Death Angel Tour Week 1: The Fart Machine
- Bleeding Priest
- May 9
- 4 min read
Updated: May 10
Leg 2 of the Act III 35th Anniversary tour is underway and what better way to get things to a roaring start than with a day off! We left SF on Wednesday night and our first gig was on Fri. in Tempe AZ. So we had a day off in Burbank Ca. Fun day actually.
In the evening my drum tech Zack and I went into Hollywood and had dinner at one of my favorite places on Earth, The Rainbow. And by complete coincidence my friends in Spirit World were playing next door at The Roxy. They played with Doomsday from The Bay and an LA band called Deandre…..who were interesting to say the least. Spirit World sounded great. They’ve scaled down their number of members and they sound tighter and meaner for it. They’re way heavier than their image and name leads. Awesome band.
In Tempe, we played this beautiful theater and the fans came out. The first gig of a tour always has some hiccups but all things considered it was a strong start. One interesting thing that happened was I ran into an old bandmate of mine, John Kingsley. He sang for this Thrash band called Aftershock that I drummed in for like the last year of the group’s existence.
They were total Testament clones but their writing style was getting more adventurous when I joined thanks to the thinking man metalhead’s mind of Mike Wells (RIP). But it all ran out of steam unfortunately…as bands do. Anyways, he gave me some photos of our time in Aftershock together.
Up next was Oklahoma City but before that was…you guessed it…another day off. We spent the day playing golf in Alexandria, New Mexico. It was without question the rattiest course I’ve ever played on but it was still a blast.
It was around this time I introduced The Fart Machine to the touring equation. The Fart Machine is a remote controlled speaker that produces 7 realistic different fart sounds. I bought this bored during the pandemic after hearing an ad for it on Howard Stern. I had fun with it for a little while, put it away and forgot about it. When packing for this tour I rediscovered it, JOY!!
Since Mark flew to the first gig his bunk was unattended which is where the “machine” lived til his arrival. I would lay in my bunk and randomly hit the remote control and let the Fart Machine blast away. In the morning I heard Ted and Damien’s tech Kenny (Obituary) say “Man, someone was ripping some serious ass last night”.
I would just lay in my bunk and laugh for like ten minutes straight. These are the things some of us do to keep from succumbing to boredom on long drives. The next night Thilo said “someone was farting like every 3 minutes last night”. My God it was so entertaining watching everyone try to narrow it down to who the mystery farter was. I eventually let some folks know about it so they could share in on the laughs. By now I believe most of the bus knows about “the machine”. I can’t wait to bring it to the movie theater for The Mandalorian And Grogu next week.
So Oklahoma City was cool. The venue was way oversized for the show but there was still a good amount of folks there. A couple of friends took me to Guesthouse Records (both locations) where I sold a couple copies of each Hectic/Bleeding Priest release. Very cool shops with friendly staff and good sized Metal sections.
At one store I saw a copy of an Ails vinyl. I told the woman behind the counter I was friends with them and she told me how much she loves them and Ludicra. It’s always cool to meet fans of other local Bay Area bands in a far away state.
Next up was Louisiana where we spent another day off having a classic Rock poolside bbq in the middle of nowhere. The gig was in New Orleans but nowhere near The French Quarter. The show was a last minute addition to the tour or something so it was as good as to be expected.
I severed a cymbal stand in half during the beginning of the song “Stagnant”. The cymbal hit the ground and cracked. It also knocked my hi-hat stand over. Needless to say I had to stop the song and handle the situation. Thanks to Nick from Vio-lence for the quick lend of a stand. A trip to Guitar Center was in order the next day for a replacement.
The next gig was in Daytona at Welcome To Rockville where we shared the stage with Deicide, Suffocation, Immolation, Dethklock and others. It was a fun little 30 minutes in 97 degree heat. The festival was well run and I ran into a ton of friends from other bands from all over the world. Good times!
Be back next week with part 2.
–Bleeding Priest
