Not all of the flotsam from my father's childhood drifted into my grandfather's fireplace. When he was a boy growing up in his small mountain town, he struck a deal with the owner of the local bar's jukebox. Each time the owner changed the music, he sold my father the old records for a dime a piece. He had quite a collection of unsleeved 45's, and they managed to escape the ovens.
I don't remember much of the music, but I remember the labels: The bright yellow Atco label with the elegant little trumpet; Mercury, Capitol, and Dot. The Roulette label was the best: A yellow and orange piece of pop art that was hypnotizing at 45 rpm. I'd sit on the rug in my bedroom and sort my father's records by label, try to memorize the artists' names and what was on the b-sides. Those 45's were to me what baseball cards were to other kids my age.
Some of those records made it into my early childhood heavy rotation: Freddy Cannon's "Chattanooga Shoeshine Boy" on the Swan label; Johnny Horton's "Battle of New Orleans" and its much hipper parody, Homer and Jethro's "Battle of Camp Kookamonga." These three along with The Royal Guardsmen's "Snoopy Vs. the Red Baron" were the bulk of my first grade playlist.
But without any doubt my favorite single from my father's stack was Lee Dorsey's "Ya Ya." There was not another record like it. There wasn't another R&B record in the house, and probably not in the neighborhood. "Chattanooga Shoeshine Boy" may have had that swing, daddy, but "Ya Ya" made me shake my little Toughskins butt.
Maybe my first grade teacher was the coolest teacher ever, maybe the Denver public school system saw value in promoting the arts, or maybe Mrs. Hendrickson was looking for filler. Regardless, after we got settled into a groove of Dick and Jane, handprint turkeys, and pledges of allegiance, we started having Music Wednesdays. This was nothing more than musical show and tell, with my little classmates bringing in their favorite records for us to hear.
What kid doesn't love show and tell? You have to put yourself out there, right? Make a name for yourself. Establish yourself as the alpha dog with a giant pine cone, real porcupine needles, or one of the many race car shaped Avon bottles your Mom put on your shelves but wouldn't let you play with. I don't remember ever having anything particularly good for show and tell - I think I may have committed social suicide by bringing a ventriloquist dummy once, but for my own well being I've blocked that incident. But Music Wednesday. I could own Music Wednesday with "Ya Ya."
And so one Wednesday afternoon after Mrs. Hendrickson had us move the desks out of the way and sit Indian-style in a circle, I sat and waited. Carl brought "Tie A Yellow Ribbon." The class seemed to really enjoy that. Really? Tony Orlando is on TV - how good can he be? Joe brought "Rocky Mountain High." This got a huge response, not only because we were listening to a song about the mountains we could see from our playground, but because John Denver was unbelievably huge with the elementary school set. I don't want to go down that particular rabbit hole right now, but I'll get to it eventually. For now just trust me that John Denver enjoyed Hannah Montana-like poll numbers with the monkey bars crowd.
There were a few others as the circle worked its way to me: the ubiquitous "Monster Mash;" Loggins and Messina's "Your Momma Don't Dance;" "It Never Rains In Southern California." Finally I was up. Mrs. Hendrickson motioned for me to hand her my record. She read the label, smiled, and dropped the needle.
Ohhhh welll I'm.....
I couldn't help but look around the circle.
Sittin' here la la waitin' for my ya ya uh huh
I may have blacked out, I don't know. The rest is a blur. It was like the dream where I was at the chalkboard showing the class how to make a proper "J" only to realize too late that I was in my underwear.
Sittin here la la waitin' for my ya ya uh huh
My classmates were laughing and pointing at me. Somebody yelled "That's old stuff!" My shot at cool had backfired worse than the ventriloquist dummy incident. Mrs. Hendrickson played the whole song, which took 12 hours and 38 minutes. When it was finished she unleashed on the class.
