Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota

by Chuck Klosterman

  W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless was briefly the tour drummer with the New York Dolls, which basically meant he understood showmanship (if not necessarily musicianship). Almost all of these songs improve when played live, particularly “9.5 Nasty” and “Harder Faster.” There’s also a nice segue between Humble Pie’s “I Don’t Need No Doctor” and “L.O.V.E. Machine,” two songs about needing medical attention but having sex instead. Lawless described himself as a “Manimal” who slept in a fire and had to ride an intoxicated horse from Long Beach to Los Angeles, much of which I suspect is untrue. Though I can no longer understand what seemed so appealing about buckets of blood and raw meat, these guys definitely had their gooey paws on the metal community’s pulse in 1987. If only they had been willing to perform oral sex on each other, I’m sure they could have been Marilyn Manson. (Jack Factor: $129.99)

  Judas Priest, British Steel (1980, CBS Records): I’m a bit disappointed this album didn’t make me want to kill myself, but I still enjoy it immensely. It has a sense of credibility that most metal albums lack, although you’d never guess that if your only exposure was the ultra-stupid track “Metal Gods.”

  Yet for all practical purposes, British Steel defines all the stereotypes of the metal genre: screaming, soaring vocals; screaming, soaring guitars; booming bass; machine gun drums. It’s impossible to deconstruct a song like “Breaking the Law,” nor can you deny the tight, clean perfection of “Living After Midnight.” By all accounts, British Steel is a cornerstone of late-twentieth-century hard rock, even if a few of the songs manage to be really heavy and really lame at the same time. And I’m still waiting for “United” to become a gay anthem. (Jack Factor: $160)

  Junkyard, Junkyard (1989, Geffen): This L.A.-based band got an incredible amount of mileage from the fact that Axl Rose wore a Junkyard T-shirt to a GNR photo shoot and was subsequently shown promoting the band in about two dozen different photographs in five different metal magazines. Rose might have done that because he liked Junkyard, or he might have done that because Junkyard was on Geffen and somebody in a blue suit told him it would be a fine idea to pretend he was a fan. Either way, it worked—it seemed like everybody had heard of this group before they ever released any records.

  My gut tells me Axl probably did like Junkyard, mostly because they had the same sort of trashy, hooker-hungry, just-an-urchin-livin’-under-the-street appeal. Vocalist David Roach sounded a lot like Vince Neil (in fact, when I heard “Hollywood” I thought it was Mötley Crüe), and he was especially Axl-esque at combining depression with semidangerous anger. “Hands Off” is maybe the best metal song ever written about having a woman break your heart; when Roach says “God da-amn,” he may as well be Hank Williams. (Jack Factor: $172)

  Heavy Metal, Music from the Motion Picture (1981, Elektra): This movie is pretty lousy if you’re sober and/or an adult, and the soundtrack should be either glammier or skankier, or maybe both. But it does have the best Sammy Hagar ever recorded (“Heavy Metal”), the only decent post-Oz Sabbath tune (“The Mob Rules”), some foxy witch rock (Stevie Nicks’s “Blue Lamp”), and some nifty math rock (Devo’s “Working in a Coal Mine”). Nine of the sixteen tracks have magnificent intros, so the album makes for wonderful car music in the summer. It’s also fun to get drunk and cry during “Open Arms,” and maybe even call your ex-girlfriend and apologize for things that actually happened in an altogether different relationship with an altogether different person. Just trust me on this one. Steve Perry is a fucking genius. (Jack Factor: $180)

  Ace Frehley, Frehley’s Comet (1987, Megaforce): I’m not exactly sure what Ace Frehley did between his 1982 departure from KISS and this ’87 debut. I do know he smashed a Porsche in Connecticut and was arrested for driving 110 m.p.h. in a DeLorean on the Bronx River Parkway, and I have to believe he was pretty wasted during both of those incidents because he always seems to combine both events into one singular story. That patchwork narrative became the premise for the song “Rock Soldiers,” the first cut on Frehley’s Comet.

  Ace’s problem as a frontman was always abundantly obvious: His voice is terrible. But that’s also his strength; like Jimi Hendrix and Courtney Love, his stunning inability to sing on key makes his music charming. KISS fans adored his contributions to Love Gun and Dynasty, as well as his exceptional 1978 effort, easily the best of the ill-fated KISS solo albums. And through most of the 1980s, Frehley’s Comet sounded more like KISS than KISS did.

