The Days of the Future Past

There we were, OUIJA board in hand, incense burning, pet tele-tubby sacrificed. 

"When will the MaxXouT 6 song EP be released?" Elliot asked, sitting with a fresh coat of corpse paint. The triangle started flying around the board, faster and faster in concentric circles, dizzying us and putting us both in a trance-like stupor. Just when we felt we had crossed over the mortal plane, a ghostly apparition of Jimi Hendrix appeared. Every time he opened his mouth to speak, only the sounds of guitars came out. We couldn't understand a word he was saying. 

"Come on Jimi, let us know!!!" Elliot screamed. Large, half-eaten pizza rolls started to rain down on us from the heavens, thudding into our buddies, but weakly bouncing off of Jimi's perfect afro. 

The ghost of Jimi locked eyes with us and held up his hands. That's when we noticed he had 12-fingers, 6-fingers per hand!

"So that's how he did it!" I yelled. 

"12? 12? Does that mean December???" Elliot raged, froathing at the mouth as another errant pizza roll plummeted into his nose. 

We awoke, on the floor of MaxXouT manor, Elliot mumbling "12" over and over again. The smell of rancid gas station pizza rolls filled the air, when we noticed there was a plate of half-eaten gas station pizza rolls right next to us.  

"Maybe it was food poisoning", Elliot said, grabbing another roll to mow down on, when I noticed the OUIJA board pointer was resting right in between the 1 and 2. 

December.

New Tuneage - New Shows

Rust doesn't grow on a rolling dough-nut; the MaxXouT-a-maniacs have been as busy as ever. New tune-age is in the works like a bun in the oven. New shows have been booked, and will be a Maxxin' out all over the Allegheny. Catch us 4/22 at the Rock Room--a delightful little slice of America. The last time I was there, I watched a full PBR can hit a guy with a skullet right in the side of the head. Really brought me back to my childhood. Anyhoo, below is a song that Elliot keeps playing to women he doesn't really know to try and woo them. When Kyle and Eric put the rhythm muscle on top of it, I've seen people convulse in happiness. It happened at Cattivo, our last show, with Stone Cold Killer, Burned, and Stone Wicked Souls.  

Buzzed at the Buzzbin - Concert Review

The Buzzbin has a mural of lobster alien mutant spiders in unholy combat--so it is clearly our type of place. It also has $1 Genesees for the performing bands--we should play there every day! We stretched 'er out and played 1:15 to our fans from the Buckeye state. The rewarded us with applause and beer (including a 6 pack parting gift!), the two things we are seeking in this world. Seriously, cool room--they have a whole wing full of pinball machine and classic arcade games; it's like a combination of those arcades you are nostalgic about from your youth plus a bar that specializes in great crafts and drafts. Again, we should play there every day. After the show Eric set a new record on the Metallica pinball machine. His initials aren't what he wrote on there. We opened the windows at the AirBNB because it wasn't us. We found Elliot's mutant ability is to find open pizza places in the small hours of the morning. Better ingredients, better pizza. 

The Best Polish Bar in Little Italy - Concert Review

Saturday we were at the house of kielbasa and pierogies: The Bloomfield Bridge Tavern. I told Steve, the owner, they were the second best kielbasa and pierogies I ever had behind my grandmas, but that was a lie, the BBTs are better. Steve's dad opened The Bloomfield Bridge Tavern, and this gentleman's name was Stosh. Fitting this was the venue for our Steel City debut. It was awesome. Elliot wore a lot of spandex. Stosh played a guitar solo around the bear you see in the picture below. The Wire Riots opened, and Last Will closed, with MaxXouT as the bologna in this rock sandwich. We were told by the owner we are super talented, and someone bought us shots of Yukon Jack.

We Ran To the Hills - Concert Review

We went to Pittsburgh and took a left, drove through a maelstrom, fought some aliens with battleaxes, and landed at a slice of heaven called The Empire Concert club. Excellent place to play, great sound system, immaculately clean, and, given that we were opening for the Iron Maiden tribute band Eddie, there were Eddie brain shots to be drunk as well. Our new brutal rhythm section of Eric and Kyle got their first show under their belts/kilt. Kyle played a 200 piece drum kit that was once owned by Vinny Appice. Eric played an 8x10 cab that humpback whales could hear in the Pacific. Son of Sam and Eddie were both awesome. We're moving to Akron.