"How incredibly rude you boys and girls are. Jimmy sat nicely through your songs. Maybe he didn't like them, but he was polite enough to clap for you." And then she addressed me personally. "Thank you for sharing with us. I've loved this song since I was a girl. They just don't appreciate it because it's an oldie." This was the first I'd heard that music had an expiration date.
Three years later I was in my fourth elementary school in as many years. We'd moved to Texas a couple of months earlier, and I was having trouble fitting in. I was skinny and my hair was long enough that adults weren't sure if I was a boy or a girl. One teacher called me "Jen" for three weeks before someone finally told her that my name was Jim. I'd dropped "Jimmy" in one of the moves. Instability is great for reinventing oneself.
Aside from being the new kid, I was also a Yankee. This did not go over well in a town with a Wednesday night rodeo. I did my best to blend. I started wearing western shirts with lots of ugly embroidery and snaps instead of buttons. My visiting grandfather bought me a tooled leather belt with "Jim" notched into the back in raised black letters. But let's face it: I was just putting lipstick on a Yankee pig.
My lack of pop culture savvy didn't help much, either. One afternoon we were invited to join the other fourth grade class in a game of hangman. The subject was movies. Thanks to me we lost two games straight. I'd never heard of Smokey and the Bandit or Star Wars, neither of which had been released but somehow every kid but me in small town Texas was in on the Hollywood hype.
Our class had music once per week. Normally it consisted of playing triangles, maracas, etc., or singing Woody Guthrie songs like "Roll On Columbia" and "Grand Coulee Dam." One Wednesday while we were putting the triangles and the maracas away, Mrs. Hatton made an announcement. "Next week, I want you to bring in your favorite song," she said. Sink or swim, baby. I was going to break the Yankee Outsider curse. I was going to heal my first grade wounds.
My plan was simple: If oldies were scorn worthy, I'd bring the newest record I could get my hands on. That afternoon I asked my oldest sister to lend me her most popular 45. I took it to my room and listened to it repeatedly, scrutinizing it for any flaws worthy of my classmates' scorn. That Saturday I grabbed the entertainment section of the newspaper as soon as my father was done with it and flipped to the record charts. My sister was dead on with her recommendation: the record was number one. I couldn't miss. Wednesday could not come soon enough.
Monday and Tuesday crawled by, but music day finally arrived. It was a fine crop, I must say. Rhythym Heritage's "Theme From S.W.A.T." set the bar awfully high for the afternoon. "Love Rollercoaster" by the Ohio Players? Forget about it. These kids were playing for keeps. Paul, the tallest kid in class, broke out "Convoy," always guaranteed to bring the house down in 1976 suburban Texas. But Michael sealed the deal.
Michael was an only child and spoiled beyond belief. He was one of those kids who somehow managed to get the whole world to agree to spoil him. Rules didn't apply to Michael. If Mrs. Hatton said use a pencil, Michael used a pen. If she said sit down, he'd stand up just to be contrary. The kid was bulletproof.
So while the rest of us brought our favorite song, Michael brought his favorite album. When "Convoy" faded out, Michael and his "Fonzie for President" t-shirt slowly ambled to the front of the classroom.
"What I brung in can't be put on a 45 because it's banned in most places. You hear a guy die on it. A lot of people say that these guys are evil, but they aren't. They put it in the record because they don't want this to happen to anymore of their fans."
"I don't know if we should be listening to something like that, Michael, but I guess it will be fine," Mrs. Hatton said. Michael dropped the needle and passed the album cover to the kid in the first row to circulate. KISS. Destroyer. Bastard.
I don't know whether it's possible to understand what a disturbing presence KISS was for suburban parents in 1976. They weren't hawking Dr. Pepper, condoms, can cozies, and caskets back then. They were simply demonic. Consider this: Destroyer was released in March 1976. Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons held onto #1 almost that entire month with "December, 1963 (Oh What A Night)." The Bay City Rollers, Barry Manilow, Chicago, Rick Dees' "Disco Duck" - they all hit #1 in 1976. KISS breathed fire and spit blood. There isn't much else to say.
