#TBT

Originally published May 2009

The first concert I ever attended probably shaped much more about me than just my love for music. My older brother took me.  He was 17, I was 8.  He begged our parents for weeks to let him go and because at the time my brother lived and breathed cool to me, I wanted to go with him. My parents finally realized this was a bargaining tool.  They told him that he could go only if he took me with him.  They knew he'd say no. But he didn't.  My brother and my parents each held up their end of the deal.  A few days later I was still only 8, and terrified, and sitting on my brother's shoulders at a Quiet Riot concert. There was something about the fear in my gut and the damp heat from the hundreds of sweaty bodies-the hair and makeup mixed with a violence that looking back was out of place with such ridiculous music. But it was fuel to that fire. I was much too young for it, but I fell in love with all things subversive that night. It was the first time I saw with my own eyes other people doing the things I had only seen in my head. I embraced my inner weirdo, and never looked back.