Tyrranicide "God Save The Scene": Bleeding Priest's Bay Area Metal Spotlight #9

What's up everybody, and welcome to another edition of Bleeding Priest’s Bay Area Metal Spotlight. For this one, I'm covering a pretty obscure group. I'm sure not many of you have heard of these guys, but they were great in the late ’80s and early ’90s. They never really broke out of the Bay Area scene that I know of, but they were pretty popular here in our hometown area. The band is Tyrranicide, and the album is God Save the Scene. Came out in ’89, I believe—yeah, 1989.

Pretty obscure group, but you should know about these guys—they're great. I think my first band, Armament, opened for them at the Pony Express Pizza Parlor in Redwood City. (Don’t look for it—it’s not there anymore.) My first three or four gigs were at that pizza parlor, and Tyrranicide played there all the time. So I either opened for them or just saw one of their shows. But the first time I saw them was at the Pony Express Pizza Parlor, and they kicked my ass.

The most obvious reason they stood out was their drummer. He was physically impaired—couldn’t walk. He was on crutches all the time, and I think he even played in a wheelchair. I’m not quite sure how he did it, because there’s a kick drum going, and they sounded great live. I don’t know what his affliction was, but he was always on crutches or in a wheelchair. And yet he played drums like a whirling dervish—that’s actually the name of the label this album came out on: Whirling Dervish. He was a kick-ass drummer, and he pulled it off. More power to him.

Of course, that's something you notice right away. Even when I first saw them— I was like 15— I thought, “Holy shit, that guy's on crutches and now he's playing drums?” You just don’t see that very often. It was very memorable. It was the talk of the town. Whenever someone brought up Tyrranicide, they’d say, “Oh, that’s the band with the drummer.” Yeah, that got attention. And it helped that he was great, and they were great. Their style was a mix of thrash and hardcore—kind of crossover stuff. Maybe a little more on the thrash side, but definitely DIY.

Tyrranicide Band photo 1989-ish

God Save the Scene was recorded on an $800 budget, even back in ’88 when it was recorded, that was nothing. And yet it sounds great. That’s impressive. There are like 12 songs on the record. So it’s not an EP, it’s a full-length album with plenty of music. And they pulled it off. They kicked ass.

They were a short-lived band. They started in the mid-’80s and ended in the early ’90s. I believe this is their only full-length album. They did a couple of demos before this, and I think a couple of EPs after. I’ve never heard them. They’re impossible to find.

Great band. I saw them many times back in the day. One of the guys in the band, Tim Narducci, has gone on to be a pretty well-known musician in the Bay Area scene. He’s currently in a band called The Watchers, but he also plays in a kick-ass ZZ Top tribute band called Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers. Awesome stuff. The bass player in that band, Cornbread, was the bass player in Vicious Rumors when I was in Vicious Rumors. It’s all connected. The Bay Area is the most incestuous music scene of them all, bar none.

I don’t know what happened to the rest of the guys in Tyrranicide. I’m really curious what happened to the drummer—if he kept playing, if his condition worsened—I don’t know. I don’t even know what his condition was. Back then when I was 15, I was too afraid to ask. Like, how do you approach that? Even now at 51, I still don’t know how to bring it up. I tried doing some reading online, but there’s no information about it. I’ve always wondered how he did it, and what was going on. But he did a great job.

This album is awesome. If you like DIY-type thrash, street thrash, grassroots thrash, no frills, no big production, just aggressive stuff, man. Angry vocals, socially conscious, politically conscious lyrics. Just good stuff. They even have a song called “Drink, Drive and Die,” I believe. So yeah—you can guess where they were going with that.

Tyrranicide 1989 or thereabouts

You should check out Tyrranicide. I think there’s a CD reissue that came out on Divebomb Records—the same label that put out the Warfare DC retrospective. That CD has God Save the Scene, both demos, and both EPs. So you can get their whole discography in one shot. Check them out on Divebomb Records.

And if you find the vinyl in the wild—pick it up! It’s not easy to find, but I highly recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of crossover thrash.

One more thing—I love the album cover. It just proves how DIY they were. I think it’s supposed to be Broadway Street in San Francisco—or maybe Berkeley, or a blend of the two. But I love how Bono and The Edge are in the corner singing. This came out shortly after U2 performed at Justin Herman Plaza, and Bono spray-painted all over the sculpture there. It was a whole big thing, big outrage. Anyway, fun little factoid.

Pick this album up if you can find it. See you next time.

–Bleeding Priest