Chris Krovatin is a twice-published teen author and a journalist for Revolver Magazine, as well as the singer for Queens-based metal band Flaming Tusk. He lives in New York City, which he loves even though he is almost positive it is trying to kill him.
The first Thursday of November, Greenpoint, Brooklyn. You stroll north on Manhattan Avenue past dollar stores, delis, and old Polish men. Slowly, you see a smattering of couples heading my way. Each person is dressed in black from head to foot and has a book under their arm. All of them are grinning like children.
“How is it in there?” you ask one scruffy passerby who resembles Geddy Lee.
“It’s thinned out a bit,” he says. “You should be able to get in there, no problem.”
St. Vitus appears, its exterior surrounded by long-haired older men in flak jackets and hoodies looking either stoked or nonplussed. Inside, the all-black bar is as hard to navigate as always, the few votive candles scattered throughout the bar doing little to fight away the fluid shadows of the place. This place, you remember with a smile, is such a great damn metal bar. It’s just so fucking dark. Everyone inside is laughing, chatting, and drinking pint after pint. All of them have the same book either in their hands or under their arms. You get a couple of noncommittal glances on the way in, but then everyone returns to their brew. The side of the beer makes you lick your lips, opens a whole in your stomach, but you cast it from your mind and keep slithering through the mob. Booze can wait until the Mayhem show tonight. That’s not why you’re here.
At a nearby card table, you find a long-haired dude who almost could be the guy from Main Street Jukebox in Stroudsburg sitting at a card table. He has a box of the book everyone’s holding, and surprisingly tells you that you canpay for it with a credit card. He hands you a copy—Christ, it’s heavier and thicker than you’d expected, but then again, the man’s done no small amount of living—and then swipes your credit card through a small fork-ish card swiper he has plugged into his iPad. “I can text you a receipt,” he says, “or not, whatever.” Technology boggles your mind these days. Tomorrow’s dream indeed.
Figure in black
The back room of St. Vitus has a line stretching through its black interior that goes all the way to the stage. The ribbed black walls on either side of you boast huge screens featuring crosshatched drawings of abstract blasphemies—dead trees, looming churches with inverted crosses, winding serpents, skulls. You wonder if they’re just for the signing, or if they’re now part of the bar’s décor. One of the booths on your left is filled with a gang of relatively square-looking men and women quietly talking with grave looks on their face—publicity folks, no doubt. One long-haired gentleman nearby makes eye contact and smiles at you, and for a second you remember him from all the magazines and documentaries and nosebleed seats, but his name alludes you. Balls.
You inch forward bit by bit until you’re standing in front of the two small steps that lead to St. Vitus’ stage. Atop it, a card table covered with votive candles sits flanked by the owners, whose names you forget, of course. A tightness grows in your neck, your head, the hinges of your jaw, your fingertips. It’s something between buzzing and pulling. You told yourself this wouldn’t happen. You’ve interviewed, fuck, everyone by now—they’re all just people. This guy’s just a guy, sitting in a chair, sipping some tea. And yet here you are, practically vibrating, feeling the air grow thicker and the shadows around you shudder with energy, with presence. It’s like in Dracula, where Jonathan Harker describes the anxiousness of even being around the Count. Like you’re here in your little podunk reality, but someone from another dimension, who breathes different air and has seen ages beyond your comprehension, is next to you.
As you ascend the stairs, the skinny owner of St. Vitus takes your book from you, nods half-knowingly at you—probably thinking That’s the drunken goon at Impiety who kept thinking he’d lost his backpack—and opens the book to its front page. He slides it along the table.
“Hey, Tony,” you hear yourself say.
Tony Iommi, lead guitarist of Black Sabbath, picks up your book and signs it. He looks up at you with soft, weary eyes.
What is this, that stands before me.
“Thank you,” you say. “Thank you, Tony. Not just for the signature—I mean, Jesus, I appreciate you coming out to this far-off metal bar in Greenpoint to sign copies of your book—but for all of it. For the way you play your guitar. I don’t play, myself, but I worship the guitar, I stand in awe of its undeniable power, of the way it can grab my heart and mold it like clay. You have the ability to do that with a guitar—you have for ages—and that deserves all the gratitude in the world. Thank you for tapping into the sounds of darkness and touching the weird, brittle souls of me and hundreds of people like me. There are so many of us, Tony, who walk this earth feeling tortured and betrayed and present in a more sinister game than anyone wants to admit to being a part of, but your music, the organic bestial drone of your guitar, makes sense to us. It’s the sound of what we stand for, what we want to be. And sure, we might be more focused now one whatever pack of strung-out twenty-somethings are channeling the new variation of this spiritual longing, this desire to master our reality, but at the end of the day we are all here because of you. Black Sabbath fathered this thing that seems so extravagantly and obviously beautiful to us, but you were Sabbath’s driving force, even when the drumming sounded light and the bass could’ve used more reverb and Ozzy was singing a clichéd lyricthat we patiently overlooked. You were always there, at the base of it, emanating a force that gave us purpose. Thank you for that, Tony. Thank you for making me feel less alone.”
Heh. You wish.
“Here you go, man,” he softly intones.
“Thanks so much, Tony,” you manage. “I really appreciate it.”
He reaches out his hand, the Hand Of Doom, two fingers wrapped in black. You shake it carefully.
“Take care,” you think he says.
“Watch your step,” says the other owner of St. Vitus, the short stocky one, handing you your book back and gesturing you back toward the bar.
I’ve had the privilege of seeing Tired Wings in concert a couple times in my life and I always came away impressed. It’s not often that I take time to step outside the metal world and enjoy some good old fashioned rock n’ roll, but every time I head to a Tired Wings show I know I’ll have a killer time. Simply put these guys play with groove land swagger. It’s what makes the show fun and the music totally head-bangable.
Well it seems this Friday is one of those very special unofficial days of celebration, which means there’s no time like the present to get this party rolling in the right way. Here are all the shows happening in NYC this week. Have a Green time!
