RECORD STORE TALES #1239: The Black Widow

From the very start of Record Store Tales, to the present day I have been quite emphatic about one fact: My parents did not place any conditions or prohibitions against any kind of music we listened to as kids. We had nosey Catholic neighbours who did on their kids, but my mom and dad were cool. My dad liked that Iron Maiden sang historically accurate songs about World War II, and other conflicts such as the Crimean War. My mom had a younger brother, my long-haired Uncle Don Don, who liked Led Zeppelin and Alice Cooper. What I was bringing home, Van Halen and Quiet Riot, wasn’t much noisier or frightening. We’re talking degrees of separation. I had it easy. I wouldn’t have the collection I have today if they didn’t give me free reign over my entertainment.

That doesn’t mean they weren’t paying attention.  They saw stuff on TV about “Knights in Satan’s Service”, and my mom did ask me if that’s what KISS stood for.  I remember getting really huffy and saying “NO, it’s just a word!”  She believed me and let me go.  I think my parents always knew that rock stars did well by generating their own controversy.  They witnessed the rise and fall of Elvis Presley, and the explosive career of the Beatles, all accompanied by screaming teens, shaking hips, and suggestive songs.  I think they knew I wasn’t going to die on a toilet like Elvis just because I saw David Lee Roth getting arrested wearing nothing but a towel in the “Panama” video.  I don’t think they believed in Satan, so much as thought I would go to hell because I saw Ozzy Osbourne dressed as a werewolf in a music video.  Maybe it would have mattered if I spent all my time watching videos, but I went to school and did my homework like every other kid.  They just preferred Tears For Fears to Tesla.

I can really only remember a handful of talks about music.  Once was the question about the meaning of KISS, and one was about the death of Randy Rhoads.  I was quick to correct my dad when he said he “probably died of drugs”.  “He wasn’t on drugs, but the pilot of the airplane was,” I said.  I never got in shit for playing any music.  Only the for the volume at which I played it.  I played “Big Balls” by AC/DC at the kitchen table one time.  Never a word!

There was only one instance in which my mother was simply not impressed with my music.  Not at all impressed.  It involved the aforementioned Alice Cooper.

I had this second cousin on my mom’s side, Danny.  He was a bit older and into all kinds of heavier rock.  He was into Alice Cooper, and played me “The Black Widow” in the Winnebago he arrived in.  Summer of 1986.  The bit with Vincent Price doing his Vincent Price thing really grabbed me.  I loved Vincent Price.  Alice had a big comeback in the 80’s, with Constrictor, Raise Your Fist and Yell, and Trash.  He was once again in the news, but this time for his remarkable return to the forefront of popular rock artists.  It was in this climate that I began collecting his music.  My mother knew who Alice Cooper was.  It was she that gave me Welcome to My Nightmare for Easter 1991.  It was weird, and some things were decidedly un-rock…but I loved it!  One thing I enjoyed about Alice Cooper’s music is that he constantly forced me to re-define my conceptions about what rock was.

I was still in highschool, and my mom was still doing my laundry for me.  One night I was in bed, lights out, with music rocking me to sleep as it did every night.  Welcome to My Nightmare was still fresh in my collection, and that’s what was playing when she entered my room that night with a basket of laundry.  “The Black Widow” was mid-song.  She missed all the cool Vincent Price stuff, which I’m sure she would have approved of.  No, this is what she walked in to:

“He stares with a gleam, with a laugh so obscene,

At the virgins and the children he’s deflowered.”

“DID HE JUST SAY VIRGINS AND CHILDREN ARE DEFLOWERED?” asked my mother with a volume in her voice you rarely heard.

I mumbled something about Vincent Price and didn’t attempt to defend the lyrics.  I said something about he’s singing about spiders and that’s all I could muster.

To her credit, nothing more was said, and when Alice Cooper came out with his new album Hey Stoopid that summer, she bought a copy for my birthday.  Today, she knows the Coop is a man of high character, and approves of my selection!