Americade- American Metal (1982)
"What it is? Rock on!"

One of these days, I’m gonna write the definitive book on all the bands that lost the plot completely before the second chapter. One hit wonders are too easy- what about the no-hit blunders? That’s where the real sweat and blood comes in. Every band starts out with good intentions (well, maybe not Coke Dealer, but most of ‘em, anyway), and virtually every rock band dreams of some kind of vague, half-assed world domination, but so far, not one rock and roll band has ever run the world, not even for a second. They all keep trying, though. The greatest boasts almost always seemed to come from heavy metal bands, especially in the halcyon daze of the early 80’s, when spandex-stretching metal was king. You had to love it, because you just knew history was not going to treat those deluded fuckers well. Seminal rock-doc “Decline of Western Civilization Part 2: The Metal Years” is positively lousy with metal bands that were absolutely sure they were gonna kick and claw their hairy way to the top, but were sadly mistaken. Seduce, where are you now? Odin? Anybody seen Odin?


It’s not like we wanted them to crash and burn, really, it was just…well, they were fucking obnoxious. And they dressed like idiots. And most of the time, the music was godawful. Case in point, Americade.

In early 1982, Americade had splashy ads in all the metal fanzines- I vividly remember them warning of American Metal’s imminent release in Kick Ass Monthly, which was kinda weird, because Kick Ass editor Bob Muldowney hated all that ‘party metal’ nonsense. With their red white and blue logo, and their red white and blue spandex ensembles, they were going for a whole ‘patriotic’ vibe, which was already wrong-headed, since the founding members- vocalist PJ deMarigny and his axe-mangling brother Gerard- were both French. And listen, you could drape French metal in all the stars and stripes you want, but it’s still French, and if you’ve ever been unlucky enough to hear Franco-metallic 80’s bands like the Satan Jokers, Sortilege, or Vulcain, than you know exactly what I mean. But hey, heavy metal is the music of the people, right? So they were French, big deal. They were also New Yorkers, and, at the time, were in heavy company with the likes of boogie scorchers the Rods, bikers-turned-Vikings Manowar, and hard rock kingpins Riot, so they must have been getting a few lessons in cool along the way, right? Well, no. Not really. Instead of just trying to get by on by bashing away in the garage and slowly sculpting themselves into a bad ass rock and roll band, they went ahead and started touting themselves as “the new Van Halen”- and this was before most of the world had even heard them. There were two major problems with this tactic:



A. It was only 1982. The ‘old’ Van Halen was doing just fine. We didn’t NEED a new Van Halen.
B. They went ahead and released American Metal. And it did not sound anything like Van Halen. Not even close.

The self-released American Metal hit the bins in the summer of ’82. It promptly tanked. Imagine that.
Having failed to set the world- or even Brooklyn- aflame, Americade’s rhythm section bailed out in search of greener pastures*, leaving the deMarigny bros high and dry. They disbanded completely soon after, and all was quiet on the Americade front until 1989 when Gerard, sans sibling, regrouped with new members. James Neal (later in Malice) joined on as the new vocalist, Greg Smith, formerly of the Wendy O Williams band, signed on as the new bass player, and Paul Cammarata pounded the skins. Americade, Mach II lasted less than a year, as the band’s ‘party metal’ sound was hopelessly outdated at that point. And yet…Americade was still not dead.

1995 saw the release of the self-financed (by deMarigny, natch) “Americade.com”. Man, you can just see the tiny motors turning in that guy’s head, can’t you? In 1995, everybody thought this new fangled ‘internet’ was gonna change everything, all at once. In the tangled web of rock and roll, it was going to topple all the fat-cat record companies and make overnight sensations of all the bands that really, really deserved it, but somehow got fucked by the Man along the way. Ok, so it never happened, but that was the plan, and deMarigny was determined to be first at the trough. The band wasn’t actually together again- Americade.com consisted of the ’89 demos- but by now, the entire catalog would have retro-appeal, and with a star-spangled new website to promote it, the long green would be pouring in like tidal floods. Well, alright then.

At the time of this writing, late October, 2003, www.americade.com is still under construction, a good 8 years past it’s window of opportunity. And ‘party metal’ still isn’t hip. Not even in retro-geek circles.

That’s still not the end of the story, however. Late in 2002, Metal Legion/Audioglobe re-released “American Metal” on CD. I never heard of Metal Legion, have no idea where they’re from, and don’t know whether it’s even official or not, but flash metal clearinghouse Perris Records is currently hawking it for $12.95. Obviously, somebody out there sees some spark of metal-mania in this band, so I decided to revisit American Metal, to see if I missed somethin’.

Keep in mind that I never heard Americade when they were actually still active. Sure, I knew exactly who they were, and flipped passed their album (between Acid and Axewitch) dozens of times in the bins at Quincy’s Records, but, you know, they had songs with titles like “California Rhythm” and “Little Lady Lover”. They couldn’t possibly kick the same kind of ass as that Anvil, Raven, Motorhead, or Tank did, so I never bothered. But just a few months ago, I was haunting In Your Ear down in Allston Rock City, and there is was- a battered radio station (WUMB -currently, an all-Folk station) copy, for 3 bucks. And I happened to have 3 bucks.

