It all started one fateful afternoon in 1983. I was in grade five at Sherwood Elementary School. I remember the day quite well. My mother had come to the school to pick my brother and I up to take us out for supper. [We went for Chinese food]. As I was getting into the front seat of the family Pinto, something on the black asphalt of the parking lot caught my eye. I stopped and looked. There it was in all its glory, a cassette tape. Not just any cassette, it was a copy of Def Leppards hugely popular album, Pyromania. I looked around, no one seemed to be looking for a lost cassette tape, so I stooped down and picked it up. My journey into the world of heavy metal had begun. The funny thing was, my family didn't even own a cassette player at the time. It was a few months before i got one for Christmas, so technically, I guess that's when "my journey" began.

It wasn't long before I was asking for tapes and records for my birthdays and Christmas. I was hooked. There was something about those loud guitars and indecipherable lyrics that made me want more. Oh, and my mom hated it, so that helped. I remember that same year I won a 45 single of Quiet Riots "Cum On Feel the Noize" playing a carnival game during Old Home Week.

Once I hit Junior High, there was no stopping me. Motley Crue, Twisted Sister, Van Halen, Ozzy, KISS, Bon Jovi, and whatever else I could get my hands on. My mother has my homeroom journal from when I was in grade 7. In one of the entries, I mention that I "wish I was Vince Neil or Nikki Sixx, because they rock, and girls like them." It's interesting to note that I didn't say I wish i was LIKE Vince or Nikki, I actually said I wish I WAS one of them. I'm not sure if that's endearing or depressing at this point in my life.

As I moved into High School my listening ears still craved "The Metal". By the late 80's, "Hair Metal" was dominating the music charts, and my "ghetto blaster". New bands that I added to my favourites list included Cinderella, Living Colour, Warrant, Guns and Roses, Whitesnake, The Cult, Tesla, Skid Row, Joe Satriani, Slaughter, Steve Vai, Winger, White Lion and of course possibly the greatest hair metal band of all time, Poison. I literally wore out my copy of "Open Up and Say Ahhhh". "Every Rose Has its Thorn" still holds a special place in my heart for some reason. I cant even explain why.

I can actually remember the day that Def Leppards "Hysteria" came out. My brother walked five miles to the mall and back just to buy the tape. We set our Sony "ghetto blaster" on the step and played Frisbee on the front lawn while listening to it over and over again. That memory is etched in my mind. It was a good day.

During the summer between grade ten and eleven, something huge happened in my life. I became a Christian. Some might think that a life changing event like that would cause me to burn all my tapes and tear down all my posters. Well, it probably should have, but it didn't. [I kept everything, I just hid it all under my bed]. Instead it introduced me to a whole new realm of music. Christian Metal. Stryper, Petra, Holy Soldier, Rez Band, X-Sinner, Barren Cross, you name, I probably owned it in 1989. Alot of it sucked. I mean REALLY sucked, but they were singing about something that had literally changed my life, and that was cool. Some of it was actually pretty good. I still love to take out my old Stryper tapes and rock out every once in a while. "Soldiers Under Command" is a kickin album!

By the time I hit university, my love of metal had started to wane a little. I expanded my record collection and eventually left my Heavy Metal days behind me. I still own a few "Best of" Cd's of some of my favourites, and usually pull them out a couple of times a year to just "rock out" for a little while. Klosterman made an interesting observation about the love of cheesy metal music in his epilogue, one that i completely agree with:

"Try to look at it like this: I love Radiohead. I've slowly come to the conclusion that Radiohead is the best working band I've experienced since I started listening to music 18 years ago......... We are watching a band that's at least as good as The Who. But you know what? I could never love Radiohead as much as I loved Motley Crue. I could never love Radiohead as much as Motley Crue because I'll never be 15 again. I can certainly appreciate Radiohead, but they're not an extension of my life. No rock band ever will be again. For 99 percent of the populace (myself included), that kind of mystical connection can only happen during those terrible, magical years when you somehow convince yourself that a guy like Nikki Sixx understands you. And it didn't matter if Nikki didn't write with the poetic prowess of Paul Westerberg: for me, he may as well have been Paul McCartney. It's all about timing, you know?"

Ain't that the truth. I may like bands like Wilco and Radiohead alot, but I will never write in my journal that I actually want to become one of them because "they rock and girls like them". I will never plaster my room with their posters, or scratch their names on my scribbler covers and Levi "Storm Rider" jean jacket. Those days are gone! And that's probably a good thing. But it's nice to look back and think about how much fun it was listening to those bands, and the fact that they actually meant something to me in some way. Thanks for the laughs and the memories Chuck.