Meat Blog Turns One – Featuring Kevin Egan – Remarkable !

Meat Blog Turns One year old ! As of May 25th ’21 it has been a year since I took some content and started posting regularly. I’ve discovered some new music. Additionally covering media I may have been spinning for a while. It’s been lots of work and lots of fun. I have received some really far out and I mean weirder than any Woodstock hippie era emails. My intent is to continue discovering new music and shining a spotlight on the criminally underrated stuff for the coming year (s)

Which brings me to my next topic a band. Most roads lead to bands for me. This particular one is Beyond. Let me try to express some stuff about this group. You can also check out a review of their documentary that came out last year and if you know the band you’ve already seen this or you should probably get on it because it’s incredible. https://meatsheetfanzine.com/what-awaits-us-a-beyond-story-new-documentary/

Beyond were born in the metropolitan New York City area. I won’t give the spoilers away but at that time there were a lot of hardcore bands coming up and established who were great in their own right. Beyond was kind of a fluke. Their musicianship is unmatched in hardcore. From what I see in their documentary “What Awaits Us “they destroy regardless of who was in the band.

They were one of the first bands to incorporate elements of metal, groove, and classic NY hardcore. Cohesively, I might add , not just combinations of styles, the sounds merge seamlessly.

Let me qualify that. There were others that did this. There were a few that push the groove so far it became funk metal. They were also bands that came before who (dare I use the term cuz I don’t like it) ‘ cross over’ from punk/ hardcore to more of metal and thrash sound. So in my opinion Beyond avoided those pitfalls. Instead they were able to create a sound unlike anything I’ve heard to this day. Here’s a little spoiler. I hear strong Killers and self-titled Iron Maiden influence. Hailed by many metalheads and certain hardcore kids in the know as a really special time for Iron Maiden. You can hear punk leanings in those records that seemed to inform Beyond. I could go on and on but maybe I’ll just save that for another time.

I wanted to give anybody reading my blog something special since it’s been 1 year however my time is short so this will be a quick talk with Beyond’s frontman Kevin Egan.

Kevin is gracious enough to answer some questions. I’ve gotten to know him remotely via social media and it seems he owns impeccable taste in 70s and 80s culture. So my meaty noggin was wondering Hey Kevin did any of these things make its way into the band? I also realize wouldn’t be disappointed in the least if it didn’t but it’s just cool to see people who share the same sense of comedy from a time where entertainment had a certain unpredictability and magic about it. So here’s a couple Q and A’s . I will be offline for an entire week and if I don’t get bit by a venomous snake or killed by a mountain lion I’ll be back for more content. 

MeatSheet : The lyrical content of Beyond seems very insightful, introspective, and serious however upon watching the documentary “What Awaits Us” and listening to the various releases over the years there’s clearly a sense of underlying comedy. I also notice that you pretty much were raised on similar TV and movie as I. Did any of the highly entertaining culture find its way into any Beyond song or any of your material post Beyond ? If so can you elaborate ?

Kevin Egan: I think Tom was influenced by old-school movie vernacular like the word “sap”, which, anyone who knows him knows that he uses it in a very funny way. He would also reference the Partridge Family when we were younger, especially when talking about our recording engineer who we called Redman because he had red hair, but Tom would call Danny Bonaduce. He also used to reference Ruben Kincaid, the Patridge Family’s manager a lot.

For me, Oscar Madison from the Odd Couple was always a huge influence on how I dressed. I always liked a sloppy look with a Yankee hat on top, though he only wore the Yankee hat in the first season, then switched to a Mets hat.

In a weird way I think the Little Rascals inspired me around that time too. They were always putting on shows and when they were being creative, even as children, it resembled the DIY punk scene in a lot of ways. Kids were putting on their own shows and there were often no adults around.

It felt like the Little Rascals. Except for the violence I guess.

JM: I remember very fondly being very small and I would laugh my ass off at The Gong Show. When you watch that show what was going on in your head? I looked at it through a lens of a four-year-old but was still able to get some of the jokes. Gene Gene Dancing Machine was literally one of my favorites but Unknown Comic was probably tied do you favor one over the other and why?

Kevin Egan: The Gong Show is complete anarchy. I’m still in awe whenever I watch it, which is rare because Chuck Barris never released it officially on DVD.

It literally had no boundaries and pushed the circus atmosphere to the umpteenth degree.

<Editor note : This is no exaggeration, a show like this has not come along and probably never will again. It was comedic genius mixed with ‘anything can happen” atmosphere>

Weirdly I think of it as a grand celebration of life, though someone I know who worked on the show told me they filmed five shows in one day and by the third show they were all completely fucked up. You can tell.

Chuck Barris always looks lit as fuck. And the music was great too. It was kind of schticky 70s, but also has a vaudevillian vibe to it too. <Editor note: check out two of my favorite characters, I sell gear to people like this regularly> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14njUwJUg1I

The Gong Show, along with the Muppet show, might’ve been our last connection to Vaudeville.

I’ll take Gene over the Unknown Comic, though both are crucial to the show. From what the person who worked on the show told me, Gene was a stagehand and Chuck just got a kick out of the dance that he did, so he put him on the air. I do remember my brother and me cracking up every time he came on.

Thank you for reading and your support. We can celebrate Meat Blog turns one year old in June as well.

In conclusion, please support these artists and if you cannot monetarily support them, you can share for free, it takes seconds and word of mouth still is as good as any promo to help your creative endeavors find its audience. As Billy Corgan once sung “See you in June”.