You Had To Fight...For Your Right...

In writing about how off-limits punk was in his upbringing, Fleeingbandit wrote in Delvin's thread: " I had to go through a huge pre-approval phase just to buy a copy of Lionel Ritchie's Can't Slow Down album." That is hilarious. I love hearing these stories.

Think I've mentioned before how I'm really impressed with how some of you had to fight to discover and gain access to alternative culture. Unlike my lazy early-teen ass simply turning on KROQ one day around 1980/81 and hearing a guy with a funny voice saying "here's a new band called Black Flag," waddling down to the record store to buy weirdo punk/wave albums that my mom paid no attention to, picking up a free LA Weekly to get the haps on the club scene, riding my bike/taking a bus to all-ages shows of everyone from The Ramones on down etc.. pshh, zero effort!

So I hoist a glass to salute you, and keep the stories coming.

My parents hated rock music, but they didn't care what I listened to and couldn't understand the lyrics anyway. G. G. Allin's "Tough Fuckin' Shit" was the one exception - my dad could figure out the words and really did not appreciate them! I'm very grateful that they allowed me to listen to, read and watch whatever I wanted when I was a teenager - if memory serves, I saw an R-rated film by myself for the first time at 13, and they dropped me off at the theater, asking "What time should we pick you up?" I got a lot of shit for wearing a Butthole Surfers T-shirt to high school, but it came entirely from other students.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2025 03:53PM by steevee.

And my glass is raised along with yours, Fab.

I was a latecomer to the actual punk scene; it was the New Wave bands that drew me into this wonderful creative world of music. I've told how I discovered Talking Heads, Devo and The B-52's on Saturday Night Live ... but looking back, I can't help but wonder how I would've reacted to this new music if I'd tuned in, perhaps, and seen Fear's infamous performance on the NBC stage. Or if, not knowing about this new breed of bands, I'd accompanied a friend to see The Decline of Western Civilization.

It probably was a good thing that I came to this scene of music a couple of years late. As a result, I was able to ease into the water while it was warm, rather than jump in while it was hot.

As mentioned by me countless times, all credit goes to my older brothers, who for some reason were just wired differently than 99.99% of the rest of the gomers lurking in the soybean fields of Macoupin County, IL and were able to read about bands they'd never heard a single note by in Creem or Circus and be intrigued enough to take a flyer on Blue Oyster Cult & 10cc in 1973, and were able to see Sparks or the Ramones on Midnight Special or In Concert and think "This is great!!!" instead of bellowing "WHAT IS THIS SHIT?????!!!????" at the TV screen anytime someone besides Foghat or BTO wandered on stage and dared to perform something they'd never heard before, as was customary for most of the folks in our demographic at the time.

My parents were a lot like how stevee describes his - pretty mellow and hands off concerning what we consumed for entertainment. They wanted us to be nice Southern Baptist boys who did well in school, which we mostly were, and as long as we didn't exhibit any alarming behavioral traits, they weren't going to get all up in our business about anything. Heck, I remember happily reading Son of Satan comics in the car on the way home from trips into the big town with Mom & Dad never making a peep about the title, which is a level of forbearance I don't know that I'd have if I'd inflicted a child on the world and witnessed that kid's 10-year-old self reading something with a similarly outrageous title for the time.

The closest thing to a stern talking to about pop culture I can recall getting from either of my parents was when I was 16 and giving my dad a lift somewhere and had Pure Pop for Now People in the 8-track player. For some dumbass reason, it didn't occur to me that Dad might take offense to "I heard they castrated Castro" and didn't think to switch tracks before that line came up. When Dad heard it, he said "I don't think much of that," and that was the extent of any parental censure for the stuff we listened to - I didn't even find it necessary to pop the tape out. (To clarify, Dad was not a Castro fan. It was castration in general that he was objecting to - an odd stance for a farmer who tended both cattle and swine. We knew the little boy piglets weren't crying out in joy anytime Doc West, the local farm animal veterinarian, came calling, so why Dad got a bit precious about Nick Lowe singing a word that Dad himself used at the dinner table without any considerationof decorum is beyond me.)

My parents were the best, no doubt about it. Dad ended up becoming a Los Lobos fan, and Mom thought "Souvenir" by OMD was very pretty.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2025 08:25AM by breno.

It wasn't my parents, it was me. When I was 8 I gathered the courage* to buy my first record Steve Miller's 'Book of Dreams' and when I read the lyrics I was shocked to see some of the words he used. For some reason 'shit' bothered me but not as much as 'tits' and 'prick' - I don't even know how I knew what those words meant. That was it for record buying for a few years. Then came the AC/DC incident. When I was 12, the PX had 3 for $10 record sale so my brother and I pooled our money and bought DEVO's 1st, 'Pieces of Eight' (sorry, Delvin) and 'Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap'. At the time, the house we were living in had one living room and that was where the stereo was. My brother and I sat down to listen our purchases and my father sat there reading the newspaper. Everything was fine until side one of 'Dirty Deeds'. During the first song, I suddenly remembered that 'Big Balls' was on this side and was song 3. Horrifying! I didn't know what was going to happen when my father heard that song. My fevered imagination had him banning music from the house to him jumping up and smashing the record player. But what could I do? I couldn't just stop the record in the middle, that would raise more suspicions so I just let it go and prepared for the worst. Which was nothing. Either he wasn't paying attention (likely) or didn't really understand the lyrics (the song is full of double entendres). Needless to say I didn't play side 2. After that, I bought records but was very vigilant with the lyrics. Of course when I got to college, I did a complete 180 and the more swearing the better. When I discovered hardcore sophomore year (specifically Minor Threat), I couldn't imagine music being any better (of course I was wrong and it did get better).

*for the longest time I was always afraid that the cashier would deem me not worthy of whatever I was purchasing and refuse to sell it to me.

The two battles I had to fight:

I lived in a podunk town, so there was no way to hear much of anything. I bought the Police debut based solely on magazine reviews and how the cover looked stark and cool. I hadn’t even heard ‘Roxanne’.
There were no college stations near me. ( sometimes on a clear night I could get a Canadian radio show out of Vancouver that would play the good stuff…’brave new waves’, anyone?)

So that was the first battle, buting albums I’d never heard cos I thought the might be cool (on a lawn mowing budget).

Second battle was being alone in this when your friends were all into metal, man, not that lame punk shit. Although I’m hetero, I have to believe that finally finding a like-minded music fan in a podunk town was similar to finding a like-minded sexually oriented comrade, no?

Were the headbangers into Motorhead, Venom or Slayer?

Or Dokken, Poison and Whitesnake?

Bip, where did you grow up, that you were picking up radio from Vancouver?

Upstate NY… so in reality I was likely catching it on a sister station in Montreal or Toronto? I was obsessed with being anywhere other than my town, so I’d twiddle the radio knobs until I heard something come through the static (no digital readouts then). ‘Brave new waves’ always said it was from Vancouver, which I had no idea was above the opposite coast!

EARLY 80s metal… before it was called ‘hair metal’. Van Halen, Scoropons, priest, Fastway, Zebra, debut Def Leppard, maiden….pre- poison crue Ratt

Oh and of course ozzy

> For the longest time I was always afraid that the
> cashier would deem me not worthy of whatever
> I was purchasing and refuse to sell it to me.

Living the High Fidelity anxiety, even from a young age, huh ...

I cured myself of that neurosis by buying an Abba compilation at Wax Trax. Walking up to the counter, I was anticipating how an employee of Denver's ultimate bastion of cool records would react to me. Well, guess what ... he didn't bat an eye. I realized on my way out how silly I'd been; if the store stocks it, they mean to sell it. Period.