It was meant to be family getaway with the kids at a Massachusetts zoo — a chance to escape the voluble torrents of heavy metal and the malicious winds of evil for the day. But the devil was not to be denied.
While taking snapshots of caged monkeys, hungry llamas and giant mating turtles, this vision from beyond the black swam before our camera lens, and the sunshiny afternoon turned to the terror of darkest night.
The Beast threatened to turn the place into a pile of smoldering ash unless we succumbed to his vilest wishes and paid him homage on Headbangersblog.com on July 4 instead of grilling hot dogs and cutting slices of apple pie. So, before we leave to catch the fireworks, we present:
Heavy Metal’s 5 Best Uses of the Goat:
1: Floatin’ the Goat: Otherwise known as flashing the devil horns or the goat horns. Although Gene Simmons claims he invented the salute by accident, Ronnie James Dio insists he was the first to use the sign as a heavy metal gesture. Although, to truly represent a symbol of evil, as Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine once told us, the thumb should not be wrapped around the front of the middle two digits. Instead, it should be extended along with the middle fingers to form a point that represents the animal’s snout.
2: Venom’s “Welcome to Hell”: The cover art of the band’s 1981 album depicted a goat’s face inside the star of a pentagram. The evil album pre-dated black metal, but it would be Venom’s 1982 record Black Metal that coined the term.
3: Slayer’s “Reign in Blood”: In addition to defining the very pinnacle of thrash metal, this 1986 offering featured some sick cover art — a procession through a river of flames led by a goat hoisted high on a throne. Decapitated heads on sticks merely add to the gruesome effect.
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5: The tattoo of a goat’s head on the bicep of Behemoth frontman Nergal: Maybe it’s not the biggest or more wicked looking tattoo of a goat, but few characters in modern death/black metal seem so in tune with the teachings of the devil’s scholars or as likely to bring those ideas to mainstream metal fans as Nergal. The best thing to come from Poland since pierogies.
i think the rock on symbol or goat horns was invented by gene simmons because of the fact that he was around b4 dio or dave.