Yesterdays Heroes

Yesterdays Heroes

Playing the drums has always been a passion of mine. I started playing when I was about twelve or thirteen years old. There were plenty of other kids at school into music so getting a band together should have been easy. In my case it was made easier by the fact that there was only myself and one other drummer in the entire school. The advantage I had over the other drummer was that I learnt to read drum scores. Of course every guitarist wanted to be the cock rockin lead guitarist in any band that would have them. Usually the least talented guitarist would be relegated to playing bass and no one had the guts to sing.
In the last year I was at high school the music class from each year level would perform a song at the end of year school concert. These songs were always fucking painful. Dire Straits, Robert Palmer, Cindy Lauper and other parent friendly crap my memory has graciously deleted.
The music teacher, Mr. C, was a pretty cool bloke. Better then most teachers I had come across. He treated you as an equal not as a subordinate. Coming near the end of the school year he got a group of individuals from different year levels together for a chat.
"Look guys" he said "these end of year concerts really need a lift. All you guys have talent and don’t listen to mainstream music. I want you to use the rehearsal room every lunch time and come up with a cover song to end the night with a bang"
So the pressure was on. What song to do? Who will sing? We made the choice of vocalist pretty easy. "We aren’t playing any song with fucking keyboards in it" stated Leon. "Alright, fuck it, I will sing" announced Angus realizing that with no keyboards he had no place in the band. Now that’s band democracy at work. It turns out Angus had a top notch voice when it comes to screaming ! We were told by Mr. C that songs with explicit language wouldn’t be acceptable. Considering 90% of this make shift band were punks and metal-heads this left us pretty stumped for choices.
Seven lunchtimes later and a shitload of noise we still hadn’t progressed anywhere. Then the song fell right into our laps while playing a few tapes. "Fuck yeah" was the general consensus. We ran the song by Mr. C for censorship approval. OK the punk ethic says fuck censorship but to us it also meant fuck wasting time on a song we won’t get to finish playing anyway. With a sly grin that made him look craftier than a shithouse rat with a gold tooth, Mr. C said "Perfect guys, practice the hell out of it, nail it and I will put you on last"
So practice we did. We lived and breathed that song. As the two guitarists couldn’t decided who was going to play the lead solo we made the solo twice as long so they could each play it once. Now that’s cock rock !
The night of the concert was upon us. We managed to keep what we were doing a secret. Mr. C didn’t tell the principal anymore than "A surprise finish" The school assembly hall was filled with Mr. and Mrs. Average who had come to watch Son and Daughter Average butcher songs like never before then give a rousing applause at the end as convention dictates. I believe they were clapping the fact that the pain and humiliation was over. I was watching the audience from back stage. So many parents with fingers in their ears. Finally the sensory deprivation Music Classes ended and the curtains closed.
As we started setting up you could hear the murmurs and mumbles get curiously louder as the Marshall Amps and distortion pedals were plugged in and switched on.
Ready ! The curtain flies up. The twin guitars crank out the intro riff, the bass and drums thump in together as to the wall of school musical heresy begins. The hall filled with the blasting noise that is Black Sabbaths "Paranoid".
Parents were holding there children in fear of their safety. Angus was up front belting out the lyrics with veins in his neck and head about to burst, pointing an angry fist at the most vulnerable adults in the audience. We had created chaos, nothing was stopping us. We drove that song like there was no tomorrow. The guitars squealed through the solo’s and set chunky rhythms during the versus. Ending with a huge crash and bash open "E" full noise roar backed up with drum rolls. Kids yelling their heads off and parents looking around for a higher being to save them.
At the end of the song the Principal was virtually speechless at the microphone center stage. Mr. C was standing up behind the mixing desk with that big crafty smile giving us the two thumbs up sign. He came up to us while parents were still trying to regain their senses and control of their children and said "It sounded great, they might hate you but you will be the most remembered band of the night"
I went home that night feeling on top of the word. We had fucked the system and that’s what playing music should be all about.