Music, rebellion, shock value:ABQ

Rebellion comes in many forms and there are numerous ways to go about it and express it when you're young. One of the most common ways is through music, which is one that I embraced whole heartedly. I feel fortunate that I was around in a time when the concept of "shock value" still had an impact in American society, and with me living in a place like fucking Albuquerque, NM  in the 1980s, where exposure to things like punk rock was limited and more underground. Basically it was here, you just had to try a lot harder to find it, and if you found it, and you flaunted it, you had to expect a pretty extremem recation probably even more so then the meccas where much of the stuff was being produced.

For me , it all started in the summer of 1980 when my 14 year old uncle Frankie came to stay with us and introduced me to a band  called AC/DC, who's singer Bon Scott had just died after a night of heavy drinking and had been replaced by a new singer and just released a new album called "Back In Black" that was about to sell millions. Along with that album, he had gotten me into "Highway To Hell" as well as some of their other albums. He also introduced me to a band called Van Halen and another called Pink Floyd, although I was never a big fan of Pink Floyd, I do think that "The Wall" is a great album, both musically and conceptually. I also got to see both AC/DC and Van Halen in concert a few years later, both were amazing! I should mention, I've seen thousands of concerts and shows since my first and to this day, Van Halen with David Lee Roth in 1984 ranks in the top 5 best performances I've EVER seen!

So anyway, although I've listened to music pretty much all my life, I would mark that summer of 1980 as the starting point of where my own personal exploration began. Looking back, I realize that many of the bands that I was drawn to had a tendency to have a certain quality about them, something that stood out, whether it was visually or lyrically or something in their music. I was 12 years old, I remember waking up one morning watching MTV before school with my younger brother when Motley Crue's "Live Wire" video came on. I remember thinking the song fucking rocked, and the visuals were awesome, but who the fuck were these guys?!? or girls?!? Motley Crue ended up becoming one of my favorite bands down the road. Same year I saw that Crue video, Ozzy bit the head off that bat, needless to say, I was intrigued! 

Yeah, the early to mid 1980's were a great time for shock value in music. Parents, schools and religious figures were freaked out by it, it was pretty awesome, and the bands seemed endless, with Motley Crue, and Ozzy, and Twisted Sister, WASP, Iron Maiden and their scary dead Mascot "eddie",  and they all wore black leather and studs and spikes and scary make up and looked tough and did crazy outrageous shit, it seemed like an endless list! Then something happened... They all went soft... they all went "bitch" it seemed... It was like when it was time to put out new albums they all came back wearing pink and white lace ensembles, fluffy teased hair, singing love ballads... And yeah, all the hot heavy metal rocker chicks were creaming their panties over it, and a good chunk of the once cool rocker scene was following suit because of that, but basically shit got fucking LAME!!! However, I did notice that there was a few of us left that were still wearing our denim vests and not really hanging out with these with these teased headed poseurs so I started hanging with them, and got introduced to the early music of Metallica and Slayer(Both bands 1st albums are my faves by them) back when they were just getting started, as well as Exodus, Destruction, Kreator and Overkill. I started flirting with some of the total satanic metal stuff of Mercyful Fate, because, musically it was really good, but mostly cause I really enjoyed the shock value aspect, I mean it would freak people out, haha! I remember one time, I was bored in math class and I was sitting their writing the lyrics to one of their songs down and my teacher snatched it out of my hands thinking I was writing notes and in an attempt to embarrass me, began reading it aloud in front of the class, needless to say, he didn't get too far before he stopped reading it and left me alone, hahaha!

The problem with the Satan metal thing was it got old pretty fucking fast. Actually, in retrospect, a lot of the metal thing, or maybe it was just the people I was around, were starting to suck, or maybe a combo of both, but regardless, as far as the Satan metal thing, realistically, I couldn't relate. I mean, none of that stuff, demons, brimstones, bloody crosses, etc., had anything to do with my day to day existence. And these singers, with their voices, if I was to meet them and they introduced themselves and their voice sounded like that, you know, all loud, deep, evil and scary, then sure okay, legit, but chances are they sounded more or less like me. 

Fortunately around that time, I was living on the border of two different school districts, and on weekends, I'd hang with my friend Eric who was really into thrash metal and hardcore punk. He went to another school but lived just a couple blocks away. Eric had an amazing record collection and would introduce me to all these great bands. We'd pretty much just listen to records, drink beer and sometimes go to parties. Eric's turned me on to a lot of great bands including punk rock, although he preferred bands on the more thrashier side of things like the DRI's and MDC's, but he took me to my first punk rock shows. He didn't care much for too punk bands that weren't super fast (there were exceptions of course)so I was on my own as far as anything less than DRI speed, but Eric was a good guy nonetheless. I had gotten pretty bored with metal by 1986, like I said I just couldn't relate. I had shaved off my long hair and was hanging out one day and I met a girl name Suzie with a blonde mohawk. We hung out for a little while and she gave me a D.O.A cassette and when I played it later, the first song I heard was the song, "Fuck You", and I have to say, from that moment, I was "officially" sold on punk. I finally found what I'd been looking for, the singer sang with a voice that sounded real, with lyrics that I could relate with, with music that fucking rocked and made me wanna tear shit up! Yeah, I'd been dabbling with and exploring punk for about a year, but yes, I was sold, and D.O.A. is still one of my favorite bands and I've been fortunate enough to see them a few times and good lord, I've been in and around this hardcore punk scene for almost 30 years now...

Is it still rebellion? Toward the society and the system, not so much. I've learned to choose my battles, and that's a lost cause. Most of my rebellion these days is usually directed toward my peers and that's when I can even be bothered. I like to see it more as "constructive motivation" when it come to them and calling them on their bullshit.

Is it still shocking? Depends on where you are. At the same time it's not that important to me either, I can take it or leave it. I will say one thing though. Today's youth that try to recreate do a really shitty job of it