Since Slayer is playing their first show in Sacramento in over 6 years tonight, I thought we could celebrate by posting a really cool, rare Slayer recording from Tour Manager Doug’s collection.
It has been generally agreed that Thrash started in Northern California and was centered around the scene at Ruthie’s Inn and other small to midsize clubs in the bay area. But on the east coast, there was a group of maniacs who were starting their own thrash scene called the Old Bridge Militia. There is a ton of great info about their history at old bridge militia dot org website- you should check it out, it’s a great read and this next excerpt (and photo for this post) comes from there:

“In the autumn of 1984, Slayer was doing an in-store signing, which these days would be considered a meet and greet, at Rock n Roll Heaven after Jonny had just closed down his old store in the East Brunswick Flea Market, and opened up a bigger one in Clarke, New Jersey. Our friend Brian Nyers was managing the store at the time so we took a trip up there. We were having a conversation with Tom Araya and Metal Joe asked him where they were staying. He said he didn’t know and Joe told him Metallica had stayed with us a few months ago and they were welcome to do the same. With very few options, they wrote down the address and we left not knowing whether or not they would show up. But, hours later we were in the yard at Joe’s house, when a U-Haul truck pulled in to the driveway, followed by a Camaro. Two of our other friends, Reb Synder and Tommy Jessup, were also there that night having a target practice in Joe’s backyard with their shot guns. As the Slayer guys pulled in, a crow flew over the house and they shot it down and it landed right in front of the U-Haul. Welcome to New Jersey guys.
Again, they were just a bunch of young musicians that loved their metal and traveling from California to the East Coast to play some shows and get some recognition.While they were here, Joe took a ride with them to Tiki Studios in New York to record Live Undead. They came down to Old Bridge to our DJ night and hung out with everybody and had a blast. The next night they were supposed to play at The Union Jack’s in South River, but when we got to the venue, they made them leave because they were not of age to be in the Club. Annoyed Joe said, “Let’s have our own private concert!”, and took the equipment back to his house and they played for us down in the basement. The album Hell Awaits hadn’t been released yet, but they played most of it for us that night.”

So this is the recording from that night. There was no P.A., so no vocals. It doesn’t seem to be circulated at all (cue Laurent from Snakepit to tell me “I have had it for 40 years lol”) and I had no idea there were ANY recordings from this legendary house.
As an added bonus, Doug was kind enough to share some additional photos from that night that are on the website that accompanies this YT channel (sacramentomusicarchive dot com)- head over there and check them out- photos of Jeff playing drums and Dave playing bass, and a photo of the Old Bridge Militia crew with Slayer!

Doug followed up with this info- in the group photo, there is:
Top: Kevin Reed, Tom, don’t know, Jeff, Kerry, Johnny Araya
Bottom: Joe (fun house proprietor), Dave, TM Doug

Recorded by: Tour Manager Doug
Transfer by: Shayne Stacy
Equipment used: Nakamichi Dragon and M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card

Photos: