Monster Voodoo Machine

MARK K. GIBSON (1971 - 2013)

If you are lucky enough as a musician… there are one or maybe two people that you will meet during your journey through life who may appear from seemingly out of nowhere… become an explosive, hurricane-like creative force in your life for an incredibly short period of time… and then… in the blink of an eye… disappear. Leaving behind a lifetime of heightened memories, and fantastic art.

But sometimes… these very same people may also leave behind a violently scattered debris field of hopes, unresolved frustrations, and a million what-could-have-been questions.

For a very short period of 4 years, Mark (Klucznyk) Gibson was that person in my life.

Mark and I didn’t know each other growing up. We met through some mutual friends at a few local Toronto hardcore house shows when we were roughly 18 or 19 years old. I had been a fan of his band Degenerate Youth, and was instantly taken by his musical talent, and guitar-wielding showmanship. I have no idea what he saw in me. But I’m thankful that he saw anything at all.

We met… and then the next thing I knew, we had put a band together called Totentanz. This is the band that would later become the foundation for Monster Voodoo Machine.

Over the next 2 years - we worked really hard on Voodoo, and recorded and toured as much as possible. But as quickly as we had met each other at a convergence of crossroads and common ground in our lives a few years earlier, it was now becoming increasingly apparent that we were both now on much different, and opposing trajectories in life. I was struggling to stay sober, work hard, sort through my own constant state of self-induced misery as I tried to make something of myself; and Mark… well Mark wanted to party. Hard. And seemingly all the time. And with both of us each dealing with our own violent highs and lows, mood swings and tempers… it was too much for us to deal with, and during a particularly terrible writing session one night it all came to a head, and in that moment our working and personal relationships imploded.

I then made the decision that the band was moving on without Mark.

We didn’t speak to each other for the next 15+ years.

What most people (who had been caught between us throughout the years) don’t know is that Mark and I reconnected in the late 2000’s. One hot summer night when I was climbing into a taxi out front of the Bovine S*x Club Mark just jumped in with me and said “C’mon, let’s go to Lee’s!” (*Lee’s Palace – a club in Toronto.) He was full of smiles, and great energy and so… I agreed to go. He told me all about some band that he wanted to see, and how he wanted his new band to go on tour with them. It was great to hear him sound like this again. I missed his voice, and his throwaway style of laughter. I know that I was guarded with every word that I said, and I didn’t open up much, or mention anything to do with Voodoo. I just wanted to enjoy the moment, and hopefully end this evening on a high note without ruining it by opening any unnecessary cans of worms, or dropping any verbal grenades. Thankfully, the night ended without either of us pushing any of the wrong buttons. I went home in the wee early morning hours, tired, and happy for the night’s experience; but more importantly feeling a sense of peace.

Not too long afterward, Mark reached out to me again asking for some advice about his new band, and wondering if I could give him a hand with things career-wise. I went to see them play a few times, we emailed a lot, and spoke on the phone about things - mostly about his band, and his desires. And sometimes about life.

But never about Voodoo.

We never spoke about Monster Voodoo Machine.

In 2013 Voodoo was asked to play a secret late night show at the NXNE Festival in Toronto. This turned out to be a 3 am, sold-out, hot-as-hell summer night barn burner of an event. We launched into the show, and we hit 3rd gear right out of the gate with a short, but perfect 10 song, career-spanning set of Voodoo songs. We hit every era of the band that night, and it honestly felt pretty great to hear the songs all flow so well together.

At some point during the set, I looked over at the side of the stage, and Mark had suddenly appeared. We nodded and smiled knowing smiles at each other, and he immediately threw his fists in the air and started yelling. It was an amazing thing to see, and I’m sure that I had a grin a mile wide on my face. Just by luck, we had decided to close out the set with 3 songs taken from the BURN EP that Mark was such a large and important part of. Mark climbed on to the side of the stage and was screaming, and singing along. It was an amazing thing to see, and to experience in that moment.

After the show, Mark came over to me and whispered in my ear “Hey… I didn’t know that you guys were like… a real band. That was amazing! Like that was a pro set. I loved it!”