So we sat and listened to "Detroit Rock City," listened to the story of that unfortunate KISS fan unfold. All the guy wanted was to go a concert. He was obviously excited - it was getting late and he just couldn't wait. But some dumb trucker - probably listening to "Convoy" - crossed the double yellow. Julie Potter started crying when the truck inevitably crushed the poor bastard. None of us doubted for a moment that what we were hearing was the actual fatal car crash. Michael gingerly slipped the album back in its sleeve and sat down.
I was up next. I cued up Wings' "Silly Love Songs" and stood there while my classmates laughed and called me sissy, pansy, whimp, queerbait, etc. Mrs. Hatton told them to hush up, but she was laughing, too.
Not too long after that we picked up and moved again, this time to a small town in South Carolina. When the plane touched down in Greenville I was the biggest fucking KISS fan the world has ever known and I knew the difference between a land speeder and an x-wing fighter. Paul McCartney could kiss my Toughskins butt.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
The Mamas, The Papas, and The Grandpas
My grandfather participated in the liberation of Matthausen concentration camp. I don't know much more about this than what I've gleaned from a briefcase full of faded photographs that surfaced after he died, and the lone comment he made one evening. "The smoke from the chimneys was so sweet it made you sick," he said.
He came home from the war and restarted his life. A year later, his brother and his brother's family were killed in a fire. I don't know much more about this, either, except for the newspaper clippings found in the same briefcase. But I do know that it was my grandfather who was sent to the morgue to identify the charred bodies.
How people overcome these sorts of things is beyond me, and in retrospect maybe it was beyond him, too. He drank a lot, and he threw into the fireplace anything that wasn't nailed down. The man could not stand clutter. My father's comic books and baseball cards went up the chimney as soon as the old man moved out, for example. Visits to my grandfather's house consisted of watching him drink Coors while he stared at this and that curling up in the flames. Whatever he saw there occupied him.
But not everything fits into a fireplace, and that's where grandchildren come in. Many visits to my grandparents' little house in the mountains resulted in piles of castoff junk in the back of our Bel-Air wagon. If it was taking up space, not combustible, and not garbage it came home with us. My aunt made the mistake of leaving her childhood belongings behind when she ran off with her Air Force husband, and thus her portable hi-fi and her record collection were handed down to my sisters and me.
"Portable hi-fi" deserves a bit of explanation in an iPod world. This beast was the size of a hard shell suitcase and must have weighed 485 pounds. Okay, it probably weighed 30 pounds, but what's the difference? Hardly portable for a preschooler. One would set the suitcase on its side and then open it like some sort of elaborate steamer trunk. The hinged top swung open to reveal the turntable, and the sides of the case swung outward to expose the two stereo speakers. Considering my only experience with stereo equipment was the kiddie record player in my bedroom, this was quite a step up.
Because my sisters shared a room it was decided that the stereo would live there; after all, they represented 66% of the ownership. We set it up in a corner, across from the bunk beds and just right of the E-Z Bake Oven, and there it stayed until we moved a few years later.
Now, since the stereo was in their room, it only made sense that my aunt's records would live there, too, so when my sisters left for school I would sneak into their room and spend my pre-nap hours rifling through the albums. Sonny and Cher were there. I recognized them from television, but Sonny was dressed up like a hippy. Very strange. And Elvis - I knew who Elvis was. He was the guy on TV on Saturdays, so this must be the music from those movies. He's an Army guy in this picture, so this must be G.I. Blues; there's a carnival tent on this album, so this must be Roustabout. He was old and he looked funny. I didn't like Elvis, but I liked that I knew who he was.
She had other records, too. These people weren't on television, so I had no idea who they were. They were all hippies, and my father and grandfather spoke often about what worthless, filthy, deadbeats hippies were. One album cover showed four fully-clothed hippies in a bathtub - two men and two women. They seemed to be having a good time. The blond woman was beautiful. She looked like she belonged on TV. Why were they all in a bathtub? It didn't make sense. Bathtubs were a place to be alone and naked. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to stare at the blond lady in the picture.
Some of the other hippy records were simply too terrifying. Angular men in pegged pants and wraparound sunglasses, smoking. They had long hair and moustaches. Grandpa had a flat top. He was one of the good guys in the War. I didn't like looking at the scary hippy records.
And right in the middle between the TV people and the dirty hippies were the crown jewels of my aunt's record collection: Meet The Beatles; Beatles '65; Songs, Pictures and Stories of the Fabulous Beatles (on the Vee Jay label); and Rubber Soul. I knew who The Beatles were. I don't know how I knew, I just did. I think everybody did. It wasn't because my parents were caught up in the throes of Beatlemania. I'd never seen my father intentionally listen to music, and my mother listened to showtunes. The Beatles may have been as close to a universal pop culture reference that spanned generations and geography as was possible when I was a kid.
I couldn't read the titles of the albums, but I knew the faces. On most of the records they looked like they were having fun. They wore suits and smiled and goofed around for the camera. Their hair was funny but not scary. They looked like the kind of grown-ups who wouldn't ignore me.
At least that's how they looked on all but one of the albums. Rubber Soul was different. On the front cover they loomed over the camera like menacing giants. That's not quite right. The experience was more like I woke up to find four strangers watching me sleep. It was a bit dizzying and unsettling. The back cover was a collection of black and white photos that I'm sure were quite tame, but to my little brain they were pure dissonance. No more suits, and that one is wearing sunglasses like the scary hippies wear on their album covers. The worst offense? They were smoking cigarettes. The nice guys in suits had turned into cigarette smoking hippies.
This was obviously dangerous cargo, this album. If the nice guys in suits could turn to the dark side then anybody could. Could I? Maybe I was already there. Maybe I was a bad kid. Maybe that's why I liked looking at the blond lady in the bathtub so much.
My son and I describe certain songs as "goosebump music." These are the songs that are so deeply tucked beneath your skin that they literally make you tingle. Just thinking about putting Rubber Soul on that hand me down hi-fi gets me there. Pure goosebumps.
Honestly, I'm a bit stumped right now. This is the part of the narrative where I'm supposed to describe the turn "Wonder Years" style: "At that moment I knew..." And that to some degree is true. Even now when I hear "I've Just Seen A Face" I get an inexplicable feeling of hope and change. It's not there in the lyrics, it's not really even in the music. What it comes down to, I think, is this: The sheer, absolute beauty coming from those speakers exposed the world I knew as a lie; well, if not a lie then as a much more complicated place than "heroes have flat tops and hippies are bad." I couldn't fathom that bad people could make such perfect music.
"Michelle" was equally mind altering. If hippies were losers and deadbeats they must be stupid, right? And yet that guy is singing in something other than English. My little brain couldn't imagine the complexity of speaking two languages. For that matter, I'm not entirely sure I knew there were languages other than English.
On and on. I treated that record like a manifesto. "Think For Yourself." "Run For Your Life." "I'm Looking Through You." "In My Life." There was a world out there. That's why those four guys were looming over me on the album cover. I was asleep, and they wanted to wake me up.
So I guess that "Wonder Years" moment, hackneyed as it is, is true. That album changed me. Even as young as I was, it opened my eyes to worlds that I had no idea even existed. It was the moment that I began to see the world for myself versus through the lens of the adults in my life.
And from there we were off to the races.
He came home from the war and restarted his life. A year later, his brother and his brother's family were killed in a fire. I don't know much more about this, either, except for the newspaper clippings found in the same briefcase. But I do know that it was my grandfather who was sent to the morgue to identify the charred bodies.
How people overcome these sorts of things is beyond me, and in retrospect maybe it was beyond him, too. He drank a lot, and he threw into the fireplace anything that wasn't nailed down. The man could not stand clutter. My father's comic books and baseball cards went up the chimney as soon as the old man moved out, for example. Visits to my grandfather's house consisted of watching him drink Coors while he stared at this and that curling up in the flames. Whatever he saw there occupied him.
But not everything fits into a fireplace, and that's where grandchildren come in. Many visits to my grandparents' little house in the mountains resulted in piles of castoff junk in the back of our Bel-Air wagon. If it was taking up space, not combustible, and not garbage it came home with us. My aunt made the mistake of leaving her childhood belongings behind when she ran off with her Air Force husband, and thus her portable hi-fi and her record collection were handed down to my sisters and me.
"Portable hi-fi" deserves a bit of explanation in an iPod world. This beast was the size of a hard shell suitcase and must have weighed 485 pounds. Okay, it probably weighed 30 pounds, but what's the difference? Hardly portable for a preschooler. One would set the suitcase on its side and then open it like some sort of elaborate steamer trunk. The hinged top swung open to reveal the turntable, and the sides of the case swung outward to expose the two stereo speakers. Considering my only experience with stereo equipment was the kiddie record player in my bedroom, this was quite a step up.
Because my sisters shared a room it was decided that the stereo would live there; after all, they represented 66% of the ownership. We set it up in a corner, across from the bunk beds and just right of the E-Z Bake Oven, and there it stayed until we moved a few years later.
Now, since the stereo was in their room, it only made sense that my aunt's records would live there, too, so when my sisters left for school I would sneak into their room and spend my pre-nap hours rifling through the albums. Sonny and Cher were there. I recognized them from television, but Sonny was dressed up like a hippy. Very strange. And Elvis - I knew who Elvis was. He was the guy on TV on Saturdays, so this must be the music from those movies. He's an Army guy in this picture, so this must be G.I. Blues; there's a carnival tent on this album, so this must be Roustabout. He was old and he looked funny. I didn't like Elvis, but I liked that I knew who he was.
She had other records, too. These people weren't on television, so I had no idea who they were. They were all hippies, and my father and grandfather spoke often about what worthless, filthy, deadbeats hippies were. One album cover showed four fully-clothed hippies in a bathtub - two men and two women. They seemed to be having a good time. The blond woman was beautiful. She looked like she belonged on TV. Why were they all in a bathtub? It didn't make sense. Bathtubs were a place to be alone and naked. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to stare at the blond lady in the picture.
Some of the other hippy records were simply too terrifying. Angular men in pegged pants and wraparound sunglasses, smoking. They had long hair and moustaches. Grandpa had a flat top. He was one of the good guys in the War. I didn't like looking at the scary hippy records.
And right in the middle between the TV people and the dirty hippies were the crown jewels of my aunt's record collection: Meet The Beatles; Beatles '65; Songs, Pictures and Stories of the Fabulous Beatles (on the Vee Jay label); and Rubber Soul. I knew who The Beatles were. I don't know how I knew, I just did. I think everybody did. It wasn't because my parents were caught up in the throes of Beatlemania. I'd never seen my father intentionally listen to music, and my mother listened to showtunes. The Beatles may have been as close to a universal pop culture reference that spanned generations and geography as was possible when I was a kid.
I couldn't read the titles of the albums, but I knew the faces. On most of the records they looked like they were having fun. They wore suits and smiled and goofed around for the camera. Their hair was funny but not scary. They looked like the kind of grown-ups who wouldn't ignore me.
At least that's how they looked on all but one of the albums. Rubber Soul was different. On the front cover they loomed over the camera like menacing giants. That's not quite right. The experience was more like I woke up to find four strangers watching me sleep. It was a bit dizzying and unsettling. The back cover was a collection of black and white photos that I'm sure were quite tame, but to my little brain they were pure dissonance. No more suits, and that one is wearing sunglasses like the scary hippies wear on their album covers. The worst offense? They were smoking cigarettes. The nice guys in suits had turned into cigarette smoking hippies.
