ar, g
heavy metal,usmetal,wild dogs,matt mccourt,dr mastermind, shrapnel,enigma,reign of terror,deen castronovo,80's metal,yngwie,kurt james,matt mccourt, slayer,metal church,anthrax,saxon,motorhead,gwar,mudvayne,armored saint,sin,el duce,mentors,dio,dokken, german metal,italian,metal metalhead,thrash, music,puunk,poison idea,
ar, gWild dogs the story:
Summer 1981, Portland Or. Jeff Mark, Mick Zane,Pete Holmes and
Matt McCourt team up and perform in Portland as The Ravers promoting
Mccourt's release called "I Was a Teenage RocknRoller"
on Matchbox records
By Fall, Mick had split to do his own thing , eventually joining
Jay Reynolds. also an ex Raver and forming MALICE
Meanwhile, Jeff, Pete, Matt and bassist Danny Kurth were asked
to record a few songs for a recording class at Recording Associates,
the first session helmed by Bob Stoutenberg and Jeffs sister in
law produced Fugitive of the Law the track also features Evil
Genius guitarist Kip Doran on second lead guitar. .
The 2nd session produced We got the Power, Runnin away, Tonite
We Rock. the third session proved to be the turning point 
in what wasnt considered a band quite yet, during this time black
n Blue had lured drummer pete Holmes away and he was replaced
by Black n Blue frontman Jaime St James (now with Warrant)who
lived around the corner . Jaime brought a songwriters sense with
him and the band fleshed out The Tonite Show, Life is a game,
I need a Love to Call My Own Two Wrongs and the song that broke
the band locally on radio Born To Rock. the basis for the first
album which was never re recorded.
Matt saw a one time news segment on then new MTV about Mike Varney
and his search for the unsung guitar hero and decided to send
a copy of their new demo. he responded with an offer to appear
on his compilation series
Jeff was known in portland as the best guitarist around sounding
like Uli Roth Eddie Van Halen and the
latest guitar star of the day Randy Rhoads originally the guys
decided on DMZ for a name but were asked to come up with something
else so they wrote down a bunch of names on a piece of paper and
voted for the WILD DOGS passing 2 old dogs on the stairwell everyday
gave birth to the name the poor hounds were blind by this time
in their life(and probably deaf or soon to be , the band rehearsed
in a 10x 15 room with 2 marshall stacks and a matching ampeg bass
rig cranked at concert volume and facing the band "you'd
leave practice and yours ears would ring till the next day."
After the release of US Metal Vol 2 the response and demand for
the wild dogs was pretty good and fan mail from different countries
came in with positive things to say, fanzines started calling
for interviews and a buzz was born.
Mccourt suggested to Shrapnel that they should take the band with
the best response and make a full album and see what happens on
his new label the standard deal back then was this:the band records
at their expense and provides the master .there were 5 songs finished
and 5 more for the next session to complete the first shrapnel
band album. Unfortunately during this period Black n Blue would
be moving to Hollywood following Jay Reynolds and Malices' lead
and the wild dogs would be left without a drummer.The search was
a long arduous task. all the good local guys were taken. Placing
ads in the paper,airplay on the major FM station KGON and Mccourt's
persistence in getting the demo played in every club during band
breaks he knew most of the sound guys and gave them a copy of
the demo a refreshing break form the usual Cars, Knack, and other
pop that was the norm
eventually Bryce Van Patten was the drummer closest to their needs
until Kip Doran scouted Deen Castronovo, the 16 year old whiz
kid and his band The Enemy,at a local club and urged Matt to go
recruit him. after the two Met he invited him to record the MALICE
demo with Jay Reynold and Mccourt on bass 2 of those 5 songs were
featured on metal massacre 2 . something didnt gel with the Malice
Guys and Deen called to ask if he could have an auditon with wild
dogs and demolished Jaime's drumkit in about 45 minutes.He didnt
need to audition! I had to convince the others he was the right
guy and not a flighty teenager!. finally able to do live shows
after 2 years in the basement doghouse The first gig was Aug 20
1982 San Francisco at the stone with Culprit, Varney's band Cinema,
