Punk Rock Where You Don’t Expect: out of place in Mexico City

We went to that part of town to visit a library full of books written in a language I can’t read. I had never been to Mexico City before and this library’s design is world renowned. The shelves hang from the ceiling rather than standing on the floor. It is giant, cathedral-like, and filled with books written in Spanish.

 

I don’t Speak Spanish.

 

But I know what looks cool, and that spot is cooler than most, so we went.

 

As we opened the Uber door and stepped to the curb something unexpected happened.  Right next door, in a graffiti covered alley, was something loud that I recognized.

Blaring horns, a solid bass rhythm, and a heavy back beat. Played fast. I did not expect to hear punk ska in Mexico but expectations don’t matter so much when you are in the moment, and in that moment, I followed the sound.

 

The alley was packed full of temporary booths and tons of people. Ramones t-shirts, black leather jackets, and Doc Marten boots were both stacked on tables and worn by the crowds. A thousand or more people sporting full mohawks and spiked collars pushed their way through crowded stalls looking at stickers and buttons. I saw Bad Brains cassettes and Sex Pistols albums, anarchy logos and large gauged earrings everywhere.

 

And we joined in.

My buddy looked at where we were, looked me up and down, and just started laughing. He shook his head and said, “Dude.”

 

I had to laugh as well. It wasn’t just my Anglo skin and bullet straight part -I was wearing khakis.

 

I was the very visual embodiment of “The Man”, a square, the epitome of suburban dorkiness, middle aged middle class might as well have had a flip phone clipped to my belt; shouldering my way unabashedly into a Mexico City punk fest.

 

I didn’t care.

I didn’t care because I have rarely felt I fit in anywhere.

 

It isn’t that I haven’t wanted too, in fact I have made all sorts of efforts to find my place. It is more that in those efforts, on that journey, I have traversed so many spaces and places looking for a fit, that what I mostly found was overlap. It is natural (more so for some demographics than others) to see ourselves as the center of the world’s Venn Diagram, but I think my overlap was a little less centered. A bit more marginal. Like I am the outside circle of a million other group’s graphics but rarely checking off multiple boxes, or enough boxes to gain full membership. On such a journey one must either find a place and conform, or gain some sort of peace being a misfit.

This place had Misfits gear galore.

 

I didn’t care how I looked because I knew all the words to all the songs on those bootleg disks and coming out of those speakers. I learned them when I was 12. I learned them alone in my room listening to alternative radio or lurking around that one back rack of the record store. And here it all was in Mexico?

I loved it.

 

I had no idea what the live bands were singing, but skankin’ just needs that rhythm and a mosh pit was never really content driven.

 

I fit just enough to feel at home.

When the Noise from Your 13 Year Old Self is Still Ringing In Your Ears: Musack Carnival 2019

An Under Examined Now: New Orleans

 

A friend told me New Orleans was exactly my kind of place. A different friend described New Orleans as completely debauched. I think one was referring to the city’s reputation for music history and food and the other was talking about drunken toplessness. He compared it to Vegas where too many people are trying too hard to do something regrettable. He did however give New Orleans credit in that while Vegas is a plaster imitation of a million other somewhere elses, New Orleans is in fact a real place all its own.

I had in my head, thanks to history books and too many movies, an image of a place a lot like Philly, having an old colonial feel topped off by a few decades of industrial decay, just with more of a swing than a beat- and wrought iron balconies. Maybe I was just seeing what I wanted to see, but I wasn’t completely wrong. I would have been all the way right if I hadn’t overestimated New Orlean’s ability to deliver filth. With everything I had heard about Katrina and Bourbon Street, combined with what I experienced in Philly, I expected a little bit more disaster than I got.  While there was plenty of graffiti accented by dead palm fronds, there were no piles of trash blowing down the sidewalk. Philly keeps its filthiest title.

The whole place looks like it used to be green, was then grown over in black mold, and finally scrubbed hard with bleach. The result is a faded green and white streaked with grey black echoing the Spanish moss that hangs from trees outside of town. There aren’t as many trees in town, and they are strung with beads not moss.

When I got there it was surprisingly quiet. There were people around, places were open, but I got the feeling the whole city was resting up, waiting for something to happen later. There were bright colored bits of cloth left torn and strewn over everything. Formely glossy green gold and purple beads hung from tree branches and balcony railings and rainbow flags mixed in regularly with the flour de li. It was like the whole city was experiencing a post drag show hangover. Like something wild and just a touch trashy had already happened, it was sure to happen again, but everyone needed a nap first.

Crossing a grassy median by the trolley tracks I stepped over a pile of discarded casino chips. It was a small pile of Harra’s disks in purple yellow and green. I am not now nor have I ever been a gambler, so as I kept walking past that stash I simultaneously wondered if I had just passed a pile of redeemable money, how one might redeem a pile of found chips, and how badly I would get mocked if I went to Harra’s and tried. Wondering if it was worth a try I noticed an old woman who looked like money walking a miniature dog past a homeless man, and just past the homeless man was a hipster.

Actually they were two, not one- a couple. He with his horn rimmed glasses and beanie, her with a lemon yellow bob and septum piercing, neither of which alone make a hipster, but I saw them navigating by phone, not taking pictures of pretty houses, which could only mean Yelp. I have made it a best practice to follow tattooed millennials who are navigating on foot via Yelp. It is how I have found some of my best meals. On this occasion they were right and so was I.

They were indeed finding food and it was better than good. My first instinct would be to say that the Turkey and the Wolf is not what would be considered New Orleans cuisine, but it is there, and I’ve never had buffalo sauce deviled eggs topped with chicken skin ‘cracklins’ anywhere else, so I would have to say my first instinct was wrong. My second instinct was to order said eggs as well as the shredded lamb gyro drowned in dill. My second instinct did not disappoint. I may have been the only one Instagramming the houses out on my walk but everyone at lunch posted their meal. That includes me.

