Category: Music

Avalon’ing Rubberbands at the Stars

It’s weird how we don’t always get to choose the music we’ve actually heard the most in our lives sometimes.  And I’m not talking about the soundtrack to Neil Diamond’s version of The Jazz Singer that your mom listened to over and over again when you were a kid just having to endure the car ride to school and back. Ok maybe that one’s just me.

I’m more talking about songs or albums during a time period in your life that you might have been subjected to daily, even hourly, and how most of the music we’ve heard most in our lives might not even be our favorite.

When I was 15, I began working in the restaurant business. I learned pretty quickly that out up front with the customers you were at the mercy of the ambient music.  Cooking on the line you got to more or less have a say in what you heard, but my job was split between the two, cooking and wait staff. Keep in mind this was before cable music or satellite music.  Most places would pop in a CD and have it go all.  shift.  long. (all night long, all night)*

My stepfather Ted used this ability as a way to both listen to his favorite music as well as a way to introduce people to great tunes.  In his place you could come across Bruce Springsteen, Glen Tilbrook solo, maybe a Poco album. For a while there, his secret weapon was the Paul McCartney unplugged CD he had.  Did I mention this was an old style red brick Italian restaurant? So he had to ninja all this in between Dean Martin, Sinatra, and the 8 billion versions of “Mona Lisa” it seemed like there were.  (there’s really just the one, but like waterboarding, the torture was new every time). After the last customer was served and closing time was underway, it was time to step back for whatever new disc had hit Ted’s hands. Maybe some Mick Jagger solo, or Jimmy Buffett, or Guy Clark. It’s no wonder that since Amore closed last, the other restaurants staff would hang out there for a drink once they were done at their own spots.

The most hours I spent working were at The Cisco Grill, which was a Southwestern type restaurant analogous to a Chili’s I suppose. There are two albums I have probably heard more waking hours of my life than anything I could ever choose to have listened to due to the fact they made excellent ambient music for the younger clientele of the place.  (To be clear, I’m not complaining.  In fact for a lot of reasons I’m grateful for these two albums.  They made a lot of tough work shifts a lot easier.)

The two albums are “Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars” by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, and “Avalon” by Roxy Music. The former, because the restaurants I was working at were local to the band and I actually waited on them a few times.  The latter, well I have no idea other than it was good ambient for a restaurant, but I still love it. There were other albums in rotation for sure, but I tended to tune them out.

These two albums are actually outstanding in so many ways.  (You may hate these two albums with the white hot intensity of a thousand Pat Benatars.  That’s not exactly the point of this post but if you feel the need to tell me how much they actually suck I look forward to your blog entry on the subject.) But imagine you’re stuck bussing tables, seating people, refilling ice tea, doing random cleaning jobs during your shift, but you get to become familiar with a couple of albums like that.  To this day I hear tracks off of them and think about the fact I probably heard each album twice a day, 6 days a week, for a year.

I think of all the horrible albums I might have had stuck in my head (I’m *still* looking at you, Jazz Singer) and am grateful that those two are in there.

 

*Congrats my Lionel Richie friends, let’s dance on the ceiling till we’re easy like Sunday morning.**

**Welcome fifth element fans who only know that line from Chris Tucker singing it in the movie.  Actually.  If that’s the only way you know it, you’re not welcome.***

***Welcome those of you who didn’t get my last two comments and downloaded and/or googled some Lionel Richie.  You’re once, twice, three times a lady my friends.

Avalon’ing Rubberbands at the Stars

It’s weird how we don’t always get to choose the music we’ve actually heard the most in our lives sometimes.  And I’m not talking about the soundtrack to Neil Diamond’s version of The Jazz Singer that your mom listened to over and over again when you were a kid just having to endure the car ride to school and back. Ok maybe that one’s just me.

I’m more talking about songs or albums during a time period in your life that you might have been subjected to daily, even hourly, and how most of the music we’ve heard most in our lives might not even be our favorite.

