I was introduced to ROCK at a relatively old age. I had an older sister and I didn’t have my own taste of music until I was about 12, when I made my first CD purchase: Green Day’s Dookie, which still holds up to be one of the greatest albums of all time. But the point that I’m trying to say is that I was brought up on New Kid’s on the Block and Vanilla Ice. If ROCK were a military branch, for instance, if the armed forces going to Iraq were the Army, Air Force, Navy, the Marines and ROCK, then my rank at the time would be private. I was an amateur in the ways of ROCK. I was a freakin’ pink belt in the dojo of ROCK self defense. Then one fateful day I was invited to see Incubus. The thing about Incubus is that you hear their singles such as “Drive”, “Pardon Me”, or “Stellar” and you get a certain idea of what Incubus is. Well you are wrong. I went to the concert in freakin’ sandals. I was ROCKED away. Incubus ROCKED like there was no freakin’ tomorrow with songs from their first album that hardly anyone knew of. My life was forever changed. Needless to say, in all of the ROCKING and jumping around, I lost both of my sandals, which is the moral of the story: don’t wear sandals to an Incubus concert, for they will be ROCKED right off your feet. There is a reason why you ROCK like there is no freakin’ tomorrow, because you may ROCK so hard that there may be no tomorrow, and that ROCKS.

Last year I went to a Velvet Revolver concert in Birmingham. Velvet Revolver is pretty much Guns ‘n Roses minus Axl Rose, plus Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots. At this point in my ROCK career, I was ready. I am a freakin’ General in ROCK now. I had prepared months in advanced. I grew a healthy ‘crustache’ and grew my hair out. I also upped my exercise regimen so that I can ROCK without prejudice. I don’t know what that means and that ROCKS! So I go up there with my good buddy Randy, and we are ready to ROCK. We make our way up to the front of the crowd and we are prepped to be 10 feet from Slash, the Greek god of awesome guitar chops. Randy and I spot a couple of ladies our age and we decide to, as some people call it, ‘converse’ with them. Anyways, Randy and I are totally sweeping these chicks off their feet with our unparalleled charm and physical prowess. Then along comes middle-aged ‘I think I can still ROCK’ woman. She squeezes in front of Randy and me (which does not ROCK!). The thing about this lady is that she has a three foot long pony tail sticking right out the back of her head. She would quickly look back and forth as if she were about to cross highway traffic. Sadly enough, each time she looked one way, her long freakin’ pony tail would give me a good whack to the face. She did this about eight times and then scoots over in front of Randy and gives him a taste. She turns back to us and says “Have you seen my daughter? I can’t find her?” I respond with “You lost your daughter at a Velvet Revolver concert?” She then went on to describe her daughter to us, telling her how cute she is and how we should date her. An obvious candidate for worst mother ever. And instead of searching further for her daughter, she plants herself in front of us for another hour or so and Randy and I are whipped repetitively by her pony tail for our sins against the laws of ROCK. There are several morals to this story: 1) at some point in your life, you need to stop ROCKING and need to freakin’ find your lost child. 2) Never let anyone in front of you at a ROCK concert. 3) Slash is pretty fat now, but he still ROCKS, and therefore ROCK has no correlation to obesity

Randy and I went to a Chevelle/Taproot concert in Birmingham last summer. I am quite familiar with the greater workings of Chevelle, but not so much the doings of Taproot. Randy, for some freakin’ reason, brings some chicks along, I’ll get to that later. Some guys that are next to me are talking about Taproot, I turn to them and ask

“Are they a lot like Chevelle? I’ve only heard a couple of their songs.”

Then turn to me and say, “Yeah, but they ROCK a lot harder.”

I was dumbfounded. If you have any of the Chevelle albums you are well aware that they ROCK, and they ROCK very hard and very often.

“No way dude, there’s no freakin’ WAY they ROCK harder than Chevelle, do you even know who Chevelle is?”

They say, “Yeah, I’ve heard a couple of their songs, but when Taproot comes out, things are going to get crazy.” I didn’t feel like feeding their ignorance any longer.

“Alright then, I hope your right.”

So Taproot comes out, the lead singer Stephen Richards, looks around at the crowd, content with himself. He waits for about a minute and a half, and then out of freakin’ nowhere goes “RAAAAGH!” and they went from 0 to ROCK in .023 seconds. In that same interval of time I found myself instantly pulled into the center of the most ferocious whirlpool of moshing I have ever experienced. In half a minute I was covered in sweat and had no idea where I was. Sweat is weakness exiting the body. The next hour and a half I pushed myself to my ROCK limits, and maybe even exceeded them. It was nuts. A bunch of cool stuff happened, like Stephen Richards coming down from the stage and moshing with us (I got to elbow Stephen Richards in the hip!) and there were also a bunch of people jumping from extremely high altitudes onto the cushion that is the cheering crowd. After the Taproot set was over, Randy and I found each other and gave a series of high fives and screams. The girls that Randy brought came up to us and one of them looks at me and kind of laughs. I look at myself and I’m drenched with sweat. So I play it cool and take of my shirt, and before I can do anything about it, this girl gives a little “Woooooooo!” Which is pretty much necessary. It isn’t even a compliment anymore, it is now a necessity that if someone takes off their shirt, regardless of the person’s physique, you must give them a “Woooooo!” I could be a 70 year old, 300 pound, 4’8” man and I would still get a “Wooooooo!” if I take my shirt off. This is where I came to the point where I had the choice of whether to do something that ROCKS, or play it cool. So I hold up my shirt to about eye level, not pushing it in her face or anything, just raising it to where my shirt demands the attention of those nearby. I then proceed to ring out what had to be about two liters of sweat, maybe even more. I was surprised myself as to how much sweat came out, and it just kept on coming. There was a very large puddle built up at our feet when I was done. This girl, I don’t remember her name, dropped her jaw. She was in awe at what had just happened. “That… is… DISGUSTING!” she responds. “That’s what I thought” I say, and then put my slightly drier shirt back on and return back to the crowd that knows and respects ROCK. The moral of this story: choosing to ROCK will most often result in offending some females.

Ryan can be contacted at ryan@theauburner.com