Leather Boyz and Flow Trails!
80s Rock/Hair/Metal and MTB Series: Installments #2 and #3
Round 2 of the 80s Rock/Hair/Metal and MTB Series comes in 1 longer post, which I’ll say is 2 parts. Originally, I thought it would feature only “Priest” but my brain was wrapped up in leather and “hard core” and then went in the opposite direction of “hard core” and landed in “glam rock/metal” music.
It was a rollercoaster ride that made me laugh, literally, out loud.
Mountain biking was mixed up in it.
It’s ridiculous and fun, the way I “see” it.
Here we go.
Judas Priest is right there at the top of all things 1980s hard rock/metal. Rob Halford is a rock god.
Leather. Guitars. Rip your face off, as they say.
British Metal Invasion.
A start more so in blues rock (Rocka Rolla), it didn’t take too long before they got rollin’ in who they became, Screaming for Vengeance being the 80s album that I loved.
Electric Eye should be a trail name, maybe one that features a camera to capture carnage. The Electric Eye is basically “secret government cameras watching you and what you do” kind of thinking.
Pick your favorite tech-gnar trail. That’s Judas Priest-like riding! LOL! It’s probably somewhere in Appalachia, if we’re going to find THE JP trail.
It’s definitely not “flow trail” music.
What is “flow trail” music?
Enter Stryper.
As a kid growing up in town that was reputed to have a halo glowing above it, due to its Catholic population, of which I belonged then by default of being born there, Stryper was considered okay by parents because they were Christians. This was in a time period of Tipper Gore supporters who interpreted some rock bands as playing the devil’s music, e.g. AC/DC (Anti-Christ/Devil’s Child) and WASP (We Are Satan’s People).
Anyway, Michael Sweet could sing, no doubt. Pipes. He could hit the high note with ease.
Yellow and Black Attack.
If Judas Priest was “true metal,” Stryper, for many people during that time, was a “hair band.” They were “soft.” Fake. Glam.
Maybe that’s the same machine-cut, perfectly sloped, bermed-out, hard-packed flow trail that you can find anywhere, pretty much, these days! It’s polished and clean. After a while, you get bored.
Maybe “the devil” in “Too Hell With The Devil” is a flow trail??!!??!!
We don’t need more “devil” in mountain biking, do we?
At this point, my thinking moved into glam metal and was still grasping to a theme of some sort with the thought of: 80s metal/hair/glam/rock bands loved wearing leather, or pleather, perhaps.
Enter Pretty Boy Floyd.
I mean, look at that album cover! It’s hilarious and wonderful all at the same time. Hair spray and lipstick. Eyeliner and boots. 1989.
PBF might be, just maybe, I mean possibly, if you can considerate it, if you have a little sense of humor, can you go there, don’t be too offended …
It’s like riding an e-bike on a flow trail, which maybe is fun but is it mountain biking?!
Probably so.
Is it Judas Priest-like mountain biking?!
(Hopefully, you’re able to see the humor in this. If not, oh well.)
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Thankfully my Catholic town didn't go after us too much for listening to Judas Priest and AC/DC. I saw JP for the 30th anniversary of Screaming for Vengeance and they still killed. Halford practically invented the metal look... Taken from gay BDSM clubs.
Us e-bikers are all about AC/DC! Duh