When I was 15, I began working in the restaurant business. I learned pretty quickly that out up front with the customers you were at the mercy of the ambient music.  Cooking on the line you got to more or less have a say in what you heard, but my job was split between the two, cooking and wait staff. Keep in mind this was before cable music or satellite music.  Most places would pop in a CD and have it go all.  shift.  long. (all night long, all night)*

My stepfather Ted used this ability as a way to both listen to his favorite music as well as a way to introduce people to great tunes.  In his place you could come across Bruce Springsteen, Glen Tilbrook solo, maybe a Poco album. For a while there, his secret weapon was the Paul McCartney unplugged CD he had.  Did I mention this was an old style red brick Italian restaurant? So he had to ninja all this in between Dean Martin, Sinatra, and the 8 billion versions of “Mona Lisa” it seemed like there were.  (there’s really just the one, but like waterboarding, the torture was new every time). After the last customer was served and closing time was underway, it was time to step back for whatever new disc had hit Ted’s hands. Maybe some Mick Jagger solo, or Jimmy Buffett, or Guy Clark. It’s no wonder that since Amore closed last, the other restaurants staff would hang out there for a drink once they were done at their own spots.

The most hours I spent working were at The Cisco Grill, which was a Southwestern type restaurant analogous to a Chili’s I suppose. There are two albums I have probably heard more waking hours of my life than anything I could ever choose to have listened to due to the fact they made excellent ambient music for the younger clientele of the place.  (To be clear, I’m not complaining.  In fact for a lot of reasons I’m grateful for these two albums.  They made a lot of tough work shifts a lot easier.)

The two albums are “Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars” by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, and “Avalon” by Roxy Music. The former, because the restaurants I was working at were local to the band and I actually waited on them a few times.  The latter, well I have no idea other than it was good ambient for a restaurant, but I still love it. There were other albums in rotation for sure, but I tended to tune them out.

These two albums are actually outstanding in so many ways.  (You may hate these two albums with the white hot intensity of a thousand Pat Benatars.  That’s not exactly the point of this post but if you feel the need to tell me how much they actually suck I look forward to your blog entry on the subject.) But imagine you’re stuck bussing tables, seating people, refilling ice tea, doing random cleaning jobs during your shift, but you get to become familiar with a couple of albums like that.  To this day I hear tracks off of them and think about the fact I probably heard each album twice a day, 6 days a week, for a year.

I think of all the horrible albums I might have had stuck in my head (I’m *still* looking at you, Jazz Singer) and am grateful that those two are in there.

 

*Congrats my Lionel Richie friends, let’s dance on the ceiling till we’re easy like Sunday morning.**

**Welcome fifth element fans who only know that line from Chris Tucker singing it in the movie.  Actually.  If that’s the only way you know it, you’re not welcome.***

***Welcome those of you who didn’t get my last two comments and downloaded and/or googled some Lionel Richie.  You’re once, twice, three times a lady my friends.

Mamma Mia, a worm hole, and the circles of hell.

A lot of recent writers have spoken of the worm hole. For us geeks, the phrase is used to describe a moment in time where a focal point in your adult life opens a gigantic window into an unassuming passed moment of your childhood, where time didn’t really exist. A place where that exact temporal blip stretches infinitely around you, and you were oblivious to its import all at the same time. It’s a better analogy than most people think. Once you go through it, it takes some time to understand fully what has happened.

It’s 2009 (!). I just got done jamming out to Rock Band 2 after some prep work for my first day back to work from the winter holiday. I head back to my office to check on email.

Downstairs, a dark siren call climbs upwards. I’ve been trying to avoid this since I first saw the poster signs 50 feet high in Times Square in 2006. Mamma Mia. A musical based on Abba music. I knew when I first heard of it a movie was inevitable.