There were no hipsters at Cochon, and the fact that Google maps had it listed as existing at all made me worry just a little. But it was the closest restaurant to the hotel that wasn’t a hotel restaurant and it was going completely ignored by the tourists who were in town for Wrestlemania, which I saw as a good sign so I went in. I sat at the chef’s counter right in front of the wood burning oven. The chef’s counter is where you sit so you can see your food being made and hear the chef yell unintelligible things to everyone in the kitchen and then they all shout back in unison “yes chef”. You see people scurrying about doing menial things like washing plates, hauling flour and stoking an oven till chef rings a little bell and slides a plate of edible art onto a counter where a less sweaty person picks up the plate for delivery. The waiter described dish Cochon as pulled pork that is formed into a patty, lightly breaded then pan seared. It was good but it was the eggplant soufflé that made me want to shout “yes chef”. I did not expect to like it but the waiter suggested it. and he was right.

Food is everywhere in New Orleans. It is in every little corner shop, in the balconies. In the river, the ocean- everywhere. I had stuffed flounder at Adolfo’s, oysters at Felix’s, boudin and meat pies at Bourree, lime seared chicken at Cane & Table, shrimp etouffee at Galatoire’s, beignet at Café Du Monde, and crawfish at some side of the road place where the guy at the register had to speak through one of those little devices throat cancer survivors use to sound like a robot. They were all worth it in all the ways that matter. No, they are all worth it in all the ways that exist. It is a city where- when it comes to food- no matter how you roll the dice you win. It is telling that in all the days I was there in all the miles I walked or drove, I only saw one McDonalds and never saw a Target. I did see a Bubba Gump, which made me remember that Office episode where Michael’s favorite NY pizza spot is Sbarro’s. Because I’m much more Dwight than Michael I kept walking.

 

Despite it being a Wednesday. I had to weave and squeeze my way around revelers and wanderers down the blocks off Jackson Square. In full disclosure those streets are quite narrow so they aren’t the hardest thing to fill, but the rows of second story balconies packed with people give those streets a gauntlet quality that could be either exciting or terrifying, depending on the person- or people I suppose if you consider both the walkers and the balconers. I enjoyed it. It is a place that feels like a place. The quiet from earlier in the day was gone replaced by jazz.

I’m calling it jazz despite my not really knowing a way to define that genre- but there were plenty of trumpets, tubas, clarinets, and upturned hats or buckets sitting on the curb waiting for tips. Whatever an actual authority might call it, it was mostly upbeat and made walking down a street of strangers feel a bit like a party. No. It felt like multiple parties all squished together. One party was being led by a slightly tubby 20 year old doing covers of 70’s funk songs accompanied by a weathered Al Green doppelganger. Next door, and this part was a surprise to me, was country music. Stepping into an almost empty bar I was initially disappointed to hear a twangy voice slowly whining over an acoustic guitar. I was a little intrigued when I looked on stage to see that noise coming from a black man. As I stared in wonder, a little bit in horror, I realized I knew the song. It was “pictures of You by the Cure. I was witness to a black man singing a country version of a Cure song.  I was amazed, a little impressed, but definitely didn’t want to stay to hear that. One more door down was a full swing band crammed into a very small corner. The sound was great, thumping bass line and quick fingered clarinet, but 20 year olds in fedoras and zuit suits made the place feel a little to costume party for my tastes. Which was fine because there was another bar with another band right next door. This one had a steel guitar and organ and a 40 year old white man singing about bringing a loaded gun to the door to chase off salesmen. I appreciated what he was doing but his voice sounded explainey more than singy and no where near whaling or soulful. The place that finally made me linger was an ensamble that looked like an “all ages” chess club, or maybe like a tech company kick ball team, but they played like I thought the city should sound without looking too kitschy.

Just about an hour’s drive up the Mississippi there is a row of preserved plantations popular with chartered tours and wedding receptions. Facing right up to the big river and backed by sprawling fields of sugar cane are the sorts of palaces fantasized about in Gone with the Wind or any other antebellum story. There you find the real life relics that inspired those post war un reconstructed ideas. Oak Alley aptly named with a long arched tunnel of Oak limbs flanking a path leading to bright white columns encasing a genteel two story wrap around porch is right off the road. One mile up river is another called Evergreen, and then there is Laura, and St. Joseph. They are all landscaped to photographic perfection with clean and quaint gift shops selling cook books and hoop skirts. Lousiana isn’t unique in this. After all, the real Terra is in Atlanta and Mt. Vernon is above all else, celebratory. I have been on house and ground tours in Virginia, Savannah, Charleston, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and they all do things pretty much the same. They dress up like the white people who owned the place and tell wonderful stories of rags to riches mercantilism, explain the furniture, and then they laud the family’s contributions to the community through the 1930’s or 60’s when the last spinster descendent turned the estate over to a preservationist trust so we could all enjoy the rich history that lives in this beautiful place.

Then there is the Whitney.

Historically the Whitney is exactly like all the others. It too started with a colonists dream built into a business then handed down as a family palace. Its history is no different than Monticello, the Hermitage, or all its neighbors along the big river but it is fundamentally, foundationally, spiritually, different from all of them today.

I have been to Monticello and been told on the house tour that Mr. Jefferson had trouble getting a good cook to stay in the house. I was told a story of how Jefferson made a great investment in his chef’s French training only to have said chef skip town once back in America. There was no mention that this was because the chef was a slave and slaves didn’t like being slaves. Nor was there mention of this slave being related to the master’s family by blood and I was informed that this was scandalous rumor that couldn’t be proven- despite the fact that a Pulitzer prize winner had recently done just that.

I was told another tale at the home of Andrew Jackson where great honor is given to a grey haired old black man who when given his freedom, decided to stay on the plantation. The tour gave no room for questioning why.

But I have also been to Buchenwald in Germany.

Buchenwald was a concentration camp built by Nazi Germany as part of the final solution. After its liberation by Allied armies the local Germans were made to tour the facility. It was thought important that those who may not have been directly responsible, though perhaps complicit, be brought face to face with the realities of genocide and death. Today the camp is open as a museum and memorial to those who suffered and or died there.

That is the Whitney Plantation.

There was no talk there of confederate bravery or Nazi scientific precision, just honesty and reverence for the black people who suffered and or died-for the sole purpose of making some white people rich. It was not really about blame- though it was honest and fair in a way that those other houses have never been, nor was the prevailing feeling one of hate or revenge.

I have been to DC and stood at the Vietnam memorial, a large wall listing the names of the dead, and it feels sacred. At the Whitney there is a similar memorial listing names of black people who suffered-and or died-as slaves just in Louisiana. It lists double the number of names as the wall in DC (57,939 vs 109,200) and felt to me at least as powerful.

And then there are those statues.

In the little chapel, and out in the wooden shacks, are black children cast in bronze. Their visible presence is an unavoidable reminder of who lived in these homes and why. They are haunting. But they aren’t just blank recreations of what might have been, these children have names. And they have stories. In the 1930’s the federal government sent out employees with recording equipment to capture the stories of those old people who were alive back in slave times. The statues are those people, portrayed at the age they would have been when emancipated. The result is not just a bunch of kid statues, but real people whose stories you can know and stand and hear while looking at them standing or sitting in the location where they were born- meant to suffer and or die to make some white family rich. There is no such thing at other houses.

But what struck me the most, or hit me the hardest, was a bell.

Bells were normal on plantations and they were rung for several reasons. They rang to call everyone in from the field, or for lights out, or as a call to gather to witness someone being punished. The Whitney has such bells. The Whitney also has something else other plantations don’t really have- black visitors. I have stood in several crowds of German, Japanese, or French people at dozens of historic plantations- but what I had never done before was be in such a place standing next to black people. Outside of minors who were bussed to such places on field trips or the awkward bridesmaid whose white sorority sister opted for a genteel plantation wedding, I had not known black people to visit the location of their ancestor’s torture.

But at the Whitney I witnessed a tour guide tell of the old ringing of plantation bells with the explanation that now they choose to ring them in honor of the memory of black people who once lived there, and then I watched a young black mother send her little black son up to pull the rope. When the bell rang I lost my mind. My head stopped thinking and I started feeling. My eyes welled up, my breathing caught short and I had to walk away. I didn’t just see and know things right then, I felt them.

There is meaning in that.

And then I left that place and went a mile down the road to another such house where the guide proudly showed me the plantation owner’s signature on multiple loyalty pledges where he had duplicitously promised not to fight against the United States in the civil war any more. The guide chuckled when he also showed me the list of battles this plantation owner fought in after breaking those promises. There was no mention of black people other than to brag that after emancipation most of the slaves chose to stay. He had no answer as to who those black people were or why they made that so called “choice”.

 

And that is New Orleans.

It is an old city with much of its story sinking in mud both real and figurative. I t is a place where bad things happened and happen. It is the kind of place where despite all of those things or maybe because of them, people choose not to focus but drench themselves in bourbon and beads. The music swings loud, the food is full of flavor, and they dance at funerals.

The city is turning 300 years old this year which is “founding fathers” old in American years and all this time the crescent city has been its own kind of place with its own story. More than any other city this one is the story of France, Spain, the Huma and Choctaw- and Africa. And then the United States, Haiti, and the Confederacy. All the while Andrew Jackson waves his hat triumphantly in the square and goes mostly ignored. The crowds that mill around are more interested in Café Dumond’s beignets or the buskers on the corner. They are not really looking into the city’s history, unless maybe on a ghost tour, which is less about what happened then and more about what sort of then still haunts now. Which is appropriate because now is haunted by then so much more than the crowds appear to want to know. Though in all fairness the crowds only appear to want to know bourbon and brightly colored beads.

The party is so loud and constant that you sense it has and will always be going on and consequentially the place is celebrated but only shallowly considered. Maybe that is changing just a little, they did after all take down a statue or two,

but I don’t really know.

I don’t live here.

Foundation Room: worth the dry cleaning

Every now and again​​ Yelp serves up more than you expect. I picked the Foundation Room because it was the closest thing to my location with an acceptable number of stars.  What I got was almost enough to inspire an arson laden revolution against Olive Gardens world wide. But do not fear, as I think your endless bread sticks are at least one Yelp dollar sign into safety. I don’t think I could rile up the masses for anything past 2.​

The Foundation Room is the restaurant lounge attached to the back of Houston’s House of Blues. I guess this makes it a chain establishment, which should offend me, but it didn’t. The decor could be best described as South Asian rock n roll in red and orange, the service was casually attentive, and the food was the best I’ve had in Texas. I would need to investigate the locations in Vegas, Chicago, or New Orleans to see if the ambiance is dictatorially scripted, but after testing Texas I might be up for finding out.

I chose to eat in the lounge with the live music, versus the back room with booths, making it my own fault that the table was at knee level. Moving sauce covered chops from plate to mouth without dripping on your suit is hard with a table that low. My scientific testing says it is impossible.

But whoever that no-name, or maybe not-yet-name was, up there singing Jill Scott and D’angelo covers, made the suit splatters worth it.

 

 

Yelp didn’t tell me I would hang out way past my bedtime, or long after the check was paid, just because I liked being there. I’m not sure I have ever loitered past paying at an Olive Garden.

The Brohammas Guide to Music

When you are young your world is narrow. You think you know things despite the fact that you have never traveled independently past the corner or that fence around the school yard- but this is your world. And we all think our world is the world.

In my world there were only four kinds of people: old people, Rockers, Wavers, and that mush in between who liked top 40. These were strict, and the only, categories that existed. Later in my youth a 5^th wing emerged that we called “hicks” (we were not nice kids) but before Garth Brooks showed up in 1990’s, there was no such thing as country music, and we all knew he was really just top 40 in a cowboy hat.

I have recently learned that there are some of my generation, or maybe just a touch after mine, who somehow missed things musical and consequentially have no context with which to understand the world around them. They are adrift, left to silly things like books, the New York Times, and critical thinking with which they attempt to understand society and they are failing. It is sad, and bad, and it hurts my feelings, and it is well documented that I have all the feels. Not only do I have all the feels but I am a trained sociologist and musical anthropologist (in the same exact way Rachel Dolezal is a black person). This is me doing my part to give back. I am making the world better.

Prologue

Ska was a musical movement that began in the late 1950’s Jamaica with a signature fast paced backbeat.  It spawned both reggae (by slowing down and infusing Rastafarianism) and punk (by speeding up and infusing rock and roll). Punk made it into the atmosphere of my youth, but reggae did not. That is till one day (no joke) I found an unmarked dubbed cassette tape in the gutter while walking home from 6^th grade. I took it home and listened to it and didn’t understand a word. I loved it. LOVED it. I listened to it alone in my room till I learned to decipher what was going on, and what was going on, was tearing down the corrupt Babylonian system and returning to Zion where racial oppression and materialism do not exist. It was exactly what I had been learning in Sunday School and sounded much better. It was Bob Marley’s Talkin’ Blues album and no else could stand it. I didn’t care, I still love it. It wasn’t till “high” school that everyone else discovered Buffalo Soldier and Three Little Birds. They thought Bob was all about peace and smoking weed. He was not. He was about fighting off oppression, religious devotion… and weed.

