Who Were Your Local Heroes?

We all had them, maybe that local band that you all thought were going to hit it big. Or (in my case) a band that you knew were never, ever going to be playing Madison Square Gardens or Budokan but were just so much fun live that you saw them loads and they were always great.

Mine is this rabble, without any doubt the band that I saw most often in my teens, (I'm not proud, it's just a fact) and to be honest, some of my best gig memories are of this band because no matter what type of metal/rock people were into, we all pretty much loved them.

So all hail the mighty Dumpy's Rusty Nuts!!



Dumpy was fantastic frontman! still lives in my town

Uncle Saxon always came off as way ahead of everyone else with all the cool, underground obscure stuff. I still remember when he took the Stryper - Reason for the Season picture disc and whipped it out the window shattering it against a Metro Transit bus on 26th avenue. Yeah - I would say, Uncle Saxon is my local hero.

Or Prince. Not sure which has more talent....

Artch, Witchhammer, Equinox and Cadaver were local heroes here.

Wrathchild America, they were closest thing to local heroes you could get in the eastern panhandle of WV.

In the early 80's we all thought these guys were going to take the world by storm

They were packing out every place they played. It's unfortunate that the right label never picked them up.

One local band we all thought would be huge was Twisted Sister. They did eventually become big years later.


Of course there was NY thrashers...


In college in upstate NY it was Uncle Sam


and

Dirty Looks


Dirty Looks managed to gain some success. Uncle Sam, not so much.

Dirty Looks used to play in the Baltimore/D.C. area all the time, I remember seeing them at Hammerjacks a couple times.

S.D. wrote:

Dirty Looks used to play in the Baltimore/D.C. area all the time, I remember seeing them at Hammerjacks a couple times.

They traveled all over the place. They started out in LA, moved to Pennsylvania (which is where I originally heard about them) and then settled into Rochester, NY, where I believe Henrick lived until he died a couple years ago. They released three albums on their own before finally signing with Atlantic Records and releasing "Cool from the Wire", which I think was a Gold Record. For whatever reason, their follow-up "Turn of the Screw" just didn't fare well and they were dumped onto one of Atlantic's sub-labels and basically buried by the label. Too bad because their next record "Five Easy Pieces" was fantastic. However, with no tour support, no label push, and released right at the beginning of the grunge revolution, the album tanked.

Not metal....but without a doubt...Donnie Iris and the Cruisers.

I'll tell you one band that my friends and I detested that was a 'local hero' for many, BON JOVI! He was the posterboy for a poser when I was a teenage metal head growing up in New Jersey. To this day his music doesn't jive with me probably due to that negative attitude I had for the band growing up.

Aside from Wrathchild, aka Wrathchild America, aka Souls At Zero we had Kix and Child's Play.

One I always loved and actually got to see in a backyard show once - Mystic Force. Still can't figure out how these guys weren't huge.

Over in D.C. we of course had Fugazi and the Bad Brains. I also thought Jawbox was going to be huge in the alternative scene of the 90's. In a just world they would've been.

Living Sacrifice from the great state of Arkansaw

My local hero is definitely uncle Saxon. Even if he has cut his hair and planning on relocating to part unknown.

When I was a kid growing up near Sacramento, I thought it was so cool to listen to the local band Sentinel Beast on a cassette copy with xeroxed label (which I still have). I just recently found out Tesla is from Sactown. I never cared much for them.

Since I've lived in 5 states, I have several "local heroes".
Growing up in a suburb of Philly, my favorites were The Hooters (who went on to be pretty successful) and Robert Hazard.
When I moved to Tennessee, I adopted the country/punk/hard rock sounds of Jason and the Nashville Scorchers (who also went on to enjoy some decent success).
When I moved to Missouri, Nine Inch Nails was just getting big so Missouri's own Gravity Kills started to break but fizzled just about as fast as they started.

Kix and Childs Play.

kethdredd wrote:

Kix and Childs Play.

Obviously a son of the Charm City.

Chastain - obviously he had a bit of success with Chastain, CJSS and his solo stuff.

For Dallas, it would definatly be Pantera.

This band though not a big name has a pretty good underground following:





King Diamond lives in Dallas (though not from here). However, Dennis Ward (PC69/Place Vendome/Unisonic/Khymera/etc.) is apparently from Dallas. How he ended up with a German band, I have no clue.

tohostudios wrote:

kethdredd wrote:

Kix and Childs Play.

Obviously a son of the Charm City.

Close enough. Virginia specifically, the DC/Baltimore area is one big megalopolis anyways.

The guys in Trixter went to my high school (Paramus HS in Paramus, NJ), so they were pretty much the "local heroes" even though I was never a huge fan. When it came to bands representing Jersey, I always preferred Overkill and the Misfits.

Easy one to answer, Savatage then later on Death and Morbid Angel among others.

Another band, I did not care for was Stranger who were huge, even signed to Columbia Records in 1982, and released one album on the label.

Roxx Gang for a short while, live pretty cool glam band, their label on the major label was a bit lame

Since I've already mentioned Heaven's Edge in the "One & Done" thread, I'll move onto 2 others from my hometown that just missed the big time.

Blackeyed Susan - Electric Rattlebone
This was "Dizzy" Dean Davidson's post-Britny Fox band that also had ex-Cinderella keyboard player Rick Crinitti (on guitar) in it's ranks. It wasn't too-far removed from the bluesy rock of Britny, but more Stones/Aerosmith/Black Crowes rock and less emphasis on the glam look. The members of the band used to hang out at Tower Records allot. Well worth it if you can find a copy.



Next was Tangier. They released 2 albums Four Winds and Stranded. Both albums are decent enough, but nothing mind-shattering. Bluesy hard rock. Their debut album got a little bit of a push from radio and MTV, and I think Tom Keifer may have had some involvement (producer?) with them, but by the time the 2nd album rolled out, the train moved on and their brand of "hair metal" was kicked to the curb. Mike LeCompt (who also had his own band "LeCompt"), the lead vocalist on the 2nd album went to the same high school as me (although he's older) and still plays around the Philly & South Jersey area. Back in the day, he was a coked-out douche, but he's mellowed since then from what I've heard. I think the bass player from Britny Fox played in his solo band for a spell too.




I had both Tangier's albums at one point, but ended up selling them both off on ebay for way, way more than I paid for them. They were ok, but more of a third-rate Badlands. The 'hair metal" era was getting too saturated with all the same sounds/looks and Tangiers fit right into that category.

^^ I had the 2nd Tangier album (on cassette) back in the day, bought it after I saw them open for Extreme at L'amour in Brooklyn, NY. Turned out they were far better live than on record, I was impressed by their show but the album did nothin' much for me.

Can't believe I forgot about Joan Jett. I hope she still comes back to play the National Anthem at Orioles games. I never knew she was a Marylander until one day at the old Memorial Stadium I was doing my usual pre-game ritual of getting player autographs when all of a sudden Joan Jett comes out. Got her to sign a ball which I then left in my parent's attic to completely fade away from the heat.

For me the band Sound Barrier,and Vic Johnson (The Bus Boys,Sammy Hagar guitarist)
Vic lived in the neighborhood and I became friends with him. He took me to a lot of shows when I was just starting out. Thats how I met Sound Barrier.