Ration Reality

Recently, I came across the MySpace of Black Metal Comics. Having not been a fan of either Black Metal or comic books for some time now, I don’t know what made me stick around to look at them. I’m glad, though, because it was well-drawn, well-written and well-presented. Oh, and it’s spot-fucking-on in its portrayal of being a metalhead in today’s society–especially one that wears corpse paint!

My Space allowed Black Metal’s co-creators Rick Spears and Chuck BB to do a featured guest Blog. The subject: their Personal Top 5 Most Metal Moments. This inspired a quick trip through my own sordid history of metallic mayhem.

Now the easy thing to do would be to draft my own list of majestic metal moments in my life–and there would be many from which to choose. Of course, don’t Soylent Ape do nothin’ easy, mayne. (One need only look at my life to see that truth borne out in agonizing detail.) So, what is your ol’ pal Soy gonna do here?

Well, I have compiled a list of my own least Metal Moments. Bring the pain…

5) My First Concert.
My first concert attended was none other than puss-rockers extrordinaire Bon Jovi at the Huntington (WV) Civic Center. Having the marginally heavier Cinderella in the opening slot redeems this but a little. Technically, my first concert was Junior Walker and the all-stars when I was 3, but that ain’t exactly metal, either, is it?

4) Social Studies Fair, 1988.
Okay, with a heading like that, do I reaaly need to elaborate on how un-metal it is? Surely not. But, wait–it gets better. I won first place in the school and promptly traded my goofy tie and slacks for my junior high “uniform”: jeans and metal band t-shirt (as I recall, it was either Anthrax or Metal Church). There was an announcement for me to report to the office and a photgrapher from the local rag promptly posed me, (”flying the metal colors”,as it were), for a photo blurb about the fair that ran the next day. I could envision David Wayne* (or perhaps Scott Ian) slapping his forehead in a “Could’ve had a V-8″ fashion. This called my metal cred into question throughout the entire county for the better part of a year. Somewhere in a scrapbook/photo album my mom still keeps this very photo.

3) Did I Mention that my Dad went with me to the Bon Jovi Concert?
Well, he did.

2) Did someone say “Backstreet Boys”?
In 2000, my then 13-year old, physically-challenged cousin won some kind of radio promotion that allowed her to take 10 guests to a Backstreet Boys concert. She was in a 13 year-old girl’s Heaven. She asked me to go and, unable to decline her, I sucked it up and went. Let’s just say that watching those sparkly fudgepackers dance around on stage was not one of the highlights of my life, but seeing my cousin giggle and sing along made up for it…a little.

1) Family-Friendly Heavy Metal Band Practice.
With well-respected,even-keeled parents, having a headbanger for a son was probably a burden I didn’t thoroughly understand. A lady in our church once told my mom she was concerned about me because she’d seen me in a Ratt t-shirt. (RATT!? I’m glad she didn’t see me wearing that King Diamond shirt.) Nevertheless, they allowed my junior high/high school bands to practice in their basement. (Probably because they didn’t wanna shlep my drums (or bass amplifier) back and forth from said basement to a bandmate’s house for each practice.) There were some rules to follow in this arrangement, however: No playing after 10pm, play at a reasonable volume (there were other people in the house that weren’t into Queensryche, after all), etc…

There was also an unspoken rule, implied and understood by all parties to the contract: children have no business playing songs that contain profanity or refereces to drugs, Satanism, Violence or sexual activity. This was a rule I took seriously, as I had cassettes of offending artists confiscated when Mom or Dad (or Sis–grrr) had heard them. So, this severely hampered our creativity in regard to original songs and limited our repertoire of covers. We found ourselves making lyrical alterations to some of our songs. I can remember Grim Reaper’s “See You in Hell” becoming “See You in Heck”. It was way too silly and we unceremoniously “retired” it after one practice.

*R.I.P.

-soylent ape

See Also: Hair ‘em, Scare ‘em