The Caboose was a small club in Garner, North Carolina (just outside of Raleigh the state capital) owned by Ed Warner, who later would become one of my closest friends. From 1996 to 2000 Andy Miller, another one of my closest friends, booked shows there. Andy and I also did Scumfeast Fanzine which covered the extreme side of underground music and culture. I had the good fortune to work security at the Caboose which afforded me the incredible opportunity to be at almost all of the shows. Since Andy had great taste in music, the bands that would appear on the small stage at the Caboose were the ones he wanted to see. So for close to four years the Caboose had the best shows, as far as extreme Punk and Metal go at that time, in all of Wake County. Also Andy video taped a lot of these bands in order to keep a historical record, give copies to the bands and trade via mail to other video collectors across the globe. Right now Andy Miller and Ed Warner are appearing on stages and making history themselves as part of the punk/metal act KNOWLEDGE IS FOR FOOLS.
Myspace: www.myspace.com/kiffknowledgeisforfools
Reverbnation: http://www.reverbnation.com/kiffknowledgeisforfools
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/KIFF-Knowledge-Is-For-Fools/51878349998
Andy also is owner of Buttons Made For You, a small company that creates buttons/badges. Through constant inquires from fans about those old videos Andy has finally took some time out of his busy schedule in order to upload some of those old videos to Youtube. Scumfeast Metal 666 is proud to present some of these videos, with a few words about the bands and show memories, on a regular basis.
SOULPREACHER LIVE AT THE CABOOSE 1998
SOULPREACHER, a North Carolina Stoner Doom act who started out back in the late 1990s and are still around today albeit with different members. Whenever their name is mentioned in local extreme music circles they are looked with friendship and legendary status. I'll stick with the latter part. They were, at this time, North Carolina's main export as far as late 90's Stoner Doom was concerned. Although national acclaim was not the hand dealt to them they did manage to put out a few official releases. There was the full length Sonic Witchcraft that came out on Man's Ruin in 1999 and the When The Black Sunn Rises...The Holy Men Burn five song EP from 2000 on Berserker Records. I was lucky enough to catch SOULPREACHER at their hungry early days and am still friends with present and former band members today. As far as their music they were equal to every other Stoner Doom act at that time. Check em out.
Unfortunately that time was running out since by 2000 the genre was overflowing with similar bands and the excitement was waining. Since around 2002 the band has kept going changing from their early Stoner Rock sound to one more influenced by PARADISE LOST. They've even released demos in 2002, 04 and 08. Most local NC people new to the scene never knew about SOULPREACHER's pre-2000 uber Stoner Rock days as viewed here in this video also from the same show in 1998.
Here's were the legendary status comes in. One of the special bands on the bill for the rejuvenated SCUMFEST music festival in 2010 was the reunited for one gig only SOULPREACHER 1999 line-up. When they played that set on that night there were quite a few people in the crowd who were literally floored at what they saw and heard. Presently Stoner Rock is in it's full revival swing and there are quite a few bands who call NC home. People know them well but they never saw SOULPREACHER doing it. So here you had a legend on stage performing songs from eleven years ago which sounded just as fresh and powerful today. History is not always written perfectly as far as exposing the truth about the past. So it took one night in September 2010 to point out that this whole modern Stoner Rock thing which a lot of people today have latched onto because it's hip? SOULPREACHER pre-dated it by a decade. Finally here's a video from that 1999 era of greatness.
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