Count Dante's Epic Sludge Extravaganza Recap!!!
by The Count Himself!!!

What can I say but Metal Sludge Extravaganza 5 at Paladino's in beautiful Tarzana, Calif. was everything that I hoped it would be! There were sludgettes in revealing clothing and poseur glam rockers in the most hideous wigs I have ever seen this side of the Polk Gulch Saloon. It was an amazing evening and I am just thankful that my band was chosen out of the gazillions of bands that vied for the honor to play for Sludge this year.

For those of you dying to know: no I did not have the privilege of meeting Ozzy Stillbourne or Jani Bon Neil or any of the other masters of metal-sludge.com. They are like the Residents or something. They never show their faces to the public and stay shrouded in mystery. There is probably some guy out there right now claiming to be Bastard Boy Floyd in an attempt to get the clothes off of some sludgette-hopeful. It could happen I tell you and it probably is. Were Stillbourne, Floyd and Neil even there? Nobody knows for sure. They could have been that group of middle aged African American men sitting at the bar through the whole show – if they were nobody would have ever guessed. I suspect that they were the guys who thanked me profusely for driving down for the show, but I have no proof.

I did get to meet Jim Bob Dwarf and a bevy of Sludgettes! Dwarf isn’t depraved at all as I had previously surmised but is actually a man of taste and disctinction. He even wore a jacket for the show. Amazing!

Since the Contessa was unable to attend this gala event, I had to go to the Latina hair salon that is right next door to Paladino’s to glam up my style. It is metal-sludge dammit. You can’t play their extravaganza with dull, lifeless hair! I told the stylist to make my hair look like Elvis, but there was an impenetrable language barrier so she just gave me that spikey, gelled to the max, L.A. style hair, but when in Rome. And what the Hell, crazy hair for 9 bucks, 12 bucks with tip. You can't beat that with a BC Rich Bich!

Our set started at 7:30 which is a weird time to play when it isn’t a punk rock happy hour. In fact I think happy hour was over. The General rocked hard and Jim bashed the skins mightily. After introducing “30 Seconds of Love,” the Sludgettes even got onstage with us for the rest of the song. You know I really should make my songs longer than 2 minutes when these situations arise.

Near the end of our set, rapper Senor Bueno from South Central Ukiah, got on the stage and berated Sludge and told me that we should form a rap metal band that will “rule Paladino’s!” There was only one thing to do about this and that was to hit him with a steel chair and put him in the Boston Crab. Bueno slinked away after his sound thrashing. We followed the chair shots with Redwood City Rock City which we changed to Metal Sludge Rock Sludge (you had to do it) and KISS’s God of Thunder.

We sadly missed Handsome Devil and Leigh Silver of Bitter Things. To continue my intensive training regimen I had to eat pupusas at the El Salvadorian restaurant that shared the strip mall with Paladino’s. It is part of The Count’s commitment to physical fitness that I eat a plate full of greasy pork, cheese and cornmeal slathered in salsa every night at 9pm!

Motley Priest then took the stage and their bassist Niki Simmons was a sight to behold. I don’t really know why, but he was. There were more bad wigs in this band and some great tunes. They played Balls to the Wall dammit. They did. Long live Accept! Long life UDO!!!

Then the Sludgettes and Jim Bob Dwarf gave away more swag. They had a BEST FAKE BOOBS giveaway and the ultimate prize was a TOILET SEAT MASTERFULLY PAINTED BY RIKKI ROCKETT OF POISON. Evidently, Rockett is really into making pop art out of toilet seat covers. I mean this was the only thing that they had that was produced by a real live rock star. The big stack of Killer Dwarfs CDs that they were giving away was more pedestrian by comparisson. Oddly, the crowd was more enthusiastic about receiving promo cds of forgotten glam metal bands than they were about this lovingly painted toilet seat. In a rare moment of So Cal modesty, no fake boobed bimbo went up on stage to claim this prize. Don’t the people down there boast endlessly about their plastic surgery? Isn’t it some weird kind of status symbol down there? After the women with implants were too cowardly to get on the stage with an intimidating figure like Jim Bob Dwarf, none other than Terra Newastle of the Glamour Pussies took the stage and jiggled her massive natural breasts at the tremendous throng in attendance, and won the not-so-coveted toilet seat.

After that Metal Shop took the stage and as a testament to their greatness I sill have Where the Down Boys Go stuck in my head which was a song that I had forgotten even existed! Now Metal Shop is more than just a glam rock tribute band, they also perform these Abbott & Costello comedy routines between the guitarist and the singer. Amazing. Now getting on stage and performing those synchronized stage moves is funny enough, but these guys take it a step further. They are a must see. Also mad props to Metal Shop singer David Lee Ralph (who also croons for Van Halen tribute band Atomic Punks) for having real, honest-to-God long hair!!! I think him and the General and Dwarf were maybe the only genuine longhairs in the place. Those guys have really sold their souls for rock and roll, or at least their hair.

In the evening's most poignant moment, as the Black Dragon Fighting Soceity was loading into the Count's giganto land yacht, none other than rock drummer God Carmine Appice was seen leaving Paladino's all alone in the world, clutching his cell phone and crossing the 5 lane boulevard from one strip mall to another in the general direction of a liquor store. This is the man who played drums for Vanilla Fudge for Godssakes! He can also be seen hitting on chicks with lots of mascara on in Rod Stewart's video for Do Ya Think I'm Sexy!!! Is that all there is to look forward to in this crazy rock and roll business? Being a man alone in the world endlessly transversing from strip mall to strip mall? Has life no greater meaning than card swipe ATMs and coin op laundry? Oh, the humanity of it -- and the reality of it.

Ok, enough reflection on rock's greater meaning. There has been a disconnect between me and the pics of the show. I should even have some shots of me slamming a chair into white rapper wannabe Senor Bueno by the end of the week so check back here for that one. Not even Sludge has a pic of me beating on Bueno but they do mention it a lot.

Thank Sludge again for having me and definitely go see Metal Shop if you ever get half the chance. It is worth it.