DO NOT HUM. *DO* *NOT* *HUM* *DANCING* *QUEEN*

My mind imposes a steel lock on my jaw. I will not indulge, I will NOT reveal the depth of my knowledge of Abba’s music, my early exposure to it. But I have to go downstairs to cook. Resigned to my fate, I trudge down to roast a cut of salmon for the night’s meal, while a joyful and cackling-with-glee Rochto "re-introduces" me to these songs. These songs I have known all my life.

Take a Chance on Me, I’m exposed to, as if it’s new.

Knowing me, Knowing you.

Waterloo, for fuck’s sake.

I season the fish and put it in the oven, crack open a beer, and resign myself to the inevitable. I’m going to be listening to this, and even asking for certain songs to be played, for a good bit of the evening. I wonder, perhaps in desperation, when it was that I grew past the music of my parents—and suddenly, blindingly, it’s 1981.

There’s a silver unispeaker tape recorder/player hand-me-down from my paternal grandfather in front of me. There are two cassette tapes sealed in Sears plastic. I have my bone handled lock blade pocket knife, the one my mother flipped out when my father gave it to me for Christmas. And I am about to discover my own taste in music.

I could fairly say my family household growing up was a musical household. My father was a devout Southern Baptist, with a rich voice and a talent for instruments such as the accordion and piano. The overall bent in the household with my father’s stern guidance was gospel or southern country gospel. I grew up humming Micky Gillis, the Statler Brothers, The Oak Ridge Boys. I knew southern religious music like the back of my hand. Forbidden was the dark side of country for me, Guy Clark, Willie Nelson or Johnny Cash. Hell even Jerry Reed was borderline for me to be allowed to listen to.

My mother was a little more contemporary. While my father was away the house was filled with Streisand. Abba. Bee Gees. The most innocent of the 70’s disco and pop scene.

Christ, by the time Xanadu came out I could have sung every song unheard, so exposed was I to the proto-80’s pop that my mother called her relaxing music. (As a side note my mother was also passionately into Gershwin which I got exposed to at an early age, as were both my parents into classical.) That music to this day is weirdly like comfort food. Where nostalgia grabs me by the shirtfront and jerks me back to 9 years old like it did tonight.

That tape deck was heavy in my hands. Think of it as the pre-cursor to the tape based Walkman. It was the type where all the buttons were at the bottom, tape cartridge in the middle, and the speaker was on the top. Now this was a device of the 70’s. It was the type of player where you had to press play *and* record simultaneously to get it to record. It was one of those where the "Stop" button was critical to actually keeping your tapes in working order. The black cassette loader popped up when you pressed eject. No stopping the tape then a motorized lifting of the mechanism here, people. Eject was a mechanical switch where, even if the tape was playing, the tape loader violently jerked it from the cradle and *ejected* it. If you weren’t careful, it might as well have been labeled eviscerate. More than one Alvin and the Chipmunks tape had been unspooled due to the impatient NOW of the eject button.

I think everyone has a musical awakening. A moment when the entire world suddenly opens up like a locked portcullis into a castle filled with treasure and mystery. A place where you cannot go back once you enter, and where the consequences of entering are far far worth the entry. For me, it’s the summer of 1981, and a momentary abundance of allowance.

I’m at Skyview elementary school. Just before the end of that school year, what was for me third grade, my class was allowed to bring in anything we wanted from home on vinyl to listen to for music class. I can’t remember what I brought, I suspect Gershwin because we had so few LP’s, but one girl brought in Queen’s "The Game" and her song she played was "Another one Bites the Dust." For the first time in my life I was transfixed by music. I was locked, watching a turntable needle roll out for me music that roiled my concept of beat and lyrics. The bass of Queen! That drum beat and Freddie Mercury’s amazing voice.