I wasn’t expecting much, really, but there was the faint hope that maybe I missed an absolute gem, that maybe history was wrong, and Americade really did get cheated out of their rightful place in the pantheon of metal gods. Maybe they weren’t preening fool kings peddling sexless noise at all, maybe they really were the Nu Atomic Punks, and we were all just too stupid to see it. Maybe. But probably not.

Well, I’m sitting here, balls deep into my 7th listen, which is at least 6 and half more than most of CD’s that pass my desk get, and I have yet to get rocked. American Metal is pretty standard bar metal, with screechy vocals and riffs lifted liberally from Eddie Van Halen. deMarigny did show a few flashes of potential guitar heroism, but the songs are so pedestrian, you’d hardly notice. There were dozens of bands just like this in Boston in the early 80’s, everyone of ‘em hungry to replace local legends Scorcher**and Steel Assassin in the headlining slot. They had flashpots and stripey pants and long blonde hair, and they never got beyond the bottom of the bill. Why? Because it was 19-fuckin-82, baby, and the New Gods were rising from the underground- Metallica, Slayer, Manowar, and they were quickly changing the rules of heavy metal forever. This groupie-baiting poodle metal was not only squaresville, it was decidedly 1979. And 1979 was yesterday, even in ‘82.

Still, even if it did sound like a cross between White Witch (LA version) and Jaguar (UK version), a couple tracks do actually kinda rock- “Led to the Rock” has a pretty wicked riff, and hell, it’s about ROCK, and their version of Grand Funk’s “We're an American Band” is actually pretty good. Oh, and PJ mentions that his name is PJ on more then a few tracks, which is funny. AND the record closes with a 15 second guitar solo, which is way more merciful than you usually got from fledgling ‘guitar gods’ in those days. Dunno if it was ever worth the price they were asking, but not bad for 3 bucks, anyway.

The record cover and insert are actually much more entertaining to me than the record. The back cover photos are particularly classic. Lead singer PJ is not only sporting a bushy perm and a bushier bare chest, but he’s also wearing a button that says “PJ”. Is this so he won’t forget? And anyway, doesn't he know that PJ is a girl's name? His brother forgot his shirt too. He’s got a red white and blue sweatband around his neck, and a gold chain with an Americade pendant, that looks like one of those $19.95 custom jobs you’d get for your mom on Mother’s Day at Bradlees.

I can’t really fault Walt Woodward III on anything but his goofy name, however, cuz he actually looks pretty cool, like Sebastian Bach with a strip mall haircut. Dave Spitz looks just like his Anthraxed brother, but I dunno if Dan ever posed in Sergio Valente designer jeans. The insert includes fan art portraits (by one Beckie Mennen- I’d love to hunt her down for the originals, which would look fantastic on the walls of Sleazegrinder HQ) and a collage of ‘rocking out’ photos, including one with Gerard in his ‘mustache’ phase. On the back, the band describes their roles thusly:

PJ de MARIGNY – METAL SINGING KING
GERARD de MARIGNY – LIGHTNING
DAVE THE BEAST SPITZ- THUNDER
WALT WILDMAN WOODWARD III – SKINBASHER

The also credit “Group Concept” to the Marignys’ and Mr. III – it took three of them to come up with the brilliant idea of starting a band?

They also dedicate the album to “Our Rock Mom”- in type that’s bigger then their own logo- “without whom this record could not have been made”. This clearly implies that Mama De Marigny paid for it. Personally, my mother would have broken my fuckin' arms if I tossed her life-savings into a dated flash metal record. And anyway- why did the ‘new Van Halen’ have to release this record themselves? You think there’d be a bidding war from all the major heavies. Maybe there was, and Americade just didn’t want to share the profits. But probably not.

Anyway, that’s rock and roll. Or at least Americade’s version of it. There’s an address on the insert for the fan club- sure, it's 21 years old, but people in New York never move, right?- so maybe you oughta to drop them a line. I’m sure they’d love to hear from you. Or anybody, really.

Americade Fan Club
2372 National Drive
Brooklyn, New York 11234

*Walt Woodward III (!) was later in LA bands Shark Island and the Scream. Oh, and LA Rawk expert Trashy Anderson says that he did a stint in Mike Monroe's short-lived-but-reportedly-righteous post-Hanoi Rocks band, Jerusalem Slim.
Dave “The Beast” Spitz is the brother of Anthrax’s Dan  Spitz. He was later in about a million metal high-profile metal bands, including Black Sabbath, White Lion,  and Great White.

** Dear Scorcher- if any of you fuckers are still alive, please get in touch. I want to write the Scorcher book. Seriously.

-Sleazegrinder