Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota
Empirically proving that--no matter where you are--kids wanna rock, this is Chuck Klosterman's hilrious memoir of growing up as a shameless metalhead in Wyndmere, North Dakotoa (population: 498).With a voice like Ace Frehley's guitar, Klosterman hacks his way through hair-band history, beginning with that fateful day in 1983 when his older brother brought home Mötley Crüe's Shout at the Devil. The fifth-grade Chuck wasn't quite ready to rock--his hair was too short and his farm was too quiet--but he still found a way to bang his nappy little head. Before the journey was over, he would slow-dance to Poison, sleep innocently beneath satanic pentagrams, lust for Lita Ford, and get ridiculously intellectual about Guns N' Roses. C'mon and feel his noize.
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Community Reviews
While reading "Fargo Rock City" I kept thinking how the planets aligned correctly in order for me even to come in contact with this book. If I was introduced to it 8 years ago I don't know if I would openly admit that I read it. I am a recovering hair metal fan. I tried to run away from my past but it was so hard to do with this book. It made me admit I had a problem but it also made me admit that I am OK with that.
It absolutely amazes how much I have in common with with Chuck Klosterman. We're both about the same age and both enjoy irony and sarcasm. He mentioned his home town in North Dakota several times and how small it was and how hard it was to even get decent videos since they didn't have MTV. I grew up in a small town in northwest Iowa not too different from the town Chuck described in this book.
I agree with him, these larger than life bands were our escape from Smallville to something bigger. The hair, the "I don't give a fuck" attitudes, the rebellion against the norm, everything was there. It was our way of leaving town without ever getting out of our rooms or our Camaros. Motley Crue, Ozzy, Skid Row, G N' R, KISS and yes even Warrant and Poison, they were all part of the equation of this escapism.
He does a great job of putting them on a pedestal but never too high. He admits that they weren't perfect. I love how he breaks down his Jack Factor for his top albums (Jack Factor being how much he would need to be paid never to listen to certain albums again.) This man obviously did his homework on these bands, and he wrote this book with passion. One thing that should have been changed by his editor - dumb down the vocabulary a bit. Chuck, we get it, you went to a 4 year college and a got a degree. I don't know if that gets a credit with your audience of 80's hair metal fans or not.
If anything, this book made me get on YouTube and look up a lot of old videos from my youth. And why? Just like Chuck said, it was part of my adolescence and I can't easily close the door on that. I thought I could move on, but after reading this I might want to go pick up a copy of "The Decline of the Western Civilization II: the Metal Years".
It absolutely amazes how much I have in common with with Chuck Klosterman. We're both about the same age and both enjoy irony and sarcasm. He mentioned his home town in North Dakota several times and how small it was and how hard it was to even get decent videos since they didn't have MTV. I grew up in a small town in northwest Iowa not too different from the town Chuck described in this book.
I agree with him, these larger than life bands were our escape from Smallville to something bigger. The hair, the "I don't give a fuck" attitudes, the rebellion against the norm, everything was there. It was our way of leaving town without ever getting out of our rooms or our Camaros. Motley Crue, Ozzy, Skid Row, G N' R, KISS and yes even Warrant and Poison, they were all part of the equation of this escapism.
He does a great job of putting them on a pedestal but never too high. He admits that they weren't perfect. I love how he breaks down his Jack Factor for his top albums (Jack Factor being how much he would need to be paid never to listen to certain albums again.) This man obviously did his homework on these bands, and he wrote this book with passion. One thing that should have been changed by his editor - dumb down the vocabulary a bit. Chuck, we get it, you went to a 4 year college and a got a degree. I don't know if that gets a credit with your audience of 80's hair metal fans or not.
If anything, this book made me get on YouTube and look up a lot of old videos from my youth. And why? Just like Chuck said, it was part of my adolescence and I can't easily close the door on that. I thought I could move on, but after reading this I might want to go pick up a copy of "The Decline of the Western Civilization II: the Metal Years".
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