New Show: 10/1/16 - The Empire Concert Club, Akron, OH - w/ Eddie! Iron Maiden Tribute and Son of Sam

Run to the hills, run for your life--we're going to have a real live one in the Rubber City--Akron, OH! After spending the summer putting the calls out, and blasting the MaxXouT sign across the night sky we finally have the men to serve as the backbone of our ungodly rock armada. At the Empire Concert Club in Akron, OH we are unleashing our lethal rhythm section live for the first time! We are happy to introduce Kyle Duncan on the skins and Eric Eckels on the lead bass! Be there!

The MaxXouT Show, Episode: Blammo | Martial Arts Tutorial for Rock Stars

MaxXouT-amaniacs, today, my friends, we open up a new chapter of dementia. Today we are releasing the first in a long series of episodes of The MaxXouT Show. Come on this first journey with us and learn how to defend yourself when jabronis rush the stage, crash into your $4,000 B.C. Rich guitar or puke on your spandex. You will be glad you did: 

New Promo Video: MaxXouT Teaches you how to throw a wizard staff party

Do you have duct tape and PBR? Well then you have all you need for a party, a WIZARD STAFF PARTY! In this latest promo video, the boys show you how to get day drunk while increasing your magical power so you can do battle against orcs, goblins, and your roommates. What, you've never Wizard Staff partied before? It's the perfect way for you to brag about how much bad beer you've been consuming. Come hither, my liege, and watch this play:

New Promo Video: MaxXouT Talks About Internet Critics with Internet Muscles

Oh man oh man oh man. MaxXouT is releasing our second major official music video next Wednesday, July 13th. This is for Narcan Atomizer and it's so awesome it's like listening to a Dimebag Darrell solo while speeding in a muscle car while eating Taco Bell. That's how awesome it is! 

And guess what? Leading up to this epic event, we are going to be releasing daily promo videos all for your enjoyment. Damn, can life get any better than this? The first video just launched, and it's all about a topic near and dear to our hearts: how awesome we are. Actually, it's the opposite of that, it's about Internet trolls.

Here's what we have to say about it: 

There's a lot of critics and trolls with internet muscles out there, but don't let them get you down. Instead, do what MaxXouT did and answer criticism with the face-meltingly awesome video for Narcan Atomizer! But first, watch this video where we confront our internet critics and give you, the few good people of the internet, a friendly PSA that might save your face from melting.

There's a lot of critics and trolls with internet muscles out there, but don't let them get you down. Instead, do what MaxXouT did and answer criticism with the face-meltingly awesome video for Narcan Atomizer!

Music Video 2: Narcan Atomizer

I wanted to film our next video in an old school Pizza Hut, like with the salad bar, the weird red cups, maybe a pizza pie smashing into someone's face in slow motion, etc., but the lighting would've been too bad. I had some other ideas: abandoned nuclear silo, underground bunker, Elliot Polak's futon--but all of those were too dangerous. Instead, Elliot went out location scouting in signature Elliot Polak style: he traveled to each and every show of Detroit's number one Motely Crue tribute band "Wreking Crue" and examined the venues with the precision of a grain inspector in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Through this meticulous, scientific process (that usually ended with late night trips to Taco Bell's drive-through or to grab doughy Pepperoni Rolls at the dirty gas station by his house), Elliot happened upon the perfect spot: a little slice of heaven in Taylor, MI that calls itself "The All Around Bar".

My God, it was perfect. The owner, Dave, was cool as hell! He let us have run of the place for a good four hours with a staffed bartender, lighting guy and sound guy for their absolutely legit stage. Wildcard Film's Owner and CEO Brett McDonald brought his own lighting rig and had the place lit up like a Christmas tree that could out bench press your scary Uncle Rick (the one with the prison tats). Damecia got her rowdy and gorgeous pin-up girlfriends to buy Detroit out of Aquanet and red lipstick. We had everything we needed to film our own Sunset Strip sleaze rock music video, which is exactly what we did!

We even enlisted this random short order fry cook to be our drummer--and, once he put down his meat clever, we found out the dude had some chops!--sometimes you gotta look death straight in the eye and ask it to be the drummer in your band:

Fast with a cleaver, even faster with a drum stick

Fast with a cleaver, even faster with a drum stick

A big thanks to all who showed up--we had a riot and the video will blow you away! Speaking of which, we're getting close to the release--we'll post on Facebook once we get a concrete date. We're waiting on Hoobastank's drummer to remix and master the single, and for some extra footage to come, but even what we have so far is better than Tawne Kitaen doing the splits on two cadillacs. 