I have never smoked anything, not tobacco, cloves, nor weed.

The Specials, Rudy (1979)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbqiCxEIeEo

The Wailers, Small Axe (1976)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJJeLFvYsT0

Kinky Reggae- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNxTigI_qjw

Slave Driver (1973)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlfblmgOaYE

You Can’t Blame the Youth (1977)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3pi-6fInng

PUNK (ish)

Ramones, while they all gave themselves the last name Ramone, they were not related and it was none of their real names. They are considered THE founders of American punk rock music. They made these fast, loud, and pop sounding songs and they looked ugly and they liked it that way. Sedated (1978)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLlLtSG7xe4

The Clash, founded in 1976 in London, broke up in 1985 Along with the Ramones and the Sex Pistols. They are what punk is and will forever be. -should I stay or should I go (1982)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGIFublvDes

Blondie, Everyone knows Blondie. Their (it is a bond not a person) songs are on commercials now. They were part of the New York punk scene and, like the Talking Heads, are considered another bridge from punk to New Wave. Heart of Glass (1978)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGU_4-5RaxU

One Way or Another (1978)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXewIR7Y7cc

Dead Kennedys, Were a San Francisco punk band that was more popular in England. Everyone else went the other direction. They were part of a big censorship law suit. Holiday in Cambodia (1978)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr6NOsluHYg

Talking Heads, while you would never think it by their sound, this is considered an essential punk band and the founders of New Wave. With this “founding” many consider punk to have died; with some following the Talking Heads into a new wave of music, and others sticking more with the loud chaos of thrash. Punk did -NOT- turn into heavy metal. Talking Heads were art school students. You can tell. Once in a Lifetime (1983)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1wg1DNHbNU

Suicidal Tendencies, from Venice California they were considered a Thrash Band. I don’t know who listened to them in CA, but in Utah all the new wave kids listened to them. The song Institutionalized is the best song ever to help “outsiders” understand the mindset of white middle class suburban teenage boys. Institutionalized (1983)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYItTxqTc38

NEW WAVE

Oingo Boingo formed in 1972, Lead singer Danny Elfman went on to write the scores for the first run of Batman movies, the Simpsons, Pee-Wees Big Adventure, Nightmare Before Christmas and pretty much any movie music that’s creepy. Most People Know the song Dead Man’s Party but to better illustrate the problematic creepiness of Oingo Boingo, try this song- Little Girls (1981)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2LQMElLoLs

Or Stay (1990)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwRnW89EsxI

U2 is from Dublin and started making records in 1980. It is hard to underestimate how big they were in both the 80s and 90s. Bono, the old guy who is always about some social cause, was/is the lead singer and he has been about causes since way back then. U2 was that magical kind of band that balanced singing about meaningful things without sacrificing the music. They could sing about MLK (which wasn’t the cool thing to do back in the 80’s) or just sing some introspective love song. I will admit that I stopped listening to them with the Achtung Baby album. They changed their sound and remained relevant. I did not. They have a million songs but I like this one. It displays the signature sound of 80’s U2 (not 90’s U2), along with the mainstream-rock-with-a-message that made them acceptable to the punk/New Wave crowd. Sunday Bloody Sunday (1983)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM4vblG6BVQ

Violent Femmes, formed in 1981 and were discovered while busking in Milwaukie. First Album released in 1983 and contained songs that have now been re-made like Blister in the Sun. They are the most sing-a-longable band ever. Gone Daddy Gone (1983)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekL7o8BQkZM

Midnight Oil, Australian band. Diesel and Dust album hit #1 in Australia in 1985 but it took a lil bit before the Americans got wind. This band is a great example of the singing about social causes from a position of privilege, toward others similarly situated. Which was very much an 80’s white people thing.Beds Are Burning (1985)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejorQVy3m8E

INXS, Another Australian band that was a top 40 hit both here and there, but “Wavers” still liked them. Devil Inside was their biggest. This one is better. More representative of their 80’s vibe. Need You Tonight (1987)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrZZfaDp02o

The Smiths, possibly the most New Wave band ever. Synthesized, artsy, and incredibly depressed. They formed in England in 1982 as a Post Punk band (the lead singer “Morrisey” wrote a book on the punk band New York Dolls before the Smiths formed). With songs like Girlfriend in a Coma and a very 80’s not quite androgynous but kind of androgynous look, they ARE New Wave., – Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now (1984)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjPhzgxe3L0

R.E.M. a New Wave staple out of Athens Georgia and the first album (cassette) I ever bought with my own money. “Stand” was their break out hit but the One I Love (1987) is a better representation of why their fans loved them. They were odd sounding… and depressed- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7oQEPfe-O8

Depeche Mode, while I claim that the Smiths is the most New Wave band ever, Depeche mode is the most “iconic” new wave band. English, Gay but their videos had them playing straight, but we all knew they were an incredibly gay band. No one cared. And by no one I mean kids and adults weren’t speaking to us because we were kids and our parents were Boomers. Policy of Truth (1990)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2VBmHOYpV8

Everything Counts (1983)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t-gK-9EIq4

Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, One hit wonder but kind of represents the “mood” that grew into Grunge. It wasn’t the noise. It was the mood. What I am (1988) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDl3bdE3YQA

Red Hot Chili Peppers. You need to understand how old these guys are. They put out their first album in 1984, had a top album in 1999, and released another album just last year. They won’t die. They are like my generations version of the Rolling Stones in that they just keep playing, live way too hard, and just won’t die. Forget their new stuff because-meh-. The RHCP used to be all about silliness (and nastiness) and Flea, the bassist, is a real musician. Catholic School Girls Rule is agreat example of what they were all about but there is a little bit of nudity and a whole bunch of stuff a young Mormon kid should have had nothing to do with… but I did. This is their first time on TV (1984) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZRdjZFffnQ

Under the bridge was their first break out top 40 hit, but what most people don’t know is that it was about the lead singers struggle with Heroin. The band one of its original members die from an overdose. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLvohMXgcBo

The Breeders, was formed when the bassist of the punk band the Pixies wanted to be a lead singer. She formed the Breeders. They were in this weird space, that made sense to us then, as a post punk, sorta new wave but kinda becoming grungy right as grunge began to be a thing. Cannonball (1993)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxvkI9MTQw4

GRUNGE

Pearl Jam was a bigger deal than Nirvana up until Kurt Cobain committed suicide. Nirvana sort of worked their way into the public sphere while Pearl Jam just kind of exploded on the scene with this song about a kid killing himself in front of his class. There were a lot of Seattle grunge bands on air around then and while Nirvana was grittier (I avoided saying grungier) than Nirvana, Alice in Chains was grittier than Nirvana. Eddie Vedder’s vocals had this certain sound, and could be understood… and he was trying to say at least a little something meaningful. Oddly enough, the drummer on this song is the same drummer from Eddie Brickell and the New Bohemians. New Wave kids liked Pearl Jam, and grunge, because it was depressing- Jeremy (1991)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS91knuzoOA

Sound Garden was a Seattle band that was around before Pearl Jam, but didn’t hit it big till they all exploded on the scene together.- Black Hole Sun (1994)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mbBbFH9fAg

Alice in Chains, was around (in Seattle) long before grunge was a thing, but they didn’t get popular till grunge became a thing. Of all that crew they were maybe not the grungiest, but they were the grimiest and the rockiest. When the other guys were listening to ACDC to get ready for a football game, I was listening to Alice in Chains and Pantera. Rooster (1992)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAE6Il6OTcs

Primus is the band that plays the Southpark theme song. They were a sort of bridge from punk/wave over into grunge. They were not depressed but they were loud and “quirky”. The Bassist is perhaps the greatest ever. Flea might give him a run for his money but they don’t exactly do the same thing, because no one does the same thing as the bassist for Primus (Les Claypool plays bass and is the lead singer). If you have not heard this song before, and loud screeching isn’t your thing, stick through it till it gets to the repeated chorus. This song is unlike anything or anyone else out there. Tommy the Cat (1989)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4OhIU-PmB8

Beck, Loser- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgSPaXgAdzE

Blind Mellon was not grunge but was there at the same time. Blind Mellon is what you get if Pearl Jam had lived in a sunnier place, like LA, which is where they are from. This song must be included more for the video and the fact that everyone from this time remembers the bumble bee girl. She changed our lives, or at least how we view bumble bee man on the Simpsons. -No Rain (1992) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qVPNONdF58

Smashing Pumpkins, Is what new wave kids listened to when they were worn out from listening to Grunge. It was kind of artsy, moody, and the lead singer was just creepy enough for a Cure fan to accept him. Today (1993)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmUZ6nCFNoU

Weezer, is the band that took us back toward new wave after grunge died. New Wave could not be resuscitated so we got Indie instead. Sweater Song (1994)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHQqqM5sr7g

POST PUNK-NEW WAVE-GRUNGE

Mighty Mighty Bosstones are kind of the band who took punk and ska and then created the thing that No Doubt later made popular. Ironically the Bosstones later became kind of popular with a watered down version of themselves and may have actually killed the genre they created. Someday I Suppose (1993)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmOmAuhAQbE

No Doubt, IS early 90’s Orange County. They got, and then got more, pop success, but they were a punk-ska band. They, or really Gwen, is the precursor to the Spice Girls “girl power” bubble gum. Trapped in a box (1992)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DccmKKnizFY

Green Day, Is the early 90’s punk band that those of us who liked the first version of punk, didn’t really believe were punk. It is like they wanted us to believe they didn’t care what you thought about them, but were kind of trying to be cute at the same time (cute like pretty). So in that way I sort of see them as the founders of what it means to be a hipster. Watch them, then go back and watch the Dead Kennedys. You will see what I mean. Basket Case (1994)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUTGr5t3MoY

Sublime is the neo punk band that we actually believed were punk… in a California way not a NYC way. To hammer that point home, the lead singer suffered a drug induced death in 1996. What I Got (1996)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Uc3ZrmhDN4

Sum 41 is included here just to help illustrate for those who might be a little young, the musical evolution of “punk”. This Canadian band might not be punk in a Ramones kind of way, they did pick up a little of Green Day’s gloss without appearing to take themselves quite as serious. Sum 41 is what happens when No Doubt and Green Day have a baby and the Clash are the grandparents sitting in a rocking chair complaining about kids not caring about real issues. In Too Deep (1999)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emGri7i8Y2Y

Rage Against the Machine, Is what happens when kids listen to both Metallica and Public Enemy. They are more metal than punk, but would probably smash a hair band with their guitars. They are loud because they are making a point and that point should piss you off…. Hence the Public Enemy part. People who loved loud music listened to them, as did the socially conscious people-and those aren’t always the same people. Killing in the Name (1992)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWXazVhlyxQ

System of a Down. So it goes Chuck Berry>Led Zeppelin>Metallica+Rage Against the Machine=System of A Down. Chop Suey (2001)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSvFpBOe8eY

Heavy Metal

ACDC does not appear on the t-shirt of Beavis and Butthead by mistake. They are the grandfathers of what became heavy metal. They formed in 1973 and still tour. The Rolling Stones are representatives of an era, ACDC are representatives of a genre. Thunderstruck (1990) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2AC41dglnM

Twisted Sister could not have existed at any other time than the 80’s. The lead singer bears a striking resemblance to Sarah Jessica Parker. Also, who can pass up a young Gary Busey? We’re Not Gonna Take It (1984)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9AbeALNVkk

Guns N Roses is THE quintessential (because that word has to be in a musicology somewhere) Heavy Metal hair band of the 80’s. There are bands that were more glam rock than them (Def Leppard, Whitesnake, Etc.) and others that were “heavier” (Metallica, Iron Maiden), but no one was more pure rock and roll, cigarette smoking, whiskey drinking, groupie groping excess than G&R and their guitarist “Slash” is one of the all-time great metal guitarists, or just plain guitarists (if that is the word for a guitar player) ever and the lead singer pulled off feminine tough guy better than all the rest. Sweet Child O Mine (1987)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w7OgIMMRc4

