One to Grow On
Throughout my life, songs and artists have appeared as if by magic; the right music at the right time often making the difference between life and despair; between hope and dismal resignation.
As I march through adulthood, those moments still occur---perhaps less frequently, but still with the same fire as when I was a gangly, shiftless youth. From Oasis to The Crystal Method, my post-high-school record collection has never stopped growing, even if it's now more often in the form of ones and zeros than actual discs.
Taking a break between Bigger than Jesus work sessions late last night, I asked Joni a question that's been on my mind a lot lately: are there any current musical favorites that you wish you'd had as a teenager? I mean, how different would Joni DeRouchie's adolescence have been if she'd had Rufus Wainwright to serenade her to sleep every night? What would the modern-day Clyde Lewis give to send a Rob Zombie album back to himself in 1978?
I think about Andrew W.K., and how, had I heard I Get Wet as a guitar-wielding teen, I might very well have chosen the path marked "music", instead of "radio". In retrospect, that would have been the wrong career for me -in many, many ways- but I think it might have happened. Something about that powerful, glorious, righteously dumb anthemic genius might have tipped the scales toward a life of rock and roll fameseeking. (Ditto for The Wolf. What would I have given as a teenager to hear someone say, "I want you to remember you're not better off dead"?)
I think about a band like Hatebreed. Since I'm a 32-year-old, poodle-owning nitwit, I find that their brand of furiously-roiling aggro-rock mainly serves to lessen my road rage while driving...or at least re-channel it. But, as a band which essentially performs endless variations on "Dyer's Eve", their steel-hard defiance, their absolute refusal to bend, could have been my teenage self's greatest ally.
Perhaps it's best that these albums waited until my later years to manifest themselves...you don't want to find all the good stuff at once, after all. Such discoveries are like Wonka's golden tickets...great enough to keep you searching, rare enough to take you by surprise.
How about you?
As I march through adulthood, those moments still occur---perhaps less frequently, but still with the same fire as when I was a gangly, shiftless youth. From Oasis to The Crystal Method, my post-high-school record collection has never stopped growing, even if it's now more often in the form of ones and zeros than actual discs.
Taking a break between Bigger than Jesus work sessions late last night, I asked Joni a question that's been on my mind a lot lately: are there any current musical favorites that you wish you'd had as a teenager? I mean, how different would Joni DeRouchie's adolescence have been if she'd had Rufus Wainwright to serenade her to sleep every night? What would the modern-day Clyde Lewis give to send a Rob Zombie album back to himself in 1978?
I think about Andrew W.K., and how, had I heard I Get Wet as a guitar-wielding teen, I might very well have chosen the path marked "music", instead of "radio". In retrospect, that would have been the wrong career for me -in many, many ways- but I think it might have happened. Something about that powerful, glorious, righteously dumb anthemic genius might have tipped the scales toward a life of rock and roll fameseeking. (Ditto for The Wolf. What would I have given as a teenager to hear someone say, "I want you to remember you're not better off dead"?)
I think about a band like Hatebreed. Since I'm a 32-year-old, poodle-owning nitwit, I find that their brand of furiously-roiling aggro-rock mainly serves to lessen my road rage while driving...or at least re-channel it. But, as a band which essentially performs endless variations on "Dyer's Eve", their steel-hard defiance, their absolute refusal to bend, could have been my teenage self's greatest ally.
Perhaps it's best that these albums waited until my later years to manifest themselves...you don't want to find all the good stuff at once, after all. Such discoveries are like Wonka's golden tickets...great enough to keep you searching, rare enough to take you by surprise.
How about you?
12 Comments:
I'm not sure what I would have thought of "Franks Wild Years" in '86 when it was new. I'm not sure I would have been ready for it. I probably would have hated it. It would have been wasted on me -- like when they force idiot teenagers to read Steinbeck in school. You can't force Steinbeck on people... it has to be discovered when the time is right otherwise it won't mean anything.