First Show | Elliot's Face Got Licked

Two weeks ago we played our first show, got paid $15, and spent it all on PBR tallboys. It was awesome. With no provocation at all a girl licked Elliot's face. Johnny Fangers did Hulk Hogan leg drops on an empty beer can; I saw him a week later and both of his elbows were black and blue. Fresh off of having a life-changing epiphany, Showtime Dan accepted our invite and showed up; he even took a video of us because he is the best human ever: https://instagram.com/p/BFIRrJQHQgj/ . The other bands were all cool. I prank called Justin from 12 Chances later on, which he was fine with ("Justin, from 12 Chances, here's your 13th Chance...etc); I thought about prank calling him everyday, as a running gag--getting prank calls over and over again from someone you don't know that well--but chickened out. We stopped at Taco Bell, and we drove away and got back to Elliot's before I realized half the order was missing; of course it was the expensive half, they remembered the gelatinous nachos they just give away, but the fake meat, oh no, we didn't get any of that. 

The club was called Diesel's Concert Lounge, in Chesterfield; the stage had more lights than a laser tag; the sound system was primo. I saw a dragon shoot out of the PA. Granted, I was wearing Macho Man Randy Savage sunglasses, so maybe that was an illusion. The next week they hosted Kip Winger and POD. Kip Winger has been a running joke in my family ever since my sister found a Kip Winger poster and taped it to our fridge with the inscription "To Stoshy: the best I ever had. -Kip". My sister suggested I leave fan art somewhere for Kip Winger to find which I thought was a really weird suggestion. Do people do that? Hide fan art/letters for other people to find? I can't unwrap the psychology of that. There were no fan art or love letters for MaxXouT. I guess we're more of a get-licked-in-the-face type of band. 

Showtime Detroit - Mariachi Pants

The pants

The pants

Elliot's Kurt Russell hair was vibrating with giddiness when we parked the muscle car and had a homeless man tell us he’d make sure the car would be up on blocks unless we gave him money. Elliot interpreted this as a good sign, that the rock gods were smiling on us. It turned out Elliot happened to be right, but don’t let him know that; it'd go straight to that Kurt-Russell-hair covered head. 

We entered Showtime Clothing in the heart of Detroit’s Cass Corridor. Showtime is a special place—this is a clothier for the rock star. You enter the place and one corner has studded leather jackets for apocalyptic (or real) biker gangs, another has every shape and style of boot (some bedazzled, some with teeth), there’s mesh shirts, cowboy shirts, bluesman suits, flowing vampire gowns, a mannequin head wearing another mannequin's head as a hat, just heaps of the type of threads we have seen displayed on every incarnation of rock band.

Stunned by the Godly glow of this mecca, I hardly saw a gentlemen spring up from behind a counter: “what can I help you with?”

I believe the man had a maroon track suit with the words "Detroit" embroidered on the front, but that might've been the two red bulls I had for breakfast doing the seeing. I opened my mouth and this came out: 

“I’ve been looking far and wide for a pair of legitimate mariachi pants, but I’m 6’2” and most mariachi pants I’ve seen around are cut for shorter people. Do you have any mariachi pants?”

The man stared at me with a dumbfounded look on his face. The look morphed into a mask of rage:“Why the fuck would you think I would have mariachi pants?" 

His eyes were locked on mine, like a death ray tractor beam. I'd rather be hanging out with the homeless guy, helping him threaten people instead. We stood there staring at each other like we were in a spaghetti western. Right when the Ennio Morricone score would’ve swelled and a trumpet would’ve played it’s final, quivering soloing note, the man shuffled one step to the left. There, in the space he had just been occupying, and glowing from sun rays shooting from the heavens like fingers of God, right there where the most beautiful pair of mariachi pants I had ever seen.

“Go try those on,” the man told me, the pants flying into my arms. 

I never try to get too excited, never too high, never too low. Deep down, I find my baseline is, strangely, very positive--but usually this baseline is only exposed by my emotions being stripped away via a traumatic loss by the Green Bay Packers. Regardless, before reaching emotional troughs, I try to stay positive but there is nothing more depressing than trying on clothes. I’m not a typical body shape: former amateur strongman and semi-pro football player, tall, yet from a long line of stout Polish cranberry farmers, built more like a linebacker than a dancer. I didn’t have much faith in these threads fitting like a glove. I put one foot in, and damn, pulled the pants up to my thigh. Holy shit, not too tight. Eventually, got the waist all synced up, and holy shit, these were my exact dimensions.

Come Saturday, we'll be back in the city of motors, and damned if I won't be up on that stage wearing those same mariachi pants. God bless you, Showtime wardrobe, and your wise proprietor, Dan. 