This was obviously dangerous cargo, this album. If the nice guys in suits could turn to the dark side then anybody could. Could I? Maybe I was already there. Maybe I was a bad kid. Maybe that's why I liked looking at the blond lady in the bathtub so much.
My son and I describe certain songs as "goosebump music." These are the songs that are so deeply tucked beneath your skin that they literally make you tingle. Just thinking about putting Rubber Soul on that hand me down hi-fi gets me there. Pure goosebumps.
Honestly, I'm a bit stumped right now. This is the part of the narrative where I'm supposed to describe the turn "Wonder Years" style: "At that moment I knew..." And that to some degree is true. Even now when I hear "I've Just Seen A Face" I get an inexplicable feeling of hope and change. It's not there in the lyrics, it's not really even in the music. What it comes down to, I think, is this: The sheer, absolute beauty coming from those speakers exposed the world I knew as a lie; well, if not a lie then as a much more complicated place than "heroes have flat tops and hippies are bad." I couldn't fathom that bad people could make such perfect music.
"Michelle" was equally mind altering. If hippies were losers and deadbeats they must be stupid, right? And yet that guy is singing in something other than English. My little brain couldn't imagine the complexity of speaking two languages. For that matter, I'm not entirely sure I knew there were languages other than English.
On and on. I treated that record like a manifesto. "Think For Yourself." "Run For Your Life." "I'm Looking Through You." "In My Life." There was a world out there. That's why those four guys were looming over me on the album cover. I was asleep, and they wanted to wake me up.
So I guess that "Wonder Years" moment, hackneyed as it is, is true. That album changed me. Even as young as I was, it opened my eyes to worlds that I had no idea even existed. It was the moment that I began to see the world for myself versus through the lens of the adults in my life.
And from there we were off to the races.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
The End of Music
I have been turning this question over in my mind for years: How can the music industry be dead? I don't want to bother with the details -- there are Google-a-plenty details available -- but the gist is that the major labels are the new Rust Belt. Only established acts make money, and even they can only make money through merchandising and relentless touring. Van Halen, AC/DC, the Rolling Stones, Roger Waters, KISS, stop me any time. These are the bands that are commercially viable. There's no room for you youngsters, best of luck at Starbucks. You'll make a great barrista.
The music industry is a relic of another time, the story goes. Yet there's my teenage son, every bit as passionate about his favorite music as I was - as I am, for that matter. And what's wonderful for me and a bit tragic for him is that a good chunk of that music passion overlaps our generations. We bond over Bowie and Zeppelin, The Who and Zappa. Granted, he has his own thing going on, too, but it's kind of on the periphery of contemporary music.
And why is that? Because a boy who takes the time to figure out "St. Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast" on the xylophone isn't likely to contract Bieber Fever. He isn't going to embrace Katy Perry or Lady Gaga or the kids from Glee. He's not looking for a prepackaged, marketable experience. He wants something that he can claim as his. And so for the most part he's stuck in my stacks, discovering deep cuts and planting his flag.
Music matters to him. It matters to me. It still resonates. The music industry isn't dead - it has simply forgotten that music matters.
Don't misunderstand: Crappy pop music has existed at least as long as recording technology has existed. Edison's recording of "Mary Had A Little Lamb" wasn't exactly "Stairway to Heaven." But especially since the Sixties the major labels always struck a balance between art and commerce. Sometimes they got lucky and the two collided - The Beatles, for example. Sometimes, not so much (see: Herman's Hermits). The point is that the game wasn't so absurdly stacked in favor of accounting.
Tom Waits is an outstanding example. His first album, Closing Time, was released on the Asylum label in 1973. It's by no means a bad album, but it bears no resemblance to the brilliant beast that we know and love as TOM WAITS. And neither does his second album, nor his third. Three years later on his fourth album, Small Change we see the Tom Waits make an appearance.
That one barely cracked Billboard's top 100, and it would be 12 more albums and almost 25 years before he cracked the top 30. Maybe more importantly, it wasn't until 1983's Swordfishtrombones that Waits emerged as a fully formed, unique voice.
