songs I had thus far wanted to do on the demo onto a tape for Clayton so he could practice them in his new house in Vernon, because I knew that it wouldn't be getting done during this month.  As it was Clayton had a lot of lyrics but he hadn't decided which ones to use.  So this practice tape was a perfect solution for him to make up his mind. 

The remainder of the month was fairly quiet.  We took a couple of long walks and did a couple of photo shoots for upcoming correspondence and for the demo j card, flyers, bios, etc.  We got really fucking high a couple of times, one time behind the Memorial Park in Armstrong, in a treed area, whilst some event was transpiring across the road at the fair grounds.  This was the most stoned we had been yet, smoking my friends low grade leaf.  As we stumbled out of the trees, through the park and on our way to Cranes Drive in for some coffee, AC/DC's 'Thunderstruck' began playing over the PA at the fair grounds.  I was so stoned that I though it was KRUIZ's 'Knight Of The Road'...wow.  As we approached Cranes, I expressed to Clayton that I would feel a bit uncomfortable sitting in the restaurant being this blitzed.  As it was, dry mouth had come on in a big fucking way...I thought I was going to swallow my tongue!  I suggested we get some extra large slushes to go and just get the fuck out of there.  We entered the restaurant and immediately I got severely paranoid.  As Clayton made the order, I told him quietly that I'd be waiting outside.  Of course he was as stoned as I was, and my mumbled statement confused him.  I repeated myself a couple of times and he nodded but not like he fully understood.  So I pulled out my change to give it to Clayton, who at that moment was going into his pocket for his change.  I waited.  The girl at the counter, whom incidentally Clayton had a thing for, stated the amount for the slushes.  Just then Clayton's hand whipped out of his pocket, clenching his fist full of change.  I nudged him to take my money, and he turned around, opening his hand for the exchange.  As I began to walk towards the door, I heard Clayton say to the girl 'um, okay, you might have to count this...'.  CLANG!!!!  Suddenly a huge clashing of loose change bouncing and spinning on the glass counter top and Clayton expelling the words in a very stoned manner, 'Oh, shit!'.  He had dropped the entire fist full of loose change from about a foot above the counter.  I had turned my head to see the scene just before I briskly hauled ass out the door.  Outside I laughed my ass off, definitely to the state of tears and almost to the point of all out weeping.  What a day.  We both laughed about that one on our walk home.

The month came to an end and Clayton moved back to Vernon, much to my dismay.  Though, as it was, some things were meant to be and this was no exception.  Life would get back to normal eventually.  The main thing was that we get our demo recorded before too long so that we could secure that milestone and move ahead from there.  It would be a matter of weeks and we both knew it now for sure.  It was going to happen.

CHRIS SHAVER, September 25, 2011.

Yields for September 1991:

DEMONIC - 'An Obscure Vision...' Tape (Status: Preserved on Disc)

Top 5 Albums of Inspiration: