That's not Rock and Roll......

I was about 13 years old. Two of my good friends and I would always go over to our buddy's house every Friday night and watch headbangers ball. His mom went to bed early every night and his dad would always be at the bar. He liked his booze. We would sit there and wait for video's from our favorite artists at the time. Anthrax, Metallica, and most of all, AC/DC. One night while we were having our weekly headbanging meeting, there was two videos back to back that sent us into a frenzy. Metallica's "One" and then AC/DC's "Moneytalks". We were so excited. Half way through the second song, the back door swung open and my friends dad stumbled in, smelling of local bar. He looked at the TV and said "What the hell is that?" We replied "It's AC\DC's new song." He looked at us for a second and said "Do you think that's Rock and Roll?" We nervously replied "yes". He walked over to his stereo located underneath the TV we were watching and eyed his record collection. My friends and I looked at each other confused. He grabbed one of the dusty albums, pulled out the sleeve and placed the record on the outdated turntable. He turned the volume to 11, and then turned to look at us. What I heard next would change how I looked at music for ever. It sounded loud, agressive, sexy and as a 13 year old boy, a little bit like something I should not be listening to. He looked at us and said "This is Rock and Roll boys!" About 5 minutes later my friends mom came downstairs and yelled a few choice words about playing music so loud and so late. So he turned to the Stereo, turned down the music, grabbed the slipcase for the album and handed it to me, and went up stairs. I looked down at the wrinkled album cover. "What is it?" my friends asked. I looked down at the brown faded image on the front with a group of men standing around in what looked like Biker outfits. "Something called Led Zeppelin II" I replied. I tell this story because this was one of the first times that music gave me chills, showed me how powerful the feelings that come from it could be, and more importantly made me realize how much music was out there. It became my mission to try and hear it all.