What I'm getting at is that Tom Waits managed to kick around the music industry for ten years and nine albums before he got it all dialed in. In that ten years his best chart showing was #89. What does this tell us? Somebody -- many somebodies -- believed in his act of creation enough to subsidize it, arenas and merch be damned. And as a result of this patronage, a truly unique artist was allowed to develop. Without some money guys trusting that there was a Black Rider lurking in there somewhere, we'd be down several musical treasures.
This is the major label music industry that is dead, unfortunately. Obviously people still make music, and Web 2.0 has enabled a grassroots indie movement that I couldn't have even begun to imagine when I was a teenager with an asymmetrical haircut and a penchant for college radio. But a major label (or two) giving an artist ten years to find his sea legs? No way, Jose Feliciano. A new artist doesn't get that kind of time to develop. It doesn't make good short term business sense.
But it doesn't have to be that way. I genuinely believe that the big labels need to be reminded that art matters, that music matters. It isn't just a commodity. It isn't New Improved Tide. There is a reason that old farts like me think of music as the soundtracks to our lives. I enjoy a good laundry detergent, but that's hardly the same thing.
So here is what I'm fiddling with: I know I'm not speaking to anyone but myself here. I may be self-absorbed but I'm not delusional. But I think I'd like to walk through the soundtrack of my short life, to tell the story of the music that I've known. Maybe I'll get lucky and someone will listen.
Wish me luck.
The music industry is a relic of another time, the story goes. Yet there's my teenage son, every bit as passionate about his favorite music as I was - as I am, for that matter. And what's wonderful for me and a bit tragic for him is that a good chunk of that music passion overlaps our generations. We bond over Bowie and Zeppelin, The Who and Zappa. Granted, he has his own thing going on, too, but it's kind of on the periphery of contemporary music.
And why is that? Because a boy who takes the time to figure out "St. Alphonzo's Pancake Breakfast" on the xylophone isn't likely to contract Bieber Fever. He isn't going to embrace Katy Perry or Lady Gaga or the kids from Glee. He's not looking for a prepackaged, marketable experience. He wants something that he can claim as his. And so for the most part he's stuck in my stacks, discovering deep cuts and planting his flag.
Music matters to him. It matters to me. It still resonates. The music industry isn't dead - it has simply forgotten that music matters.
Don't misunderstand: Crappy pop music has existed at least as long as recording technology has existed. Edison's recording of "Mary Had A Little Lamb" wasn't exactly "Stairway to Heaven." But especially since the Sixties the major labels always struck a balance between art and commerce. Sometimes they got lucky and the two collided - The Beatles, for example. Sometimes, not so much (see: Herman's Hermits). The point is that the game wasn't so absurdly stacked in favor of accounting.
Tom Waits is an outstanding example. His first album, Closing Time, was released on the Asylum label in 1973. It's by no means a bad album, but it bears no resemblance to the brilliant beast that we know and love as TOM WAITS. And neither does his second album, nor his third. Three years later on his fourth album, Small Change we see the Tom Waits make an appearance.
That one barely cracked Billboard's top 100, and it would be 12 more albums and almost 25 years before he cracked the top 30. Maybe more importantly, it wasn't until 1983's Swordfishtrombones that Waits emerged as a fully formed, unique voice.
What I'm getting at is that Tom Waits managed to kick around the music industry for ten years and nine albums before he got it all dialed in. In that ten years his best chart showing was #89. What does this tell us? Somebody -- many somebodies -- believed in his act of creation enough to subsidize it, arenas and merch be damned. And as a result of this patronage, a truly unique artist was allowed to develop. Without some money guys trusting that there was a Black Rider lurking in there somewhere, we'd be down several musical treasures.
This is the major label music industry that is dead, unfortunately. Obviously people still make music, and Web 2.0 has enabled a grassroots indie movement that I couldn't have even begun to imagine when I was a teenager with an asymmetrical haircut and a penchant for college radio. But a major label (or two) giving an artist ten years to find his sea legs? No way, Jose Feliciano. A new artist doesn't get that kind of time to develop. It doesn't make good short term business sense.
