Growing up Jon's birthday always meant that going over to his place and playing D&D until sunrise. Great times really.
Since I have not posted one of these in a while I wanted to do this one for him. Plus Jon always had a great collection of music. He got me into Rush and Iron Maiden. He was the one that threw a copy of Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast" at me and told me to listen to it and don't come back till I knew all about Eddie.
Metal, D&D and summer's hanging out with Jon were what made the early 80s for me.
Also this is more like Friday Afternoon Videos since I want to tag him on Facebook with this.
I'll admit it. During the height of the "Satanic Panic" Jon and I would do whatever we could to make matters worse. Playing D&D and listening to Iron Maiden was the norm. Thankfully for us we had parents that were neither impressed with two teens nor stupid.
I am not really sure who introduced me to Pink Floyd first. Jon or my late brother Mike. I am inclined to give Mike the credit because Mike was really cool like that and that is how I want to remember it. But Jon certainly introduced "Not Now John" from Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut" to me. I am in the minority here, but I rather enjoy the bleakness of this album. People say The Wall is depressing. That's a cake-walk compared to Roger Water's soul-bearing requiem for the post-war dream.
Fuck all that. This is just a great song.
One of these days...I need to do a FNV dedicated to Pink Floyd.
One of these days I am going to dance with the grim reaper...or cut you into little pieces...never was sure hat he was saying here.
It is no doubt that Jon introduced me to Rush. To this day I equate Rush and D&D so tightly largely due to these summers. This was the first song I can remember him playing while we gamed.
Another group Jon played a lot of and I associate with gaming to this day is Blue Öyster Cult. Veteran of the Psychic Wars from "Fire of Unknown Origin" might be the most D&D song ever written.
It wasn't all metal. David Bowie's "Let's Dance" was a BIG hit around this time.
Even years later as I was getting ready to go away to college Jon still had something new for me. With his typical "you need to listen to this now" attitude he popped in a tape (yeah tape) of this new band he discovered; Guns and Roses.
No association with gaming here. Just Jon once again being Jon and finding out about music when no one else in our little midwest town had never even heard of these guys.
So Happy Birthday JR!
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