Tribes.

My high school was a very easy place to become lost in. Being your own person at that age leads to mockery and stone throwing. At that stage in life it's easiest to find a gang or group, or as the current parlance has it "tribe". You make yourself fit in by standing out. By dressing the same, having the same kind of hair styles and most importantly listening to the same kind of music.

It's always been this way I think, you were either a mod or a rocker, a greaser or a preppy an Emo or a goth. Back in caveman times you could probably be a mammoth or a Bear.

It's how we set a place for ourselves in society, how we define who we are.

When I was at school there were only two groups you could join. The first were the fashionable clothes wearing Ravers, and this was prepolished club Dance music which was, to give it its due, unlistenable shit without drugs. That was never going to suit me. I couldn't afford the clothes, I don't take drugs and the music didn't connect with me at all. All bleepy and cheesy and uninvolving. little did I know that most of the popular modern dance music would just be recycled eighties songs over a crap dance beat. I think I actually look back on that time now with a touch of nostalgia

So I joined the other 'gang'. The metal heads. We definitely weren't cool. but the idea was we weren't trying to be. The music was awesome for me. All that power and aggression, the inner oh-so-trite teenage rage I was unable to express came through in the music and it was something I felt I could relate to. Oh the inner turmoil of being a moderately intelligent successful middle child of a happily married (at the time) couple who were fairly well off. Can nobody understand my pain?

I'm actually embarrassed now to think I thought my angst was raw and painful and could only be soothed by crunching riffs and anguished vocals.

I never got the hair thing though. It will come as a surprise to no-one, now I'm a slap head, that my hair was totally unmanageable. I tried to grow it into a proud lions mane, just like I'd seen on the back of all these albums. Graceful locks of blond and black, silky tresses falling almost to the waists of these metal behemoths. However it just ended up growing out and up not down giving me a bizzare top heavy white afro. Quite frankly I looked like one of the toadstool heads from the Mario games. Not a pretty sight. However I was still accepted as part of the clique and we used to just hang out, listen to music (Slayer, Queensryche, Pantera, Faith no More and the mighty mighty Metallica) and do some role playing. (Oh yeah, I was a chick magnet. I used to have to beat them off with a stick.)

Metal is something I grew up with and to be honest, grew out of. By the time sixth form hit (I would be about 16) Rave was dying and it was all about Indie bands (Shed Seven, Ocean Colour Scene, Early Oasis, Menswear). I had begun to suspect that metal was a little bit silly even before corpse paint came in. So I cut my stupid mop of hair and discovered girls, clubbing and music that wasn't played at breakneck speed .

Now there's very little modern metal I listen to but Metallica were always there and I've continued to buy their more 'experimental' albums until "Death Magnetic" dropped through the door this morning. And it took me right back to my teenage years because it sounds like "...and justice for all Part 2" Its got the speed of St anger without the retarded lyrics and $5 drumkit. Its a piece of metal genius and I solidly recommend it for anyone who may have let Lars James et al fall out of favour in recent years.

Now I'm older, lets face it we all are, I'm much more comfortable being myself and not having to buy in to an entire lifestyle just to fit in. I can occasionally listen to metal, but it doesn't preclude me from listening to other stuff. and I won't be growing my hair again anytime soon. Not until they develop a cure for male pattern baldness at any rate!