Tag: heavy metal

  • Into the mosh pit

    When the mosh pit formed around me, all I could think about was not undoing all of my expensive chiropractic work. But I learned there was an etiquette to moshing, a gentlemen’s agreement about how to behave in the melee.

  • What heavy metal music has to do with Donald Trump and our nation’s disaffected working class

    You might think that heavy metal music faded into irrelevancy after the big-hair 1980s. That is, if you’ve even thought about heavy metal since then! Well, I have. I’m still a fan, and I still buy the latest music from the bands I’ve liked all these years. That’s right: a handful of those loud, hard bands are…

  • Driving and Singing: Megadeth, “Addicted to Chaos”

    Every Friday for a while I’ll be sharing songs I love to sing and telling stories about their place in my life. Singing is cathartic for me. I can’t imagine not singing. I do most of my singing while driving, listening to my favorite songs on my car stereo. I was a metalhead in the 80s. Even…

  • Rock shows

    I’m going to a rock concert tonight, my first in five years. I’m going to see heavy-metal patriarchs Iron Maiden, who are still rocking hard even though the band members are all in their 50s. Their music has evolved from straight-ahead metal to progressive rock, which means it’s grown up just as I have. So…

  • Rock shows

    Who have you seen in concert? Something the disk jockey said on the radio this morning started me thinking about the concerts I’ve been to. I was surprised that I couldn’t remember them all! It’s not like I’ve seen that many shows, and I certainly wasn’t smoking any dope at them to fog my memory.…

  • Honoring my inner longhair

    When I was a teenager, I kept my hair very short. Mil spec. People sometimes asked if I was in ROTC. Then in college I developed a used-record habit that Harold, my supplier at Headstone Friends, was happy to support. I skipped haircuts to buy more records. At first, when I’d go home on break…

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