and a guitar riff off all this was filmed for another MTV news
segment. the next week Wild Dogs Performed in Seattle Washington
sharing the bill with TKO, RAIL, ADAM BOMB, MYTH(Queensryche)
and later tours with SLAYER METAL CHURCH, ANTHRAX, DIO, RAVEN,GIRLSCHOOL
in the ealrly days of Wild Dogs Mccourt would use spiked baseball
bats, blow up dolls and other props and even bring the audience
onstage,borrowing from Punk, Kiss and the Road Warrior Mad Max
films. Matt lived up to the wild in wild dogs. an unpredictable
performer who would literally do anything without fear of embarrassment
people refferred to matt as ozzy's bastard son. he gave the band
the bad boy reputation sometimes going tooo far for the other
bandmates.! Deen's stagemanship included twirling and/or juggling
sticks jumping on the bass drums throwing sticks up 20 feet in
the air and catching them on time Deen was also a practical jokester,
one trip to San Franciso and Los Angeles for gigs with Steeler
and Black N Blue Deen wrote all over his roadie Shawn Dawsons
face with permanent ink, he got up and leftto meet a friend without
looking in the mirror, the manager of the local Denny's restraunt
informed him of his misfortune. on the same night bassist Danny
had found a willing female fan at the show and made a date for
the night in the equipment van. Matt trying to top Deen's el marko
episode rounded up the crew and a few other people staying at
the travelodge and went out to the van, held hands as intructed
and sang "Come All Ye Faithfull" at top volume which
aroused the pair in a way they hadn't planned on .the musical
selection of the evening was made due to the fact that Dan had
a lady at home so we tok a vote and thought the best choice for
this situation (during the gig Dan was hit by a cymbal deen threw
liek a giant metal frisbee and dropped him like a bad habit on
sunday..the next day at the Country Club in reseda ca. the green
room was filled with stars, Dio, Blackie Lawless, Chris Holmes,
Jake E. Lee the week he got the Ozzy gig.a real who's who of the
80's metal scene. and Yngwie Malmsteen in one of first US appearances.
Wild Dogs spent more time on the live show than new material and
the dead line for a second album was getting near. Around this
time Mike Varney had produced WASP's ground breaking album and
ICON before signing them to a major .Black n Blue had been signed
to Geffen, Malice was on Atlantic and the Wild Dogs felt left
out knowing that the band was a much stronger musical force than
most, Malice was called Judas Priest Jr. and Black n Blue was
known as Def Leppard usa and wild dogs sounded like themselves
" musically it was a perfect and inpenetrable creative situation
until reviews started coming back or drunks made off hand comments
after a live show. and clouded the bands vision. prompting the
decision to outsource the production for mans best friend and
a chance at a major label deal.
for a short time, pre Metallica, Pre Yngwie and the neo classical
deluge to follow on Shrapnel it was an exciting time a wonderful
entrance to be involved in this type of music. Everything was
still under one all encompassing umbrella of Hard rock/Heavy Metal
and listeners had not yet developed a prejudice or picked a side.(this
changed drastically after Mettallica broke grass roots )there
was still an air of anything metal! the scene hadnt been flooded
yet.
Portland oregon In 1980 new wave bands like Sequel(containing
future sidemen for Tommy Tutone, Alice Cooper, Hardline,David
Lee Roth ) ruled the clubs and got the good gigs, so booking a
heavy metal stud wearing group was not possible at the usual watering
holes. so when the band hit the stage at the KGON Homegrown 2
compilation release party at one of those clubs the pyro and fog
set off alarms and they finished the set with Firefighters and
Police surrounding the place. Deen's Mom Kay bought the band new
clothes and special effects and wireless units whcih set them
apart from all the rest.they played to large crowds and did autograph
sessions at record stores in the cities they visited. the buzz
on this debut album lasted for 16 months it was definitely time
for another album and the "Doggy Style "demo contained
6 songs produced by the band 2 of them are featured on this disc
they are different versions than appeared on the "Man's Best
Frend " album.
