A LITTLE ROCK MAG HAS A DEVIL OF A TIME

On the surface, there’s nothing unusual about this sleepy town 30 miles southeast of South Bend. The corn is almost a foot high in the fields. The teen hangout is a recreation center called the Club Soda. The local theater is playing “Lethal Weapon.”

According to the “Area Churches” listings in the Goshen News, this town of about 20,000 has a generous assortment of 75 churches.

Beneath the surface is another matter. According to a recent Goshen News series on satanism, Goshen High principal Bob Duell said that “about half” of the 1,100 students there are “intrigued and might occasionally look at something (satanic).” The local paper also interviewed an area couple who claim to be ordained white witches and who say that as many as 3,000 to 4,000 people in the local area “dabble in the black arts,” while maybe 200 to 300 are “very serious” followers.

But even worse, in the opinion of some area religious leaders, Goshen (official nickname: The Maple City) is also the home of a new heavy-metal magazine called the Rock Rag.

Its unlikely editor and publisher--Marianne Hatfield, 36, mother of three teen-agers. A year ago, Hatfield says, she was just another “full-time housewife” who spent most of her time making homemade bread and canning strawberries.

Today, Hatfield is at her trailer-park home, pasting together the sixth issue of the Rock Rag, a low-budget, small-circulation (“about 12,000 copies”) magazine that features interviews, pictures and reviews of such head-banging favorites as Megadeth, Poison, Salem’s Wych and Cinderella.

The Rock Rag probably won’t win any major journalism awards--one issue didn’t even make it to the stands, Hatfield admits, after being plagued by “typesetter goofs.” Its layout is relatively crude, its writing (largely handled by local high schoolers and Indiana U. students) strictly fanzine prose. Hatfield is hardly a media tycoon. Her trailer-office lacks not only a computer but a telephone, forcing Hatfield to track down writers from a pay phone at a nearby shopping center.

Yet the Rock Rag has its loyal fans, including Hatfield’s 14-year-old son, Jason, whose unsuccessful efforts to find a nearby W.A.S.P. concert inspired his mom to start a magazine that could help keep kids informed about the hard-rock scene.

But what landed Hatfield on the front page of the Goshen News earlier this year wasn’t her uphill publishing struggle. She became a local celebrity after holding a press conference with two members of the Vinnie Vincent Invasion (a hard-rock band signed to PolyGram Records), in which Hatfield blasted local religious zealots, saying she had been harassed by members of Goshen’s First Assembly of God Church.

Hatfield, who looks more like a real-estate broker than a rock-magazine magnate, told a recent visitor that she has received numerous threatening phone calls, that the brakes on the car of one of her writers were “tampered” with and that her daughter had been “pushed around” at school by classmates and had been told that her mother would “burn in hell.”

Hatfield also said that during a recent visit to the local mall, she was accosted by a telephone repairman who banged a screwdriver on the glass exterior of the booth, shouting to her, “It’s none of my business, but you’re lost and you’re wasting your life.”

The Goshen police filed a harassment report from Hatfield earlier this year that seemed to sum up their cautious attitude toward the alleged feud. The report described Hatfield as “friendly and not demanding” and noted that after her complaint, her home was added to the department’s “extra-patrol” list until further notice. However, the reporting officer noted that Hatfield could not “furnish me one name or any proof that (her problems) were related to the church (or any of its members). “

First Assembly of God pastor Paul McGechie, whose anti-rock stance, according to Hatfield, has indirectly led to much of the harassment, freely acknowledges being a rock foe. “The lyrics tell kids to commit suicide, be immoral, take dope and worship Satan,” he said.

But he calls Hatfield’s charges “a bunch of baloney,” saying, “Our church members would never harass anyone.”

Still, the incidents have obviously rattled Hatfield, who said the local townsfolk had “a lot more to fear from small minds than from satanism.”

“If you want to do something stupid,” she said the other night, cooking dinner in her trailer, “just start a rock magazine in Indiana.”

“See that Mister Donut over there,” the long-haired kid said, pointing out the car window. “That’s where the cops hang out at night.” Farther down the street, he spotted a Moose Lodge. “Ugh!” he groaned, his face twisted into a lopsided frown.

At the next intersection, he excitedly jabbed his elbow into his visitor’s ribs. “That’s Main Street, where everyone used to go cruising. It was a big deal here. But now they’ve closed off the street on weekends. I mean, they’ve even killed cruising here, so now there’s really nothing to do.”

If the Goshen Chamber of Commerce were picking someone to provide a guided tour of town, they probably wouldn’t choose Jason (Frosty) Frost, 16, a high school dropout who’s perhaps Goshen’s leading heavy-metal fan and a sometime contributor to the Rock Rag.

Chain-smoking cigarettes, wearing an Iron Maiden T-shirt and an Army jacket emblazoned with such slogans as “Damage Inc.,” “Metal Militia” and a smart-aleck reference to the PMRC, Frosty would fit right in with the crowd of metal fans you see at the Whisky every Friday night. But here, where most kids appear relatively well-scrubbed and clean-cut, he appears to be the odd man out.

“Yeah, I want to get out of this place more than anything,” he said as he guided his visitor to the local mall. “This is a town full of religious people and skateboardists. They want this place to stay a small, backward country town. I had to go all the way to Battle Creek (Michigan) to see an Iron Maiden concert.

“If you’re a metal fan, you really do get hassled at school. My teachers would look at my long hair and stuff and tell me that I wouldn’t amount to anything.”

Frosty suddenly stuck his head out the window and shouted an off-color greeting to a pair of girls strolling on the sidewalk. When they waved back, he raised a fist in the air.

“I even got into an argument with my ex-girlfriend ‘cause she’s into Janet Jackson and I was listening to Metallica. She kept running them down and I told her Metallica is great ‘cause they talk about what’s really going on in the world today.”

