Tag Archives: Helmet

90's, Alt Rock, Columbus, Festival, Live Shows, Metal, Music, Music News, Punk, Road Trip, Rock

Where Does Rock Live? Columbus Apparently…

1 Comment

Ok so that is not entirely true.  Rock lives everywhere.  Rock is where the heart is?  Ok, I will stop.

Now you can buy rock in Columbus, not that I know that personally or anything, but you can also rock out hardcore for a weekend thanks to Rock On The Range returning to the Columbus Crew Stadium on May 22nd and 23rd.  This will be the festival’s fourth run in the center city of Ohio and the lineup caught my attention more so this year than any other year before.

When I see that Coheed & Cambria, The Deftones, Helmet, Rise Against, Mastodon, and Killswitch Engage are all playing over one weekend I immediately want to go.

Other bands appearing at the festival are Godsmack, Rob Zombie, Three Days Grace, Limp Bizkit, Seether, Slash, Papa Roach, Five Finger Death Punch, Bullet For My Valentine, Theory of a Deadman, Puddle of Mudd, Sevendust, Drowning Pool, Skillet, Apocalyptica, Halestorm, Airbourne, Mushroomhead, Adelitas Way, Escape the Fate, Cold, Anberlin, Nonpoint, 2Cents, Violent Soho, Janus, Shaman’s Harvest, Year Long Disaster, Taddy Porter, Like A Storm, and Noise Auction

I can tolerate some of the acts but others I just can not stand and I fear if I go I am going to be punished…

Couple other personal comments in regards to the line up:

  • Who the hell are half of these bands?
  • Cold is still together?  So is Puddle Of Mudd?
  • Five Finger Death punch is still the stupidest band name I have ever heard next to The Prisoners.
  • Matt from Addicted To Vinyl (also a ROTR veteran) pointed out there is a possibility that Mushroomhead may play a bigger stage than Helmet.  If that is true I will be a sad panda.
  • Why no Jimmie’s Chicken Shack?  While I am at it, why no Monster Voodoo Machine and are they still a band?
  • Is it worth the $120 for the field general admission tickets???
  • Furthermore is anyone else planning on going?

I’ll be thinking about this heavily over the next few weeks.  I would hate to miss the opportunity of seeing a couple of my favorite bands but I do not know if I have it in me to sit though the whole weekend.  We shall see.

If you are interested in the festival head over to Rock On The Range’s website for ticket information as well as other info in regards to the weekend rock-out.

90's, Grunge, Metal, Music, Music Video, Post-Hardcore, Rock, Times Of Yore

Times Of Yore: Stompbox – Stress

16 Comments

So this is my first of a series of posts about bands from the past or as I like to call it “Times Of Yore”.  Recently I have been digging deep into my collection and found some real great acts from the past and have decided that people need to know about them or at least need to be reminded of their existence.  I already have a few in mind and will continue to look.  Most of the bands I have discovered were from the 90’s when I was buying everything I could get my hands on.

So let’s kick thinks off shall we?

Stompbox - Stress
Stompbox - Stress

In the day and age when Soundgarden was more grunge metal than adult contemporary and Helmet was still united there was a band that I found at Disc Den called Stompbox.  The CD was called Stress and it might have been the best blind purchase I ever made in 1994.

Already being a huge fan of Helmet, this band was right up my alley.  They had a port-hardcore grunge sound that may have been replicated by many bands at the time, but they sounded so good with their hard striking chords and heavy riffs.  The lead singer’s voice, sounding like Page Hamilton (Helmet) mixed with Neil Fallon (Clutch),was even tolerable throughout the entire CD.  It’s too bad that the band did not continue after their first release.

Not much can be found on the internet about why they disbanded.  Formed in 1991 the band hailed from Boston.  From what I have gathered they were picked up Sony/Columbia and then dropped after the release.  They just didn’t catch on like other bands did and it is a shame.

The lead singer of the band went on to pursue other projects and the remaining members stayed together and changed their band name to Slower (which I am still looking for).  I am still trying to confirm this, but there is a possibility that some of the members even helped out The Blue Man Group and even Juliana Hatfield.  I can not find any proof though…

There is no band website, no Wiki even. There are some reviews out there from fans and everything is thumbs up.  I just wish I could find out a little more about what the members have been up to these days.

I do remember this band having a lot of promotional material for a debut release.  There were posters and fliers all over the place after I bought the CD.  I was also handed a couple of sampler cassettes to give out to my friends as well as a square 2 song record…and I still am kicking myself for doing whatever I did with it.  I wonder if the over-the-top-promotion resulted in this band’s dismay.  I know that kind of happened to Sponge and they were out around the same time as Stompbox….hmmmm….

It’s sad nothing else ever came from Stompbox.  You look at bands like STP and Soundgarden who got their start around the same time and look at how they have progressed.  I can only wonder what would have happened to Stompbox if they would have continued.

This was one band I never got to see live during their heyday.  Luckily YouTube exists.

The CD is long out of print but you can find it for $5.00 or less at a used music shop if you look hard enough.  I myself saw quite a few come in to The Exchange when I happily worked here (sarcasm at it’s finest).  It is worth dishing out the cash if you are looking to hear a straight forward rock album.

Here’s a couple of videos I found of the band.  Boy do these bring back memories.