Heavy Metal hit the theaters in my area at the beginning of my junior year. My friends and I wasted no time in high-tailing it up to Landover Mall to see it. Despite it’s “R” rating and our obviously younger than 17 age, we had no problems securing tickets. Afterward we hit the local ice cream place and bailed on the bill. We did leave a tip though!
Heavy Metal definitely spoke to us at the time, especially the Den story, about a geeky kid getting sucked into an alternate world where he looks like a body builder and sleeps with beautiful women.
Little did I know at the time how prophetic Devo’s Working in a Coal Mine would turn out to be…..
Tina and I saw this movie when it hit the theaters in February of 1984. Kevin Bacon’s ‘breakout’ role. How embarrassing is that? Mention Footloose and what immediately comes to mind is Bacon punch dancing out his rage in the abandoned warehouse (not done to the song Footloose, but rather to Never by the Australian band Moving Pictures). The scene has been spoofed too many times to count, including a hilarious version in the movie Hot Rod.
Middle school didn’t have the well-demarcated social divisions of high school, but the groups were beginning to splinter. One of the better defined social experiments was what we called the ‘heads’. Like most groups, they were easily distinguished by their fashion sense. They wore jeans, jean jackets, high top Chuck Taylor tennis shoes (black or white), and faded concert T-shirts, usually Rush, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin or some other hard rocker group. Their most distinguishing fashion characteristic was the wallet; an oversize leather wallet (usually decorated with the Harley Davidson emblem) protruding out of a back pocket, a chain running from a ring in one corner to an equally ornate tooled leather belt. In my day, these were the kids that acted out, got bad grades, and smoked in the bathroom. They were the Bad Element.
There were two fine examples of this counter-culture group that rode my bus in eighth grade: David and Sean. At one time, we had played together, riding bikes around the neighborhood, exploring the woods, playing at the elementary school playground. David and I had even been on the same little league baseball team. From about middle school on though, I didn’t have much to do with them. They were in their group, and I in mine.
By eighth grade, they were firmly entrenched in the ‘head’ culture. My knowledge of the drug scene was peripheral at best, but I have solid recollections of these two huddled together at the side of the bus, sniffing something out a what looked to be a baby food jar. I have no idea what it was, but they called it ‘rush’.
Some two years after high school, I got the news from my mother: David was dead. He had committed suicide by hanging himself with an extension from a tree in his front yard. It was a few years after that I learned that Sean was dead as well, killed in Washington D.C. during a drug deal gone bad.
Although this song isn’t directly tied to any specific moment, whenever I hear a Rush song, and this song in particular, I think of David and Sean. There’s a memory I distinctly recall: David had just finished sniffing whatever was in the baby food jar. He leaned back against the bus and I saw he wore a Rush concert T-shirt. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes closed, saying “Man, I’m spinning now!”
Here’s another uber-nerd teen-and-hot-chick movie I recall with fondness.
It was 1985, I was in my second semester at college, Anthony Edwards had hair, Ronald Reagan was in his second term, Rock Hudson died of aids, and Madonna has just launched her first tour, Like a Virgin.
How’s this for genre: a teen romantic spy thriller. Anthony Edwards and his buddies are fans of a game called Gotcha on their college campus. This game is actually based on a real college game of the same type called Assassins. Although Edwards is the Gotcha champ, when it comes to women he misses the mark. When he and his friend take a trip to Europe, Edwards meets sexy Linda Fiorentino (fresh off of Vision Quest), complete with short, sleek black hair and a husky, Czechoslovakian accent.
There’s this scene where Edwards is fleeing from murderous Russian spies, hiding out in a van driven by a trio of German punk rockers. As the multi-colored van drove along the highway, this song plays.
Once this movie hit video (VHS, not DVD!), my friends and I must have watched it a dozen times.