  The value of Frehley’s Comet is its quirkiness. I think it’s cool that Anton Fig is the drummer. I like the tune that sounds like Journey (“Calling to You”) and I love the song that sounds like a combination of Ted Nugent and the Jeff Twilley Band (“Love Me Right”). I find it intriguing that a male rock star would write a song that pays tribute to his doll collection (“Dolls”). And I am forever amused by Frehley’s obsession with making sure all of his lyrics rhyme exactly. Dave Barry once pointed out that Steve Miller found a way to rhyme the word “Texas” with the phrase “What the facts is” (in that same song, Miller also managed to pair the word “justice” with the phrase “other people’s taxes”). Poets refer to this literary device as “slant rhyme.” Ace would never be so bold. His lines are always stiff, parallel rhymes—except for one awkward attempt to pair his own surname with the line “Don’t be silly.” Oh well. (Jack Factor: $199)

  KISS, Animalize (1984, PolyGram): This was the best KISS effort from the sans makeup years, and it was pretty much Paul Stanley’s baby (by this point, Gene Simmons was becoming infatuated with his film career and putting no effort whatsoever into songwriting). In fact, if you listed the twenty best KISS songs of all time, Animalize is the only post-Kabuki album that would have a tune to offer, the yowl-driven single “Heaven’s On Fire.” This was an extremely popular song in my junior high, and it prompted my neighbor to create a naughty little parody of the chorus: “Feel my meat / Watch my cock rise / Burn with me / My ass is on fire.” Granted, this was only slightly more polished than “Weird” Al Yankovic, but I still think it was pretty clever for a sixth-grader who was burdened with the nickname “Ippy.”

  Animalize is the only KISS record that features Mark St. John on guitar; soon after making the record, he contracted an incredibly rare arthritic disorder that caused his left hand to swell to the side of a midsize rhinoceros. St. John would eventually recover and form White Tiger, a band most people mistakenly called “White Lion” or “Glass Tiger,” which wouldn’t have been a big deal if those hadn’t been the names of other bands who were already more popular. But to be fair, St. John actually does a damn nice job on this LP, especially when you consider he was fundamentally a studio hack and was clearly instructed to play like one.

  Beyond “Heaven’s On Fire,” the tune everyone seems to remember off Animalize is “Burn Bitch Burn,” the closest Simmons ever came to writing a straightforward joke song (except of course for “Domino,” which hopefully is a joke). The most memorable lyric was “When love rears its head, I want to get on your case / Ooh baby, I wanna put my log in your fireplace.” We all thought this was hilarious … except for Ippy, who probably considered it to be a little lowbrow. (Jack Factor: $200)

  Tesla, The Great Radio Controversy (1989, Geffen): This was glam metal to play inside the cab of a tractor—bluesy, denim, and downright wholesome: On “Be a Man,” former cement truck driver Jeff Keith tells us to “do right by the ones you love, and always lend a helping hand.” According to Tesla, this is what it takes to be a man. I guess nobody informed them that life ain’t nothin’ but bitches and money, and that’s beautiful.

  Traditionalists usually prefer their harder-rocking debut (1986’s Mechanical Resonance) and kids who played hackey sack enjoyed 1990’s deadheaded Five Man Acoustical Jam, but The Great Radio Controversy is still the best record Tesla ever made. It melds nonelectric instruments with unglossy riffing, and even a little Neil Young-ish pregrunge on “Heaven’s Trail (No Way Out).” Unlike their peers, Tesla ignored the temptation to make formu
laic power ballads and wrote normal AM radio relationship tunes, the best example being the bittersweet “Love Song.” Of course, I still can’t understand why the fuck this band cared who “really” invented the radio, and I still occasionally catch myself mispronouncing their name “Telsa,” just like every other kid at my school. Come to think of it, we always seemed to erroneously call their first album Mechanical Renaissance too. Maybe Tesla turns kids into mindless deadheads (which I suppose is a pretty blatant oxymoron). (Jack Factor: $217)

  Mötley Crüe, Girls Girls Girls (1987, Elektra): This is the Crüe’s “dark” album, mostly because it’s about drugs instead of the devil. Written by Nikki Sixx during the depths of his smack addiction, it’s supposed to be about fucking strippers, but it’s really about being fucked in the head. On “Wild Side,” Vince Neil tells us that “A baby cries / A cop dies / A day’s pay on the wild side.” It seems that Sixx forgot to mention if this is supposed to be good or bad; judging from the context, he could really go either way. Girls Girls Girls ends up being a very nihilistic project, probably by accident; when Nikki tried to write a nihilistic album on purpose in 1994, it was slightly less successful than the introduction of New Coke.

