I was recently reminded of the part in High Fidelity where the main character Rob looks up all his old girlfriends in a sort of "what does it all mean?" mid-life crisis. While the situation seems to be common for most people, for me it just seems like a gimmick to help cope with some kind of pain that's still lingering. Kind of like how people go to psychics to get help or post something on Facebook to get attention from peers in a non-direct way. I think most psychics are fake, and the Facebook posts wind up just getting blocked from my news stream. So I'm sorry if I didn't like your the photos you posted of your stupid baby. You're probably blocked.
As for me, instead of taking the "what does it all mean?" approach. Instead of awkwardly calling up all my ex's to ask them "what happened to us?" I go for the best kind of memory erasing I can give myself within the bounds of human consciousness and capability. Photos get destroyed, keepsakes are burned, songs aren't listened to for a long time. Hell, just last week I listened to Passion Pit for the first time in almost a year. To be honest, I think I can probably go the rest of my life without hearing them again. They just didn't make the impression on me that I need to stick with an artist no matter what the memory connected to them may be.
So instead of looking back at memories that do not need unearthing, I'd rather dig up some other ones that allow me to ask and answers the questions of my own being. Other people influence our personalities, but it's how we process those connections in relation to how we feel at the time that causes those neural pathways to form the way they do. Which brings me to the subject of this new 5SIAR.
Pitchfork has a column they run called 5-10-15-20-25 in which they ask musicians what they were listening to when they were those ages. It's interesting to see what everyone puts and how my choices are so lame in comparison. But this is what made me. And I only get one personal musical history so I should make the best of it by sharing it with all of you. Prepare to laugh and silently mock me.
"In The Mood" - Robert PlantPeople have very blurred and distorted memories from when they were small children. It's our brain's natural defense against the very first pains we experience when growing up since we are still mentally immature to handle them all. We don't know how to cope with certain behaviors and surroundings. I remember bits and pieces as I'm sure you do as well of your childhood. The one thing that always sticks out among the people I've talked to is that they always remember what music their parents were playing. I seem to recall a lot of The Beatles. One of my first memories is my mother rocking me to sleep while humming "Let It Be." Paul was always her favorite and I have her Wings albums. No, I do not listen to them.
It wasn't until my family and I moved to Florida from our hometown of Rahway, NJ that I remember a specific song that was played just for me. It was "In The Mood" from Plant's solo album The Principle of Moments. I just remember this one song even though I know they played the entire album. I was 5 and my bedroom was the fold-out couch in the living room of our one bedroom apartment. My parents put this album on one night as a soundtrack for me to fall asleep to. Not sure what my parents were thinking. It's not exactly an album that is soothing with Plant's vocals being so metallic and sharp. What kind of 5 year old would enjoy this? Me, I guess. Or at least that's what my dad probably thought at the time since it was his cassette.
I'm not close with my dad. We barely have anything to say to each other most of the time. But we do share a love of certain types of music and I have to give credit where credit is due. He introduced me to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. Two of the greats, obviously, and as time went on in my youth he would constantly play Physical Graffiti and Dark Side Of The Moon. I've tried returning the favor by giving him newer music to listen to, but I never have any success. It may be because I caught him listening to "Everybody Hurts" one day and made fun of him for it. Did I mention we don't get along very well? On a more positive note, he's finally stopped listening to Celine Dion.
My time table is a little off for this song and album. I was listening to Songs From The Big Chair when I was around 7 or 8. Honestly though, I loved it so much that it was still played in the car when I was 10. It was required listening every time we went on a trip somewhere. Short or long. My parents only had one car for a while so I was always with my mom when she had to pick my dad up from work. As soon as we'd get in the car I'd beg her to play Tears For Fears, and of course bring the great mom she is, she always had the tape ready for me. Side one track one, "Shout", was one of my first favorite songs, but it was MTV and their constant rotation of the video for "Head Over Heels" that finally made me decide that Songs From The Big Chair was to be my first favorite album. I seriously loved that song so much I wanted to watch the video for it on repeat. And so begins my very first musical obsession.
When my parents finally caved and became cable television addicts they got a big kick out of recording the music videos off of MTV with their new state of the art VCR. We were climbing up the middle-class ladder. We moved out of the shitty one bedroom apartment and into a new three bedroom house. My dad even had his own work car once and for all. An old Datsun hatchback that required the bumper being held in place with electrical tape. This would later become a standing joke in our household. So with fiscal security came better Christmas presents. I finally got a Nintendo, but more importantly I finally got my own boombox with a cassette player for my room. This added luxury would become more important to my personal and social evolution than a gaming system. I never had to blow into a cassette tape to get it to play either.
Most of my pre-teen music exposure was attributed to those video tapes my parents had sitting on top of the TV for hours of continued entertainment. We eventually had an on-demand music video catalog. Everything from Rick Astley to ZZ Top was recorded. If we liked it, we hit the red button on the remote. Yes, I'm responsible for Rick Astley. I told you you would laugh, did I not? As the years went on I got into a lot more Pop music than you could probably shake a stick at. I stayed away from the mall-rat scene and stuck with the good stuff of course. Even at 10 I was a bit of a snob and had somewhat of a taste. Except for Rick. I totally understand Dennis' (It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia) obsession with the song. And yes I bought the cassette single for the it too. Sigh.
