Me: The Next Frontier

So, I have to finish telling all of you about the history/evolution of my musical tastes. If you haven’t read part I, it’s a sequel on a magnitude akin to that of Miss Congeniality 2 or the proposed “Gigli: Not as Bad as the First One”. If you didn’t read the previous blog, I recommend you scroll down one full column and give it a read. If you have no interest in ME (versus my humble opinions and hip recommendations), then come back when this long-winded saga is over and I am back to sharing my humble opinions and hip recommendations.

As I’ve been writing these blogs, I’ve been trying to solicit feedback from the group of 3 that read this (OK, fine I am counting myself, so it’s more like 2). My coworker friend suggested that for this follow-on column, I NOT get into the Beatles too much, as most rock fans love them, and that when it comes to The Beatles, everything has been already said. He went on to say that I should ramble on more about the 80’s. Not a bad idea, as it would lend to a more original type of analysis -but I just can’t do it. The 80’s was the decade of one-hit wonders and (until recently) obsolete sounds. The Beatles are timeless. They are the first band who had an entire body of work which, no matter how varying their albums were, I loved. From the earliest of singles to the grand finale of Let It Be (or Abbey Road – depending on how you look at it), it all was SO indescribably compelling. In my early teens, I read books and watched documentaries (The Compleat Beatles which I caught on PBS was an EXCELLENT source of information). While a bit of a freak, I avoided the White Album – because it was scorned by the narrator of The Compleat Beatles. Fortunately, I picked it up a couple of years ago. No regrets.

I slowly eased into other classic rock bands. My friend’s brother was into a lot of standard Classic Rock radio fare – the Doors, The Who, Zeppelin, Boston, to name a few. I listened to Led Zeppelin IV SO much via my Walkman knock-off, that I never need to hear it ever again. I kid you not. I also beat the hell out of The Door’s Greatest Hits. There’s a whole BAND I never need to hear again. The Who is a different story altogether. I’ll save that story for a later blog.

How do kids get into music that’s not being played on the radio? Usually through their friends, who may have gotten into it via their siblings. One friend of mine had three brothers, two of which were into every hair band that ever graced the pages of Circus magazine. Such scary-looking buggers. The mere images of their faces on the pull-out posters from that publication made me hate every note all these bands had ever recorded. Hair Bands were an aberration on all pop music. Another Problem was no one in my class was into music that was really different than anyone else’s music (other than a couple of Rush freaks). How could this be? Well, I went to a Jewish high school in Montreal, where if you like anything different than everyone else you’re just not cool. Furthermore, I was part of probably the nicest and best-behaved group of kids in the history of high schools. There was not a single overly rebellious badass with any sphere of influence in my grade. A troublemaker here and there, but not the kind that had sway over any kind of group of followers.

Another factor was the lack of English-speaking radio in Montreal (God forbid we listen to FRENCH radio, but that’s the way it was). There were three stations: The classic rock station, the “adult contemporary” (AKA Michael Bolton and Whitney Houston) station, and one that was somewhere in between the other two. You can guess which one my dial was always tuned to. I would watch some MuchMusic to learn about some new stuff, but not too much stuck. It was a lot of videos of what was already on the radio. I can admit that while I wanted to like some music that was different than everyone else (it was more for the sake of exactly that – to be different), I wasn’t actually THAT adventurous. My idea of trying new things back then was buying a Gap sweatshirt instead of one from Roots. Things sort of had to have been imposed on me for me to latch onto them. So basically, all throughout high school, I listened to a lot of the same crap (which to this very day I will defend to anyone as the best music ever made) as everyone else.

To summarize (and translate) the above full page and up the results of my musical tastes from my adolescence – it’s 1991, I graduate from high school, and every influential underground band from the 1980’s are still completely unknown to me.

Over the course of the next couple of years, I continued to listen to more classic rock, but tried to “expand” my tastes. I got did the whole ProgRock thing (Yes, Rush, Genesis).

I went through a phase where I got into all the one-hit wonders from the late 60’s era, courtesy of the good folks at Time/Life music. According to the narrator on the 30-minute infomercial, the 60’s were an era of upheaval, protest, social reform, and classic rock and roll. To demonstrate they would show clips of, say, The Turtles lip-synching on some variety show, followed by footage of the Watts riots and then some long-haired freak smoking a hookah in the park.

I went through an extreme Eric Clapton phase – but not that Tears in Heaven stuff. This guy was part of some kickass bands in the mid to late 60’s/early 70’s. He then kicked his heroin problem and proceeded to suck for the rest of his career. He helped me get into the blues and some long drawn-out jams, which I heard on some Cream LP that a friend lent me. I would buy ANYTHING from the aforementioned era that had his name on it.

Then one day in University, a classmate suggested to me I might like The Grateful Dead. That begat my interest in Phish, which begat my interest in moe., String Cheese Incident, and Leftover Salmon, etc. etc. etc. Jambands are pretty abhorred by many music fans, so I am assuming no one wants to read about this phase of my life, except the dirty hippies reading this, which I am sure number zero. If you happen to be a dirty hippie, I sincerely apologize, and can’t offer anything to you, as I have but one bar of soap left in my apartment.

However, I don’t want you, the reader, to underestimate how much the jamband scene helped me expand my musical horizons. It taught me that there was more to rock & roll, than three chords, some fun lyrics and blistering guitar solos. Phish was a band that consisted of four hardcore musical geeks who absorbed everything that had ever entered their eardrums. Through their energy and extended jams, I developed a sincere appreciation for jazz, country, funk, reggae, folk, ska, metal, hip hop, TexMex, and countless other genres which I would NEVER have given a chance. They seemed to find merit in every type of music, and when they played it, it suddenly became cool. After all, if Phish can play Bluegrass and 50,000 people can dance to it, it can’t be THAT bad.

After seeing 23 Phish shows, I had seen cover versions of songs by classic rock bands such as The Who, Skynyrd, Zeppelin, bluegrass acts Flatt & Scruggs and Earl Monroe, Jazz acts like Duke Ellington and Miles Davis, Funk acts like Stevie Wonder and P Funk, old-school artists like Sinatra and Mancini, and the list goes on….

It’s DEFINITELY time to sleep. Do you see a pattern forming from blog to blog? To be concluded….I promise.