Metalheads & Maniacs

A dude I knew in high school was seeing this girl and he liked the back patch on her jacket but not the faded black Levi jacket, so he ripped her patch off of it & gave me the jacket. I journeyed to a store in north Phoenix called Shirts N Things(it’s still around to this day) and made the first real hard decision of my young life. What back patch was I going to get. Guns N Roses? loved em then & still do but not right for a back patch. Metallica? fuck that everyone had a Metallica back patch it seems. Megadeth? Hell yes! one of my prefered bands and still is today, but I was not seeing a patch I liked. I kept looking and there it was near the end of the display of back patches. It awaited my arrival in silence but screamed out for attention. SLAYER!!! Hell Yeah! Not only was Slayer one of the heaviest bands around but the patch was sooooo evil looking. Fuck Yeah! This is the patch for my jacket. I knew I would have the coolest back patch at South Mountain High and I was fucking right. Back in those days you could win these little painted glass things with the bands logos at the state fair & that year they had these stupid straw panama hats with a ribbon with band names & logos on it. So for a buck I threw my three darts and popped my three balloons and had a new Megadeth ribbon, which I promptly cut up and sewed on the jacket. The rest of my patches were acquired at shows or swap meets and hand sewed each one myself(hence all the slightly crooked patches). By the time 1994 rolls around I’m working nights full time, with my first paycheck I buy a leather biker jacket. The ole battle jacket went into the closet and there it lived, moving from house to apartment to house to house to house. I would take it out from time to time and look at it, wondering what ever happened to some of the guys I went to school with. Having a conversation I mentioned i was thinking about either cutting the sleeves off the jacket and making it into a vest or buying a new jacket and moving the patches over. His resposnse was fuck that! Get a new jacket or vest and new patvhes..no need to fuck with a classic. I decided he was right & set out to gather what I needed. I started gathering patches at the shows, I would end up making two battle vests, one is camouflage and the other is denim. The jacket continued to ride in the closet and during a conversation with my mom i learned my nephew would be attending my old high school ( though it looks nothing like it did when I went) my nephew is becoming quite the metalhead and while we were waiting inline for Amon Amarth at the Van Buren my buddy mentioned that my jacket would fit my nephew and the kernel of in idea was born. So I thought about it and not that he wasn’t deserving of the right to wear it or anything, he has gone to some great shows with us and I knew he would give the jacket the respect it deserved. It was just so hard to consider letting it go. I was still pondering the idea of giving it away when I made the decision to give it to him as a Christmas present. Just before Christmas I got the call and an old friend who I had not seen in a long time was dying and I needed to get there fast. Making the drive I had time to think and used the metal as a distraction. When I arrived he was out of it & I spent the last hour of his life talking to him and I told him about the jacket and that I had decided to give it to my little nephew who had become quite the metalhead. He moved around and I feel like he agreed I was making a good decision. Christmas Eve arrived and all of his other presents got pushed to the side when he pulled the jacket from the gift bag, he was stunned into silence(he had never seen it before) and he quickly put it on.The huge smile on his face told me all I needed to know, I leaned over and informed him that this was my battle jacket from days at South Mountain High and I thought it would be cool for him to wear it there too and that if they have the old year books on file, to go look through the 91 year book & find the picture of my back patch as my best friend(the one that just passed two days before) and I put another buddy into a garbage can and the picture is of my back patch & the dudes feet in the air. This does fit him perfect, seems we can count one for the Spirt World again
Horns Up Maniacs

I had always listened to the music my parents did by default. Mom liked country and Dad liked classical, I was young and didn’t know any better. One night my big sister asked me if I wanted to go with her to the drive in or maybe mom made her take me, to keep her out of trouble. I never have thought to ask that question through the years but I can tell you that night leads to a lot of trouble for me later on. :) I do not remember what we were going to see but I do remember the loud driving music that was blasting inside the cab of the lifted 4x4 we were riding in. We had driven for a while and I was enjoying this loud style of music I was hearing for the first time. It was loud and I mean LOUD inside that truck, I loved it! The music seemed to reach down inside my core & made me feel like I was doing something that my mom would not approve of.

The music blasted on and I rode on my sisters lap (you could do that back then and no one blinked an eye) and I turned to her in between songs and asked what band is this? My sister told me just as the next song started & I had to yell again..what is the name of this band?..she responded to me the second time & I think I understood her answer and I am trying to picture the band name I just heard, when she asked me loudly...Do you like it? I shook my head enthusiastically yes. We continued on to the movies and I have no idea what we saw..I just remember thinking I sure hope we get to listen to that tape again on the way home. Movie(s) are over and I ask if we can listen to that tape again on the way home? luckily for me the tape was new and my sister's friend that was driving liked it a lot & agreed. Thinking back on that night, it might have been his tape.

The year was 1983 and I had just heard heavy metal for the first time. The album, Metal Health by Quiet Riot.

I remember a mean blonde kid who went to my school, he was a grade or two ahead of me & he picked on us littler kids a lot. I found myself alone in the restroom at school one day and he was wearing a shirt with a little red devil on it. I was scared and was praying I was not about to get beat up when he turned away from me and I saw written across the back of the shirt was Black Sabbath( a name I did not know yet) but on the bottom taking up a small little section was Quiet Riot and without thinking I blurted out Quiet Riot! I love that band. Turning he looked at me, saying yeah they opened for Sabbath..my brother took me, they rock. He walked out of that bathroom and never picked on me again. Fuck yes!!! score one for metal. He never came back to our school after summer vacation and I have no recollection of his name or have any idea whatever became of him. I do remember that my sister went to that concert and when I got home that day and I asked her, you saw Quiet Riot? She admitted she had & that she had not told me they were coming because she was not taking me.

Metal is no fad, it is a way of life and if someone ever tells you that they liked metal but grew out of it..then you know they were a poser. A true fan never quits listening and never ever stops craving the feeling that first time gives you. There are a lot of first times in metal and I will be talking about more as time goes on.

Horns Up Maniacs
JP