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FAVORITE ALBUMS
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AC/DC - For Those About To Rock We Salute You
Def Leppard - Pyromania
Dio - Holy Diver
Iron Maiden - Piece Of Mind
Judas Priest - Screaming For
Vengeance, Defenders Of The Faith
Megadeth - Rust In Peace
Metallica - Ride The Lighting, Master Of Puppets
Motley Crue - Shout At The Devil, Dr. Feelgood
Queensryche - The Warning, Rage For Order, and Operation Mindcrime
Sanctuary - Refugee Denied, Into The Mirror Black
Testament - The Legacy, The New Order
Van Halen - Van Halen, Van Halen II, Fair Warning, and 5150
W.A.S.P. - The Last Command
Warlock - Burning The Witches, Triumph And Agony
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PRESENTATION
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I have been a hard rock and heavy metal fan ever since I heard a tape dub of Van Halen’s 5150 release from a friend when I was in Jr. High School, I was probably in 7th or 8th grade at the time. The same friend also introduced me to a great classic rock from the group Boston and I instantly became a fan of their works. By the end of Jr. High I purchased the entire Van Halen collection on cassette and a few other tape dubs including a copy of Metallica’s self-titled album. Enter Sandman was perhaps the first true heavy metal song I ever heard as Van Halen is more of a hard rock band.
By the time I was in High School and had my drivers license, I started recording songs I would hear from local Utah hard rock stations (KBER 101.1, KRAR K-Rock (R.I.P.) and others) to play on the tape deck while driving around. My Van Halen cassettes received heavy rotation around this time, but the time at come to purchase my first CD player and my music addiction truly exploded. I immediately replaced my Van Halen cassettes with CDs, and also purchased a few other CDs to get the ball rolling, AC/DC’s Back In Black, Boston’s Third Stage, Metallica’s self-titled disc, and a small number of others.
The rock radio stations also received heavy rotation while driving, K-Rock was the best Utah rock radio had to offer and the station played very few commercials, so this was a really good way to hear and find new rock music early on. I was introduced to Megadeth, Def Leppard, more Metallica, Ozzy, Kix, the Killer Dwarfs, and innumerable diverse 80s hard rock and metal bands thanks to the radio. Also, whenever I had a spare dollar, I would hit the local used CD stores to look into their disc pile, picking up any rock CDs I knew of from the radio. Presently, I own most of the songs I would hear playing on the radio up until the early through the late 90s on Utah’s rock radio stations, with the exception of a few I never liked. And there are maybe five to ten songs floating around that I never figured out the artist performing them. Luckily the State had some rather good hard rock stations, and a few still exist, but the best station (K-Rock) is currently extinct, it left the air in the late 90s. Most of my friends would also almost always listen to the hard rock stations, however I’m really the only one who really fully indulged myself in buying the music.
Anyway, once my favorite radio station died I continued buying hard rock and metal CDs. I would simply go to a used CD store, hit the metal/rock section and if the artwork looked good, if I knew of the label, or if the band looked like an 80s rock outfit in their photo I would give the particular CD chance. This is really how I started expanding my thrash metal collection, and it’s also how I found out other metal genres. I still do this now, and I have found plenty of exceptional rock and metal in this manner. I often take road trips within the state to hit stores that specialize in hard rock and heavy metal.
The only bad part about living in Utah, the current concert scene is rather limited. But my favorite concerts I’ve seen include Van Halen’s Balance our, Metallica for their Load album, Flotsam and Jetsam, and my all time favorite, Dio on his Magica tour with openers Yngwie Malmsteen and Doro Pesch. I pretty much became a Doro/Warlock fan after seeing this concert, before the show I knew her music existed, but it was this exceptional concert that gave me the chance to hear Doro and her legendary voice on stage, what a great show!
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