It's confession time, folks. Before the onslaught of grunge I was stuck in a bit of a Pop wormhole that I couldn't get out of. I blame the radio for this because it even took time for the airwaves to catch on to the insurgence of Alternative bands. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots...they didn't exist yet in my world. My corner of the audioverse had room for only one band(?) and they were called Ace Of Base. I'll let that sink in for a bit.
Caught your breath yet? Great. I'm sure my 15 year old self was able to hear your laugh even from this great space/time difference, jerk. Okay, so I'm kind of laughing too (while I also listen to the entire album over again). It's terrible. Like, really terrible. Why did I like it so much? As I ponder this quandary I can only come up with one solution - The female vocals. I'm drawn to them. As my musical taste expanded with Alternative bands I realized that I liked the stuff sung by women more than men. This opened the door to Tori Amos, who is still one of my favorite musicians of all time. Sure, I was made fun of. But then being the music junkie I was I would just retort with "Maynard James Keenan likes Joni Mitchell, so fuck off!" Needless to say that did not ward off my verbal attackers.
But I mean, come on. You can't help but bop your shoulders to the beat. Yes, it's bad, and I eventually wised up and started listening to what all the other kids in my classes were listening to. I bought Siamese Dream from Smashing Pumpkins and never looked back. I even remember asking a friend of mine if buying that album would make me "cool." She said yes. So I went with it. Ace Of Base was left to collect dust on my CD rack and was finally traded in for better CDs. Still, I admit it helped shape my musical preferences of present day. It may be why I like Lady Gaga. That's okay, right?
It wasn't until well after high school that I would get into Heavy Metal. My previous and only experience with the genre was Metallica's Black Album and really nothing else. I remember riding the bus in high school and someone gave a Megadeth tape to the driver to play. I immediately put on my headphones, turned the volume up on my portable CD player, sank into my seat, and listened to Boys For Pele.
During the ages of 20 and 21 I reconnected with an old friend from high school who was starting a band. They were playing covers. Some Alice In Chains, Corrosion Of Conformity, and Faith No More were on the set list. I knew some of it and I tried out to be the singer and got the job. That lasted a whole two days I think. They found someone better who wound up being someone worse. I was still involved in the band though and learned how to run sound and hook up the PA. As time went on the cover band turned into a real band with original songs and I was asked to join again to play keyboards/synth and run samples. But before all of that occurred I had to be schooled in the ways of Metal.
My friend took me to the record store and made me buy Pantera's live album, something else I can't remember, and Soulfly's first album, Soulfly. I was familiar with Sepultura and had listened to Roots several times while hanging out with friends. It never sunk in though. It wasn't until I listened to Soulfly, Max Cavalera's band after he split from Sepultura, that made me want to like heavier music. It also made me want to get their logo tattooed on my upper right arm. A decision that haunts me to this day no thanks to my friends that like to exploit it at parties for a cheap laugh. I also do weddings.
As with Ace Of Base, I am also giving Soulfly another listen for the purpose of writing this post. I completely forgot that the song "Bleed" has Fred Durst in it for a verse. I feel sick now. I want to go back in time and stop 20 year old Nick from getting the tattoo. It would save him the grief and the hours of wasted time trying to come up with something to cover it up. It would also save a lot of bedroom time with a lady trying to explain the damn thing.
"Ew. What's that on your arm?"
"It's a Soulfly tattoo. Just don't look at it."
"Um, I gotta go."
We're almost there. We're almost to present day. We're at 25. This is where it all really started. I got so tired of listening to the television or the radio for what I was supposed to listen to. I wasn't a kid anymore. I wasn't going to put up with watered down, record company endorsed, shit stains. Life was pretty much in the crapper too. I was a new dad and I had no idea how to be one except that I didn't want to be my dad. Also, my relationship with the baby's momma was on shaky ground and would eventually dissolve. I needed music to save me, but unfortunately all of the old artists couldn't help with my dilemmas. I needed new blood so I went hunting.
I remembered seeing a video from a band I had never heard before called At The Drive-In. The song was "One Armed Scissor" and I'm sure most of you true believers out there are familiar with it. I remember it being like nothing I had ever heard before and came to the conclusion that this is what I needed to help me press on in life. I asked a co-worker who I knew listened to what he called "indie" music for all of At The Drive-In's albums. He brought them to me and I listened and digested them. After doing some research and seeing that they had broken up, started a new band, and released their debut album I immediately went to the record store to buy it. I didn't think about illegally downloading the album at the time. I don't know why really. I guess because I needed something tangible in my hand. Something to touch and hold on to and shove into the CD player in my 2001 Chevy S10 when I needed it to be there. It was Deloused In The Comatorium that sent me on the adventure into not only independent artists, but also the artists that influenced them. I'm guessing this is how in the future a computer may feel when it becomes self-aware.
The years of 25-30 had a lot of hardships, break-ups, court dates, and songs to get me through it all. It was this period in my life when music became one of the most important things. It saved me like it also saved Rob in High Fidelity. Music saves, but it'll also destroy. And to be honest, a little destruction never hurt anybody.
By the way, I have pages you can follow. You can find 5 Songs In A Row on Facebook and Twitter now. You know, if you're into that sort of thing.
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