Welcome to the Jungle- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1tj2zJ2Wvg

Metallica might not be the grandfathers, but are the epitome, of heavy metal. They are loud, fast, tough, and are not trying to be sexy even a little bit. Lars the drummer is famous for having no sense of humor. Enter Sandman (1991)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD-E-LDc384

Def Leppard, This is glam rock. Pour Some Sugar on Me (1987)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ4xwmZ6zi4

Rap, Hip-Hop to Neo Soul

I am late to the game. I am so late to the game that I shouldn’t even be using that phrase. But I listen now (sort of) and I have listened back. That is not the story here, but what this is, is the place to explain that back when New Wave and Heavy Metal were going on, there were in fact such things as black people, and they weren’t all Michael Jackson. MTV, the radio, and genres were pretty separate back then… at least for suburban white kids in Salt Lake City. Which is what I was. So all I can do is explain how it was for me and some of us back then- and then draw a line back towards a bunch of stuff I missed. Which is a shame. Which is something that should be considered on a greater societal and historic level. I will be making some sweeping generalizations below knowing full well that some might read it and say, “nuh-uh, I knew about…”, but I am sticking to my guns because my point is still generally true. If you are the “nuh-uh” person, admit that you were a you back then, and not a we.

None the less-rap:

Beastie Boys start off this list not because they were the first or the best, but because they and heir music did, and in so many ways still do, occupy this odd space between social groups. Aletarnative and New Wave radio stations played the Beastie Boys. We thought they were “alternative”. They were white and they played instruments. In fact, they began as a thrash band in NYC being much more CBGB than  Run DMC. But none of us really knew that. We just knew they were wild and wanted to party and that was the extent of their songs. Little did we (we white suburban kids) know that the Beastis were part of a vanguard group that were pushing a dance club “thing” into a full-fledged genre. Their sound and demeanor endeared them to the punkish skate boarding Tony Hawk sorts (because Tony Hawk was young then) but they were solidly in –physically- the Rap scene. Their second album Paul’s Boutique (1989) was a pioneer in the sampling arena. But in the end we (we suburban white kids) just wanted to jump around being loud and obnoxious. So did the Beasties. Fight For Your Right (1986)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBShN8qT4lk&list=PLJdDgfq34Jz1sPQT7P4RUd7HvqXG29CIX

Hold It Now (1986)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB0NM6reiRE

 Salt-N-Peppa are solidly in the pantheon of Hip-Hop gods but we didn’t know that back then. All we knew is that this video some how found its way onto MTV, it was catchy enough that we all knew it, and it was obvious what they “meant” and that is a universal language. Push It (1986)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCadcBR95oU

DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince is the very first rap artist I can remember hearing and the first one I can recall enjoying. Kids today might see/hear this song and think “Oh yeah, this is the Fresh Prince of Bell Air, aka Willow and Jayden’s Dad” but no- THIS was the Fresh Prince that allowed the TV show to happen later. Back in the 80’s this was just good time party rap. And regular white kids loved it. Parents Just Don’t Understand (1988)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW3PFC86UNI

Tone Loc and few others (MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, Fesh Prince etc.) had a couple top 40 or “crossover” hits that made their way into our environment but they were all sort of single blips into the pop world rather than representatives of a movement or genre. Rap was maybe a kind of thing, but it was “over there” and we didn’t pay any real attention unless something looked fun. Then we the pop people would reach over there and grab some of the fun. Wavers and rockers would never do such a thing, but pop people dabbled. Wild Thing (1989)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=387ZDGSKVSg

Young MC– Refer to Ton Loc above. Bust a Move (1989)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy4FXhkm6Nw

Slick Rick tells stories. He wasn’t trying to be a clown or a gangster, yet he was funny without being soft. His songs have since been sampled by pretty much everyone and it is relatively well established that he is the grandfather of storytelling rap. We (we suburban white kids) had no idea he existed. Children’s Story (1988)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjNTu8jdukA

Public Enemy We (we white suburban white kids) knew Public Enemy existed in the same way we were aware of Spike Lee. In other words we knew they existed but were not for “us”. We were stupid. Kids who has seen the train wreck television show Flavor of Love Fight might not appreciate that Flava Flav was part of what was perhaps the most important protest or empowerment group of that time period. They were musically, or artistically gifted, they were cool, and they were not shy about having a message, yet unlike the New Wave artists Public Enemy was not speaking to the privileged while similarly situated but rather rallying those without privilege to push and shove against privilege- and power. Fight the Power (1990)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PaoLy7PHwk

Don’t Believe the Hype (1988)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vQaVIoEjOM

De La Soul. New Wave is to Rock and Roll what De La Soul is to Hip-Hop. Except for the part where a whole bunch of rock people hate, and hated New Wave. I haven’t met anyone who loves rap who even dislikes De La Soul. They were witty, had a great sound, and were just plain good. Me Myslef and I (1991)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJEzEDMqXQQ

Tribe Called Quest has been described by some critics as the most intelligent and artistic rap group of the 90’s. The fact that the three foundational members remained artistically productive after the crew broke up in 1998. All that being said, the Tribe is great music and could, and should have been recognized as such by more than just the “rap community” (with everything that implies insinuated). But I completely missed them. I may have heard their name, but they got zero attention from me, or most people like me (white people), and were even ignored by the pop white people (who I don’t claim were “like” me). A big reason why they were ignored, and a whole problematic scenario (see what I did there?) will start with the next artist. In the mean time this classic song doesn’t just include the Tribe but a whole bunch of everyone including the head jester of hip-hop, Busta Ryhmes. Consider that a bonus. Scenario (1991)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6TLWqn82J4

