I cannot say enough on what this man has done for METAL!!!
July, 10, 1986 Keystone Palo Alto, California.
Tom is a Legend! Cutting edge, avant-garde, experimental, progressive or whatever tag you out on this man is his music and life. Tom lives his life on his terms.
The first time we meet we both showed up with the same Legs Diamond shirt!!! We stay in contact, mainly via social media!
As for the very powerful Triptykon, Tom’s latest project…. It’s most precise, but still very Dark with Heavy Gothic undertones. check it out for yourself…
DARK WARRIOR ON INFERNAL BATTLEBASS & OVERKILL THROAT.
PIC INFO: Resolution at 1080x1350 -- Spotlight on Steve Warrior of first wave black/death metal band HELLHAMMER, rehearsing at the Grave Hill bunker, Birchwil, Switzerland, on January 1, 1983. 📸: Andreas Schwarber.
"We existed in what we perceived, very graphically, as perpetual darkness. The system we grew up in was dominated by constraints, expectations, and prospects we could not and did not want to identify with, by a society which alienated us and which we alienated, and by icons of social and religious standing we did not want to worship."
-- THOMAS GABRIEL FISCHER, from "ONLY DEATH IS REAL: An Illustrated History of HELLHAMMER and Early CELTIC FROST," by Tom Gabriel Fischer with Martin Eric Ain 🥀
I listen to this band so much recently. Random melodic metal on the surface, but they have something about them that I really like. Partially it's that the vocals have a bit of an edge. But mainly there's just a certain je-ne-sais-quoi.
"THIS RECORD IS FOR HELLHAMMER MANIACS ONLY! IF YOU ARE NOT, DON'T GET ONE."
NOTE: This bootleg pressing is currently prohibited from being sold, but it's a good thing I already own a copy, and it sounds really great, too, for a bootleg, I mean.
PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on a bootleg CD pressing of 1983's "Satanic Rites," the third and final demo tape by Swiss extreme metal band HELLHAMMER. The album was unofficially compiled on CD by the illusive Hellhammer Maniac Records. Year of release and origin of label, as well as pressing, unknown.