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As Long As The Ideas Are Cascading
By joseexist in Musings On Muses
August 16, 2010

As long as the ideas are cascading from my synapses I will keep up the fervor and try to capture as much as I can in writing and recording. There comes a time though when even my active imagination wears me out physically. ‘Burn-out’ is what it’s sometimes called, and it can happen to anyone. I think I’m pretty close but you never know for sure. It’s a proverbial thing like a brick wall, last straw, over the edge, or one of many clichés.

When creativity gets overcooked the chef usually doesn’t even notice until its way too late. There are no smoking pans or cracking Pyrex, no sizzling goo or even alarms going off. No, when it happens not even the dwindling patronage is noticed.

Artists can easily run along with blinders on in the throes of creation. The sparks fly in abundance and the heart soars with every crash of the hammer onto the anvil. The din of creativity saturates the senses and nothing else can cut thru it. Lucidity of thought rarely checks in and the world outside carries on oblivious of the tumultuous and gleeful ‘rapture’ going on in the artists’ soul.

The eighties was a time of epic creativity for metal bands. There was a scene in many cities wherein any band with a song could pull in a crowd for a night of decadence and ribald. Limits to stage shows were non-existent and venue size was the only means of ‘loose’ crowd control. The LA scene was one of the most prolific and many bands jostled about for stage time while living off little money and yet still recording album after album of fresh new music.

The saying goes, “all good things must come to an end”, and it was true for the metal music of the eighties. The decadence culminated in a heap of strung out, burnouts, alcoholics and drug addicts, as well as ‘old-before-their-time’, diseased, or even dead individuals. Some maintained fame posthumously while others simply got thru it all with their lives, if not their health, intact. That hallowed city in California wasn’t the only place that saw the machine of heavy metal plow thru. It just became the poster child for everything that was happening in metal at the time.

I had my share of decadent enjoyment throughout the eighties. Legasys played a few shows in backyards and on a few stages. There was no ‘scene’ for a band such as ours to speak of yet, we still seemed to draw crowds and praise. We worked diligently at our craft and never took our abilities for granted. We taught each other confidence and felt the energy of the crowds together.

We also wallowed in the decadence. Beer and stronger spirits flowed freely and to this day I’m still not sure of who was on what as far as mind altering went. I knew what drugs I was taking but as for anybody else, let’s just say I couldn’t see any real problems. Groupies weren’t a problem either. I could have taken my share of those but I was with a girl I really believed in at the time. After all was said and done, and we did a lot, the eighties didn’t last, the band didn’t last, and neither did the girl. The only thing left now is the music. That’s one thing I’ll never give up on. It means too much to me.