The Kingdom full of Jokers...

I spent most of my early teen years wasting time at a roller skating rink on the weekends, yet I think I only actually skated a handful of times. Roller Kingdom was ‘thee’ place to be on a Friday night in Woonsocket, RI, especially if you were a ‘metal head’. There was a group of ‘the regulars’ that included Dave, Ray, Neil, the other Neil, Ronnie, Brian, Ramob, Big Hans (who was later dubbed Muppet), Little Hans (who the hell has 2 friends named Hans?!), Sean, Jeremy, Al, Leigh and a few others. There was also a small group of girls (Mary-Ellen, Becky, Janet, Malda, Allison, Wendy & Lauren) that found some entertainment value in sitting around at a roller rink on a Friday night. For the most part we just hung around eating crappy pizza, playing video games like ‘Demolition Derby’, ‘Stun Runner’ or ‘720’ and just waiting, hoping, begging and praying for them to play a ‘real heavy metal’ song!

So you had about 10 guys all dressed in their own way, yet obviously in some sort of uniform that more often then not included black jeans (the jeans that had some sort of ‘stretch’ to them so they were kind of tight), a heavy metal t-shirt also usually black (generally of the persons favorite band, a band they were lucky enough to actually see in concert or a shirt they had recently picked up among the pipes, spoons & bongs at Buddha’s Bazaar). Hi-top basketball type sneakers (usually white) with insanely oversized tongues or classic tan work boots covered pretty much every ones feet and the uniform was topped off with either a denim jacket covered with patches & pins of assorted metal bands or the super rare leather jackets which were generally only worn by the ‘leaders of the group’. We all longed to have a leather jacket, but it was much easier to convince mom to buy a denim jacket (usually black) that would wind up frayed & torn because it looked cooler that way, then it was to get her to buy a leather jacket. Christ you probably had to go all the way to Lincoln Mall to get a leather jacket! Don’t even get me started on the couple of guys that wore the leather jacket with the sleeveless denim over it… what a badge of honor that would have been to wear!

Most of the night was like standing in line for hours waiting for the Ticket-Tron booth at Sounds Abound to open so you could be one of the first to get tickets for whatever act Frank J. Russo was bringing into the Providence Civic Center the following month. Yeah, it was just lots of sitting and chatting about what the best video Riki Rachtman had played on Headbanger’s Ball the previous week. Repeatedly calling the newest person to the group a ‘poseur’, the one word that always got a rise out of a metal head! Discussing at length this thing we had all heard about and seen on Mtv called ‘slam dancing’. See, like I said, lots of waiting….


However the waiting was over the minute some ones ears perked up at the first few notes of the bass intro to ‘Peace Sells’ by Megadeth, the first bell peel at the beginning of ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’ by Metallica or the holy grail, the opening guitar slide of ‘Toxic Waltz’ by Exodus. The moment one of these songs started there would be a mass exit of the snack-bar or arcade areas and 8-10 male teenagers ranging in age from 13-18 would literally run and leap over anything in their way to get to the first section of 12x12 coin operated gym lockers that lined the length of the skating surface, which was by no coincidence located directly under one of the giant p.a. speakers. Once every arrived a circle would form and everyone would ‘assume the position’.

One leg forward and one back like we were doing stretches for an upcoming Olympic hurdle event. Left arm bent upward at the elbow and right arm hanging down around the waist as we pretended to be playing some sort of pre-historic mammoth sized guitar. Every ones head pointed toward the center of the circle and bobbing up and down, hair swinging up & down, swaying side to side all in unison to the beat of the song, sometimes double time if it was a slower song.

That’s right ladies & gentlemen… we were not only metal heads, we were ‘head bangers’ and we took out titles very seriously! Immediately after a song ended people would scatter almost as fast as they had gathered. Some back to their pizza or video game, some to chat up the girls again and some made a B-line for the bathroom mirror where they would pull out a hairbrush that I have no idea how they fit in the pocket of jeans that tight so they could make sure their locks were flowing the proper way before they returned to their chosen waiting area for the next song to start .On a real good night if the DJ played 4-5 real metal songs you would wake up the next morning with a sore neck. It was a hell of a work out!

Ok…. Now I know that in hindsight what we were doing was ridiculous and we looked even more ridiculous doing it! What you have to keep in mind is that we were in Woonsocket and some of the guys came from Bellingham or Blackstone (there’s ONE stoplight in Blackstone… seriously!) so we didn’t know about seeing these bands. We didn’t know that 20 minutes up route 146 in the Mecca that is Providence there were bands like DRI, Kreator, Overkill & Nuclear Assault playing at places like The Living Room and Club Baby Head. Most of us didn’t get to see Metallica, Megadeth or Anthrax until they were playing arenas.

I don’t see many of the Roller Kingdom headbangers anymore and even when I do they are a shadow of their former selves. Much like Samson they have cut their hair and lost their strength. I do still smile when I’m in the car trying to sing the bridge part to ‘Liar’ by Megadeth, screeching along to anything John Connelly sang in a Nuclear Assault song or humming the bass line to the Metallica version of ‘Crash Course in Brain Surgery’.

I’m glad that there’s no video taped evidence of it, but I’m happy that I have the memories to laugh at myself about.