But it doesn't have to be that way. I genuinely believe that the big labels need to be reminded that art matters, that music matters. It isn't just a commodity. It isn't New Improved Tide. There is a reason that old farts like me think of music as the soundtracks to our lives. I enjoy a good laundry detergent, but that's hardly the same thing.
So here is what I'm fiddling with: I know I'm not speaking to anyone but myself here. I may be self-absorbed but I'm not delusional. But I think I'd like to walk through the soundtrack of my short life, to tell the story of the music that I've known. Maybe I'll get lucky and someone will listen.
Wish me luck.
Screaming Into the Wind
I'm not an early adopter. I don't have an iPhone or an iPad. I own a cellphone that I use for the rather antiquated purpose of sending and receiving phone calls. I'm 43 years old, behind the times, and life has beaten the ego out of me.
So the notion of creating a blog strikes me as completely absurd. It feels like a technology abused by narcissists, mental masturbation fueled by some sort of Beat fantasy that one's auto-writing is not only fascinating but culturally significant.
But maybe a blog is just right for a guy like me. I'm alone, somewhat by choice, somewhat by circumstance. I am in a vacuum. I haven't been this alone since my early twenties. And how did I deal with the loneliness twenty years ago? I wrote. Journal page after journal page I wrote, for no other reason than to be talking to someone, to feel connected even if it was to no more than notes and doodles on a sketchbook page.
My preference was to sit for hours in a coffee shop on the corner of La Brea and Beverly, I think, in Los Angeles. I'd drink cup after cup of mint tea, all the while scribbling furiously in a black, bound sketchbook. It accomplished nothing, but at least I was somehow integrated into the world.
And even though I still had enough ego at that age to secretly hope that I was creating a journal of Nin-like significance, I was horrified at the notion of someone actually reading the thing. In fact, one strange evening Peter Max grabbed for my journal-in-a-sketchbook, assuming that if The Max was near a young man's sketchbook he must be looking for feedback from the master. A tug of war ensued, and my shot at impressing Peter Max went out the window. I suppose at some point I should tell that story.
That coffee shop is a lifetime ago, and the black journals and their embarrassing contents are hidden away in the attic. So is the guy who wrote them, for that matter. But the impulse is still there - that desire to scream into the wind, knowing full well that I'm the only one who will hear it.
So the notion of creating a blog strikes me as completely absurd. It feels like a technology abused by narcissists, mental masturbation fueled by some sort of Beat fantasy that one's auto-writing is not only fascinating but culturally significant.
But maybe a blog is just right for a guy like me. I'm alone, somewhat by choice, somewhat by circumstance. I am in a vacuum. I haven't been this alone since my early twenties. And how did I deal with the loneliness twenty years ago? I wrote. Journal page after journal page I wrote, for no other reason than to be talking to someone, to feel connected even if it was to no more than notes and doodles on a sketchbook page.
My preference was to sit for hours in a coffee shop on the corner of La Brea and Beverly, I think, in Los Angeles. I'd drink cup after cup of mint tea, all the while scribbling furiously in a black, bound sketchbook. It accomplished nothing, but at least I was somehow integrated into the world.
And even though I still had enough ego at that age to secretly hope that I was creating a journal of Nin-like significance, I was horrified at the notion of someone actually reading the thing. In fact, one strange evening Peter Max grabbed for my journal-in-a-sketchbook, assuming that if The Max was near a young man's sketchbook he must be looking for feedback from the master. A tug of war ensued, and my shot at impressing Peter Max went out the window. I suppose at some point I should tell that story.
That coffee shop is a lifetime ago, and the black journals and their embarrassing contents are hidden away in the attic. So is the guy who wrote them, for that matter. But the impulse is still there - that desire to scream into the wind, knowing full well that I'm the only one who will hear it.
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