I'm in complete agreement with The Nerdy Girl. I have no regrets on my musical path. I have always been a late-bloomer, so if I were able to send something like Ian Moore or Big Head Todd back to my pimply-faced 16 year-old likeness, I would have thought it sucked and went right back to my Great White & Slaughter cassettes. There always have been songs that have turned my world upside down - notably, 'One' by U2, 'Believe' by Lenny Kravitz, and 'Pride & Joy' by Stevie Ray Vaughan - and there will be songs like this for me in the future. It is my karma, for lack of better understanding, and I am completely comfortable in my current musical 'phase'. Yet, I eagerly await the next 'song' to whisper sweet nothings in my ear and completely toss my world into blissful chaos all over again.
cheers!
I know we're not swimming in Steely Dan fans around here, but they're a good example of this phenomenon for me. I grew up hearing Steely Dan EVERYWHERE in the seventies and I HATED them. Hearing them as an adult, I hated them even more. I would literally have to leave the room when my husband was listening to them because they filled me with a trembling, black rage. And then, one day about six years ago -- I remember it vividly -- I was driving my old Toyota Van Wagon down 23rd avenue and the radio was tuned to KINK and this song came on that was clearly Steely Dan. I reached to hit the knob and change the station, but I stopped... it was an unfamiliar song... it was "Cousin Dupree" off their new record "Two Against Nature." And it was genius. It made me so giddy I nearly drove off the road. From that point on, I heard those old songs in a brand new light. I listened... really LISTENED... to the brilliant turn of phrase in songs like "Reelin' in the Years" and "Kid Charlamagne". And I couldn't get enough of them. I still can't. They didn't mean fuck all to me as a kid but they mean the world to me now.
I'll second that beating for liking Duran Duran.
There was a musical turn around for me. In 1979 or 80 I was mired in country music and falling deeper and deeper into a Bocephus-oriented spiral when a friend played Hendrix's version of All Along the Watchtower for me REALLY FUCKING LOUD through headphones on the bus to school. That song was not actually the greatest song I've ever heard, but it opened the door to the dude's genius. From there the cowboy hats, name-emblazened belts, and shit-kickers fell away like the roof of the superdome.
Some time during that period I flashed on a car ride I took with my sister and her boyfriend about 5 years earlier. He put an 8-track tape in and said, "this is Jimi Hendrix, the greatest guitar player that ever lived." I think that may have planted a seed that, upon listening, began to germinate.
Hendrix was so much more than psychedelia and blues. He was jazz, funk, metal,and poetry - often at the same time. He had so much material in the can that he released several studio albums after he died. Unlike Tupac, most of these albums were fully formed musical ideas, not just scraps with session players inserted (ok 2 of those came out, but they sucked).
The guy formed a substantial portion of me as a music geek and as a guitar player. Though I'll never be in the same universe as him, its something to shoot for.
Dude......"fell away like the roof of the superdome"..??
What, was that not PC enough for you?
Here's my ramblings...
I think that if had some Kid Rock and Eminem back 'in the day' to prove that white guys could rap (unlike Vanilla Ice and Snow) it would have been helpful during my time spent on community service in the N. Portland youth shelter.
I do think that Slipknot might have meshed well with the Slayer/GWAR/C.O.C phase I went through. Maybe a little Andrew W.K. thrown in for good measure.
Finally, my son introduced me last year to Evanescense. I think that if I'd had them to listen to along with Depeche Mode and the Cure, my son wouldn't exist as I would have opened a vein at 15. Guess that's the time paradox old Doc Brown tried to warn us about, huh?
The New Pornographers are changing me as I type this. I cannot stop thinking about them and will probably get arrested for doing something involving them and a cult or a poodle or empty movie reels. I don't know. But they are carrying me far far away lately. Sooper far. Like no other band.
i think this goes the other way too. i met a kid in oakland once who was saving bands for later. he had this theory that, at some point, everything is going to suck so he should have some stand by music. he was saving bands like the pixies and nirvana. i think i was subconsciously doing that with fugazi. are there any bands you are saving for later?
I'm saving Lucinda Williams for later. And also Wilco.
A poodle? :-/
Right now, I'm living off of The Arcade Fire. I started liking them early this year and saw them at Sasquatch fest and then again just a few weeks ago. Best damn show I seen in years.
I also wish I had Ween in the late 80s, and I wish I got into Ministry a lot sooner.
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