“I Want To Go Where The Down Boys Go”

Despite my busy and very ass-kicking social life, it’s not unusual for me to spend full weekends holed up in the Chick Pad working on my book or writing an article for Modern Drummer magazine. Because that’s just the kind of dedication to The Rock that I possess. Today I spent most of the afternoon listening to Quiet Riot’s Metal Health and Warrant’s Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich over and over (at a volume that I can only hope completely annoyed the shit out of my upstairs neighbors) while composing 100-word reviews of each album for an upcoming issue of Metal Edge magazine featuring a section on “The 25 Essential Hair Metal Albums.” Honestly, I’m all over it.

And what I realized once the reviews were written and submitted to my editor is that I’d much rather indulge in a full afternoon spent listening to all my ’80s metal records than spend fifteen minutes weeding through the stacks of newly-released CDs that are gathering dust on my floor. Because, for the most part, modern pop and rock music sucks ass.

And then I started thinking about one of my favorite songs by Jethro Tull, though I’m not sure that what the lyrics meant to me at that moment is what Ian Anderson had in mind when he wrote the song:

“Once I used to join in
Every boy and girl was my friend.
Now there’s revolution, but they don’t know
What they’re fighting.
Let us close our eyes;
Outside their lives go on much fa-a-aster.
Oh, we won’t give in,
We’ll keep living in the past.”