WILD BLOG: Of Metal and Metalheads: The Rise and Fall ...
NEW May 18, 2009 / 2:00 p.m.

So, I’m watching VH1’s “History Of Metal” last night. You all know me, if it’s metal, I’m all about it - be it music, spinners or spoons. Part III of a four-parter, “The 80s” was featured, all about the mercurial rise of metal from fringe to mainstream.

First part of the show was about the early 80s, when metal was raucous, rebellious, loud, always with a message … and damned fun. The best of times. Bombastic. One continuous party. Like being blindfolded on a rollercoaster.

The second part of the program was the crash of the genre - how it became formulaic, how all bands started doing the same thing (power ballads). No more “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, no more “You Got Another Thing Comin’”, no more “we’ll never let up, hope it annoys you". It was no longer fun, no more individualism, no more message. Certainly a lack of soaring, chainsaw chords.

Everyone had to do the popular choice … right? Bland becomes boring, no more challenges, fade to black.

From rollercoaster to rowboat.   

Runnin’ with the devil, we ain’t.

Where am I going with this?

Dee Snyder was being interviewed (the well-spoken, clean and sober lead singer from Twisted Sister … he does quite a bit now on XFM radio and the political bend) about the “mellowing” of metal in the 80s, how everyone jumped on the easy bandwagon. Although he admitted it made him no longer relevant and basically cost him a career in music, he was glad he no longer had to put up with or be associated with what “metal” had become.

It was not him, and he wanted no part of it.

A barrage of blurred-out middle finger salutes and rapid fire bleeps with only the word “you” audible. As he said, “This is what I think of music today”…  

The fall of metal music and steelhead fishing are eerily similar.

About the time of the fade of metal - the late 80s - a technique crept onto our steelhead rivers. Side drifting, or boondogging (call it what you will), showed up with its pants down, horn honking and yelling “Look at me!”. Like Quiet Riot’s album that went to #1 (the first metal album to do so and become mainstream), everyone jumped on this newfound, easy success formula.

We made our hair bigger ... we switched to spinning reels.

We added keyboards (think Van Halen’s “Jump”) ... we mindlessly dragged baits downstream.

We produced hit after hit record ... we caught fish after fish with this more-than-easy and deadly effective technique.

We gave up the talents of reading water, of stationary drift fishing, of drifting spinners, the real art of wading, swinging spoons, pulling plugs ... and inserted keyboards and acoustic guitar with sappy lyrics.

Ozzy Osborne and Buzz Ramsey are gnashing their teeth. “Cherry Pie” and cherry picking. 

Like Dee Snyder, I stand with middle fingers well extended and echo the blue rhapsody toward the attitude and skill level of most of today’s “More! Faster! Now!” river anglers. I will not call them “steelheaders”, as they are nowhere near earning that title. Like Dee, I would rather fade into obscurity, rather be irrelevant than make a mark by doing what everyone else is doing.

The easy way, the no-talent way. I won’t make power ballads.

Now, I’m all for innovation. But when you remove all challenges, ethics and variables, it is no longer sport.

There are, however, still those who do it the right way. A sort of return to values, if you will: spending time on the water instead of on the chat boards, gleaning someone else’s information. Like Godsmack and Disturbed. The ones who read the texts of the masters who came before. Those innovators who do not accept the norm, who do not follow the lemmings off the cliff. The Defenders of the Faith. I only wish there were more of you, as in days of yore.

The one-technique side-drifting monkeys are the Kip Wingers of steelhead fishing. The new “gurus” of side drifting catching 400 fish a year are no more steelheaders than some guy who consistently makes holes in one on a putt-putt course is a PGA pro.

Until we challenge ourselves, to make a splash, to do something different - like Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and AC/DC did - we are making the steelheading version of the power ballad as I write this. You all know what happens next.

Somebody, anybody, please make a Spin-n-Glo, a Livin’ After Midnight, a Wiggle Wart, a Highway To Hell, a BC Steel or an Iron Man.

Faust sold his soul for youth and love. Today, I would almost be willing to make that deal myself for a one-way ticket back to 1982, when music was music and fishing was real, when anthems and innovations were routine. Metal died because of hitting the “easy” button, and steelhead fishing as the greats knew it went the way of the Okie Drifter with the plague of side drifting.

You can have it, and I would rather get caught wearing a pink tutu at a Republican fund raiser wearing a Dallas Cowboy’s hat than lower myself to this brain dead way of “fishing“. For children, wives or girlfriends on their initial exposure to river fishing, you bet. Thank goodness for this technique. Anybody else who does this on purpose, who refuses to learn, to learn every steelheading technique, well, here’s your keyboard and your acoustic guitar.

Now, if you all will excuse me, I’m going into the music room, digging out my well-worn vinyl copy of Judas Priest’s iconic “British Steel” album, drop the needle on cut two of side one, “Metal Gods”, turn it up to 11, rattle the windows, make s**t vibrate off the shelves, blow out my last functioning eardrum, make birds drop out of the sky and entertain the whole neighborhood for a few minutes…

Metal To The End ... I said, METAL TO THE END!!!

-Bill Herzog