In honor of the big basketball tournament going on right now, I thought I’d weigh in with one of my own monster assemblies of items, this time in the form of a motley mixtape for the masses. (To add to the 15-year long version we’ve already got going on the right!) Serving as inspiration is Jeff Tweedy’s latest book, World Within a Song: Music that Changed my Life and Life that Changed my Music, which I read right before the holidays. Similar to his last two it was another enjoyable read from one of my favorite neighbors and it got me thinking about this post, which I’ve been cooking ever since.
For those who haven’t read it yet it’s basically a mixtape of 50 songs that had an impact on Tweedy’s life — not necessarily the 50 best or most meaningful songs, just songs that were important to him at the time or particularly representative of a stage of his life. He’s got some good ones in there (I too am an adherent to the Band, Stones, and Replacements, as we’ll discuss again soon) and the exercise got me thinking about similar songs from my life. It’s actually a fun game to play, asking folks to share what some of their songs would be, and I’d love to hear from the eight of you who occasionally stop by here as to what some of yours would be.
Since I’m (conservatively/kindly) half as talented as Mr Tweedy I shall share a commensurate number of tunes (25 to his 50) and we’ll follow the same rules as he did in his book — these aren’t necessarily my favorites (some most definitely are not, as you shall see), but they’re songs that make me think about a person and/or time of my life every time I hear them. It’s not an exhaustive list — I know most folks likely won’t care about the backstory or my attachment to some of these songs, as I am not a famous musician and/or celebrity, so we’ll keep it down to the ones that got me through early adulthood and when I started boring people with my thoughts about music again in this blog. I may have referred to some of these songs/stories over the years, so apologize if I have — once I started thinking about them, though, some songs are just so evocative it would be wrong not to include them here. So think of what tunes do the trick for you and send em my way — in the meantime, settle in for a brief look back into the early days of yours truly…
1. Eddie Rabbit and Rod Stewart: we’ll start the list with an inheritance and a pair of songs I don’t actually remember loving at the time. That’s because I was in that blissful period of early childhood where your brain is a pile of poorly formed goo, where remembering such hard hitting things as “your name/parents’ faces” and “don’t get in vans/take candy from strangers” are considered strong indicators of future success. As I came out of this fog, though, I distinctly remember my parents and grandparents constantly telling me how I used to dance/sing to “I Love a Rainy Night” and “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” whenever they came on.
The fact that they all told the same story seemed a good enough indicator they weren’t lying (that or they’d really rehearsed their stories before they got to me) and eventually (sadly) more concrete proof was unearthed to corroborate their story. This came in the form of family photos and (worse) home movies where this corn-silk headed kid could be seen standing in front of the TV or radio, dancing and belting out the tunes like a miniature lounge singer into his invisible hand mic. That I was already dressed something like a lounge singer didn’t help, with a large lapeled shirt on under a sweater and pleated pants and boat shoes. (What were my parents dressing me for, political office or the playground?) Minor fashion-borne embarrassment aside, my clear love of the songs and wanting to share that with my family resonated with me and served as a solid foreshadowing of how big a part music would play in my life over the years. That I later learned to like both these songs on their own only enhanced those old stories more. [Memory Lane Mementos: “I Love a Rainy Night,””Do Ya Think I’m Sexy”]
2. Eddy Grant: one of my earliest music memories is of sitting in the back seat of my mom’s tan Buick Century and hearing Eddy Grant’s big single “Electric Avenue” for the first time. I still remember the exact location — we were at a stop light across the street from my grade school, it was the middle of winter, and we were on our way home to fix lunch when all of a sudden this song comes on the radio. Within fifteen seconds I was no longer absentmindedly staring at the snow wondering what I was going to eat, but rather asking/demanding “Mom! CAN YOU TURN THIS UP!?!”
From the distorted motorcycle revving or Eddy’s barking at you (I’m still not sure if he’s saying “Hey!” or “Oy!” or something else, but it was an undeniable exclamation that captured the electricity of its title and jolted me to awareness in that steamed up back seat), it was — and still is — glorious. I’m pretty sure I could listen to this one a hundred more times and still not get tired of it. That something so unique/strange became a hit (along with Prince’s “When the Doves Cry,” another all-time fave) is still a minor miracle. Let’s throw both of em onto our mixtape — no one cares! [Memory Lane Mementos: “Electric Avenue” and “When Doves Cry”]
3. Dolly and Kenny: these two form another of my earliest music memories as a) they were always on in the house (Mom was a huge fan — particularly of Kenny — so we always had things like “The Gambler” or “Lady” coming from the record player (or “Nine to Five” for Ms Dolly)) and b) they were my first concert. For some reason they were playing at the nearby zoo so we went as a family to see the uncharacteristic combo of animals and superstars one warm summer night. And while the venue didn’t cause any consternation (it just shows how accepting kids tend to be — your family isn’t weird until you meet others, for example, and concerts at zoos aren’t strange until you go to other ones) I remember thinking how great it was to see music live (in the open air, no less!)
I remember Kenny’s white suit, I remember Dolly’s towering beehive of hair, both resplendent in the lights, and I remember them singing this song to each other, face to face, staring lovingly in the other’s eyes, and the powerful connection they seemed to have. I remember thinking “wow – these two seem like they’re really in love,” so it must have been quite compelling to register to my childlike brain, so untrained in the ways of the heart. (A stark contrast to my mind today, of course…) Despite being played roughly one billion times over the subsequent years, it’s still a great song from two genuinely likable, seemingly sweet stars. [Memory Lane Memento: “Islands in the Stream.” This was the extent of my exposure to country music until years later when Garth Brooks became big when I was in middle school and two of my best friends used to listen to him a ton. One of them vacationed with us in Florida around that time and similar to my first childhood entry where I would croon tunes like an over the top lounge lizard, we did a joint performance of “Friends in Low Places” at one of those video karaoke joints, which used to crack us up when we watched the tape later (and then gave high school Sunshine shivers if anyone ever knew it existed — or worse, saw it) so we’ll add that one too. Cringeworthy performance aside (mine, not Garth’s) it helped get me back into country some and took me back to the classics like Dolly, Kenny, Johnny, Willie, Waylon, and more that I still enjoy today…]
4. The Beatles, Stones, and Soul Sunday: growing up in my house there was always music on — when you were doing chores, doing homework, cooking, or just sitting around. You had it on while you were playing in the yard, shooting baskets in the driveway, puttering about the garage/basement, or driving around in the car. Each person had it on while they were getting ready in the morning, meaning you had three dueling stereos (Pops was always out before we got up), each blaring so as not to be diluted an iota by the other housemates’ concurrent concertos. You had it on while you walked to school/class and had it on while you walked home. It was an omnipresent part of my existence (our house had music on like others had the TV/news on) and it was fueled by my parents’ rather sizable record collection. (One I really wish had managed to survive the many floods, moves, and deaths over the years — it used to take up multiple shelves in the built-in bookcase my dad made and had some real gems in there.) When they weren’t spinning platters of their own we listened to the radio, which contrary to today used to have a number of excellent themed broadcasts that warranted tuning in.
One of those was Breakfast with the Beatles, which would play a medley of the band’s best tunes (as if there are any bad ones?) and I remember it soundtracking many a morning meal as mom made pancakes or we sat around the kitchen table eating cereal. Similarly there was Soul Sunday that played stuff like Brother Ray, Reverend Al, and Big O (Charles, Green, and Redding to the uninitiated), along with Aretha, James Brown, and more. This would usually be on on the way to/from church and would serve as either my medicine (as I sang the songs in my head rather than listen to the sermon/Sunday School) or my motivation (to suffer through said articles just a little while longer so I could get back to the car and fill my head with more worthwhile material). Neither of my parents were particularly religious (Mom did it out of obligation to my grandparents, my dad did it out of obligation to her, and I did it because I had no choice), but all of us loved the sincerity and depth of these songs and looked forward to it bookending the otherwise underwhelming start to our Sundays. (To this day I love that no one actually wanted to be in church, yet we still wasted an hour plus each week doing so — ah, the things we do to avoid confrontation…)
While we all loved those songs, if I had to classify where folks fell on the spectrum, Mom was always more of a Beatles fan while Pops was more into the Stones (not that he disliked the Beatles, mind you — he wasn’t insane). I don’t remember the Stones having their own dedicated broadcast, but we frequently listened to the four Big Hits and Hot Rocks double albums (as well as the red/blue compilations for the Beatles). Yet one of my strongest Stones memories was from this show called Tour of Duty, which used “Paint it Black” as its theme song. I couldn’t tell you a thing about the show other than how dark and menacing that song was/is and how well I thought it fit the material. (I remember it being about Vietnam — an experience Pops had lived firsthand and was always reluctant to discuss, so shows like this and movies were the closest I got to understanding what it might have been like for him and I took his wanting to watch it as a positive sign.) I’ve remained a huge Stones fan over the years (going to see them in the 7th row with Pops while they played deep cuts like “Sister Morphine” or “She’s Like a Rainbow” is another cherished memory), but this is one of the earliest so it gets the nod. (For the Stones, at least — for the others we’ll go with “In My Life” and the “Happy Song” from Big O.) [Memory Lane Mementos: “In My Life”, “Paint it Black,” and “Happy Song (Dum Dum),” which my sister and I danced to at her wedding for her father/daughter dance.]
5. Bruce, Eddie, and Friday Night Videos — one of the other manifestations of music being a constant in my life came at the start of the weekend when my parents would religiously watch the latter program with their index finger poised vigilantly over the REC button on the VCR, ready to plunge down in an instant to capture the latest track they loved for future viewing/listening. Now for our younger readers there are a number of things in that sentence that likely don’t make much sense, so let’s take a moment to unpack them. First, there used to be no MTV. (Actually, we should go back farther — MTV used to play nothing but videos, which were these mini-movies that accompanied songs and either helped you see what the song was about, or were nonsensical visuals that showed an artist’s quirkiness/murkiness and were equally lauded by the public.) In these dark and scary times before MTV existed, there were shows like Friday Night Videos that served as the precursors and played the biggest hits of the day on broadcast television. (Like a radio station, only with pictures!) Second, there used to be these things called VCRs, which allowed you to record programs onto these large, rectangular cassettes and watch them again later. (Like a Tivo humped a Walkman and this was their child!)
So in this wild world of arcane technology and music obsessives, my parents would have their glass of wine/beer at the ready and every Friday night do battle with the hourlong program, diligently cataloging their favorite songs so we could watch/listen to them later. (One of the many things lost to the years were the dozens of tapes they recorded, each with a handwritten list on yellow legal paper of which songs were on each tape.) And while we’ve already established that both my parents had respectable tastes in music (further proof lies below if you’re still not convinced), there are always a few songs that sneak through our defenses and make us fall for them, even if we know we shouldn’t. So while almost every tape seemed to have a song from Michael, Madonna, or the Police on them (if not all three), there were also one-off entries that make you laugh (or cringe) in retrospect. Two of them came from actors who for some reason decided to take a break from their super-stardom to record a song, and yet I vividly remember them being favorites in my house — particularly by my mom.
The first was by Eddie Murphy who was riding high on his Delirious special at the time and legend has it was challenged by the late, great Richard Pryor about whether or not he could sing. Pryor apparently bet Murphy $100,000 that he couldn’t, which led Murphy to hole up in Rick James’ studio to record this one. It’s not clear who won the bet, but we clearly won overall as this remains a lighthearted, semi-ridiculous (yet super catchy) novelty track from the 80s. Not to be outdone a few years later Bruce Willis, riding high on his fame from Moonlighting (one of my mom’s favorite shows), decided to record his debut album (deceptively called The Return of Bruno), which had a series of blues and soul covers on it, including this one, formerly done by the Staple Singers. As if that pedigree wasn’t good enough, the album also sports folks like Booker T Jones and the Temptations, while the aforementioned song has backing vocals by the Pointer Sisters (more on them in a bit). It’s total cheese, a relic of the 80s’ well-known excesses, but I defy any of you not to get the nah-nah-nah-nah part stuck in your head for hours. Mom loved this song (and truth be told, I think so did my dad) so I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for it, picturing her belting out the chorus while she danced around the house. [Memory Lane Mementos: “Party all the Time” and “Respect Yourself”]
6. Footloose and Bruce – if ever there was an iconic album in my house (for my mom at least), one that was played to the point of near torture (preview of later sections for my sister) it was a tossup between one of these two. I remember seeing their vibrantly colored covers (the one with Kevin Bacon dancing in profile, the other with the Boss’ “handsome tush” (according to my mom) in front of the flag) leaning against the rest of the records in the corner of the room while the now/then/permanently overplayed strains of the title songs blasted from the speakers like an army of eagles set to rampage through the skies and wondering what was going on. Were we under attack? Was something wrong with the stereo? Had mom gone deaf?
That these albums (both their covers and those title songs) trigger me all these years later is partly due to the deafening level my mom played them at — so those eagles knew where to return to once they were done with their hunt, I guess (or so she could hear it over the vacuum while she cleaned up after us misfits — maybe both). Every day for months it’d be the same thing — I’d hear the opening strains of that first song EXPLODE from the speakers, no matter where I was at in the house/neighborhood/county — and know mom was tidying up. That she kept it at those near-deafening levels even once the vacuum was off speaks to how much she loved these two (and the anchoring principle in practice) and is probably why my favorite songs have always been the softer ones that closed out the latter one’s sides (if for no other reason than they gave my ears a chance to stop bleeding). It’s a toss up to which one I like better (Bones of JR Jones did a lovely cover of the one as his closer on his recent tour), so we’ll include em both. As for Mr Bacon’s partay, I honestly couldn’t tell you if there are any songs other than the title track on the soundtrack — if so, we sure didn’t get to hear em much — so we’ll go with that iconic one and embrace the shivers it sparks. Fly, eagles, fly! [Memory Lane Mementos: “Footloose,” “I’m on Fire,” and “My Hometown.” Late addition: I thought of one more in this rotation worth adding, the oeuvre of Mr Huey Lewis and his Newsmen. He was a frequent sight in both the Friday Night Video experience and the tidying up one here, but I’m putting him in this slot because Mom most often used to play songs like “The Power of Love” loud enough to knock you across the room like Marty at the start of Back to the Future, so that’s the memory that first comes to mind when I hear Huey. Still catchy as hell….]
7. Tina Turner and the Pointer Sisters – another Mom memory (momory?) was spending loads of time riding around in the backseat of her car (the aforementioned Buick) listening to music while running errands — going to/from school, the grocery store, or one of our endless sports-related events. This being the 80s our two options were the radio (almost always terrible — except for Oldies 104.3 with Dick Biondi and the gang) or our tape deck, which was the height of technological advancement at the time. We used to keep our tapes under the seat in this little suitcase-looking thing — faux two-tone leather, a little handle, and push-button clasps that popped open to reveal two rows of sweet, sweet tunes, maybe a dozen tapes in all, each nestled in their own little slot in the molded plastic. (This was before those monster black zipper cases that could hold 50 or 100 — we were still in the dark ages here, learning how to manage this newfound discovery of fire without scalding our hands…)
It was the job of the person in the back (usually me) to dig out whatever the folks in the front were calling for and two frequently beckoned for bounties were the tapes of Tina and the Pointers. My mom loved to throw these on whenever the mood was dragging — bad day at school, lousy performance on the field or finding bargains in the produce aisle — when we were falling asleep (if we were on a road trip), or just otherwise wanting to get the party started. I still smile thinking of my mom dancing in her chair to these, batting the wheel to the beat while singing off-kilter and encouraging us to do the same (which usually happened without too much prodding). John Mulaney has a funny bit about his dad getting caught speeding to the Pointers (to this song in fact), but I’ll always think of Mom belting it out like the fourth (and almost totally atonal) member of the group. [Memory Lane Mementos: “Better be Good to Me” and “Neutron Dance”]
8. The Righteous Brothers and Jim Croce – one last Mom music memory before moving on to less loving/lovely terrain (ie me). It’s an extension of the last one and that miniature suitcase full of tapes, and one more indelible memory of my beloved, departed mom. For those who remember said technology, one of the most salient benefits was that it afforded you the power to create mixtapes — something I used to do routinely (I really wish I still had some of those to see what forgotten gems I had on there), but endearingly was also something Pops used to do for my mom. My parents were a textbook vision of what you want a relationship to look like — they were together for over 20 years before they were cruelly separated by my mom’s passing and up until that final moment they exuded love and affection for each other every single day, like they were the only two people in the room and still kids who were head over heels in love with each other.