We smiled, and hugged, and I told him how glad I was that he was there. It really did mean the world to me that he had been there, and had been on stage with us. And that he had said something so kind about what Voodoo had become so many years later.

Whatever door needed to be closed, whatever bad spirits needed to be burned, whatever words needed to finally be said… it had happened. It all happened.

We saw each other again a few times again after that, and it was always good. He was always full of life, and laughter, and smiles, and I was always guarded about saying something stupid that might f**k it all up again between us.

And then…

I really don’t remember much about where I was, or what I was doing when I first heard that Mark had died. I do remember that it was a gut-punch. And that I didn’t want to believe it. It had taken close to 20 years for us to come into each other’s lives again, and then tragically, just like that… he was gone.

I know that outbursts of grief, and anger, and disbelief are most people’s go-to emotional responses when close friends die. I get it. I’ve been there. I started having to deal with friends passing when I was only 14 years old. But as I’ve gotten older, and I’ve started to lose people who mean a lot to me more and more often - maybe purely as a survival technique - my mind now takes me somewhere else to help heal the pain of loss.

I smile. And I laugh. And my mind immediately floods with all of the great things I can remember about that person. How they made me feel. What they looked like when they smiled... or when they laughed… when they… lived.

And I am filled with their warmth, and their energy.

And that’s exactly what happened when I heard about Mark.

As the next few minutes turned to hours, and then to days, I read the endless outpouring of beautiful tributes to Mark online from his thousands of friends and fans all over the world. He had clearly had a wonderful impact on so many people.

I wanted to write something… to add my voice to this beautiful chorus of remembrances… hopefully in a truly meaningful way.

But then something hit me which made me feel that the best thing that I could do at that moment would be to remain silent.

The majority of tributes, and highly charged emotional outpourings were coming from Trigger Happy fans, and people at arms length to that band. This was a moment for them to celebrate Mark and his most successful band. And rightly so.

The very last thing that I wanted to do was to reignite or resurrect any ugly Mark vs Adam / Voodoo vs Trigger Happy memories for anyone. And I sure as hell didn’t want to look like I was using this moment to crassly draw attention to Voodoo. I just wanted people to celebrate Mark.

I was happy knowing about the private place that Mark and I were at with each other in the end. And honestly, that was more important to me.

And so I’ve stayed fairly close to silent throughout the years.

I’m thrilled that Mark has been remembered for all of his high flying stage antics, and the killer records he made with Trigger Happy. They worked hard, and did their thing, and deserve to be remembered as being among the absolute best of the world’s skate punk hardcore bands.

Mark was a star. Full stop.

I am now, and will remain forever thankful for the time that we spent working together, and the music we created.

There was no Monster Voodoo Machine without him.

Rest easy my friend. I have nothing but love for you.
~ Adam.

Happy Birthday Stacey!

*Side Note: Stacey never got the credit he deserved for juggling all of the on-stage effects, sounds, lights, keyboards, vocals, and occasional stage-diver chaos control. Thank you for all that you did for us Big Buck!

Hello friends.

Monster Voodoo Machine's Adam Sewell is doing a very limited 2nd print run of his first book ’Howl Like A Wounded Animal: Music Stories Vol. 1’

The book covers a lot of M.V.M.'s '90s recording and touring experiences.

THANK YOU to everyone who has already supported this crazy project!

Adam's new book ‘Captain Buzzkill’ is coming soon!

Direct order link in comments below.

Waaaaaaay back in early 1992, we had the pleasure of being invited on our first cross-Canada tour as support for Canada's best metal band Sacrifice. We had a fantastic time with them, and it was truly an honour to have experienced our first real tour with such an incredible band, and a truly great group of people and their fans.

Sacrifice have just released a brand new album (and it's an absolute rager), and we highly recommend that you check it out (on Cursed Blessings Records).

Full Album Stream: Sacrifice - "Volume Six" - Decibel Magazine Play thrash or die with Canadian thrash OGs Sacrifice.