 

Next Show: Saturday, May 7th @ Diesel Concerts Detroit

We're set to MaxXouT in the D, and you better come check it out otherwise you're a jabroni. The apocalyptic warriors Elliot and Stosh are on a 5 band bill with 12 Chances, the Johnny Fangers Band, The Night Crew, and Audio Rampage, all supplying music to bludgeon you with. Doors are at 8pm, shots of moonshine from a gas can are at 7pm and in the parking lot. Just knock on the blood red van; the secret knock is the opening drum solo to Hot For Teacher. Diesel is at 33151 23 Mile Road, in historic Chesterfield, MI. Hot damn, we're excited to take it to the stage, and fill your ears with that kindly old thing called the rock and the roll, and what better place than Detroit, our favorite American city. It's our time, everybody! Elliot even bought custom spandex pants from Great Britain for this show! 

Tales of the Virgil Pt. 4: How Much Did The Million Dollar Belt Cost?

So there we were in Stosh's basement. Stosh, myself, Michael Sorg our cameraman, and WWE Legend Virgil had just finished shooting our first music video for Kayfabe (check it out here). We proceeded to shoot the shit, and by shooting the shit I mean listen to Virgil tell epic stories from the 80's. Well, after a third round of hearing about shitty pay days in Memphis, I finally got a word in edgewise, and asked the one question that had been on my mind since we met this morning...

"Thanks Virgil, can I ask you a question man?" I asked knowing it might be a good time to change the subject.

"Anything brother"

"So, did the million dollar belt really cost a million dollars?"

"It cost $968,000.00, and in the 80's that was a lot of money. You know how much that would be in today's money?"

"No idea man, probably a shit ton"

"$20 MILLION dollars"

"Damn..."

"Well it would have been $20 million If the gold market hadn't gone to shit last year.  They keep it at the WWE towers in the lobby, a pair of armed security guards lock it up every night in a safe when they close.  The safe lives in the basement, its too heavy to be anywhere else, and instead of key cards they use fingerprints to get in and out.  The only way to steal it is to cut a hand off of either Vince McMahon or one of the security guards."

"..."

"Any other questions, brother"

"Naw man, that's all need to know."

Fact Checking

 

Let's address the elephant in the room: how much is $968,000.00 adjusted for inflation?  Here is the math:

FutureValue = Principle (1 + Interest / CompoundingFrequency) ^ CompoundingFrequency*Time

Naturally, this doesn’t take into account possible fluctuations in gold and diamond prices that could cause the overall value of the belt to increase or decrease dramatically above or below the inflation rate, but assuming a reasonable inflation rate of 5%, the value of the belt today would be (Virgil drum roll):

$3,794,685.01. Hey that is still a lot of money, but not quite $20 million.  

Then there is this Wikipedia entry; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Dollar_Championship which completely refutes the $968K million dollar belt and puts the value of the belt in 1988 at around $125K. This lower cost is because wikipedia alleges the belt was only gold plated and the diamonds were all cubic zirconia. Still, this CZ gold plated behemoth of a belt built today would run you about $490,016.14, and hey, that’s still a lot of money. But the $490,016.14 dollar man doesn't quite have the same ring as the MILLION DOLLAR MAN, now does it? 

 

Tales of the Virgil Pt. 3: Oh, Deer

There was a legendary wrestling bear back in the territory days. Its name was Victor. I read a book written by Rowdy Roddy Piper (In the Pit with Piper) where he mentioned wrestling it up in Canada. Roddy Piper, an otherwise fearless madman known for having unnecessarily long alley fights with Keith David, copped to being terrified by the bear; he realized the bear could’ve ended his life whenever it wanted to. For example, at one point Victor the Bear shoved Piper's whole head into his maw. Keep in mind, this was probably for 30 loonies up in Nova Scotia somewhere, presumably in the dead of winter because winter is year long in Canada.

A wrestling bear (Victor?) appears in Hardcore Holly's book The Hardcore Truth: The Bob Holly Story. Bob Holly says: “I figured, what’s the worst that could happen? The bear could kill me, I guess.” My friend Matt used to laugh hysterically at this rationalization. Getting killed IS, in fact, the worst thing that could happen to you; there is no fate worse. Luckily for the Attitude era, Bob Holly survived the wrestling bear and this pro-race-car-driver-turned-wrestler gimmick.

