I knew a guy in college, Tom. He was fifteen years older than everybody else, and he was just this big, Nordic guy covered in tattoos. He had a shaved head and had “lamb of god” tattooed on his calf in old timey script but not because he was a metalhead, because he was a Christian. Well, he was a hesher too. And none of that Christian metal bullshit, you know, the real stuff — I don’t know. Guy had a lot of story to tell. The religion department was pretty small, and we wound up in a bunch of classes together. Once, after an event, I gave him a ride home or to his car or someplace. We piled in my thousand year old Jeep Cherokee and he said “punch it!” and I didn’t get it. His wife quit her white-collar 9-5 to open a quilt shop. I think she was vegan and he was vegetarian, but I’m not 100% on that. Anyway one time we were both in class early and he twisted around in one of those desks, you know the desks, the ones with the arm on the right for righties and left for lefties so you can write? He twisted around in one of those desks and told me that once, he got home from wherever he’d been and his wife had shaved her head. He asked her why and she said she’d listened to this album all the way through, then listened to it again all the way through, and it was just so fucking good she had to shave her head. She just had to, and so she did it.
I want to hear an album that good. I want to hear an album so good I just have to shave my fucking head.