Twenty years ago, I had a roommate named Larry. Larry was a full-blown southern-Illinois cowboy. He wore the cowboy hat around the Eastern Illinois University campus, and he knew hundreds of different line dances. I was into Megadeth and KISS at the time, but it was the era of grunge, and metal seemed like it was dying, if not already six feet under. So, thanks in part to Larry, and in part to Kurt Cobain, I decided I'd give Country a shot. Country didn't stick me for long, but I did manage to give it a fair shot -- at least a few months. I even joined Larry and the girls of 8J at a honkytonk in Champaign, Illinois, before finally admitting that Country was not the uniform for me. In a certain sense, music is a sort of uniform, and it's easy to define yourself (or to allow yourself to be defined) by the type of music you listen to. Even today, I'm sure people label me as a "Hair Metal guy," although I'm not really sure what that label means in 20...
The Blog of Bret R. Fuller