I read another book, this one by Bret Hart (Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Professional Wrestling) where he mentioned that as a kid Terrible Ted the Battling Bear would stay at his childhood home. Bret's dad was the legendary promoter for Stampede Wrestling, Stu Hart. Stu would hire the bear for a run in his territory, and it wasn't uncommon for the talent to stay at the Hart family's palatial estate. The invite was extended to every man or, in this case, beast. In the book, Bret recalls a time when Terrible Ted the Battling Bear licked ice cream off of young Bret's feet. This was one of the more normal episodes in young Bret's life; keep in mind this is coming from a man whose dad's favorite hobby was to invite grown men over in order to torture them with wrestling moves in his basement dungeon.  

Maybe tales of legendary wrestling bears were on Virgil’s mind when opined, nearly in conjunction with his crocodile suggestion from before, we should have another animal join our live show.

“You should get a deer too,” Virgil said as he was hitting a taxidermied deer head with his drumsticks.

We had outfitted the deer to be our bass player. We called him Buck, since he was one. Pretty nice deer mount. In fact, my wife and I had written that particular head mount into the closing documents when we had bought the house. “We will only buy this house if Buck comes with it!” we screamed at our real estate agent. The sellers were more than happy to let us have the deer head. They had no use for it but they didn't want to see it thrown away. I come from the woods of Northern Wisconsin, where every house has a wall of death featuring as many trophy deer heads as the head of the household has had the skill and luck of amassing. To this end, my mom's wall of death is staggering. During deer season, people bungie-cord deer carcasses to their trucks and drive slowly through town, hoping someone strikes up a conversation about the deer's antlers. It's the biggest week of the year. I'm just trying to underscore this is all a really big deal where I come from. The deer mount in my basement serves as a nice reminder about where I came from. And there Virgil was, hitting the antlers with drumsticks, a scene weird enough to warrant filming.

“You should get a real live deer and put it in a wrestling onesie,” Virgil said. “You gotta blow people’s minds!”

Elliot and I are travelling the countryside with our bass playing deer and our, presumably, drumming crocodile. We take over and play every juke joint, truck stop, and Chuck E. Cheese, blowing mark’s minds all over the great U S of A! Maybe we could train one of these beasts to drive our GMC Vandura or cook us gumbo? We're rock stars so of course we'd party with these animals and forget that they are, in fact, animals. Maybe we'd superglue wigs onto their heads. Maybe we'd let them stretch their little scaly and furry legs at some abandoned truck stop somewhere in the midwest. Maybe we'd just let them run wild while we pass out after a show and too many burritos. I mean, what’s the worst thing that could happen to us? Besides dying, of course.       

Tales of the Virgil Pt. 2: Led Zeppelin

Midway through the shoot, Virgil turns to us and asks us if we like Led Zeppelin.

“Yeah, Led Zeppelin is awesome. Do you like Led Zeppelin?”

Virgil says: “Yeah," and then after a beat "we should listen to Led Zeppelin.”

“Right now?” I ask. 

“Yeah, put on some Led Zeppelin,” Virgil pointed a drumstick at Elliot. Elliot was right in the middle of queuing up Kayfabe again. Elliot turned and stared at Virgil through his wraparound geriatric blublockers. There was a pause as Elliot, Sorg, and I all looked at each other--thinking the same thing. Who was going to break the news?

“Well, Virgil, we’re shooting a music video for MaxXouT right now,” Sorg says. “And we need to have the video line up with the music that’s playing, so we can’t really play along to Led Zeppelin right now. We have to play along to their song Kayfabe.”

Virgil shrugged, nodded and returned to the slapping the drums with his sticks. I hoped his next move would be to play the John Bonham solo in Bonzo’s Montreaux note-for-note, every ratamacue, every paradiddle, every roll and fill, with Elliot, Sorg, and I watching him awestruck. That would’ve been awesome. We would’ve toured the world, and ended every show with an hour long drum solo, cymbals on fire, Virgil spinning upside down in his drum throne, actual chasms opening up in the core of the earth as our rock couldn't be contained! It would've been so fitting, full circle! One of the 2 books of sheet music I used to teach myself to play guitar was Led Zeppelin's brown bomber. I listened to that album for an entire summer, learned each song note-for-note, listened to it so many times I can't listen to any of those songs ever again. But, I'd even play Living Love Maid if Virgil could pound the skins like that drunken English countryman, Bonzo, the Beast.

Instead, Virgil stuck the action figure of himself into the hi-hat, like the hi-hat was a giant mouth. He hit the peddle to make it look like the hi-hat was eating up the plastic version of himself and made screaming noises. We all laughed.