  The music on Girls … is more consciously bluesy than the other Crüe albums, hence the horrific live cover of “Jailhouse Rock.” I tend to like the first three songs on side two (especially “Five Years Dead,” mostly because it sounds like they’re saying “Bach is dead,” which actually makes more sense), and I’ve always enjoyed the sentimental throwaway “Nona,” a tribute to Sixx’s dead grandma (which is especially touching when followed by “Sumthin’ for Nuthin’,” a song about having sex with grandmas who are still alive). Of course, I’m not exactly sure how any of this was supposed to fit the image they were fostering at the time: Mötley had evolved from ’81’s “glam metal” to ’83’s “shock rock” to ’85’s “glitter pop,” finally settling on this incarnation—some kind of leather-clad biker persona that mostly seemed like an homage to Al Pacino’s Cruisin’. But you know, whatever. (Jack Factor: $229)

  Warrant, Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich (1989, Columbia): The first release by the very first band I ever saw play live (May ’89, West Fargo Fairgrounds, opening for Great White and Ratt), this magnum opus was dedicated to a girl who “lost her cherry but that’s no sin / she’s still got the box the cherry came in.” That’s pretty vapid and so are most of these lyrics, but it’s the yummy kind of vapid. The album opens with a song about living on thirty-two pennies in a Ragú jar, but by the start of side two they want to light cigarettes with hundred-dollar bills and wear ocelot pelts to the farmer’s market in rural Ohio, which is evidently what you do when you’re a Down Boy.

  If you experienced your first episode of finger-banging between August of 1989 and March of 1990, it probably happened while you were listening to “Heaven.” However, the true value of this record is the Poison-esque rockers like “Big Talk” and “Ridin’ High.” You did not bang your head to Warrant; this was actually music you danced to (or at least shimmied). The bass sludge is almost non-existent, and the words are delivered with a pop earnesty typically reserved for people like Todd Rundgren. Dirty Rotten … was followed by the even more successful Cherry Pie, but this remains a better project overall, mostly because it’s smarter (in that vapid, yummy kind of way). It also has one of the greatest liner notes of all time: “All concepts by WARRANT.” That’s right—all concepts (by WARRANT). Hmm. Maybe this was actually supposed to sound like Aqualung. (Jack Factor: $258)

  David Lee Roth, Eat ’Em and Smile (1986, Warner Bros.): Opening with Mr. Roth lying in a gutter and talking to a guitar about his “Yankee Rose,” Eat ’Em and Smile bumps and grinds like the whore Dave is, all the way down to a closing stab at being glam metal’s Frank Sinatra. The lineup is pretty solid (Stevie Vai on the six-string, Billy Sheehan on the four), and it absolutely blows the doors off Van Hagar’s 5150. Though Dave never made a decent record after this one, he gets major props for expertly building a record around a specific personality type: the horny white gigolo who’s easy and crazy and wants to shoot you with his elephant gun. No artist has ever needed to make a solo album more than Diamond Dave.

  At every wedding dance, there is always one uncle who drinks too much, dances too much, and tells the most ridiculous stories over and over and over again. He’s the hero or the goat of every story he tells, and you can never quite tell if he’s the most boorish jackass in your family or the most charming fellow you’ve ever met. David Lee Roth is that uncle, and Eat ’Em and Smile is his master work. (Jack Factor: $275)

  Bon Jovi, Cross Roads (1994, Mercury): Purists always deride greatest hits records, usually claiming that the songs “lose something” when the order is changed. That’s stupid, especially since nobody ever listens to a compact disc in its proper sequence anyway. I’ll take the Best of Blondie over Parallel Lines eight days a week, and it certainly seems like everyone at the party has more drinks whenever we play The Best of Van Morrison instead of Astral Weeks. The same goes for this collection of Jonny B. Jovi’s best stuff, and maybe even more so: It seems like the only good Bon Jovi songs were the popular ones. This band has no forgotten gems whatsoever (except maybe “Love Is a Social Disease,” but even that’s a major stretch).

