Like a lot of middle-aged guys of today, I came of age in the 1980s when music was very important to our collective pop culture. At the time I went to high school, 1984-1988, everyone had a specific idea about what their musical identity was. I bounced around a lot between musical factions - I started as a metal head, a fan of Black Sabbath, AC/DC and Metallica and then moved to new wave when I started meeting girls and guys who were into the Cure, Smiths and Flock of Seagulls, and then moved more towards punk and alternative music as I discovered great bands like the Ramones, Dead Kennedys and Black Flag, ultimately identifying with SST bands like Meat Puppets and Husker Du. Most of the kids at school were just into top 40 pop music and also rap music of the day, which was limited to Run DMC and the Beastie Boys. The popular kids were, "Main-hall kids," typically jocks and cheerleaders and they didn't mix with the bulk of us commoners.
As mentioned before, the "Main Hallers" had their lockers in the Main Hall. There were 4 total halls of lockers in my high school - Main Hall, Yellow Hall, Blue Hall and ?? I don't remember hall. Blue Hall was typically full of freshman and stoners, tough hicks and cigarette smoking metal chicks. Yellow hall was for all of us in-betweeners - band geeks, computer nerds, new wave kids, a few punks and a few queer kids as well as the moderately popular girls who weren't cheerleaders. Quite a mix! My locker was mid-way down yellow hall, a few blocks down from my friend Bär who was in the first section of Yellow where it joined with Main Hall. Behind my locker block was my rocker friend Loren and my friends Kyrie and Loretta. We all made a point of decorating our lockers with cut out pictures of music artists from magazines and/or movie stars. Prince was a popular locker theme as were hair metal bands like Motley Crüe and Ratt. My locker was pretty lame – I think I had some sad pictures of the Who, Led Zeppelin and U2, along with a stack of unused books and smashed moldy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The hippest lockers belonged to a suave olive skinned dude who’s name escapes me, but it was neatly plastered with a montage of Bananarama and Prince – all the girls loved this guy, he was very good-looking and had a very metrosexual fashion sense – and the also very-popular gay kid Luis, who’s locker was a love statement to Madonna, perfectly wallpapered with her images. I felt like a wet and moldy peanut butter sandwich next to these guys but hey, I respected their polished style sense.
Coming up next time: Skunk attack! Stoner Electronics class, Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo (for real!) and more 80s style tips
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