Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes (Pt 1)
The many curious phases of a Gen X Rock N' Roll Weirdo
For a while, my love of music peacefully co-existed with my love of other things. In 1982, when I was 12, I would happily listen to Rick Springfield or Pat Benatar or AC/DC while perusing “Black Belt” magazine (I wanted to be a Ninja, you see. Anything seemed possible in 1982) and watching Detroit Tigers baseball on TV. I loved horror and sci-fi films and comic books, and I would read absolutely anything. I knew by this time that there was a big world out there, and I couldn’t get to much of it in rural Michigan. Not that I’m complaining. The Summers were bright, the Faygo was fizzy, I had strong family bonds and was generally a happy kid. Darkness had started to lurk on the horizon, though.
I’m not sure if it was all the bullying at school (I was small, shy, and trusting, and I didn’t have the latest Ocean Pacific shirts and Trapper Keepers-I was an obvious target and very easy to beat up and humiliate) or the onset of puberty, or the first signs of the mental illness that would crop up again and again in my life, but I began to feel like I was somehow not the same as everyone else.
I had been given an acoustic guitar by my cousin Rob, who was taking lessons but had tired of it. Rob was a popular kid, strapping, sociable, and athletic, and I guess he didn’t need the guitar to attract girls or to set himself apart from the crowd. Before long, I realized I found it relatively easy to make a noise that sounded vaguely like music. I think the very moment when I realized “I can play this, and I WANT to play this” was the same moment that all other hobbies, career choices, and lifestyles suddenly seemed ridiculous and useless. I abandoned my throwing stars, nunchucks, Star Wars toys, and baseball cards and stopped thinking about time machines and dinosaurs.
Music would never take a back seat to anything else ever again, for the rest of my life. I probably over reacted a little, but what are you gonna do? I had enthusiasm, and little else going for me.
1983 was the year my sainted parents bought me my first electric guitar, a Japanese made Cortez Les Paul Custom copy. It was cherry red. Open coil, cream humbuckers. Bound body and neck. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t a real Gibson, nor did I care. loved it. All of the old clichés applied. I did “play it ‘til my fingers bled”, I did develop calluses, and I did bring it to school once for show and tell. I was too shy to play in front of my peers though, and was berated mercilessly for it.
It didn’t matter though, because 1983/84 were the years of Def Leppard and Motley Crue, and I became a devout hard rocker. My hair started to grow. While initially I drifted towards the darker, harder stuff like Priest, Accept, Ozzy, and Maiden, before long I realized that I really liked the way good pop melodies and harmonies made me feel. Seeking more of that sweet dopamine drove me towards the poppier metal stuff. A catchy chorus and the right lyrics (as long as the guitars were still loud) made me feel ten feet tall, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It took me somewhere else, somewhere better. It was the best feeling in the world, and I wish it still happened every day like it used to back then. It’s much rarer now, but it still happens. Once in a while.
Motley Crue and Def Lep gave way to Poison and Faster Pussycat and Hanoi Rocks and Guns N’ Roses, and a host of other, lesser known angels. I could never stop with the four or five most popular bands in a genre, like a sane person likely would. I had to hear and know and absorb them ALL. I still do this. Casual fandom and appreciation were never an option for me, and I still judge and scoff at people who aren’t as serious about it as I am (although these days, I have finally developed the ability to keep my mouth shut and respect other folk’s level of engagement). Many of the little bands thrilled me and won my respect even more than the big ones. With the underdogs, it was somehow more personal.
I grew my hair long and donned eyeliner, much to the shock and distaste of my poor parents, and the derision and threats of violence from peers and strangers. I stole my sisters’ blouses, lipstick and tight jeans. I used the word “glam” in every conversation. I began trading glam and metal cassettes with a group of like minded kids all over the world, who I found through the back page personals in “Metal Edge” and “Kerrang!” magazines. It seemed there was at least one new, inspiring band to discover every week back then.
In the late 80’s, my favorite band was no doubt Hanoi Rocks. They were the bridge for me, the gateway drug from glitter and glam to something a little more substantive. While they were definitely trashy glitter tramps, they weren’t really a metal band. Their world was much larger and more inclusive. They covered The Stooges, Alice Cooper, Hoyt Axton, The Ramones, Creedence, and more, opening me up to a host of new worlds and ideas. I immediately sought out and learned everything I could about all of the music they covered or mentioned in interviews. Nothing else mattered.
Hanoi were so much better than any of the other so called “hair metal” bands. They were not definable musically. They played everything from blues to disco to hard rock to punk to power pop to reggae and country, to piano ballads. They knew and understood ALL the music, and I needed to do that also, because they did. I still adore Hanoi Rocks to this day, despite no longer wishing (or being skinny or pretty enough, heh) to look like that. I no longer tried to be them- instead, they had encouraged me to try and figure out how to be me. I’ll be forever grateful.
Eventually, in the very early 90’s, after I’d moved to Boston and started playing in real bands, punk rock started calling me. I’d absorbed it somewhat through Hanoi Rocks, and through a few records lent to me by more worldly friends, but it didn’t get its hooks into me properly until the rest of the country was going mad for grunge. I hated grunge. I hated the 90’s. I hated everything. I cut my hair, dyed it black, and started reading up on politics and poetry and art. Got a black leather jacket, like one does, and I covered it in spikes and patches and paint.
The punk scene was starting to come alive again at this point, a couple of years before Green Day and Rancid and the Offspring started bringing punk-ish sounds to the mainstream. Eventually, in response to punk rock becoming co-opted, re-packaged and sold by said mainstream, the underground would just explode with a cornucopia of punky flavors, world wide. The mid to late 90’s (which is when I formed my first “fairly well known” band the Dimestore Haloes) were a BOOM time for real, underground, street punk rock, garage punk, blues punk, ska-punk, pop punk, glam-punk, goth-punk, rockabilly, psychobilly, alt-country, hardcore punk….. everything everywhere all at once, and I ate it all up like the starving waif that I was.
STAY TUNED for PART TWO!
-CM