Decibel Hall of Fame: Cryptic Slaughter, Money Talks

*This is the latest in a series of posts about each of the albums in Decibel magazine's "Hall of Fame." A few of them I'm listening to for the first time. The others often bring back fond/interesting/humorous memories of some kind. Enjoy.

My first encounter with Cryptic Slaughter was in a basement in Indianapolis, Indiana.

They weren't playing or anything. But a local band, Radiation Sickness, sure was. It was some girl's house and these guys were pretty bad, but it sure seemed cool at the time, watching the lead singer rolling around on the floor screaming about "the pigs" and watching the guitar player do his best Kirk Hammett (with Blacky from Voivoid's haircut) impression. I remember the humiliation my friends and I felt when my step-mother came to pick us up and the random jock older brother of the girl whose house it was yelled down into the basement, "RYAN DOWNEY YOUR MOMMY IS HERE TO PICK YOU UP."

In retrospect, WE WERE FOURTEEN. Who else SHOULD HAVE been picking us up? The neighborhood child molester? Glenn Danzig? James Hetfield? Eff you, jocko! (And no thanks to the girl who lived there for acknowledging my awkward "hello" at school the next day in front of her friends with nothing more than a smug grin. No wonder I became a militant straight edge kid about a year later). It was kind of awful to still be the kids who were picked last even amongst all of the other rejects.

Anyway... The band was awful, but they covered "Money Talks" by Cryptic Slaughter, that song rips. And here I am, twenty (!) years later, and it still rips. Better yet, Rob "Blasko" Nicholson, who shreds the bass all over this fast-paced crossover album (and who later went on to shred for Rob Zombie and now Ozzy) is a good friend of mine. Once again, f' you "cool kids!" HAHA.

I've met Ozzy. I've even been to his house. He took me into his home studio and played "After Forever" (coincidentally my favorite Sabbs song!) to show me how sweet the speakers were after I did a long MTV News interview with him.

OK I'll stop now. The point is, Cryptic Slaughter rules, high school did not, but life overall totally does.