THAT JUKEBOX WITH SEPULTURA
One of my favorite things about summer holidays (besides no school, of course) was jukeboxes. All the beaches I visited with my family as a kid, always had a coffee place with video games, pinball machines, and a jukebox. And this also throughout the 90s, when those machines were actually growing out of fashion.
Every morning at the beach I went through the same routine: ice cream, then one or two songs on the jukebox while playing video games or pinball (they had a gorgeous The Who pinball machine at some point. I’d give an arm to play it again).
One morning, it was the summer of 1995 (I was 11), I walked to the jukebox and couldn’t believe my eyes: it included two songs by Brazilian thrash/death metal band Sepultura, which I loved.
Yes, their ‘Chaos AD’ album had been released to a certain degree of success, yet two songs like ‘Territory’ and ‘Arise’ (title-track of their previous record) were the very last things you would ever expect to show up on a jukebox.
I don’t know who’s the genius who thought that distributing a Sepultura single to jukeboxes was a good idea, but they’ll always have my utter respect.
Of course, I played them (especially ‘Arise’) every single morning. The coffee shop guy clearly hated the music, but he bit his tongue because I was pumping coins in his machine after all.
The looks on other people’s faces ranged from puzzled to annoyed or terrified. I mean, imagine people in a swimsuit trying to have coffee or ice cream while Max Cavalera is shouting “Obliteration of mankind under a pale gray sky” from the speakers of an obnoxiously loud jukebox.
No, that’s not the Twilight Zone, it’s one of my favorite summer memories.
Many years later I bought that jukebox single online. Usually, jukebox singles come in quite rough conditions, because the styluses in those machines used to have a very high tracking force and they were basically “stabbing” the poor records.
This copy I got, on the other hand, is perfect. Not even a hairline. I guess it wasn’t exactly a popular choice in the jukebox that carried it.