They would leave little love notes to each other on the counter or fridge and give each other cards with handwritten messages in them on special occasions (or just cuz). They were always giving each other little pecks on the head, pats on the butt, or telling each other they loved them, and they were always giving each other little things they found while they were out and about, whether it was a holiday or not (“just saw this and thought of you…”) For my dad this latter category included mixtapes he made her to listen to while she was driving us around (or when she miraculously had some time to herself and left us at home). These tended to delve into the more romantic side of things (as mixtapes at their best ought to do) and two frequent faces were these guys.
My mom was a softie — definitely the unguarded, open heart to my dad’s harder, more circumspect (at least with us) disciplinarian — and she would melt whenever either of these would come on. There were many a moment where something by the Righteous Brothers would come on and I’d catch a tear in her eye (“Unchained Melody” — even prior to it coming back around in Ghost and reducing everyone to quivering piles of emotion — was a guaranteed mister) and years later I’d have a similar, full circle moment where I’d see my dad’s eyes get glassy at hearing one/both of these artists after she’d passed. They’re beautiful songs/music regardless (I became a huge Croce fan myself in college and have remained one ever since), but all the more so because of what it meant to those two. [Memory Lane Mementos: “(You’re My) Soul and Inspiration” and “Operator (That’s Not the Way it Feels)”]
9. Weird Al compilation cassette — when I first started listening to music on my own — and by this I mean music I picked/found for myself, not merely things selected from my parents’ impressive catalog — it came courtesy of Al. In retrospect it was fitting for a nerdy, pudgy mama’s boy to find comfort and joy in the form of a nerdy, accordion playing wiseass with a mop of wavy hair, but at the time it felt like a revelation, like finding one of your own in a desert of desolation. I can’t quite remember how I first got the cassette of Al’s songs — I want to say the new kid who moved into the neighborhood, Rocky, might’ve given it to me, but it just as easily could have been because I used to watch Svengoolie on local access TV and Al songs frequently showed up.
Regardless, I immediately fell for Al’s gonzo energy and smart ass remakes of popular songs — so much so that it inspired my friends and I to start writing our own takes on songs, which we did throughout middle school. (And while I don’t have my parents’ record collection, I DO have some of the lyrics we came up, which are unsurprisingly terrible, yet endearing little things, but I can guarantee were quite the hit among the 10-12 year old community in Chicago…) Al’s early stuff remains chock full of classics (“Yoda,” “I Love Rocky Road,” “My Bologna,” “Addicted to Spuds”), but one of my favorites remains this one, a remake of the Queen song full of handclaps, accordion riffs, and mouth fart noises. (All a growing kid needs…) [Memory Lane Memento: “Another One Rides the Bus”]
10. Tone Loc and Young MC CDs — as I got a little older I eventually discovered that not all modern music made fun of earlier songs, but actually sought to move people rather than make them laugh (a novel concept that nearly fried my wiseass adolescent brain – sincerity?!) When I did, the early efforts of the burgeoning hip hop scene were what captivated me, a love affair that continued for a good chunk of the next ten years. (What many rightfully/longingly refer to as the golden era of rap.) It was the perfect transition for me because the early days of rap were still studded with silliness (we had yet to get to the grittiness of gangsta rap or the more pointed social commentary of acts like Public Enemy — or at least I had), so things like Biz Markie, Run DMC, the Beastie Boys, and these two did nothing to rattle my soft, secure existence, making me laugh/boogie rather than contemplate the injustice or hardships of the world. (I eventually got there, falling head over heels for acts like PE, Pac, Big, Cube, Wu, Cypress, etc)
I remember getting the CD for both Loc’s Loc-ed After Dark and Young’s Stone Cold Rhymin’ at a strip mall pawn shop on the way to Michigan. (Along with the cassette single for MARRS’ “Pump up the Volume” and a bag of chocolate covered peanuts.) I have no idea why we stopped at said location — I think I begged my parents to let me go look at the music while they went to the bathroom and/or got food at the nearby Burger King — but when I came out I had discounted versions of these two in my mitts, in all their longboxed glory. (For the kids in the audience, for some reason CDs used to come embedded in these gigantic rectangular shells of cardboard instead of just the square plastic case, so every purchase came with 75% more trash. Yay, environment!) Our car didn’t have a CD player yet (you may as well have asked if it had a flux capacitor), but I did have a Discman and quickly went to work devouring these from my perch in the backseat. I’m not sure how much longer we were in the car, but it didn’t matter — I listened to these two on repeat for the remainder and enjoyed every second of it. [Memory Lane Mementos: “Funky Cold Medina” and “Pick up the Pace 1990”]
11. BBD and Ms Jackson — as my love for early hip hop deepened, I started to get into the R&B jams that came out around the same time, too, courtesy of the dueling cool kid radio sources at the time, Z95 and B96. They were separated by mere decimals on the dial, but filled oceans of time as I listened to the nightly countdowns and recorded all my favorite songs on my boombox. Two that I remember getting into heavy rotation were the debut singles from Bel Biv Devoe (the Bobby Brown-less remnants of New Edition) and the tough as nails follow up to Janet’s Control.
Regarding the latter, I used to listen to the aforementioned predecessor a ton on cassette and loved its catchy, colorful dance songs. (Songs such as the title track, “Nasty,” and “What Have You Done for Me Lately,” which were high caliber pop songs guaranteed to make my little booty move.) Instead of continue in that vein, though, Janet came back three years later on a mission and drained the color out of everything — the cover, the videos, even her clothes — dropping the wallop that was “Rhythm Nation” on us.
The visuals were tough (she had an army of people dancing in formation with her, each wearing her black uniform and baseball hat, and no one — let alone Ms Jackson, whose radiant smile is normally visible from space — seemed happy), the environment was tougher (this dark, industrial doomscape full of dripping girders and gears), and the beat sounded like hammers banging nails into anvils, but MAN did it look cool. I remember hearing this song for the first time and it nearly destroying my brain — it was SO cool, so sinister, and once I saw the video I fell even more in love with both the song and its singer. (The closest comparable experience in terms of instant mental decimation was for another black and white comeback that came out several years later, LL’s juggernaut “Mama Said Knock You Out.”) I foolishly tried to learn the dance moves to the first video, but quickly remembered I was a white boy from the suburbs, so instead sang along in my room while I blasted it from my stereo for hours on end.
Bel Biv Devoe were nowhere near as hard, but every bit as worthy of a singalong (more on this in a moment). Aside from their catchiness, their primary gift was introducing me to a sexier side of things (along with acts like Salt-n-Pepa), something my teenage brain understood little to none of at the time. (Though it’s debatable how much farther I’ve come in the intervening decades…) These guys also had some pretty slick dance moves, as well as some decent beats, but it was the lyrics on songs like “Do Me” and “Poison” that got stuck in my brain — so much so that I remember being in typing class one day (yet another thing modern kids will likely find head scratching) and getting myself into a bit of trouble. The class was in the basement of our school and I remember almost everyone hated being there — not just because of the location, with its rumbling ventilation ducts and dank smells, but because what teenager wants to spend time practicing how to type? (Nerd that I am/was, I of course loved it) — and that included the teacher.