Snoop Dog. It boggles my mind that this guy has become such a joke, as in intentionally funny, doing cooking bits as the harmlessly high foil to Martha Stewart. Today he is best known for some sort of half baked Snoop specific shizzle fizzle styled slang but back when he first came out he had the whole white world terrified. In retrospect we should have been able to see the clown but we were too busy thinking he and every other gang banger (synonym for rapper) were at any given moment about to drive around the corner and kill every last innocent one of us. I’m not exaggerating.  Not only did we think Snoop Dog was about to kill all of us, but we were convinced that what he was doing was the very definition of rap. Somehow (side eye) we (the white people) completely forgot about DJ Jazzy Jeff, Ton Loc and the idea that a rapper might not be trying to kill- or rape- someone. I am not being melodramatic. If you ask almost any old white man, the kind that are old enough to be my parent, to name one rapper, odds are they will only be able to come up with “Snoopy Dog” and then will undoubtedly go on a rant about saggy pants, stupidity, and handbaskets. All of that is due in large part to the fact that Snoop and his California contemporaries did something magical that caught on and crossed over. All of the Rockers in the neighborhood took off their ACDC t shirts, but on an a Raiders puffy coat and tucked a blue bandan in their sagging pants pocket. This, this right here, is when hip hop started to take over become mainstream. That is not to say that “Gangster Rap” was ever really mainstream, but before this time rap was an occasional blip not a BOOM. MC Hammer blipped. These guys from Compton and Long Beach crossed over in numbers and sent old white people running for the hills. Gin & Juice (1993)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI3yXg-sX5c

Dr. Dre was a founding member of NWA, one of the great architects of the West Coast sound, but NWA happened before downloads, streaming, or even CDs outpaced cassettes. So those of us who weren’t trying to know NWA had no clue. Even if we had known, and I argue even those near me who did know, didn’t really get it. But we knew Dre. I include this song, and Dre, because this video and song captures everything the people like me in that period, thought about rap. I didn’t get it. In large part I didn’t get it because nothing in my life resembled the world they were rapping about and the only context I had in which to place this G thing, whatever that meant, were some kids around the burbs who were trying a little extra hard to be hard. Nuthin but a G Thang (1992)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F0CAEoF4XM

Cypress Hill is included here because it illustrates a point. Somehow (side eye) we (idiot new wave white kids like me) thought the Beastie boys were great but this song was somehow stupid… and a little bit scary. Yet a million years later I still know that hook and that beat, and overall sound really because it is so very infectious. Insane in the Brain (1993)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RijB8wnJCN0

Diggable Planets was releasing music at the exact same time as the gangsters, yet people like me (white suburban kids) completely missed them. Had we heard them we would have tried to argue they weren’t really rap but something different. We were stupid. Digable Planets is great music. Rebirth of Slick (1993)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM4kqL13jGM

Where I’m From (1993)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl-pjb7y3y0

Arrested Development. We could tell at the time that Arrested Development was talking about important things, especially when compared to the Beastie Boys, but we just thought they were quirky. We did not, and most of us still do not, know what Afrocentric is/was. Arrested Development was Afrocentric. But we thought rap was just Snoop Dog. Mr.Wendell (1992)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyDjRd0Tjss

Tennessee (1992)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VCdJyOAQYM

Pharcyde, because it is classic and we missed it (I didn’t say it. See what I did there?). Passin Me By (1992)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjsPG0Kspxo

Black Sheep, Again, because its classic. See above. The Choice is Yours (1991)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9F5xcpjDMU

Craig Mack Have I made my point? Flava in Ya Ear (1994)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNFqMx0gY7I

Tupac Shakur is one of two names people will bring up if you ask “who was the greatest of all time?” There are children who might say MR. Beyonce is in the running, and they might have a point, but the correct answer must include an argument about Tupac and Biggie. This argument may or may not end the way these two rappers ended, and it could also be argued that the reason they are considered is because of how they ended, but it is more than that. Tupac, possibly more than anyone else (that I know of but we have already established that I am not only not an expert but have historically been stupid) presented both ends of the angry gang banger who is going to shoot everyone and the conscious guy who loves his community and his mother. He came off as authentic on both fronts despite having previously been a back up dancer for the guys who brought us the Humpty Dance.

Brendas Got a Baby (1991) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRWUs0KtB- I

Dear Momma (1995) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb1ZvUDvLDY

California Love (1996)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wBTdfAkqGU

Notorius B.I.G is the NYC foil to the LA Tupac. He is also the reason any of us know who Puff Daddy is. While Tupak had a bazillion of his songs released after his death, Biggie had a zillion songs about him released after his death, all made by Puffy. Ready to die Big Poppa (1994)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phaJXp_zMYM

Common, Recently won an Oscar for a song he did with John Legend but he is not new. He is a staple in the stable of those considered “conscious” rappers. I Used to Love Her (1994)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C99iG4HoO1c

Fugees were the group that solidified rap’s place in the main stream without being gangsta and without being bubble gum. Fu-Gee-La (1996)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPlb9HoOCxs

Lauryn Hill was a Fugee, then she became a hip hop diva- in a good way. Most importantly, she is the mother of Bob Marley’s grandchildren. Do Wop (1998)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6QKqFPRZSA

Roots, go way back before the whole Jimmy Fallon hook up. Proceed (1995) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5TUqdxqHS0

You Got Me (1999)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJCHeEQV454

Erykah Badu is THE God mother of neo soul and is my favorite (of now not of all time *Bob*) ,

On & On (1997)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CPCs7vVz6s

Love of My Life (2002)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNk3R23Twgw

Tyrone (1997)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY2-mrsXgMM

Tracy Morgan, Simone (2007)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeSNt9YiUqo

India Arie, India Arie (2001)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq86e4Fhja0

 

If you lived in Philly when I did, and where I did, you should recognize all of these places:

Musiq Soulchild, Just Friends (2000)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7zsG3XFUd8

Jill Scott Long Walk (2000)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSYMKUtNuw8

Getting In the Way(2000) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiR6sU1igKM

When I first met the girl I would later marry I called my friend Riley and told her I met this girl who looked like a cross between Halle Berry and Left Eye from TLC. He laughed and called me stupid because that doesn’t exist, and if it did, she wouldn’t pay attention to me. When he finally met her he instantly apologized. Left Eye is the one in the red pajamas. We met in 1999. Had I still been the me from 1992 it would have never worked.

TLC, Creep (1994)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlZydtG3xqI

Having grown up when and where I did, I did not appreciate rap. Then, when I was 19, I found myself sleeping in an apartment on Bankhead Highway in Atlanta and everyone within a ten mile radius bought the Goodie M.O.B. album Soul Food and played it as loud as possible for at least a year. Hearing those songs, then, in that place, I began to “get it”. At least a little bit. Whether or not I did, or ever could, “get it”, I began to love it. Cee-lo was a member of Goodie M.O.B. before he was a member of Gnarls Barkley, and before he was a judge on the Voice. It was mostly him who converted me.

