An Introduction: How to Throw the Goat

Despite warnings from a few friends about even mentioning the word "goat" in an internet setting (my eyes still burn from the last time I opened that awful forward), I went ahead and named my "All Things Epic and Metal" blog Throw the Goat for two reasons:

a) It's a really catchy, neat name for a blog, and

b) Throwing the goat has been a tradition in metal since it was introduced by the Godfather of power metal, the magical elf himself, Ronnie James Dio. For those who don't know, the "Goat" is what is commonly called the "Metal Sign", the symbol of one's forefinger and pinky finger outstretched while the other fingers remain tucked into the hand. It looks as follows:


And, since this blog will be dedicated to all things metal, it seems only fitting to name it after a symbol that has come to embody the world of Heavy Metal.

I will begin with an introduction. My name is Jeremy and I am a metal head. I can't pretend that I've always been out of the closet - there was that whole Jr. High period when I listened to a lot of punk rock, and before that, my radio days. But looking back on my life thus far, there has been one constant: the soaring solos of Iron Maiden, the crushing riffs of Slayer, the moving shreddery of the late Dimebag Darrell. And so, in my early 20's, I finally accepted my fate as one of those social outcasts, God's most pathetic creation - the Metal Kid.

Throw the Goat will bring album reviews, band dedications, musings on metal culture, educational material, and hopefully (someday) interviews and such. Consider this one of many voices in the vast desert that is metal.

And so, I Christen this insignificant corner of the internet universe a haven for freaks, geeks, and dungeon keeps. Here, there are no limits to where metal can take you. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here, because we're sailing off the corners of the map ... and here, there be metal.