I had studiously saved my allowance for several weeks in preparation for the coming onslaught of new Empire Strikes Back toys that Kenner was going to release for the movie. But that summer weekday on a trip to Sears I begged my mom to let me use my twelve whole dollars on cassette tapes, for the first time. Wisely, my mother figured that music was better than plastic toys and acquiesced. I feverishly picked two. Queen’s The Game and the soundtrack to Raiders of the Lost Ark. She had to spot me a dollar but I came home with two highly treasured items. I listened to them all day in my room. I was completely mesmerized and adrift in what I had discovered. I remember being deliriously happy.

All highs have a crash. My father returned home that night and was furious. I had no idea the fight my parents had, perched in my bed with a book and headphones listening to my new music. No idea that is until my father calmly came into my bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed and turned off the tape deck. He informed me gravely that we needed to pray.

Now in my house when a parent said you needed to pray that meant someone had died or was very sick. I remember having to pray when my aunt’s pregnancy turned touch and go for a bit, or when my grandfather had to have surgery.

This must be serious.

My father clasped my hand then proceeded to pray fervently, out loud, to Jesus Christ not to let my eternal soul be damned to hell forever because I had purchased the devil’s music. He said he knew it was too late but that he hoped that I would learn from this mistake and dedicate my life to undoing this horrible, fatal, sin of buying a Rock and Roll tape.

Keep in mind there was no preamble here, just launch right into a prayer about how I was going to hell for sure and could the good lord please see fit to maybe overlook this transgression. By the time he was done praying I was in tears. He left the room without saying anything else.

I don’t know if I got any sleep that night but I remember the staying awake in torment part. I had no idea I had done anything wrong, no clue as to why Jesus would be so against something I found joy in for the first time. After a while though, I remember thinking that perhaps my father was an idiot. After all, music wasn’t in the ten commandments. Certain types of music didn’t seem to be delineated in Sunday School like other behaviors. This was shocking to me to even consider. My dad! An idiot! I mean, who damns someone to hell over tapes? It was an awakening on many levels for me all in one moment.

Damned to hell. For all eternity! For Queen! Fine, I decided. If that’s the penalty I’ll argue it on the back end as to the stupidity. Unknowingly, I was already forming a judgment based on my father’s behavior that he would do nothing but bolster for 20 more years.

You often don’t control when you are jerked back from the worm hole. With a bit of a start I suddenly saw Rochelle scrolling through the tracks on the Mamma Mia DVD and Voulez Vous popped up.

"Voulez Vous! Play that one." I said.

"You don’t know this, it’s not what you think it is." she replied.

"Yes it is," I sang the chorus, "Look I know these songs better than you do." She shrugged and laughed and played it. And it was awesome.

The kitsch washed over me like fire. I’m in hell, just not the one my father envisioned. Another one bites the dust.

Trip Report: 2008 Sasquatch Music Festival (Part 1)

One of the things you don’t really expect to see during the course of a day is violent graphic pantomimed monkey rape.

At least, not so early in the afternoon.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. This memorial day weekend I was joined by Lance Bubo, Kympossible, Erika and Adrian, and Shyama (coolest name EVAR btw) in a trek out to the Sasquatch music festival at the Gorge.

Wait wait don’t stop reading, come back, come back. I promise I won’t go on one of my long winded philosophical descriptions of how wonderful the gorge is etc etc. I promise. Really.

Instead, through the power of Web 2.0 service pack 4’s multihued dot technology, I can show you!

Photo Credit: Erika

As I’ve mentioned before the Gorge is located approximately 180 miles from anything at all. So our first order of business was to drive up US 2 to Wenatchee where our hotel was. Wenatchee is about 45 minutes from the Gorge. Ellensberg is closer, but all the hotels there were booked. After checking in then hitting the Bell for lunch we were off.

The music festival itself had a ton of acts I wanted to see. Since Bubo was up from Portland we decided we’d most likely leave late Sunday so he wouldn’t face a total of six hours in a car on Monday. (In retrospect we should have arranged better and stayed to see more of the acts but the ones we saw were all great.)

