When I was a kid, I had an overwhelming passion for two things: music and baseball. I would spend hours on end staring at my Topps sticker yearbooks, or my baseball card collection, reading stats, absorbing the team players, and learning all I could about the history of the sport.
With music, I was the same way. I would listen to the radio endlessly. I read the linear notes to all of the albums and cassettes that I owned, and then I would read the linear notes from my mother’s record collection. Both baseball and music were huge for me.
So how on Earth did I come to choose one over the other? Why not enjoy both endlessly until my dying days? Well, there always has to be a number one, if for no other reason than prioritizing. When I was 14, Cinderella released Long Cold Winter, their masterpiece album, and I had to have it. I saw the video for "Gypsy Road" every day on MTV and the song was just fantastic! This was an album that I yearned to own.
But, like any typical teenager who had not yet entered the working world, I had no money. I had spent it all on baseball cards and other assorted junk. I also had no job, because at 14, I wasn’t quite yet of the age where I could work, but I was certainly at the age where I could spend money. And my $2 weekly allowance (yes, you read that number right) did not allow me many choices when it came to buying stuff. A $9.00 cassette would take weeks to save up for. In the teenage world of instant gratification, that might as well have been a year.
So, one day, that would turn out to be life altering for young Ryo, my stepbrother and I went to the local shopping mall. For some reason, my stepbrother always seemed to have money. Either he was a savvy saver, or my stepfather gave him money (perhaps out of guilt) that was never provided to me. I mean, seriously, who gets a $2 allowance? So, while roaming the mall with no money in my pockets, I stopped at Sam Goody to browse through the new cassettes.
There was Cinderella in the new release rack, just taunting me. I stared lovingly at the cover, with a little drool spilling out of my mouth and running down my chin. What was I to do? I HAD to have that cassette. Thinking fast on my feet, and out of other options, I proposed a deal with my stepbrother on the spot. It was a deal that I did not think he would accept.
I proposed to him that I would give him ALL of my baseball cards, every single one that I owned, if he would buy that Cinderella album for me right now. As I tried to read his face with my heart thumping away, I thought for sure that he would say “no deal.” To my surprise, he showed an opening.
“Every one?” he asked. “The entire collection?”
“Except for the Rickey Hendersons!” I blurted out. Rickey Henderson was by far my favorite baseball player and I wanted to salvage at least a small piece of my collection.
He looked at me for another moment and then slowly nodded. “It’s a deal.” I was shocked. I was finally getting Long Cold Winter, the coveted Cinderella cassette. Yes, I had paid a high price, but to me it was worth it. Baseball cards were a thing of childhood, but glam metal music, well that was a sign of the angry, puberty-stricken, changing teenage boy. It was that particular moment in the Sam Goody that changed my life forever.
My step-brother bought me the cassette and when we got home, I gave him my entire collection of baseball cards, minus the Rickey Hendersons. It was two copy paper boxes filled with cards in meticulous condition and I would miss them. To me, however, it was deal well worth the price I paid.
From that fateful day on, I really started building my music collection. No longer buying baseball cards or spending time reading the stats on the back, I became a music geek, consuming linear notes life a fat kid housing a candy bar.
I still have that Cinderella cassette. I’ve since gotten the CD and loaded it onto my IPOD, but I refuse to recycle or sell that cassette tape. That tape is a remembrance of my change. It’s a moment in my personal history that set the stage for many years to come. I will own that tape until my dying day.
Every time I see Cinderella live, or listen to Long Cold Winter, I look back fondly on that moment in my life. To this day, I still stand behind my decision. Music has brought a lot of joy into my life and has shaped me into the man that I am today. Had I chosen baseball, who knows where I would be, but I am happy with the person I’ve become. And I owe that all to a single choice I made many years ago.
Slaughter came out first and while I can’t recall exactly which songs they performed, I know that they played a majority of songs from their first (self-titled) record. I have always been a fan of Mark Slaughter’s voice, going all the way back to his days in Vinnie Vincent’s Invasion. He has a high range that not many vocalists can compete with. Sounding exceptionally well on that warm June evening, Slaughter was magnificent.
Slaughter set the tone for the evening and passed the torch to Dokken, who was out next. In 2000, the only member of Dokken still in the band from the original 80s version was Don Dokken himself. Long gone was George Lynch (due to several feuds with Don). The other members slowly left the band over the years. Don was performing on the moniker Dokken, but we all knew this was really Don Dokken solo artist, performing the hits of Dokken. What could be done? The band did carry his name.
Cinderella came on stage next as one of the two headline acts for the evening. I had never seen Cinderella live before, so this was a real treat for me. I had adored this band as a younger lad and to finally see them live while in my late 20s was a dream come true.
“Ladies and gentleman… please welcome… Poison!” With the announcers scream, so entered Poison. This was the second time that I would see them live (and for the second year in a row). I was more excited this time around because I knew how great they were in concert.