I can’t remember her name now, but she was this miserable portly woman with a crown of wispy white hair (one the punks in class used to throw tiny pieces of paper into when her back was turned, unbeknownst to her) and she regularly made clear she hated every single one of us. So one day I’m sitting there in the back row, banging out my homework with lightning speed (“the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog…”) when the rapped refrain from “Poison” comes into my head. (You know the one — “Poison. Deadly. Moving in slow…”) I’m deep in a groove, clickety clacking away like a machine gun, when I realize everyone around me is quiet and staring at me, including the aforementioned teacher.
I’ve apparently not just been singing the song in my head, but have been audibly rap/singing said refrain loud enough to be heard over the clamor of the HVAC and everyone else’s typing. For minutes. Apparently so intently that I’ve been ignoring the teacher’s increasingly insistent commands to “STOP, OR YOU’LL BE SENT TO THE PRINCIPAL” and my neighbor’s failing attempts to get me to shut up. I didn’t have to go to the principal, but I did earn myself a detention — which felt totally worth it (I still really like that song). (Side note — I did this one other time a year or so later during a Spanish test, only this time I was humming, not singing. (I think it was the Chili Peppers’ “Suck my Kiss” or “Under the Bridge,” which was recommended to me by one of the punks in school, John, who looked like a blond-haired, adolescent version of WC Fields.) That time I only earned laughs, not a detention, which was almost as good as the song.) [Memory Lane Mementos: “ Poison” and “Rhythm Nation”]
12. The Spin Doctors — around this time I had something of a revelation — an idiotic one, in retrospect, but one that felt pretty big in the moment. I was again sitting in the back of my mom’s Century (it was also winter again because I remember the windows being fogged up and being bundled in my puffy black Starter jacket, the one with the giant Bulls logo on the back and the huge hood (that coat was so badass — I really wish I still had it…), only this time I was with one of my buddies. This addition was important primarily for one reason (not just to show I’m not a lifelong loner) — it meant someone else could pick the radio station.
This may seem trivial, but up until the revelation (just around the corner now) I thought the world of music was like the second world war, this massively important thing that raged for a while, but ended decades ago. It’s easy to see why in hindsight — to that point my diet consisted almost solely of oldies and classic rock, with a very small, new contingent of hip hop and pop. (And whatever guys like Al were doing on the side.) The car’s radio had five preset buttons and each was set to a station playing one of those things, so I never really questioned whether there was anything else. (I’m not sure what I thought white people with guitars had been doing for the last twenty-odd years — maybe it was another impact of the atomic bomb where it somehow fried the wavelengths that permitted those frequencies to be heard. My peanut pubescent brain sure didn’t know…) So when Mom asked my friend what station he wanted to listen to and he didn’t pick one of the five presets — mom had to use those knobs on the side whose purpose I’d never really understood — and this mysterious new sound came on, I was sort of stunned. There were more than five stations? White people (because you just knew these guys were white) — particularly young ones — were still making music after the Japanese Instrument of Surrender? What else have I been missing?!
When I asked my friend what song it was he looked at me like I’d asked him what city we lived in. “It’s the Spin Doctors, dude — what rock have you been living under?” The mild shame at apparently not knowing something so obvious was quickly dissolved by the bright, peppy strains of this song, which immediately made me want to sing along, despite just hearing it for the first time. I got my mom to buy the cassette for me a few weeks later and listened to it a bunch, but it was this moment in the car that flung the doors open on my musical explorations. Sounds dumb that the Spin Doctors were the genesis, but that obvious revelation — that there was more than just my parents’ music out there. LOTS of it! — was a big deal, one that ultimately led me here, so the nine of us should consider ourselves lucky for all the joy it’s given us over the years. (And say what you will about them, but there are still some pretty catchy tunes on that debut.) For that reason (and the slightly di#$ish condescension of my buddy, which first inspired me to explore) I’ll forever have a soft spot in my heart for this song. [Memory Lane Memento: “Two Princes”]
13. The Smiths — once that car ride set me on the path to enlightenment, the gluttonous side of my personality came out and sought to devour any and all knowledge that was in its proximity. (The first of thousands of times since then…) I would use those newfangled knobs on the radio to spin around and see what ELSE was out there, like I was trying to contact extraterrestrials (“shhh, I think I hear something — is that a kick drum or just the carburetor knocking?”) and when I was in other people’s houses I would rifle through their record collections like some folks do medicine cabinets.
One day we were at my aunt and uncle’s house for Sunday dinner and I was in my cousin’s room when I spotted a pile of tapes sitting under her bed. She was older than me and already in high school, so had already started forming the iceberg-sized chip on her shoulder that all adolescents of that age are forced to acquire. As such, I was a little afraid of her and knew that if I was caught in her room I’d probably get yelled at, so I balanced my fear with the need to know what music was there for my possible enjoyment. I frantically flipped through the pile, not recognizing (or knowing how to say) many of the handwritten names — Siouxsie this, Depeche that — but then I came to these guys, the most vanilla name on the planet. The Smiths! That sounds interesting! There were two tapes of them, too, so in my fledgling felonious head I thought “she won’t even notice it’s gone — it’s the perfect crime!”
I quickly stuffed the cassette in my pants (probably flared out Cavaricci’s — I had several pairs. I was a baller, yo…), hustled down to dinner, and desperately tried to act natural. (Which was pretty easy for a guy wearing parachute pants. I screamed “laid back.”) We couldn’t leave fast enough and as soon as we got home I ran upstairs and threw my prize on, again changing my world forever. That’s because what erupted from my little boombox sounded as foreign to me as the Spin Doctors had — sure, there were still bright guitars (Johnny Marr’s pristine tone and style remains a distinct delight decades later), but there was also this unbelievable decadence to it. Part of it was the accents, part of it was the delivery (what in the world was that VOICE?!?), but it was so over the top and posh, it was unlike anything I’d heard before.
I wasn’t quite sure who the William guy was he was singing about and whether he was happy or sad (is he crooning? Crying? Cryooning?), but I was utterly captivated. By the time he got to the falsetto part my brain was totally fried and I was hooked for good. Similar to another long-time fave (although their current stuff has left me cold), Sleater Kinney, almost every important person in my life has hated this band (HATEDDDDDDDDDD), so I’ve always had to surreptitiously listen to them on the side. It feels somewhat fitting given my illicit introduction to them, but I remain a huge fan. This tape/album is still a frequent go-to, despite nearly 30 years of listens. [Memory Lane Memento: “William, It Was Really Nothing”]
14. The Cranberries, Friends, and 500 Miles — as time went on my voracious explorations continued unabated and my collection expanded accordingly. I began my lifelong career raiding the bargain bin at the local record store, buying almost any album that had a few good songs on it. (My rule was at least three and I used to spend hours evaluating albums at the special listening posts trying before buying, to the extreme annoyance of the store clerks.) I also had my first run in with karma as I fell victim to the same crime I had earlier perpetrated on my cousin. That’s because unbeknownst to me my younger sister had been sneaking into my room and stealing some of my albums — a fact I realized when I started to hear some of them in the mornings when she was getting ready for school.
Now this would have been annoying enough if it wasn’t made worse by HOW my sister was listening to them. See me, when I like an artist or album I put them on and listen to the whole thing (or at least the three or more songs that warranted its purchase) and I’d do so at a reasonable volume. Not my sister. No she would listen to a single song — at volumes loud enough to induce bleeding several states away (she was always blow drying her hair and apparently couldn’t miss a note) — and do so on repeat. Over and over. INCESSANTLY. While singing over both the hair dryer and the stereo like a wounded raccoon. This of course quickly ruined many a song/artist for me and one of the first victims was the Cranberries and their debut album. That’s because my sister would constantly toggle between its two massive hits, back and forth like an epic tennis match between Agassi and Sampras. Day after day for MONTHS at a time.