Upon arrival (it was several people’s first time at the Gorge) we staked out our place on the lawn. Immediately I was struck by something…

Photo Credit: Erika

I just can’t quite place it…

Photo Credit: Erika

Something…familiar…

Photo Credit: Erika

I never did figure out what it was. But we were well stocked with food and water and stuff. It was sunny, it was beautiful, and as I twittered sitting there in one of my favorite places on earth, all was right with the world.

Except we didn’t have any beer dammit. The mere possibility of cold, refreshing beer was suddenly important, critical! We went to the concession stand. Thankfully we were able to secure a low interest loan from the vendor against all our physical possessions so that we could afford the beer. Eleven (11) dollars a can for "Domestic" beer (Coors) or Twelve (12) dollars a can for "Premium" beer (Heineken).

The extremely high cost of the beer and the long lines you had to wait through to get it resulted in the beer actually increasing in value once you left the concession stand. This quickly led to a barter system where ounces of beer rapidly became worth more than dollars and thus became the basis for obtaining cigarettes, pot, sexual favors, etc. Soon a paper currency developed based off the beer standard, the "Ouncie", and it wasn’t long before Fiat money capitalists were arguing moving off the beer standard and backing the value of the Ouncie with just pure military power.

But I digress.

We got there in time in the afternoon to hit the tail end of Beirut on the main stage. We hung out a bit for Ozomatli, who I thought were really good, but then The National was replaced by The Fleet Foxes.

A word about The Fleet Foxes. They are not fleet. Within seconds of their taking the stage half the audience was asleep and the other half was rapidly figuring out how silly a beer based economic standard was, causing a rapid crash in the Heineken futures trading market, which rapidly spread to other so called recession proof markets like the Margarita credit consortium. Seriously these guys are supposedly the cool new sound but they were just the totally wrong band to have on the late afternoon slot. You could actually hear snoring over the wailing of the beer traders and the glacial pace of the playing of the band. Awful.

It was over the horrible playing of the Somnambulant Foxes that we heard some crazy good Johnny Cash. In fact, someone over there had the Yeti stage rockin’ and rollin’ with that Cash. We were startled to discover it was Vince Mira, a 16 year old kid from Seattle who apparantly was born with Johnny Cash’s exact voice. I want to make this absolutely clear, this kid didn’t just sound like Johnny Cash, he was absolutely indistinguishable from Johnny Cash. This set off a firestorm of theories on our part that maybe Johnny Cash was like Bhuddha and was constantly reincarnated into new forms like the Dalai Lama. Thus having explained the phenomenon we had the best chicken strips I’ve ever eaten.

The New Pornographers made up for the Catatonic Foxes. I thought it was odd they didn’t play "Electric Version" which is the song that’s in Rock Band. But I really enjoyed the entire set. They’ve got a really great sound and I wish more of their stuff was in Rock Band.

This guys shirt says "I’d rather be snorting cocaine off a hooker’s ass". He even manages to look nonchalant wearing it. I hear later on he cleaned up in the Jack Daniel’s Hard Lemonade hedge fund.

Photo Credit: Shyama

By the time MIA took the stage the sun was lowering enough to cool the air which created pockets of rain. They circled around the lawn without directly hitting us.

Photo Credit: Erika

That wouldn’t last for long. When Modest Mouse came on it was sprinkling steadily and the wind had picked up. Having been up late the night before, I was starting to crash so I catnapped during the Modest Mouse set (See what I did there?), being awoken by the bemused light of several flashbulbs as Shyama, Erika and Kympossible chided me for sleeping, and I quote, "during a fucking Modest Mouse set!"

Photo Credit: My loving friends.

When 10pm rolled around for the R.E.M. set the rain and wind were now steady. The lights over the stage were actually swinging in the wind. To the band’s credit they came out and played, and played well. But six or seven songs in, the weather won out and we returned to our hotel rooms to crash.

I’ll post about day 2 a bit later, including the aforementioned monkey rape, my taxonomy of lawn denizens, and more crazy fun.