  What they do offer is happy, sunshine metal that made all the girls shriek and all the guys wear styling gel. I doubt if Jon ever figured out what day it was from what he was drinking (or if he ever even got drunk), but “Wanted Dead or Alive” is a classic road song, copied poorly by about four hundred other bands. “Lay Your Hands on Me” and “Bad Medicine,” the melodramatic opening tracks off New Jersey, still sound captivating. And in retrospect, “You Give Love a Bad Name” really isn’t as horrible as I’d like to remember (if nothing else, it undoubtedly inspired Firehouse’s “Don’t Treat Me Bad,” which I sometimes think might be among the forty finest songs ever released in the U.S.).

  Jon Bon Jovi is kind of the Robert Frost of heavy metal. The great thing about Frost was that his poems weren’t always about metaphorical bullshit; sometimes a poem about chopping wood was actually about chopping wood. Bon Jovi was the same way; he wrote literal lyrics and dulcet melodies, and they didn’t worry about credibility or attitude or the legacy of Tony Iommi. We may remember Bon Jovi as the safest of all these metal bands and certainly the most stereotypically commercial, but they were real songwriters who simply tugged at heartstrings instead of brainstrings. That fluffy aesthetic is all over the cowboy-saturated Cross Roads. In fact, I even like the inclusion of “Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night,” despite the fact that Jon sounds a little like a bad Bruce Springsteen or a good Bryan Adams. (Jack Factor: $288)

  Metallica, … And Justice for All (1988, Elektra): This inclusion is something of a contradiction, because every Metallica record prior to this one contains better songs. But … And Justice for All is far and away the most interesting work the group ever produced; never before had speed metal been so freaky. Seven of the nine tracks are longer than six minutes (two are longer than nine), and Kirk Hammett often seemed to be playing riffs backward (and sometimes sideways), but it never seems flashy or forced. Sometimes I think Hammett is the most underrated guitarist of his generation, even though he bores the piss out of me 80 percent of the time.

  As is always the case with Metallica, the majority of the lyrics are apocalyptic hogwash, but this is still an incredibly smart LP that’s legitimately experimental. Part of the sonic weirdness comes from a bizarre production decision: You can’t hear Jason Newsted’s bass lines at all on … And Justice for All, and that’s intentional. Apparently, his musical exclusion was part of Newsted’s “hazing” for having the gall to replace Cliff Burton, the original Metallica bassist who died when a bus fell on him in Europe.

  To be honest, it’s too bad that bass moratorium was eventually lifted. Ever since this LP came out in ’88, Metallica has evolved into a remarkably average band who just happen to play really loud
. Everything they’ve released in the past decade has been boring and weak, with the exception of one cool song about werewolves and a nice cover of Thin Lizzy’s “Whiskey in the Jar.” But maybe that’s what people like me said about Zeppelin in ’78. (Jack Factor: $294)

  Van Halen, Diver Down (1982, Warner Bros.): Generally pooh-poohed by most devout Halenheads, I find this their most endearing effort. Though it doesn’t have a singular killer tune (like, say, “Unchained” off Fair Warning) and even though it’s not frenetic or bottomless (like Women and Children First), it’s the only VH album that never gets boring, even when it tries to be (i.e., the six minutes and twenty-four seconds of “Cathedral,” “Secrets,” and “Intruder”). The Marvin Gaye–penned “Dancing in the Street” has been covered by about two hundred artists, but Roth’s is the best; I also prefer Dave’s take on Roy Orbison’s “(Oh) Pretty Woman” and the Kinks’ “Where Have All the Good Times Gone!” (though I’ve never understood why the title of that particular tune is punctuated with an explanation point instead of a question mark; is this not a question, or is it just an enthusiastic cliché?).

  Though I can understand why some fans take umbrage with the amount of unoriginal material on this project, I think that’s an asinine complaint. Van Halen used to be the greatest cover band in the world, and that means a lot. At its core, the beauty of Van Halen is not Eddie’s virtuosity or the strength of its incredible rhythm section; the beauty of Van Halen is that they were fun. Along with side two of Van Halen II, this was as fun as it ever got. (Jack Factor: $333)