She would do it with other things, too — she used to watch the same movie over and over again (Mr Boogedy and Parent Trap when she was younger, Ghost and Dirty Dancing when she was a little older and Mom was still around), and she’d do it with TV shows, too. I used to tape various shows I loved so I could rewatch them later, cataloging them like my parents used to for their Friday Night Videos collection. I had a little library in my closet — Seinfeld, Home Improvement, comic cartoons, etc — and I also had Friends, which was one of the big hits at the time. Again unbeknownst to me she would swipe one or two of my tapes and similar to how she listened to songs, she would watch the same episode DOZENS of times in a row. I’d come home from school and hear her quoting the same lines as she’d done 24 hours prior, only to encounter the exact same scene the following day. (I guess her gluttonous personality just manifests itself different than mine, but it’s apparently deep in our genes.)
After watching the same episode or two she’d go off to do her homework and I’d start hearing the theme song blaring through her door (and two floors of concrete if I was trying to hide out in the basement) or her latest obsession, one of which I remember being the Proclaimers’ endlessly catchy/annoying earworm “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).” Then back to the Cranberries. Then back to the Friends theme. Then back to Dolores and Co again. I’ve heard each of these so many times that they still trigger my PTSD whenever I hear (or think of) them — one for every mile those goofy Scotsmen would walk. (Just to BEEEEE the man who’d walk a thousand miles to fall down at your door. BAH DAH dah! (BAH DAH dah!) BAH DAH dah! (BAH DAH dah!) BAHDAHDAHDUMDEEDEEDUMDEEDEEDUMDUMDUMDAHDAHDAAAAAAAAAH!) You’re welcome. See you in seven hours when that finally gets out of your head… [Memory Lane Memento: “Linger” and “Dreams,” “(I’ve Had) The Time of my Life” (I’ll spare you the other two, but WILL subject you to that Dirty Dancing one because as soon as I remembered it it’s been stuck in my head wreaking havoc, just like the old days, and it’s such a sharp reminder of my mom and sis sitting on the couch curled up with the dogs (and/or rabbit), blissfully singing/crying their eyes out…)]
15. Ace of Base’s debut — another of my sister’s obsessions were the soon-to-be superstars from Sweden and their juggernaut pop album that ruled the airwaves for what felt like an eternity in the early 90s. This was a bit of an anomaly for my sister because there were SO many singles on it, it forced a little variety during her morning preparations, but while her obsession may have been slightly broader than normal it was no less irrepressible (or annoying, after a point). Every day I’d have to hear the candy colored exhortations at high volume, which gave the impression each line culminated in a clutch of exclamation points. “All that she wants!!! Is another bebbeh!!! She’s gone tomorrow, boy!!!” “Don’t turn around!!! Cuz you’re gonna see my heart breaking!!! Don’t turn around!!! I don’t want you seeing me cry!!! Just walk away!!!” “I saw the sign!!! And it opened up my eyes!!! I SAW THE SIGN!!!”
And while her listening was no less incessant, it was somehow even less escapable, as it turns out my normal approach of fleeing the house to stop the punishment was no longer as bulletproof as it had been. That’s because I reluctantly learned someone else in my life was similarly obsessed — the on again, off again love of my life at the time, Nikki. We had been a thing for a year or so (an eternity in kid relationships) and by the time we were done had gotten back together/broken up something like fifteen or sixteen times. It was during one of the “on” spells that I learned of her similar obsession and part of me never came out of that room. Like a soldier that leaves part of themselves on the battlefield, so stunned and scarred by the horrors they’ve witnessed that part of them dies there, I emerged from that room a different person. (Amazingly, though, this was NOT a contributing factor to one of our many impending breaks…)
She’d invited me over to help her paint her bedroom, and rather than spend a Saturday not getting to see her I gladly offered to help out. (I’ve always been a guy who loves a project around the house…) I showed up, saw she’d already pulled the furniture and taped the borders, so was excited to be able to jump right in when no sooner had I cracked the first can of paint than the first notes of “The Sign” started to play. I tried to be cool — surely this was just an aberration, one which would soon pass — but as soon as the song ended, it started again. And then again. Over and over, just like at home. As my sanity started to fray (somewhere around the ninth or tenth time) I asked if we were going to listen to anything else and she exuberantly said, “No way — I LOVE this song!” so rather than risk upsetting her, I quietly tried to tune out the music and focus on the task at hand. (About as easy as ignoring inbound mortars and sniper fire on that aforementioned battlefield.) Somehow I managed to get through the afternoon, but I never painted as quickly as I did that day. We must have listened to it dozens of times (one for each future breakup — it was a sign!) and sometimes if the wind is just right, I can still hear that song coming to me over the breeze. I can almost smell the paint drying on the walls… [Memory Lane Memento: “The Sign”]
16. The Replacements’ Tim — shifting back to yours truly, another fortuitous tape acquisition came my way before class in middle school. It was still the Cavaricci and high top era (Pumps or British Knights, typically — I had a sweet pair of LA Gear kicks, too, that I wore to homecoming along with a turtleneck and gold rope chain (on the outside of the shirt, natch…), but I remember it was around this time when one or two of the kids started acting out more. The prototypical punks or thugs — the ones that would smoke while they cut class and scowl while they bullied kids (faux Eurotrash nerds with clown feet such as myself). This spirit of rebelliousness started to affect even the “good” kids, which manifested itself mostly in minor things like fashion (goth kids started to show up, as did torn jeans and piercings) or a slightly bratty attitude. One of the “good girls” had started listening to edgier music — music that wasn’t ON the radio (how did this even work? Were they related to musicians or friends with someone that worked at the zoo and that’s how you learned about upcoming concerts?) — and she would talk about these bands that would leave me semi-mystified as I eavesdropped in class.
I hadn’t heard of any of them and had no way to tell if they were any good since they may as well have lived on a different planet. (We still didn’t have cable so MTV was just something that the rich kids were able to watch.) They could have sounded like the cantina band in Star Wars for all I knew and looked just the same — I would have never known. Lucky for me this girl would occasionally trade tapes with her friend and one day I intercepted the handoff and it was this album. (I could never have just ASKED her what the bands were like — I again had to resort to my life of petty crime instead…) When I saw the title I thought it was deliberate — that she’d known I’d been eavesdropping all this time and had allowed me to breakup the swap so I could get the mixtape she made me. Little did I know it was the name of the album (although part of me likes to think it was a bit of both, as I had a bit of a crush on her), but I quickly lost interest in that topic once I got home and popped the tape on.
It was this mix of one great song after another — bright, polished (some would say TOO polished, if you preferred their trashy early days — which to this day I do not) with these incredible, full-throated choruses. Everything felt so earnest and urgent, like Westerberg was singing in all caps. “HOLD MY LIFE (BECAUSE I JUST MIGHT LOSE IT)!” “ANYTHING YOU WANT DEAR, I’LL BUY!” “GIVE ME ONE GOOD DOSE OF THUNDER!” I fell in love with the album, and also the girl (we dated briefly shortly thereafter), and while the latter love affair didn’t last, the former certainly did. This remains one of my faves from one of my faves (to be honest, probably my overall of theirs — no disrespect to Let it Be and Pleased to Meet Me.) Who says a life of crime doesn’t pay? [Memory Lane Memento: “Kiss Me On the Bus”]
17. The Last Waltz — back in the day I used to be an avowed night owl and one of the treats I regularly indulged in was staying up to watch late night TV. (Now I’m lucky if I make it past 9:30 most nights…) I was/am a huge Letterman fan so would love watching his show, I enjoyed watching Carson (despite some of the corniness, there was always something inviting about him to me), and I loved watching the All in the Family reruns that showed on the public access station. On the weekends they would show old movies during that time block and I’d sometimes check to see what was on if I wasn’t going out with my friends.
One night I remember planning to go to my buddy’s place when I clicked on the TV just to see what was playing before I left. It turned out to be this concert where seemingly every famous musician of the last twenty years turned up. I didn’t know who the band itself was, but I recognized almost everyone else that showed up to sing that night — Dylan, Clapton, Muddy, Neil Young, Van the Man, Joni Mitchell, Neil Diamond. It was this incredible parade, one after the other, of musicians I’d listened to for years, all while playing with this mysterious group of unknowns (at least to me). Needless to say I didn’t meet my buddy that night — I stayed in, obsessively watching this amazing assembly of artists, while trying to figure out who the base band was. (Remember, this was pre-internet and smart phone days so had to rely on the paltry description from the hard copy TV Guide to give me clues.)
