PRISONER EXPRESS

Music has always been important to me. Even as a child I loved the weekends when my parents had friends and family over for bar-b-que, beer, and music. Always loud, loud music. Although Spanish, oldies, and disco were the preferred tunes of my parents(and I did enjoy them as a kid), I gravitated towards the heavier guitar-laden sounds of heavy metal bands like Judas Priest, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, and Motley Crue (just to name a few). There was something magical about the powerful guitar sound that no accordion could compare to.

My parents accepted, albeit tentatively, my attraction to heavy metal. They even supported my eventual desire to play guitar. So much so that they bought me a guitar for my 14th birthday. It wasn't a top-of-the-line model, and I never did learn to tune the damn thing, but that didn't stop me from strapping it on to imitate the brutal guitar solo exchanges of K.K. Downing and Glen Tipton. Nor did it prevent me from playing, note-for-note (in my young mind anyway), with Mick Mars on Shout at the Devil and Helter Skelter. Hell no! For those precious moments my dreams were alive, and as long as I held that guitar in my hands, no one could kill them.

By the time I did learn to strum a real chord, I was 17 and lead vocalist for a 5- piece thrash metal band, aptly named Blasphemy. My guitar playing aspirations temporarily (or so I thought_ set aside for the more attractive role â€" according to my girlfriend â€" of frontman.

The transition from heavy metal to the even heavier and faster thrash metal came in 1986, two years before the formation of Blasphemy. My best friend and I unceremoniously pilfered a Slayers [Reign in Blood] cassette we saw thrown on the back floorboard of some guy's car. He was giving us a ride back from the beach in Port Aransas, TX. to our hometown of Aransas Pass, which was only a few miles away. There were at least a hundred or so cassettes scattered all over his car. It was painfully obvious that he didn't take care of his music, so we didn't think he'd miss one cassette. And, to be perfectly honest, we didn't care.

I owned about 100 cassettes or so myself, plus 30-35 records. Unlike him, I went through great pains to take care of each and every one. Music was too much a part of my life to see someone be so careless with their collection. Despite the fact that we had never heard of Slayer, and were merely interested because of the name, we never thought twice about taking it. Little did I know how profound of an impact that music would have - even to this day - on my life.

Unless one really loves music (and I'm referring to music in general), it's difficult to comprehend how it can have such an effect on a person. I do believe, however, that that applies even more so when one considers the style of music that Slayer, and other bands of that genre, play.

I can recall my parents voicing their concern on more than one occasion about the influence "that music" was having on me. What they failed to realize â€" and I was too afraid to tell them â€" is that I wasn't influenced by that style of music. In other words, I wasn't being changed because of it. It was the fact that I finally found the music that identified with what I was already feeling inside. It wasn't just the words or dark imagery (although that was a factor), but the intensity, the aggressiveness, the power, in which those words and imagery were conveyed.

Generally speaking, a song will open with a single guitar riff, thumping bass line, or maybe a little of both, before any lyrics chime in. It's that opening line that will usually grab your attention and will either keep you enthralled enough to continue listening or it won't. When I first heard Slayer, and thrash metal in general, the music alone was enough to keep me interested. It wouldn't have mattered if there were no vocals at all. The fact that I did relate to the religious/world views being communicated through the words in many of their songs only served to intensify my already-growing interest in their intoxicating music.

Thrash bands like Slayer, Kreator, and Destruction ultimately paved the way for me to even heavier, darker metal (if you can believe that) known as death/black metal. Together, they opened the door to a whole new world of music for me. A world where it was okay to voice the lingering doubts of my religious up-bringing. A world where it was okay to feel hatred towards a so-called merciful god that I believed in(at that point in my life) and blamed for allowing so much death and misery in my family. A world where it was perfectly normal â€" and even encouraged â€" to question the very existence of this alleged omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient entity. In short, a world where it was perfectly okay to be myself. Some might argue that my attitude stemmed from the rebelliousness that most teenagers experience. My parents certainly thought it was simply a phase that I was going through. Yet here I sit, typing these words at 35 years of age, the recalcitrant youth long since dead while my infinite love of music and undying disdain for organized religion remain as strong today as they were twenty years ago.

Unfortunately we aren't allowed to have CDs, DVDs or even cassettes, in Texas prisons; nothing but AM/FM radio. It took some adjusting to, and though I've grown to like some of the mellower pg13 music aired on mainstream radio today, nothing compares to hearing some real music. Luckily, I get that opportunity once a week on Pacifica Radio Station that dedicates three hours (3am-6am) every Friday to the raw, unadulterated, blistering symphony of madness that is underground metal.

For three mind-blowing hours I sit back with my eyes closed, relishing the ferocious metal assault on my eardrums. The crunching guitar riffs and incessant, yet precise, bludgeoning of the double-kick drums, layered with deep, inhuman vocal is, in my opinion, the ideal remedy for reliving stress, anger, depression, and every other negative emotion one might be feeling. After three hours of pummeling death metal you just won't have the energy to be stressed.

I never did live out my guitar playing dreams. I did, however, have the pleasure of fronting two brutal bands. One being the aforementioned Blasphemy from 1988-1990. And, if I do say so myself, we were a force to be reckoned with in the underground scene of Corpus Christi, TX. We also had the honor of playing two insane shows in San Antonio. The latter of which we considered the pinnacle of our short metal reign. Not a bad time for 5 teenage kids from a little unknown town.

I was released on the 3rd of May, 2002. Slayer was scheduled to play in Corpus Christi on the 29th of August, 7 days after my 31st birthday. My son was 10 years old at the time, and although he was three years younger than I was when my father took me to my first concert [Charlie Sexton-now guitarist for Stevie Ray Vaughan's former Double Trouble band, the Arc Angels]. I wouldn't have missed that opportunity for the world. As great a time as that was for us, I was back in jail two short months later.

Considering that I'm serving a life sentence, it's a safe bet that I'll never witness another concert again. Seems only fitting that the last band I ever saw live is the very band that defined the style of music that I would not only play as a kid, but that encouraged me to understand and be proud of who I am.