Heavy Metal Redux: Summer Of 2004

Glens Falls - In the summer of 2004, rock 'n' roll became dangerous again. At leasi in the small upstate city of Glens Falls for a few weeks in July. It was fun while it lasted.

Long before rap music raised the hackles of 'concerned citizens,' before the efforts of
Tipper Gore begat parental advisory warnings and before Alice Cooper stuck his head
in a guillotine and sang 'Dead Babies' while a snake slithered around his torso, there was
Dean Martin.

'Wham, bam, thank you ma'am/ I hope you're satisfied,' sang the dapper Dino as he clinked
his champagne glass in 1951. Some thought the song's carnal suggestiveness would bring
an end to civilization. Radio stations banned the song.

Fast-forward a half-century to the small upstate community of Glens Falls - founded in 1763, incorporated as a village in 1839 and - according to a group of its concerned citizens -
the whole thing will go straight to hell in a handbasket this weekend when The Aggressive
Music Festival plays Saturday and Sunday at the Glens Falls Civic Center.

'Do you want to idlely (sic) stand by and watch the Moral Decay of our community?'
asked a flier distributed in hopes of canceling the concert.
'Help Us,' it pleaded, 'Just say NO to the Aggressive Music Festival.'

The survival of the community itself is at stake, apparently in the community
'where kids can safely play in the parks and neighbors can sit on their front porches
and not live in fear,' the flier says.

The threat to the area's parks and porches, the group warned, was in the lyrics, which encourage, in dutiful order:
hatred, murder, suicide, violence, deviant sex and satanic worship.

According to Glens Falls Police Capt. Joseph W. Bethel, there will be an increased police presence outside the arena 'for the duration,' although he said more officers on duty is
not unusual for events in the area.

That corporate heavy weights MTV, Molson and Clear Channel Communications,
each has a hand in this weekend's show was apparently lost on the concerned group.
(Clear Channel, by the way, are the folks who are also bringing underground scourge
Carole King to SPAC over the weekend. )

The controversy, of course, has only helped boost ticket sales for the show at the Civic Center, which has a capacity of 6,000. In any case, efforts to cancel the concert is moot at this point.

'They had gathered a number of petitions expressing concerns of the content of some
of the lyrics,' says Mike Mender, assistant to the mayor of Glens Falls.

A “few hundred” signatures were presented at the common council meeting on June 10.
After the meeting, the council approved the contract for the concert to go on as planned.
The line-up includes Hatebreed, Slayer, Slipknot, Killswitch Engage, Agnostic Front,
area band Skinless and a number of others.

It is unknown whether any of the bands will be covering Dean Martin's
'Wham, bam, thank you ma'am ' as part of their set.

by Thomas Dimopoulos
originally published in The Saratogian, July 2004.