by Shaun Lawton aka Thornswrath
What does rock'n'roll mean to me. There's no question so I won't leave a mark. It's a pressure valve built into our chimney wall around the personal fortress we each call our home. It was built brick by brick in the land of the free. That means more to me than I can convey in words, but I'll give it a try. In a world where we refrain from snap judgments, and consider every fellow American innocent until proven guilty, we are in possession of the inalienable right to express ourselves in whatever manner we see fit. Listening to music never hurt anyone. Neither did going to the movies or reading the most horrifying novels that ever the hand of man dipped their quill tips in blood to write. Rock'n'roll offers the freedom of escape. We can listen to anything and not be judged for it one way or the other. If I can listen to a song by Johnny Cash singing about how he killed a man in Reno just to watch him die, I can listen to anything under this wide open blue sky. And I'll tell you what. It's not my problem if I choose to listen to heavy metal be it in shades of black or death. It's your problem if you dare to judge me for drawing my own breath. Somehow as a society we have been drawn too far up some strange and deranged hypodermic plunger and held up to a florescent light and X-rayed and diagrammed until our minds bodies and souls have been dissected and laid out on an operating table where the masses sit and leer over every little bit as if its some sort of last supper for vampires gloating over any little aspect of our personality they can misconstrue and project all over their little isolated closed circuit circle jerks. Then the internet magnifies these bits and bytes into stupid memes and spreads them all over the land for gullible idiots to read and laugh out loud over while clicking their mouse behind the safety of their personal desktop screens. Meanwhile eroding the very fabric of our freedom, the very fundamental thing that made us proud to be Americans in the first place. This country created rock'n'roll music. It came from the back alleys and clubs in New Orleans and all across the south from soulful American bluesmen like Papa Charlie Jackson and ragtime singers from the 20s ranging from the likes of Blind Blake through jazz tenor sax players like Wild Bill Moore and a motley assortment of wild musicians like Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, until it became solidified and popularized by the likes of Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley and continued to blossom and evolve through the collective efforts of T-Bone Walker and B.B. King, Bill Haley, Count Basie, Hank Williams, Fats Domino, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Holly and I could go on and on but my point remains. Rock'n'roll flows through my veins and mind, body and soul as a fusion of poetry and music with a driving backbeat. The pounding drums, the chuggy guitar riffs, the snarling leads, the wailing vocals and the insane words dripping with irony and blood and sorrow and loss and torment and truth and beauty and hope, that's rock'n'roll and ain't no one going to take it away from me and there's nobody who's going to stand on their holy clapboard soapbox accusing me of being "blasphemous" or "offensive" just because some of the music I listen to may contain some foul language or violent and ugly lyrics. That's pure poetry to me and I live in the USA, the land of the free, where rock'n'roll was born and here to stay with me. I don't know what else to say except don't judge me for listening to what I like. I don't go around pointing my fingers at anyone who chooses to listen to their own dripping gospel of whatever the hell it is they wanna fill their own heads with. I'm a die hard rocker ever since I was twelve years old and acquired my first record album, "Get Your Wings" by Aerosmith. I leveled up five years later at the tender age of seventeen when I went to my first concert in Little Rock, Arkansas with my best friend Greg Grub at Barton Coliseum where I witnessed the awesome spectacle that was RUSH on the second leg of their Moving Pictures tour. I've seen them seventeen times since that day etched in my memory forever. Fast forward through the blurred years and I can promise you I've been to so many underground shows in the extreme metal scene it's not even funny. I treasure those memories and all the friends in the scene because they were free with me to be ourselves and get wasted listening to the craziest music you could ever imagine. From going to Embrace The Hate at the Black Castle in Watts right on through the Salt Lake City underground where everyone from the Supersuckers to the Melvins and Hank III and the Pagan Dead and the Obliterate Plague and touring acts from Arsis to Zombi have passed through, I don't discriminate when it comes to our freedom of expression in all its multifaceted forms. Music remains our sacred common ground and no one has the right to limit or cut off its expression just because it's too dark or extreme or contains foul language or concerns itself with sickness, depravity, violence, or whatever else the singer may conjure up in their twisted dream of fronting a band. Rock'n'roll is straight up literature to me, it's poetry and lyrical evocation at its most direct and primal and therefore falls under the category of remaining a completely uncensored experience exactly like the best fiction. It took me uprooting my east coast life and moving out west to Salt Lake City for me to figure out that counter cultural scenes spring up as a reaction to the stifling conditions imposed by organized religion. Rock'n'roll was born in this country bit by bit as a steady back lash against the puritanical conditions which seeded this nation, I'm convinced of that now. All it took was living and breathing in the extreme underground blackmetal scene here in Utah, a direct consequence of the oppressive religion of the Latter Day Saints. Now back up a little and see the bigger picture. Rock'n'roll is pure unbridled rebellion against the oppressive aspects of a hypocritical Christianity that would rather unbuckle its bible belt and beat down a battered house wife than turn a cheek and offer compassion and measured justice. Rock'n'roll is here to let out some steam and provide catharsis for a disenfranchised youth who are just trying to live the dream. Rock'n'roll for me is the writing on The Wall scrawled in the spattered penmanship of Gerald Scarfe transcribing the immortal words of Roger Waters. Rock'n'roll to me is the Supersuckers rocking the joint with Eddie Spaghetti leaning into his microphone crooning songs about love loss drunken despair and drug fueled orgies. Rock'n'roll is Alex Story singing love songs you can dance to amid the carnage raining down from above and flooding our streets in blood. Rock'n'roll is Jonathan Davis screaming about hopelessness and loss under a scourge of violent bullying and sexual abuse and channeling this rage through painful, personal lyrics that speak directly to a legion of abused kids that can bang their heads to exorcise their personal demons away. Rock'n'roll is the true heartbeat of this land from sea to shining sea and I'll be goddamned if it isn't here to stay. Rock and roll is our God given right as Americans to listen to as loud and fucked up as we want it to be. Rock and roll is the bastard son of the Declaration of Independence and its dna was written from the same document the Constitution was. Blues rock and punk music was born in the back woods bijous of the United States of America and has since infected the world over with a mighty resonance from a thousand bands from every country. It has morphed into the screaming beast of furious metal maniacs across the globe and united we stand in defiance of every last one of you who would dare judge us for listening to music that's loud and crass and full of defiance and anger and love and passion and terror. How dare any single one of you standing behind your sacred straw podiums level your criticism at any single one of us for rocking out to whatever noise or mayhem we want to. There's simply no question about it rock and roll is a beast that can mutate into any shape it wants and there ain't a damn thing any one of you be it parent cop schoolteacher or priest can do about it so why don't you just take a deep breath and empty yourselves of your fear and judgment and if you can't put on a record album your own damn selves and turn it up and dance to it then the very least you can do is open your hearts and let it go because listening to rock and roll never hurt anyone. This has been a public service announcement off the top of my head in honor of all my rock'n'roll heroes. You can all go listen to any kind of swill just remember rock'n'roll will never die but you will. \m/