Where are they now?....
Pete Holmes joined Mick Zane, Mark Behn(Malice) and Jeff Scott
Soto mark isham in a band called Monster who released a great
album called through the Eyes of the World and mentioned Wild
Dogs To It's Metal Magazine who contacted us and started a landslide
of curiousity Pete recently joined Michael shenker group after
a long awaited Black n Blue reunion.
Jaine St. James moved to Cleveland Ohio and formed St James before
moving back to oregon after the B-n-B reunion and made Road manager
of Kiss replacing BnB guitarist Tommy Thayer who became ACE FREHLEY
stars and all. later he was tapped to sing for Warrant and is
currently touring with them at this time.
Deen Castronovo is currently a full time member of super groups
Journey and has toured with Ozzy, Bad English,HardlinePaul Rodgers,
Voscoe Rossi,and has appeared on more records than we can mention
and an influence to drums in the same capacity as Hendrix contributed
to guitar, sharing his talent close up at clinics and exhibitons
around the globe for years and is considered one of the world's
top drummers and is an influence to an entire generation.
Jeff MarkGuitarist Jeff Mark has been producing since the 80's
and owns Powerhouse Studio and is "so busy that we didn't
have time to do any of our own material." in 1999 Jeff released
a well recieved Progressive 4 song ep titled Zoomlens with Gary
Moore/Captain Beyond vocalist Willie Dee and also works as a touring
pro sound engineer Jeff's Guitar prowess was the fuel that ignited
the whole deal with a space age sound and state of the art gear
and custom guitars he was able to produce spine chilling effects
and lighting fast runs that werent based in blues or classical
a style magazines called all his own today he is experimenting
with 7 string guitars, alternate tunings, and tribal rythms set
to metal.
Matthew T. McCourt is the owner of "the world's smallest
record label" usmetal records and produces a music tv show
that has featured videos he has produced live of Dio, Motorhead,
GWAR,mudvayne, Dokken Great White and more for 12 years including
the 1998-1999 lineup that appeared with the aforementioned groups
and yielded 2 albums worth of material and a live cd "live
at the Roseland Matt has also appeared on albums by Mayhem,Jester's
Moon, SINN,Meathook, and 4 Mentors Church Of El Duce cds and records
regularly with Bryce Van Patten
Danny Kurth is an executive at a financial firm in Portland Oregon
specialising in real estate aquisiton and has been recording whenever
the wild dogs get together and is featured on "out for Blood"
a compilation of unreleased demo recordings throughout the years
by the mans best friend lineup..Danny was known for his homeade
spiked arm bands and chain gear whichearned the name terror gear
the use of nails, chain, door knockers ,copper razor blades ,were
all fair game for accesories Kurth was also the songwriter for
the tunes that got the band noticed first and some that appear
on Reign of Terror. his sound was 100% METAL and very daring for
a bassist at that time as a teen he was a member of Jet which
eventually evolved into Black n Blue. Jet was the envy of every
young player in town the only band in Portland who ventured to
LA for showcases at age 16, they had the groupie/playmate girlfriends
in makeup and heels and lived by the KISS school of showmanship.
the most unsung of The Wild Dogs but deserves more recognition
for bringing a unique swing to Van Halen based metal music
Jay Reynolds Lead Malice through 2 albums on Atlantic before joining
Megadeth for a short time and appearing in the decline of western
civilization part 2 the metal years film by penelope spheeris
later moving back to the northwest and joined Metal Church in
2003
Mick Zane lead guitarist for Malice formed Monster wth Pete Holmes
and Mark Behn in 1994 and is co owner of a high end production
studio in hollywood with Max Norman Mick also works on most fetaure
films as set creator
KIp Doran guitarist for Evil Genius and Mrs Beasely's Nightmare
a band which featured Deen and Matt doing Wild Dogs and Dr Mastermind
songs in local clubs(1991-93) another pre classical shredder in
the Michael Shenker flavor