Corrosion Of Conformity

For those who have known me for awhile, know I that I started skateboarding in 1986. Or at least, I got my 1^st skateboard that Christmas. Debate the timeline all you want, but the real point here is that some of my musical tastes came from Thrasher magazine. Back in 5^th grade, I checked out the magazines a friend had. 6^th grade, I think I ended up with a subscription for a couple years. Thrasher, unlike Transworld, covered the world (ie; culture) of the skateboarding scene. From clothing to contests to skaters all over, but also, music.

At that age, aren’t we all pretty susceptible to the stuff around us? Music, tv shows, how to act around females (and vice versa), clothing style, etc, it all comes into play. Thrasher covered music; good and bad. From what I could remember, they were usually pretty fair in their reviews. I’m not sure how many albums I bought from random bands just because Thrasher had ads for them or a quick blurb about them. Despite being a skateboard magazine, they didn’t cover just punk. Heavy Metal and some hip-hop/rap showed up. I found bands like Metallica (good), Warrior Soul (gah), Prong (good), Boneless Ones (gah), Drunk Injuns (good), and hundreds of others. The focus of today’s blog is CORROSION OF CONFORMITY.

The album they kept on putting up ads for was for Technocracy. I never did end up with the album, but it looked hella cool (see picture). I believe this was also around the time Metallica’s “…And Justice For All” was coming out.

It wouldn’t be until college that I picked up a Corrosion of Conformity album. “DELIVERANCE”. MTV was airing the video for “Albatross” and it got me interested. I think one of the Mack Dawg snowboard videos used one of their songs too. Since I remembered these guys from middle school, I figured, “hey, I remember them. They are often in the same sentence as Slayer, Anthrax, Metallica, etc (and other metal bands around at that time)” Got the album probably from Columbia House or one of those mail order music companies (I’m sure they are long gone) where you can get like 12 albums for 1 cent or something like that. 

The album in itself was ok. They weren’t my favorite heavy metal band all of a sudden. But for that one album, it was cool enough. Yet, I never picked up another album for some reason.

Recently, the Corrosion name has been popping up on Facebook. Mainly because it’s through a band I “liked” tagging them or something. Don’t know if it was Anthrax or Metallica, but there were ads popping up for their new album. Besides downloading it thru Amazon.com, I also looked up info about the band. I suppose I was always curious about them since I would see Pepper Keenan’s name pop up now and then. Probably due to the fact that he showed up in the band DOWN with Pantera’s singer, Phil Anselmo. So if Pepper’s hanging with down AND he tried out for bassist for Metallica, I figured CoC had called it quits. But with a new album, then who was in it and how would it sound?

Well, it’s definitely not the sound I remember. I looked ‘em up on Wiki. It’s southern metal! (But isn’t Down and Zack Wylde’s band southern metal too?) It’s a 3-piece. With the creation of the internet and Amazon.com (and youtube.com), one can sample music. Sure, I didn’t sample their new album which is self-titled. But I did try out Technocracy and OMG, it sounded PUNK! Just babbling on here.

Oh right, talking about where some of my heavy metal tastes came from. Thrasher magazine. Targeting Corrosion of Conformity. Their new album which is self-titled, really don’t know what to say about it. Other than I find it hard to listen to. But I do admit this, they definitely did things their own way and not worry about what anyone else was going to think. Good old Thrasher magazine…