Municipal Waste - A Wasted Article

Here is a nice guest article on Municipal Waste, a band that we are pretty sure you have heard of if you listen to heavy music at all. This following piece, which could be considered a sort of tribute to the lords of punk party thrash, was submitted to TYS by my good friend and band-mate, Sergios. Dude knows all about thrash and death metal, so read on and see what you find out about these crazy thrash revival kings! Enjoy!--Fotis TYS

Hailing from the parking-spaces of shopping malls in Richmond, Virginia, speed metal punks Municipal Waste guarantee an explosive atmosphere in every record they have laid down so far. But hang on; before we really get into it, let’s trace the roots of this modern day phenomenon. Back in the day, Richmond was called Powhatan, named after the Indian tribe that resided in the area and around. It had an outstanding natural beauty, was rich in resources and definitely pretty much quiet (or at least we suppose). Powhatan was a perfect place for chilling and fun. Maybe this has something to do with our modern music thrashing “Indians” (thumbs up to Anthrax), who knows. 

We believe that if you want to get a good grasp of a band you should look at its background, culture, environment etc. Surely all of us when we were young were searching each tiny bit of info we could get from CD booklets in the pre-internet era and talk about it with our friends. Those were the good old days, judging a band to be cool or not from their t-shirts in the back cover photo. I mean c’mon “this guy is wearing a Possessed t-shirt, they should be good lads and the music should be amazing!”. You could call us naive, romantic or whatever.

Municipal Waste formed back in 2000 and played their first show on New Years Eve just before 2001 was replacing 2000. How cool is that? From the band’s current line up, only Ryan Waste and Tony Foresta (guitars and vox respectively) were there, so we could say they are the core of Municipal Waste. Add Land Phil molesting the bass and last but not least Dave Witte on drums, and you got the rest of the wheels of this monstrous thrashing machine.

What can you say about Dave Witte, the guy is a legend. Personally, I regard him as one of the most influential and amazing drummers I‘ve ever listened to. His style is like open heart surgery, no mistakes – deadly precise.  In all the bands he played it was only mayhem, death and destruction. I kindly suggest that you check him out in Discordance Axis, Burnt by the Sun, Human Remains and East West- Blast Test among others. All these aforementioned bands have nothing to do with the style that Municipal Waste prefer to spread all around, but still you should give them a go. Judging from his interviews, he also seems like a pretty cool and dedicated guy. His playing style in Discordance Axis and Human Remains took him extreme music miles ahead and I think that all of us speed and intensity freaks should at least give him the credits and respect.

Having said that, Land Phil, the bearded bandana guy behind the bass flicks is also active in other bands. He plays in a humoristic death metal band, called Cannabis Corpse. In their own words: “Cannabis corpse was formed in the summer of 2006 as a way to express our love of smoking weed and listening to Cannibal Corpse”. Song titles like “Staring through My Eyes That Are Red” or “Reefer Stashed Place” or even “Addicted to Hash in a Tin” pretty much points out what you should expect. Who said that death metal is not fun, it is mostly about fun!

Ryan Waste has himself an old school heavy metal project called Volture which is not so big news but anyway. He is the mastermind behind the axeripping riffs of the Waste so we should say some stuff about him. Plus he is a founding member. Speaking of that, last but not least Tony Foresta is the bringer of doom with his 2 sentences per second attacks, funny faces, wicked poses and all around on stage thrashing. He is also participating in a hardcore project named No Friends which are pretty cool! He loves football and has a “PIZZA” lip tattoo.

You can tell that until know we only cared about sideprojekts, ex bands, heritage and everything apart Municipal Waste. Well that might be true, but I (we) don’t think that we should tell you the obvious. You don’t need us to tell you how great and awesome Municipal Waste are. You already know that! Thus we will complete this piece with the top-5 reasons why one should get his hand on these guys’ releases, if hasn’t yet done so.

1. Kurt Russel is a really huge actor! Who would argue against? I mean, Escape from LA/NY, Big Trouble in Little China, The Thing or even that movie that his wife was kidnapped from rednecks and he was a truck driver – these are masterpieces! The Waste seem to have that point of view to, Tango and Thrash is a homage to the – as the pun states- Tango and Cash movie, featuring Kurt along Sylvester Stalone. Who hasn’t seen that? Plus the whole Municipal Waste side of the split (with Bad Acid Trip) is a general homage to Kurt Russel (being also on the cover).

2. Beer cans! The sound of a beer can opening is surely close to paradise for some of us. That sound means that in a few seconds you will be swallowing that divine thing that beer is. Beer drinkers raise your cans/bottles/glasses and listen to that sound in a couple of Waste’s songs! We won’t tell you who they are, find them yourself (straight edge kids just ignore the above paragraph and let's just drink coke to MW and mosh our heads off nice and sober-ed:P).

3. Fun! Every band should in our opinion have always a touch of fun and humor, I mean c’mon even if your lyrics are about horror movies or such shit, it is fun since you overuse it. Just like Cannibal Corpse’s lyrics, they are funny like low budget splatter films (which I am not a fan of, but you get my point). Too much ketchup makes you laugh. Well if you want to pay a tribute to 80s horror b-movies then this is fun! Song titles like The Thing or Terror Shark or Toxic Revolution among others with cover artwork that is in line with this golden era proves the point.

4. Live! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend their show here in Athens or anywhere else. I am aware of what happened here, no need to talk about this now. But it seems to me after watching their dvd, many videos in youtube and from friends' words, that they are really energetic and give 100% when they perform live! Well, that’s a big plus for a band! Trampoline stage dives, circle pits, moshing, stage dives on bodyboards (you know the board that Hobie Buchannon of Baywatch used to have when he was a teenager) is the norm in a MW show.

5. Math! 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321. That’s a fact! Last reason why to love these guyz is that they kind of brought back the glory of the thrashing 80s, an era that is far too much important for thrash/death metal/hardcore, you name it. If this is not good enough for you or if you going to blah blah about how much better other bands are, or how overrated Municipal Waste are, or how fake they are, or how Toxic Holocaust are better (they are truly great in my opinion), or if it is not Razor then it ain’t thrash, then this piece is not for you.

Last but not least, I wanna thank Fotis and TYS for giving me a place to express my thoughts, respect!

P.S. In Chuck’s words: Support music, not rumors.

SYT (Shoot Your Take)