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HEAVY METAL ARTIFACTS WITH RATTLEHEAD GERALD: SLAYER!

Rattlehead is best known for hosting Powerchord on Citr with Metal Ron from 1985. He's seen over a thousand shows and is Vancouver's biggest rock and roll fan, period. Over the years, venues have closed, scenes change, but Gerald's always been there.

Gerald was gracious enough to share a few of his most prized pieces of memorabilia with me, so I could share them with you over the next few months.

Rattlehead is best known for hosting Powerchord on Citr with Metal Ron from 1985.   He's seen over a thousand shows and is Vancouver's biggest rock and roll fan, period.  Over the years, venues have closed, scenes change, but Gerald's always been there.  And he's doing it all for the love of it, which is why Vancouver's lucky to have him.

This is from Slayer’s Reign in Blood tour, which was in 1986.   I didn't get it autographed until last year.  I was in the hotel lobby and I saw Tom (lead singer) but he was too busy, he had to jump in the van and go to the venue.  So then I go to the venue, and one of the roadies was saying how Tom recognized me, their business manager was right there too who I remembered from way back.  He got it signed for me.

You must have interviewed them a bunch of times over the years.

Yeah, they used to make fun of my voice.   Kerry started it with ‘you still on the helium?’  Then Jeff would give me a hard time too.

What was the best Slayer concert you’ve seen?

Probably that one, the Reign of Blood tour.  It was at the Moore theatre in Seattle, that was October 31st 1986, that was the first day of the tour.  And two years later, they played at the Colesium, also on Halloween.  I think Slayer's first gig ever was on Halloween.  Headbangers love Halloween.

Around then was a pretty important time for metal yeah?

Yeah, metal was really picking up, stuff like thrash, death metal, they were starting to come into the fold.  Even the hardcore stuff was starting to meld into metal too.  In Vancouver, I’d go to hardcore punk shows and there’d be no metal guys there, they’d be looking at me going ‘who’s that guy?’  I never really go much grief with that though, maybe they’d say something about my long hair, but that’s it.  The other way around though, metal guys were pretty rough on punks at metal shows.