I later learned what all the fuss was all about — it was the final show for THE Band and these were all their friends — and became a big fan, but I’ve always preferred listening to the versions from this concert rather than the regular album tracks. It’s a fantastic show, one made even better when you learn all the back stories leading up to it. (The feud between Robbie and Levon, the copious amounts of drugs, the sad futures of many in the band, etc.) I’ll watch this whenever it’s on and pop the soundtrack on almost as much. [Memory Lane Memento: “Up on Cripple Creek”]
18. AC/DC and Bay City Rollers — another former aspect of my personality now long since gone was how I spent the post-school hours leading up to my late night tangos with the telly. This being the 90s (and me being a semi-sizable nerd) they were spent playing laser tag for hours at the local strip mall. Usually I’d go up there with my group of friends and we’d challenge some of the mall rats to pitched battles of capture the flag, other times I’d go up there solo and lay waste to the 8 yr olds and anyone else who happened to be in my way in run and gun points competitions. Nerdy or not it was pretty fun and I got to be pretty good over the years. (I went to the nationals in Cleveland, for instance — yes, you read that right, someone willingly went to Cleveland (I kid, I kid…) — and fared rather well.)
When we were heading up there to play as a group my buddy Jim and I used to get pumped in my car beforehand, playing one of two songs to rile us up. The first was “TNT” by the boisterous Aussies AC/DC and was a favorite a) because like the rest of their songs, it rocked and b) because it let us chant “Oy! Oy! Oy!” at high volume while punching the roof of the car, which always cracked us up. (Particularly if other people were walking by/parking and saw us — which they often did.) The other was by the decidedly unboisterous Bay City Rollers (if you needed any more proof I was a nerd) and their infectious song “Saturday Night.” We loved that one primarily because it allowed us to chant the chorus in our Scottish accents (an homage to the underrated 90s classic So I Married an Axe Murderer, which we quoted incessantly), but also because it’s just a fun song. Almost as much fun as paying to run around in the dark and shoot strangers with lasers. (But why choose? Do both like we did!) [Memory Lane Mementos: “TNT” and “Saturday Night”]
19. Rage and Nails — that era of innocent fun may have been trending towards a close, but it wasn’t done quite yet. I know that because when these two bands released albums (the former their first, the latter their second) I was taken aback by how angry they were and couldn’t listen to them. I was still a pretty happy kid — a well-fed mama’s boy who read comics and played basketball in the driveway (when he wasn’t playing kick the can with the neighborhood kids or laser tag with the mall rats). Sure, mom had gotten sick by then, but she was fighting it and the prognosis seemed somewhat positive, so everything seemed like it might turn out alright after the extremely alarming initial news.
So when one of the kids at school lent me Rage’s first one and told me “YOU HAVE TO HEAR THIS” I was excited. The cover seemed a little aggressive (I didn’t yet understand its origins, which would have made me even more apprehensive), but I felt pretty honored someone thought enough of my taste to share something I HAD to hear. Around the same time NIN’s “Closer” was dominating all available airspace, playing virtually non-stop on MTV and almost as frequently on the local rock station. The video was a bit haunting and weird, but since I liked the song I thought the rest would be good enough so I went to Best Buy and bought the CD. (And I’d actually driven to those laser tag nationals in Cleveland listening to Trent’s first one a bunch and liking it, so figured it would be more of the same.)
It took me all of two songs to know that was not the case and I was not ready for either — for Rage it happened about the time they got to the end of “Killing in the Name of” with its chant/screamed f-bomb refusals to do whatcha tell me. For Nails it was the first song, the ultra-angry “Mr Self Destruct.” I skipped to some other songs (“Bullet in the Head,” “Wake Up,” “Heresy,” “I Do Not Want This”), but they only reiterated what I learned on those first tracks — a) some people are really mad and not afraid to let you know about it and b) that made me real uncomfortable. If someone could be that upset, that might mean my happy little bubble was not as impervious as I’d hoped. (Mom’s diagnosis was a foreshadowing of this, but as I mentioned I didn’t have reason to believe that quite yet.)
Fast forward a year and change to when Mom finally succumbed after a roller coaster of remissions and relapses and that bubble had been decimated for good. THAT guy was ready for these albums (and everything else these two ended up putting out) and he’s spent a lot of time with them over the years. He’s managed to reconstruct a version of that past bubble again (though by no means with the assumption it’s impenetrable anymore), but still finds need for these bands/albums from time to time. They’ll always remind me of those first innocent listens and the kid who wasn’t ready yet — and spark a bit of jealousy at how sweet that obliviousness was. [Memory Lane Mementos: “Killing in the Name of” and “Mr Self Destruct”]
20. Radiohead’s OK Computer — after my mom passed, one of the few upsides to that world wrecking devastation was getting closer with my old man and I spent a lot of time hanging out with him, doing miscellaneous projects, running errands, or going to see movies. (After we all came out of our holes in the immediate aftermath, that is — I still don’t really remember a two year stretch of my life there and neither does my sister…) Similar to when I was a kid in my mom’s car, we’d trade off turns controlling the tunes if we were out and about and while we’ve already established Pop’s solid musical tastes, one of my favorite things to do was try and expose him to new music. (As he had largely stayed with the bands he knew, while I branched ever further afield.)
One weekend we were driving back from the hardware store (he always called it “the Depot” — short “e,” like “leprechaun,” vs long “e” like “Peter Pan,” which always drove me nuts (something he knew, so would do it even more)) and it was my turn to handle the tunes. I don’t remember what I started with, but I quickly shifted to this one, which had been captivating me for months at the time. “Karma Police” was everywhere (both on radio and on MTV), the magazines were gushing about this “modern classic,” and the band was among the biggest in the world. I’d been a big fan of The Bends (it’s still my overall fave of theirs), but this was definitely packed with some really good stuff, so wanted to share it with the old man.
I think I started off on the pretty side with “No Surprises” before transitioning to “Paranoid Android” whose epic swells and breaks had blown me away (still do). I went pretty again for my closer, opting for the hushed, haunted “Exit Music” to seal the deal. I remember gushing about Yorke’s vocals and the dark mood and melody (“listen to this part here — can you hear the screams in the background and how defeated he sounds before it all blooms at the end?!?”) and looking over at him after the song finally ended. He was quiet for a second, took a beat, and then looked over and said, “Sorry, son — it’s just not for me.”
It was a minor gut blow and I let him take the reins immediately after — I couldn’t take another rejection like that. (I still remember exactly where we were when he said it — we’d just passed the intersection with the CompUSA and the golf store — and still think “maybe if I’d played this song first. Or this one instead. THEN he’d have liked it.”) I don’t remember either of us saying anything the rest of the ride home, but I thought about it long afterward. One of the many things I wish I could talk to him about today… [Memory Lane Memento: “Exit Music (For a Film)”]
21. Zep — as we’ve already established, my parents’ musical tastes were pretty strong growing up, and another of the extracts I made from their extensive collection was that of the legendary Led. This was one of my dad’s bands, but I remember finding them a bit on my own — sure, they were endlessly played on the radio (another of the themed broadcasts we used to listen to a lot were the “Get the Led Out” sessions where they played these guys back to back), but it was never anything that he played on his own. (As noted earlier, he would do so more for the Stones, or acts like the Doors and Stevie Wonder.)
Nevertheless, he had the first four albums on vinyl and I remember being drawn to the first two — the album cover of the first one pulled me in and then I was hammered by how heavy the songs were, playing them on endless repeat. As a result, it was one of the first bands that I felt like was “mine” (even though it came from raiding another person’s stash and had long since stopped recording music, so was more a relic than anything active.) I’ve written before about how I used to draw comics to the Houses of the Holy album and was floored by the drums in “Levee” (still the single greatest drum sound I’ve ever heard and one of my all-time favorite songs), but it was the songs on the first one that used to get listened to repeatedly at high volume. “You Shook Me,” “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” and “I Can’t Quit You Baby” were/are all massive faves, but the closing behemoth was always one that could get my blood pumping quick.
