Ode to the 80s:
The flat comb in the back pocket, ripped (not bought ripped but ripped because its old) jeans, long fuckin hair that was combed throughout the day. Metal Up Your Ass T Shirts were standard, and Vans was as good as the shoes got! Way back in the early 80s, Checkerboard slip on Vans were the Hesher staple footwear. They rode Diamond Backs or Red Lines, and lit firecrackers on the school parking lot on weekends. No song was ever listened to without air guitar. It was unheard of. That is how you listened to hard rock back then. You air guitared it, squinted your eyes and sang in a high pitch voice, no matter how bad your voice was.
Pot was an elaborate process of de-seeding. Very ugly brownish green buds from Mexico. To be a real Hesher you had to have the stoned Hesher laugh. It was something like, "Uh hu hu hu hu hu hu".
Burger King Whoppers were golden and Cornuts were carried in the back pocket. Meals had to be made of grease, beef and more grease to be considered a true Hesher meal. Nacho Cheese Dorritos were always the appetizer. Lots of Soda... lots and lots of caffeinated soda!
Iron Maiden was about as hard as anything got back then, and Ozzy was considered as evil as it got, and you would hear tales of the older Heshers describing their concert experiences as if they came back from war. I had this image as a kid that only a select few actually would survive an Ozzy concert. There were rumors that Ozzy just bit the heads off shit. He would put out a bowl and the fans would spit, piss and shit in the bowl then at the end of every concert Ozzy would drink it. I really heard that as a kid.
Riding your BMX to 7-11 to grab a cherry Slurpee and stack your quarters on top of the video game. The more quarters on top of the game, the longer you knew you had to wait. Ms. Pacman, Galaga, Journey Escape, Carnival, Defender, Missile Command and Space Invaders were religion.
When Men At Work came out I declared my self a New Waver. I thought I was so New Wave with my Men At Work cassettes and all my trapper keepers had "Men At Work Rules" all over them.
But if you wanted to freak people out, you were not just a Hesher, you were Full Hesh! Full Fuckin Hesh! You had the sick boom box that we called, Ghetto Blasters and you blasted Quiet Riot Mental Health like it was going out of Style!
Heavy Metal was an incredible animation movie, and lines of Fast Times at Ridgemont High was recited like gospel. It was every teenagers dream to order pizza in class.
Simple times back then. A time before iPhones and all the gadgets and gizmos we have now. People related on a much more personal heart to heart level, but most importantly, people understood The Rock!
The flat comb in the back pocket, ripped (not bought ripped but ripped because its old) jeans, long fuckin hair that was combed throughout the day. Metal Up Your Ass T Shirts were standard, and Vans was as good as the shoes got! Way back in the early 80s, Checkerboard slip on Vans were the Hesher staple footwear. They rode Diamond Backs or Red Lines, and lit firecrackers on the school parking lot on weekends. No song was ever listened to without air guitar. It was unheard of. That is how you listened to hard rock back then. You air guitared it, squinted your eyes and sang in a high pitch voice, no matter how bad your voice was.
Pot was an elaborate process of de-seeding. Very ugly brownish green buds from Mexico. To be a real Hesher you had to have the stoned Hesher laugh. It was something like, "Uh hu hu hu hu hu hu".
Burger King Whoppers were golden and Cornuts were carried in the back pocket. Meals had to be made of grease, beef and more grease to be considered a true Hesher meal. Nacho Cheese Dorritos were always the appetizer. Lots of Soda... lots and lots of caffeinated soda!
Iron Maiden was about as hard as anything got back then, and Ozzy was considered as evil as it got, and you would hear tales of the older Heshers describing their concert experiences as if they came back from war. I had this image as a kid that only a select few actually would survive an Ozzy concert. There were rumors that Ozzy just bit the heads off shit. He would put out a bowl and the fans would spit, piss and shit in the bowl then at the end of every concert Ozzy would drink it. I really heard that as a kid.
Riding your BMX to 7-11 to grab a cherry Slurpee and stack your quarters on top of the video game. The more quarters on top of the game, the longer you knew you had to wait. Ms. Pacman, Galaga, Journey Escape, Carnival, Defender, Missile Command and Space Invaders were religion.
When Men At Work came out I declared my self a New Waver. I thought I was so New Wave with my Men At Work cassettes and all my trapper keepers had "Men At Work Rules" all over them.
But if you wanted to freak people out, you were not just a Hesher, you were Full Hesh! Full Fuckin Hesh! You had the sick boom box that we called, Ghetto Blasters and you blasted Quiet Riot Mental Health like it was going out of Style!
Heavy Metal was an incredible animation movie, and lines of Fast Times at Ridgemont High was recited like gospel. It was every teenagers dream to order pizza in class.
Simple times back then. A time before iPhones and all the gadgets and gizmos we have now. People related on a much more personal heart to heart level, but most importantly, people understood The Rock!
I don't think too many metal head type people are aware of that term.I always here it used outside the metal circle.I first heard the term when I was called one by one of my punk rock friends. There was a local punk band called Hot Box that had a song called "Hesher" and they wanted me to be in the music video for the song but it never materialized. I think it's kind of a negative term like calling 80's glam "Hair bands".I heard the spit in the bucket(Not piss or shit) rumour about Ted Nuget.I heard lots of urban legends about Ozzy sacrificing animals on stage.One was throwing puppies in to the crowd(the same was said about Alice Cooper & more recently Marilyn Manson) and one of the funniest ones was he stuck a stick of dynamite up a goat's ass on stage and blew it up.I heard the goat was dying of cancer so he only killed sick animals. I can't believe people believe that nonsense!
