Fargo Rock City

     Taken from the title of song by the band KISS, “Fargo Rock City” is part memoir, part music review and part justification for the author’s obsession with 1980′s Heavy Metal music. Chuck Kosterman grew up on a farm in North Dakota-about as far from the glamour of the ’80s Hollywood Metal scene as one could get. Nevertheless, like many before him, a genre of music spoke to him and changed his life.

Fargo Rock City book cover

     Do/did you have a musical obsession that perhaps can only be mentioned amongst certain (close) friends that is also regularly panned by the critics? (Mine is “Southern Rock”…). Well, stand up and be counted! Chuck does his level best to legitimize Heavy Metal/Glam Metal/ ? Metal as exemplified by Motley Crue, Poison, Winger and Guns and Roses. He has his work cut out for him but he will be the first to admit to the genre’s faults. What makes it funny as all get out is his style. Always honest and willing to poke fun at himself, I laughed so hard at one point I cried. Catharsis.

      Highly recommended if you grew up in the 1980′s, love music and cultural history or just want to learn the best (and worst) Heavy Metal of the era.

     I gotta try and find that Vinnie Vincent Invasion record…

posted by Chuck, 7.7.10