When Plant gets to the part at the end where he’s singing to Rosie and Bonzo starts with his little militaristic snare fills, I’m compelled to crank the volume and drum along. That’s what I did one night back when I was still living at home, probably towards the end of high school timeframe. I was up in my room, doing nothing in particular (I think I was laying on the floor with the lights off, enjoying the breeze from the fan and the open window) and had this one on pretty loud. When it got to the aforementioned part (“OOOOOOOoooooh Roooooooosieeeeee! Oh GIIIIIIIiiiiiiiirlllllll!”) I cranked it up even louder, as you’re almost required by law to do. Now normally this wouldn’t have been a huge deal — we lived in the suburbs and while we didn’t live on an acre of undisturbed terrain, we still had a little distance between our house and the neighbors — and my sister and dad were out at the time, so it was just me in the house. Unfortunately, I mentioned I had the window open and apparently my neighbor and his family were trying to have dinner with friends on their patio this night and did not take kindly to my unsolicited DJ’g.
I learned this when all of a sudden my bedroom door opens and my dad’s standing there (he must’ve come home to find said neighbor banging on our door) and he said, “I support what you’re doing here, son. Unfortunately Mr Cooper does not, so we’ve gotta turn it down so he doesn’t call the police.” The pride in his eyes and the small smile he had on his face as he turned it down (though not all the way) stuck with me and made the small annoyance all the better. This song still shreds and makes me think of him. (Coincidentally it came on Sunshine Radio yesterday and I relived almost the exact same scenario in my apartment — though sadly without my old man coming in to ask me to turn it down…) [Memory Lane Memento: “How Many More Times”]
22. the Stray Cats, Clash, and Massive Attack — eventually I graduated and went away to school and when I did one of the new pasttimes I needed to acquaint myself with was going out to the bars. I hadn’t drank at all during high school (like I said, a mama’s boy/nerd), doing so for the first time at my house on graduation night (I got loaded on a couple Rolling Rocks and promptly passed out on the porch while my dad made sure none of my other friends fell in the pool), so I had a lot of catching up to do. As with most tasks before me I quickly set about learning the craft — quarter pitchers and flip cup, shots of Jager and Goldschlager, the terrors of tequila — and aside from the need to lay a solid foundation (pasta or pizza always did the trick nicely) one of the key components was selecting the right walkout song before heading out the door for the night.
This is a skill that’s useful in other areas of life (it’s critical for one’s first and final days of work, before big meetings and dates, etc), but none moreso than prior to heading to the bar or club. It needs to set the right tone — upbeat, invoking a little bit of swagger and invincibility, something that convinces you you’re a force to be reckoned with and an absolute assassin in the eyes of the opposite — or same — sex, depending on your preference. Three regular favorites were “Stray Cat Strut,” “Rudie Can’t Fail,” and “Inertia Creeps” by the bands referenced in the title. The first two were often put on before leaving our apartment. Something about the titular strut of the first one (and reminding yourself/others “I got cat class and I got cat styyyyylllllllle”) and the earnest exuberance of the second (while regularly imploring the titular entity not to fail) seemed to hit the spot.
The last song was something I always asked the DJ to put on right before last call at this little bar called the Artful Dodger here downtown. It was this great little dive in our neighborhood with a dancefloor in the back that always got nice and sweaty by the end of the night. One of my favorite moments was having that song come on deep in the witching hour, right after the DJ made his announcement, when folks were well lubricated and ready for anything. It was always a bit of a change from what had normally been playing, but when that sinister, buzzing bass comes in you could see the switch flip in people’s brains and they’d immediately shift into sultry, primal hunters, slowly nodding their head to the rhythm while they scanned the room for a target. All three immediately put me in the mood for some festivities and remind me of the many, many similar moments in the past. [Memory Lane Mementos: “Stray Cat Strut,” “Rudie Can’t Fail,” “Inertia Creeps”]
23. Pumpkins and Crows, U2 and Toots — for the last semester of undergrad I left the country for the first time, traveling to London to work and go to school. During the day I worked at a newspaper, doing everything from page design and copy editing to feature writing and celebrity tidbits. At night I’d go to class, learning about British history, politics, and literature. I lived in a converted broom closet in my time there — the space was legitimately three arm lengths wide and two of those were taken up by a twin bed and a makeshift counter. It was cramped, funky from the years of chemicals and solvents baked into the walls during its previous existence, and I had to go down five flights of stairs to go to the bathroom. (Always fun in the middle of the night after an evening out on the tiles…)
Despite the excitement of all I was learning and seeing for the first time, I also battled homesickness from time to time, and the two albums that kept me company throughout were the Smashing Pumpkins’ MACHINA albums and the Counting Crows’ This Desert Life. I used to lay on the tiny bed and listen to both front to back on my tiny little Discman, singing along to their lovely odes to radio, standing inside someone’s love, and trying to hold on (or to Mrs Potter, St Robinson, and the alluring Amy hitting the atmosphere (again)). Each of these immediately transport me back to that tiny little room and the pimply faced guy on top trying to find his footing while fully on his own for the first time.
I wasn’t a complete mope, though, and fought off the homesickness to really embrace the opportunity I had at my disposal. To wit, I used any spare moment of free time on the weekends to travel, getting to 12 different countries in my five-odd months there. One of my favorite trips was a bus trip we did in Ireland where we drove around the country in this tiny little short bus, stopping in town after town, big and small. (I later reprised this trip for my weddingmoon and it was even better, despite not having a sweet bus.) One of my favorite memories from said trip was the music selections of our bus driver. He’d throw in a series of beat up old cassettes into the even more pummeled stereo and we’d strain to hear the output from the bus’ tinny little speakers as we puttered along.
Two that I remember vividly were listening to early U2 albums while we were driving on some narrow one lane road in the backwoods somewhere — one of the grass covered lanes where you’d have to pull the vehicle half off the road to let cars or sheep pass. They were songs I’d heard a million times before, but something about listening to them in the place where they originated, while breathing the same air as the artists, made them even more resonant than before. The other was a discovery and it followed the U2 tape — after an hour or so of listening to Bono and the boys in the land where they came from, the driver switched it to this raspy voiced man playing reggae. It seemed pretty out of place (particularly after the spot on placement of its predecessors), but I loved the guy’s voice and melodies. I eventually asked the driver who it was, and in his thick Irish accent said something along the lines of “Teeeeewwwwwts n’da meytls.” “Two sin the metals?” “Nae, teeeeewwwwwts n’da MEEEEEYtls” “I — I don’t understand.” After trying a few more times in vain to explain he eventually popped the tape out and showed me the label and it was the venerable Toots and the Maytals. I wrote their name down and have spent many an hour listening to them in the years since, but I’ll always be on that bumpy bus in the backwoods of Ireland where I first found them. [Memory Lane Mementos: “Mrs Potter’s Lullaby,” “Stand Inside Your Love,” “I Will Follow,” “Alidina”]
24. Jimmy and the Weez — after undergrad I worked for a few years at a startup, riding the highs (and lows) of what would end up being the first tech bubble. (Fun full circle moment has been living through the potential second one the past few years at a different startup…) My life in this time has largely been captured for posterity in several movies — there’s Office Space, which perfectly nailed the nonsense and mundane and was quoted religiously (still is), and then when things started to go bad and we had to lay people off, I ended up flying around the country to shut down our various offices and/or let people go. Up in the Air did a good job showing what this was like and how exhausting it could be. (People would legit start crying when they saw me get off the elevator/walking to the office door and it didn’t get better from there.)
In the midst of all this chaos I did manage to have some fun, though, as I joined a cover band out in the suburbs. I didn’t really know the guys (they were friends with one of the girls I was trying to get to pay attention to me) and they’d already been playing together for a few years, so it mostly started with me horning my way into practice and/or jam sessions at their house. (Obstacle one.) I’d jump in on songs and try to sing harmony at first, and then when they seemed to like that I started playing an extra guitar they had laying around, adding flourishes or helping on rhythm. I’m not a terribly good guitarist (I’m a much better drummer — something I would learn years later on a fated New Year’s Eve), but that was OK because nobody else was terribly good either. We covered each others’ weaknesses well, though, and always seemed to give the crowd a good time (which was mostly friends and neighbors, to start).
