Chattanooga - It's not too shabby pt. I

I like many other things, but my love for metal started in 1983. Back then you had hard rock and you had heavy metal. Oh sure, the NWOBHM had more or less run it's course and there were these newer, more extreme bands out. And any toddler could count past the number of people aware of that in Chattanooga. The best record store in town was Paradise (which would later become Cat's) located on Brainerd Rd (close to where the Big Lots is now). They had a nice Import section where you could find stuff like Venom, Raven, etc. (Record Bar at Eastgate was the hipper place to buy records and tapes). You might see an advertisement for Metallica or Anthrax in the back of Hit Parader magazine. But metal was cool, regardless. Ozzy Osbourne was just so evil in the eyes of the general public. And if you listened to Black Sabbath you pretty well had a damn secret altar to Satan himself somewhere in your room. The cover of Born Again was a testimony  to that. A lot of the big tours came thru town at either the UTC Arena or Memorial Auditorium. Seeing Armored Saint/Whitesnake/Quiet Riot in 1984 will always be a fond memory for me. I don't know about a local metal scene at the time as I've never been in a band myself.