And what’d his girl say? “Oh, she told me my life was completely self-destructive, ‘cause I drink beer and smoke cigarettes and stuff. But I told her I don’t hurt people and it’s my life and I can do what I want.” He shrugged. “I mean, so what if I get lung cancer?”

Frosty continued his tour, pointing out more teen hangouts and scanning the radio dial for favorite rock stations. He also noted the striking proliferation of churches around town.

At one corner stood the First Baptist Church. A few blocks away, the Trinity Lutheran Church. Nearby, the Sunnyfield Missionary Church. Once, on the outskirts of town, a visitor had to slow his car and carefully pass an elderly Amish man driving a horse and buggy.

Next door to a McDonald’s, with a broad, neatly trimmed lawn, stood Rev. McGechie’s First Assembly of God Church. “Yeah, that guy is really wild,” Frosty said. “He doesn’t like rock at all, even if the choir’s singing it in the school band.”

Frosty also downplayed the notion that he and his friends were influenced by satanism or any other religious cults. In fact, he and a chum recently attended services at McGechie’s church to--as he put it--”check out the scene there.” Asked to sign in, they used aliases, writing in the names of their favorite heavy-metal guitarists.

“It was pretty weird,” he said. “We were dressed totally thrashed out, like we were going to a Metallica concert. And boy, did we get dirty looks. But I got to say the preacher was real nice. He came up and shook our hands. He didn’t even try to turn us to God or anything.”

Still, Frosty remained unimpressed. “He had the whole preaching bit down--he had the old people digging out their Social Security checks and everything. But all that Biblical stuff was too much. It sounded like a scam to me.”

What does Rev. McGechie think of rock ‘n’ roll? He answered with a boisterous laugh. “How much time have you got?”

An earnest, articulate man who appears younger than 57 (“I think I look 37”), McGechie has been pastor of the Pentecostal First Assembly of God Church for the past 16 years. He says firmly that rock ‘n’ roll is “the devil’s music--always has been.”

“You know, we’ve had missionaries go see tribes in Africa--as far back as 20 years ago--who brought rock records with them. Now these are natives that don’t wear clothes, that haven’t been to Times Square or anything. And they knew immediately what that music was all about. Our people would play these rock records and the natives would say, ‘Why are you playing that devil’s music?’ ”

McGechie insisted that he doesn’t hate rock fans. “We love them. We want to save them. Rock just doesn’t promote any moral behavior. It splits up families. It promotes illicit sex, alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, you name it.”

McGechie speaks from experience. He says his stepson is a big rock fan. “I came into his life too late to do anything about it. And he’s not living at home with us now. But he’s really into rock. We didn’t just jump on him or condemn him. We pray for him. But it’s a tough battle. He’s into dope now too. That’s what rock can do.”

McGechie doesn’t think much of Christian rock either. “I know these bands pass out Bibles and say they believe in Jesus, but they’re using the same methods--the same beat and sometimes the same words--to reach people. It’s like committing a little bit of adultery to get a prostitute’s attention. If we have to do that, we’re defeating our own purpose.”

While McGechie hotly insisted that his congregation had “nothing to do” with the harassment of Hatfield, he didn’t dispute her charges. “In fact, I know who the people are who did it,” he said. “The police just never asked me.”

McGechie said the perpetrators had attended his church services “a couple of times” but weren’t members of his congregation. “They’ve even been at our church, picketing us. They’re the kind of people who are very radical, with reprobate minds. They’re a far-out bunch who live way out in the country. They believe no one is as devout as they are, so they’re against most everybody.”

Rev. McGechie wasn’t surprised to find instances of Satan worship in the local community. While he agreed that some allegedly satanic heavy-metal symbols are just on hand for shock value, he insists that what begins as fun can become dangerous. “It’s like dope. Nobody starts with heroin.”

McGechie’s laundry list of evil influences includes other religions. Recently he wrote in a newsletter, which he regularly sends to members of the local community, that “one of Satan’s greatest weapons is religion,” listing numerous “religions and gimmicks” that he saw as allied with the devil. They included Scientology, Buddhism, Judaism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Romanism, Ouija boards, Palmists and Blood Magic.

“I’ve studied the history of Roman Catholicism, and while it has a semblance of Christianity, it comes entirely from paganism,” he said. “And while I don’t hate the Jews, we know from the teachings of God that Judaism--as a religion--will not save your soul. Only Christ can give you the power to live above sin. You certainly aren’t going to get that power from rock ‘n’ roll.”

Sitting in her trailer, studying color slides of Lizzie Borden and other potential cover subjects while cajoling her kids to finish their homework, Hatfield admits that she sometimes has second thoughts about being thrust into the role of a small-town rock crusader.

Her magazine has constant financial problems. Her trailer is up for sale--”so we can leave if we have to.” Her oldest daughter, who doesn’t live at home, dislikes heavy metal so much that she “won’t even read my magazine.” Her husband, a local electrician, isn’t entirely happy about her new workload either. “He likes a full-time wife,” she said. “So I do get a lot of complaints that Mom doesn’t put dinner on the table and is putting all her time into the magazine.”

Still, Hatfield isn’t ready to give up. “When I was in high school here, I was very quiet. No one knew who I was. Now I’m opening up my mouth ‘cause I’ve got something to say. I didn’t know anything about journalism when I started this. So I had to ask a lot of dumb questions so I could learn. But I guess that’s how you do it.

“There’ve been a lot of little problems. But I sense that there are a lot of kids around here who are watching to see if I can make it, if I can go up against the system. This area is very slow to accept anything new or controversial.”

Hatfield shrugged. “But you just keep at it. I know we’ve still got a long way to go. It’s taken a lot of determination, determination I never thought I even had.”