Goodie M.O.B. Sesame Street. Skip to minute 2:58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHGx7BstZg8

Common and Ceelo together- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CodmNmI7XSk

Outkast is older than kids realize. Git Up Git Out (1994)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CssC- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHGx7BstZg8DY4lO8

In due time (1997)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvMCA9jHFZ0

Considering how quickly and easily I dove down this rabbit hole I now realize that I was indeed paying attention to something when I was younger, just not the things that would have been productive for my professional development.

So Apparently Nashville is a Place

No, I don’t watch the TV show Nashville so forgive me for not knowing things, and shame on you if you think watching that show means you know things, but I was unprepared for Nashville. To say I was unenthused when I boarded the plane is being kind.

And then we landed.

I expected some good BBQ and a bunch of twangy singers who wear the hats and boots but have never ridden a horse. What I got was a strident city that didn’t seem to be attempting coolness but was rather exerting its own coolness onto the world. Now admittedly Nashville’s brand of coolness was not exactly mine, if it could be argued that I have any at all, but I appreciate what it was doing. I see what ya did there Nashville.

Everywhere in Nashville is a honky tonk, and by honky tonk I mean a venue for aspiring musicians. The lobby of my hotel at 7am, the second floor dining room of a mostly abandoned bar at noon on a Tuesday, and the convention center ballroom on Thursday night, all venues for live music by people I have never heard of that sound better to me than anyone I ignore on American Idol.

I appreciate that.

Then there was food. Upscale and down. Everywhere.

I did find it amusing, and eventually sort of unsettling, that while sitting in a sidewalk dining area in the Gulch for three hours on a Saturday afternoon, we counted no less than six separate bridal parties, each group wearing their own matching outfits, be it pastel green t shirts or black and gold tanks. It felt like a sorority event, but it was weddings. It was a thing.

Also, this was a thing:

And so was this:

In the Studio: Nina Simone

Sometimes things don’t work out on the first try.

 

 

 

Meh…

Better.

The Day the Music Fell From Heaven

I was in 8th grade. Old enough to have my own opinions but not quite experienced enough for them to be worth much. I was walking down the street, in the gutter. My dad used to hate when packs of teenagers would do this, leaving the sidewalks empty and daring cars to run them over. But I wasn’t a pack, it was just me, and I wasn’t all the way out in the street, just the gutter.

I was on my way home from school, or maybe Kirk’s house, I’m not really sure. I am sure that I was kicking rocks. Little landscaping pebbles that had escaped from a flower bed or a driveway. Off to the side in the gutter I didn’t have to look up to see who was in the minivans as they drove by or which blonde little kids were laughing as they played on swingsets in their back yards. I kicked rocks because they were there and because the rubber soles were coming off my Converse. I was trying to wear them out quicker in hopes for a new pair.

As my shoes made that scuffing sound on the pavement and the little kids laughed on the swings my mind drifted off to wherever it is the minds of bored suburban kids go when they walk. I wandered on in this mindless state for at least another ten years, but on this day I was startled out of my trance by the shallow clacking sound of hard plastic.

I looked down and saw an unmarked cassette tape. It was dirty, scratched up, but the tape was intact. I picked it up and slipped it in the pocket of my Bugle Boys.

Once home I went down to my room, closed the door, and went right for the tape deck. I hit eject and tossed the Thompson Twins off onto a stack of the Cure, Depeche Mode, and Unforgettable Fire.

When I closed the deck and pushed down the play button a ray of light burst through my shuttered windows.

Then I saw the angel with the seven seals
Sayin
Babylon your throne gone down gone down
Babylon your throne gone down

A conduit straight to heaven opened up before me and I was carried away to some celestial world.

I said fly away home to Zion
One bright morning when my work is over
I will fly away home

It was as if the sounds of angels came bursting from the speakers and I was changed.
I was also confused.

I’m sure death and the passage into the next world would be confusing, or should I say will be? One day you are the same you have always been and then bang, hit by a truck, and now everything is different. That is what happened to me when I put that unmarked tape into the deck.
I had no idea what it was. I had never heard anything like it. I did not understand it.

I loved it.

You teach the youth to learn in school
That the dish ran way with the spoon
You teach the youth to learn in school
That the cow jump over moon
So you can’t blame the youth, when they don’t learn
You can’t fool the youth

There was a back beat. It made me smile. It was raw and unpolished. I had no idea what they were singing about but I felt like it mattered. I was convinced they meant whatever it was they were saying and hat I needed to be on board.

It wasn’t just the music. Between every song there was this guy talking. It sounded vaguely like English but I couldn’t make it out. Completely incomprehensible. But I was young and this was love. Love has never needed to make sense. This idea made perfect sense to me. I was in the height of puberty, everything felt big and important and I didn’t understand any of it.

Why should this music be any different?

Then came one song; instantly my favorite.

I went downtown
There I saw miss Brown
She had brown sugar
All over her booga wooga
Kinky reggae
Kinky reggae now

I rewound it over and over. Kinky reggae. I had never touched, never kissed, never seen a naked girl, and my new favorite song was kinky reggae. I knew in some vague way what that word meant, I have no idea how, and I didn’t care. I had my theme song. This one was mine.
It was years before I figured out who the artist was. I played it for my friends and they all just laughed. They couldn’t handle more than one joke and told me to turn that trash off. “That junk is non-sense, put R.E.M. back on.” Because of that one word, kinky, I didn’t play it for my parents. It wouldn’t have helped. I knew it wasn’t Chubby Checker so I knew Dad wouldn’t know who it was.

Every time I hear the crack of a whip
My blood runs cold
I remember on the slave ship
How they brutalized my very soul
–
Slave driver
The table is turned
Catch a fire
Yer gonna get burned

Decades have passed and I have never smoked a joint. I do not like the Grateful Dead and find tie dye repulsive. I have never owned a pair of Birkenstocks. But to this day Bob is by far my favorite. Writing that just now doesn’t really do it justice.

Every man thinks that his burden is the heaviest
Every man thinks his burden is the heaviest
Who feels it knows it Lord
That’s why yer runnin’ away
But you can’t run away from yourself

I am still in love.