Since I was years into my musical explorations by this point (and trying to contribute to a band that really didn’t need me), I would bring a bunch of song ideas to the group for us to potentially play — ones that had two guitarists or multiple singers, for ex, or were a bit more modern and fun than what we currently played. The setlist when I started consisted mostly of 80s rock tunes (think Bon Jovi, Journey, etc) and a handful of more recent ones, almost all of which came from Weezer. I’m not sure why, but we played at least five or six Weezer songs and were always trying to add more for some reason. I tried desperately to get the guys to realize “you know, there are other bands out there, right?,” but they just wanted to keep playing the Weez. I’d suggest things like the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, maybe some Queens, and they’d say “what about ‘Island in the Sun’ or ‘Dope Nose?'” (Both of which we wound up playing.)
I eventually got them to at least stop playing the weaker ones — killing “Hash Pipe” and Nirvana’s “Rape Me,” which are both solid listens but absolutely terrible to sing (try it at karaoke and just watch the faces of your fellow patrons if you don’t believe me), remains one of my proudest achievements from these years. (That and the punk version of Enrique Iglesias’ “Hero” that we closed with, which destroyed every time…) I finally got a few of my other recs into the mix, too. I got some Stripes, some Green Day, even one of those Strokes songs I’d been wanting. I also got them to add this Jimmy song, which is good enough on its own, but really would shine when I’d sing the “beep boop bop boop” part midway through. Folks always seemed to enjoy that part… [Memory Lane Mementos: “Buddy Holly,” “The Middle”]
25. Juanes, Brit, and El Rey — after undergrad I worked for a few years before eventually going back to school after 9/11. (One of the formative non-musical moments I had on that first trip outside the country was of being called to the carpet by a stranger in a pub over how little I knew about my country’s history — a totally fair and valid critique — so after the horrors of 9/11 reminded everyone of the dangers of not knowing how your country’s actions impacted the rest of the world, I decided to quit the corporate game and put myself through grad school so I’d never be as uninformed again — and maybe do something to help.) During this time I fell in love with Latin America and became fascinated/appalled by how our policies had impacted so many of the countries down there. (I also fell in love with the first of many Latinas, which remain my kryptonite.)
I ultimately was able to put this love/feeling of debt to work, spending years working in the region and falling further and further in love with its history, people, and culture. During this first dalliance, though, one of the gateway obsessions was the music of Juanes who was still relatively early in his rise to megastardom. As I mentioned earlier, I’d taken Spanish in school before, but aside from working in kitchens and learning a ton of slang from the cooks I’d never really had a chance (or reason) to practice. Now I was dating a native speaker, trying to work with folks in the area, and realized I needed to do better than gringo Spanglish if I wanted to make a difference. Enter Juanes, who was the first person whose lyrics I could mostly follow and thus understand. (Colombian Spanish is a godsend — it’s always so crisp and clean, like an audio representation of a textbook, compared to other countries in the area.) I spent hours humming the melodies and eventually translating the lyrics, which deepened my enjoyment of the songs immensely. The first one I got almost top to bottom was his massive hit “La Camisa Negra,” which I still can sing almost completely through (and have done on many a drunken occasion to the delight/surprise of colleagues and onlookers.)
The second song in this section is in English, but I found it in the most unexpected of places down there and thus it will forever be linked to this region for me. I was lucky enough during my final semester of grad school to get down to Cuba to do research and soak in the amazing culture/history (the only one allowed to that summer since ole Bushy decided to ramp up the rhetoric and crank up the embargo a week before we were slated to travel) and while I was down there I found this little gem. Since we were on something of an official trip everything was tightly choreographed and there were minders everywhere. (Even in your down time you’d see at least one or two folks nonchalantly trailing fifty feet or so behind you, no matter where you went.) It was during one of these sessions when I was wandering about trying to see the “real” Cuba, walking in some rundown neighborhood trying to immerse myself in their daily life, when I heard the eerie string intro to this song wafting out of this rundown little shack. It was a pretty cool, arresting sound, so I stood there just outside this person’s beatup screen door for a second to try and see what it was — was it some weird mashup of classical music or some esoteric film soundtrack? I only needed wait a few more moments to realize, “Nooooope, it’s Britney Spears…” (That vocal fry is unmistakable…) It was the opening to her soon-to-be latest smash “Toxic” and here I was outside some ramshackle little shack in the middle of embargoed Cuba hearing it for the first time. By this point the owner of said shack had noticed me standing there and come to the door and I flailingly tried to explain to him why I’d stopped, but I didn’t get more than a few words in before he gave me a giant grin and a double thumbs up, saying “Ees goot!” I smiled and agreed — “ees goot indeed” — and slowly went on my way.
The last song was another one I had to learn and was an older song, the Mexican classic “El Rey,” immortalized primarily by the great Vicente Fernandez. I don’t quite remember how I stumbled onto this one, but once I heard the laugh/shouted “ay yay yaaaaaaaays” I was in. It was another one that I’d randomly sing at karaoke bars, just to spice things up if the mood/crowd were right, but my culminating moment with it came years later. I was down in Mexico at some fancy work dinner at this restaurant in the capital that had live performers in traditional dress performing throughout the meal. It was a nice “dinner and a show” style place, but eventually the lead singer decided it was time to work the crowd, trying to get the patrons to sing along with them, and invariably she made her way to the table full of folks who very clearly did NOT come from these parts. As fate would have it, right before she got to our table they started playing “El Rey,” so when she thrust that microphone towards me I started belting it out in my best impersonation of Vicente. I must have done passably well because I got a pretty decent round of applause (there’s a photo of this moment in one of my many boxes), but it was the look of satisfaction on the singer’s face (and my coworkers’) that really cemented the moment. Makes me want to tip a tequila and try it again. [Memory Lane Mementos: “La Camisa Negra,” “Toxic,” “El Rey”]
OVERTIME ADDITION. TV on the Radio — one of my favorite jobs when I was going to grad school was as a teamonger in this wonderful little shop off the main drag. It had giant, fragrant boxes full of loose leaf tea that I needed to learn about (the difference between a gen mai cha and oolong or a hojicha and sencha), as well as these wonderful salted oat cookies and ginger apricot scones to go with them. (I laid waste to all of the above, including their heaping bowls of ochazuke and their intricate little bento boxes, all new discoveries for me.)
One of my favorite things to do while on shift (other than cram my face full of the aforementioned treats) was to play music that I was excited about (shocker), hoping to give people something extra to take home aside from a perfectly suited bag of loose leaf and a couple pastries. I liked playing early UNKLE albums, as well as Manu Chao and some DJ Shadow funk compilations I’d found, depending on the night/crowd. One of my constant favorites was TV’s debut album and EP, though, which I was obsessed with. (They’re still the best things they’ve done, no matter HOW many people try to convince you it’s bullsh#$ like the abomination Dear Science.) Two that always went over well were the one-two of “Young Liars” and the Pixies cover “Mr Grieves.”
The steady drone of the first one and the faux barbershop flourishes of the latter always worked well and I’d love watching people subconsciously start nodding/tapping along (or better, pausing their conversations and asking “do you know what this is?”) There were many a satisfied night when I got to share the answer with folks and turn them on to this band — and the pair will always be one of the delicate/fleeting happy moments from my time in the capital. [Memory Lane Mementos: “Young Liars,” “Mr Greives”]
That gets us roughly to the time when I started this bad boy in 2008, so I’ll stop boring you all with the backstory to Bobby. As I said at the top, this isn’t an exhaustive list, but they’re the ones that jumped to mind most readily as I was reading Tweedy’s book and playing this game with myself. It’s definitely a hodge podge mix, so give em a spin if you haven’t heard em before below. You might find a few surprises to call your own!
