ImLawBoy wrote: ↑Thu May 03, 2018 1:29 pm
Cool piece on The Ringer about the band Living Colour and the 30th anniversary of their debut album
Vivid and signature anthem "Cult of Personality". Worth the long read if you're a fan of the band. (Also, Vernon Reid is a really good follow on Twitter - @vurnt22 )
Great read, thanks! Makes me think of a funny memory.
It was 1988, I just turned 14 years old, and Metallica's "...And Justice For All" came out two days after my birthday. I saved up all my pennies to get a copy, and we proceeded to literally wear out the cassette because we basically played it non-stop for months. Honestly, I guarantee I haven't listened to a single album nearly that much before or since.
My very religious mom - who utterly abhorred all things heavy metal - told me that she would take me to the record store and buy me a new tape of my choice, on the one condition that it
must be something other than heavy metal.
I had been wanting Vivid ever since I heard "Cult of Personality" on the radio, and thought I could slip a fast one past mom. I absolutely
promised her that this new band, Living Colour, wasn't heavy metal at all. I mean, it wasn't a bunch of grungy looking stoners, this band were black guys wearing neon spandex. How heavy could they really be? After some initial skepticism, she agreed and went with me to the record store to buy Vivid. My cunning plan was to record the tape onto a blank cassette once we got home, then trash the original and tell her the tape player ate it.
That way I'd still have the album, but she wouldn't know.
What I didn't count on was mom immediately unwrapping the cassette and popping it in the car's player the moment we left the record store. When the first riff of "Cult of Personality" hit, I knew I was in serious trouble. About the time Vernon hits that first insane guitar solo, mom's mouth had tightened to a thin line. She flipped a U-turn right in the middle of a busy street (literally the only time I've ever seen her do anything illegal on the road), drove right back to the record store, and demanded that the manager refund her money. He ended up actually doing it, mostly because I think he was scared of what she'd do if he didn't.
When we got home, mom marched me to my room, grabbed my Magnavox boom box and every single one of my cassette tapes (even the ones I had spent hours waiting for a specific Ozzy or Motley Crue song to come on the radio so I could record it) and simply threw them into the garbage without a single word. After they were tossed, she said that I was now responsible for buying my own music, and that she refused to pay for such "awful noise". I had to rebuild my music collection from scratch.
From that day until now, Mom has never bought me a single tape, record, CD, or any form of digital music. She even told my dad that she refuses to give me iTunes cards as gifts because she hates what I'd spend it on.
Ah, the trials and tribulations of a young metalhead...
When darkness veils the world, four Warriors of Light shall come.