Read Online Slash by Slash, Anthony Bozza - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Slash, Anthony Bozza
Tags: General, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, music, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Genres & Styles, Rock Music, Rock Musicians, Composers & Musicians, Rock
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Richards and Pete Townshend sucked and Eddie Van Halen was God . We eventually became friends and I came to enjoy our daily debates as much as I enjoyed that class, because it was made up of mostly musicians discussing nothing other than music.
Other classes, meanwhile, didn’t go so well for me. There was one teacher who chose to make an example of me once when I fell asleep on my desk. I had an evening job at the time at the local movie theater, so I could have been tired; it’s more likely that I was just bored out of my mind, because the class was social studies. From what I understand, the teacher stopped everything to discuss the concept of stereotype with the class. He noted my long hair and the fact that I was asleep and, illustrating the meaning of the word stereotype, he concluded that I was a rock musician who probably had no greater aspirations in life than playing very loud music. He then woke me up and asked me a few pointed questions.
“So I take it you’re probably a musician, right?” he asked. “What do you play?”
“I play guitar,” I said.
“What kind of music do you play?”
“Rock and roll, I guess.”
“Is it loud?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty loud.”
“Notice, class, this young man is the perfect example of a stereotype.”
I am always grumpy when I first wake up, so this was more than I was willing to take. I got up, walked to the front of the class, flipped his desk over, and left. That incident, combined with a prior weed bust, spelled the end of my career at Fairfax High.
I LEARNED MORE ABOUT MY PEER GROUP at the unofficial high school recess where freshmen to seniors from Fairfax and other high schools gathered at the end of a long dirt road at thetop of Fuller Drive, way up in the Hollywood Hills. It was called Fuller Estates; it’s not there anymore—now it’s just a curve on the hiking trail in Runyon Canyon. It was a teenage wasteland in the late seventies and early eighties, but before that it was much more interesting: in the 1920s, it was Errol Flynn’s mansion; it occupied a few acres at the top of that wide hill overlooking L.A. Between then and when I was a kid, it fell into serious decline, and by 1979 it was a ruin of a foundation; just a big concrete slab and an empty pool. By the time I saw it, the place was a statuesque wreck with an amazing view.
The song's bombastic, apocalyptic riff just consumed my entire body.
The crumbling concrete walls were a two-level maze that was a perfect, out-of-the-way spot for stoners of all ages. It was pitch-black there at night, far away from the glare of any streetlight. But somebody always had a radio. I was on acid up there the first time I ever heard Black Sabbath. I was out of my mind, staring into the black sky above Fuller Estates, tracing trails between the stars when someone nearby blasted “Iron Man.” I’m not sure that I can pinpoint how I felt; the song’s bombastic, apocalyptic riff just consumed my entire body.
That place and everyone there was straight out of a seventies teen movie. In fact, it was captured perfectly in Over the Edge , a film starring a young Matt Dillon, about a bunch of repressed, stoned, and out-of-control Texas teenagers who were ignored by their parents to the degree that they took their whole town hostage. In the film, as I bet it was for all of the kids who hung out up at Fuller, the characters’ parents had no idea as to what their kids were really up to. In its most aggressive and most realistic moments, that film was a true representation of teenage culture at the time: most kids’ parents either didn’t care enough to notice or naïvely thought they were doing the right thing by trusting their children and turning a blind eye.
WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL KIDS LOOKED a few different ways. The influence of spandex seeped in, thanks to Pat Benatar and David Lee Roth, and that trend left its colorful mark: girls wore tight, low-cut, neon body suits, and some guys
Other classes, meanwhile, didn’t go so well for me. There was one teacher who chose to make an example of me once when I fell asleep on my desk. I had an evening job at the time at the local movie theater, so I could have been tired; it’s more likely that I was just bored out of my mind, because the class was social studies. From what I understand, the teacher stopped everything to discuss the concept of stereotype with the class. He noted my long hair and the fact that I was asleep and, illustrating the meaning of the word stereotype, he concluded that I was a rock musician who probably had no greater aspirations in life than playing very loud music. He then woke me up and asked me a few pointed questions.
“So I take it you’re probably a musician, right?” he asked. “What do you play?”
“I play guitar,” I said.
“What kind of music do you play?”
“Rock and roll, I guess.”
“Is it loud?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty loud.”
“Notice, class, this young man is the perfect example of a stereotype.”
I am always grumpy when I first wake up, so this was more than I was willing to take. I got up, walked to the front of the class, flipped his desk over, and left. That incident, combined with a prior weed bust, spelled the end of my career at Fairfax High.
I LEARNED MORE ABOUT MY PEER GROUP at the unofficial high school recess where freshmen to seniors from Fairfax and other high schools gathered at the end of a long dirt road at thetop of Fuller Drive, way up in the Hollywood Hills. It was called Fuller Estates; it’s not there anymore—now it’s just a curve on the hiking trail in Runyon Canyon. It was a teenage wasteland in the late seventies and early eighties, but before that it was much more interesting: in the 1920s, it was Errol Flynn’s mansion; it occupied a few acres at the top of that wide hill overlooking L.A. Between then and when I was a kid, it fell into serious decline, and by 1979 it was a ruin of a foundation; just a big concrete slab and an empty pool. By the time I saw it, the place was a statuesque wreck with an amazing view.
The song's bombastic, apocalyptic riff just consumed my entire body.
The crumbling concrete walls were a two-level maze that was a perfect, out-of-the-way spot for stoners of all ages. It was pitch-black there at night, far away from the glare of any streetlight. But somebody always had a radio. I was on acid up there the first time I ever heard Black Sabbath. I was out of my mind, staring into the black sky above Fuller Estates, tracing trails between the stars when someone nearby blasted “Iron Man.” I’m not sure that I can pinpoint how I felt; the song’s bombastic, apocalyptic riff just consumed my entire body.
That place and everyone there was straight out of a seventies teen movie. In fact, it was captured perfectly in Over the Edge , a film starring a young Matt Dillon, about a bunch of repressed, stoned, and out-of-control Texas teenagers who were ignored by their parents to the degree that they took their whole town hostage. In the film, as I bet it was for all of the kids who hung out up at Fuller, the characters’ parents had no idea as to what their kids were really up to. In its most aggressive and most realistic moments, that film was a true representation of teenage culture at the time: most kids’ parents either didn’t care enough to notice or naïvely thought they were doing the right thing by trusting their children and turning a blind eye.
WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL KIDS LOOKED a few different ways. The influence of spandex seeped in, thanks to Pat Benatar and David Lee Roth, and that trend left its colorful mark: girls wore tight, low-cut, neon body suits, and some guys
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