My 80's Flashback Part I

I've been having an 80's flashback. Not the "wow, I feel like listening to Depeche Mode" but some serious metal transport to my past life as a straight up Rock N Roll Hair Metal Girl- fringed white boots, big hair, and all. I haven't quite switched back to Aqua Net, but I have had visions of times when I did kill the Ozone before heading out on a Saturday night. I guess a series of events have brought on my daydreams of rock gods. But I'll get to that soon.

I actually can't say I was a truly devout metal chick for the entire 80's, but more the latter part of the decade. Here's how it went down...

As I entered high school around 1984, Christianity as we know it was being threatened by four California boys named Motley Crue. I say boys because I later realized they were only a couple of years older than me at the time. Now this was a serious and urgent matter in a strict private Presbyterian preparatory school. No pentagram star t-shirts, cassette tapes with Vince's crotchal area, or sacrilegious lyrics were allowed on campus or one would face certain inquisition/exorcism. I laugh now at the deep concerns of my school's administration on the matter. They are so nonthreatening today, but at the time...they were the devil.

Nick, my friend from Arizona who lived in the dorms and was a constant source of humor due to his crippling boredom, actually changed the words to "Shout at the Devil" to "Shout at Your Grandma" (his grandma was deaf) to dodge trouble but to push the envelope simultaneously. All this activity over such bad boys made them an obsession amongst all us young, shy girls nearly overnight. Not so chronologically, Metallica soon followed. Though more "underground" and a bit more edgy and disturbing, they none the less disturbed our preacher. And Iron Maiden? Forget about it.

It didn't take too long after that though that I fell into a long punk/New Wave scene. I became enthralled with Adam Ant (I believe God will forgive me sooner for loving Motley Crue). The local "teen dance club" opened and led me to Depeche Mode, New Order and alot of the English synth bands.

Then one day...I heard THE VOICE. I saw the nearly neurotic, oddly sexual, frightening presence of the man who changed my outlook on the world- Axl Rose. He scared the crap out of me. He turned me on. He was the sexy bad boy, but probably too unsafely bad. The kind of guy to lure you into his car with a flashy smile, then slip you roofies and gang bang you along with three of his much hairier friends. But ya...you'd still get in the car.

And speaking of hair...not until then, nor since has any guy sported long hair better than him.

My first year in college (pre-guns n roses) my boyfriend helped bring me to some sense of reason when it came to music. I discovered Lynard Skynard (I'm over it now), KISS, Def Leppard, AC DC, Judas Priest, and some really heavy rock like Accept. I rediscovered my older sisters music- particularly Zepplin. But come my sophomore year, there was only one soundtrack, background music, theme song, etc. for any college student, and that was Appetite for Destruction. Motley Crue were bad boys but this was different. Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll, were taken to a whole new darker level. MC made it sound like fun, but G n R made it sound down right scary. The inside album photo was of a young blindfolded girl who'd just been raped by some scary creature. The photo was originally meant for the cover of the album but G n R were forced to change it for fear of reprisal for such a graphic image. It was replaced with the iconic drawing of the band members skeleton images on a cross that later became a tattoo on Axl's arm.

Axl sung about heroin...and not in a good way. He called women bitches and suggested rape. It was haunting and captivating and it rocked. At the time, no one I knew listened to anything else. Literally. I remember endless nights of parties playing the cassette repeatedly and never pausing to play something else. The pace of the album just kept everyone stirring. I had two copies myself. It seemed to personify the new sense of hopelessness that came with AIDS, unprecedented levels of violence, and the "war on drugs"- the debilitating use of crack. Sex and drugs were now deadly for everyone and forever. The innocence of the 60's was not only dead, but G n R stomped on its grave. G n R didn't just reflect the times...they oozed it. I was a full-fledged rocker chick.