I met Scott in September of 1984 in Calculus. Arica and Scott had gone to high school together. It wasn’t untilThe Roach Days that we really started to hang out together. 30 years later and we still hang out together. We have weekly coffee sessions. I’ve been to the boundaries with him. He’s been on Vermont’s Long Trail with me.
Scott is the youngest of four kids. He has three older sisters. It makes for a great example of how birth order can affect one’s Musical Evolution. He had 3 older siblings, and eventually their husbands, steering his musical journey.
Aric, Scott and I all seemed to be musically in the same area. Aric and I are the oldest in our respective families and we took the KISS, Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Dio route to The Metal Years. Scott’s brother-in-law took him via the AC/DC, Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, Dio route. That had an effect on My Musical Evolution and a great example is Black Sabbath’s Sabotage.
I had a pair of Sabbath albums that I really though were good but I was more of an 80’s hair metal fan with a strong Iron Maiden element. I’d be more likely to listen to Ratt or Accept than Black Sabbath. Scott on the other hand was and still is the biggest Black Sabbath fan that I know. He was definately more classic metal than hair metal.
Scott was still living at his mom’s house on Fricke Avenue during The Metal Years. Don’t look for it. It isn’t there anymore. On a cool autumn afternoon, I was a t Scott’s house. He had recently bought these giant speakers called Colossus that were massive with 15″ woofers and multiple mids and tweeters on the sides and tops. Yeah, this was still the 80’s before sub-woofers when speakers had to be big to deliver the pounding with clarity at high volume. Anyway, I can’t recall how we got on the subject of Black Sabbath but the result was that he felt the need to demo Sabotage for me. The song he selected was Megalomania.
It was one of those moments where everything just seemed right, the temperature, the frame of mind, the Colossi, and Black Sabbath. It sounded incredible, the intro conjured images of the barbarian hero entering the mysterious temple of the ancients to confront the necromancer. The studio effects on the backing vocals sounded like something out of Dr. Who.
I bought Sabotage shortly thereafter and discovered numerous other gems. It was different than Paranoid and Master Of Reality but still a very good offering.
Hole In The Sky
Symptom Of The Universe
Megalomania
Supertzar
Am I Going Insane