On the Album That Changed My Life

I love music! There is no other way to say it. I love it so much that I really believe that I was a famous musician in a past life, but a truly despicable person. If you believe in reincarnation and the whole Karma thing, this statement makes perfect sense because the level at which I love music, is only surpassed by how badly I perform it. As the saying goes, I couldn't carry a tune in a basket.

I also lack the ability (or maybe it is just the energy) to learn an instrument. I may have mentioned this before, but after I left my first wife, and before I started really dating my current (and God willing, last) wife, I bought a guitar and decided I was going to learn how to play it. Heading over to my local library, I found a book entitled something like "Learn How to Play the Guitar in Three Easy Steps". What they neglected to say was that step two was learn and memorize hundreds of chords. It was like those activity books that we had as kids, when they showed you how to draw Barney Rubble in four steps. It started with a couple of circles, next a lot of lines and Shazam! Done! There needed to be at least 6 more boxes to actually do it.

I am not sure why, but I was thinking back on the music I liked as a kid, and what I listen to now. There is a significant difference and I have to say there was one album that jumps out at me as THE ALBUM that changed my musical preference. Before I tell you which one it was, let me tell you about my musical choices when I was younger.

In several blog posts I have mentioned my parents' large album collection. That is where I began listening to music. It was mostly 50's and 60's stuff with lots of Beach Boys, The Animals, The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel and stuff like that. I remember having a music class in school and we were supposed to bring in an album that we liked and play a song. The other kids brought popular music of the times, but I remember bringing in the soundtrack to American Hotwax. I also remember being embarrassed because it was unlike anything any of the other kids were listening to.

I was also a product of the early 80's and remember listening to the radio a lot as well. Some of the top 40 music I listened to back then, I still enjoy today--some just makes me shake my head in disbelief. I can even remember hearing myself exclaim "I don't think there is a single Duran Duran song that I don't like." I'll let you judge whether that statement is groan-worthy or not. The Steve Miller Band's Abracadabra also was a song I loved and when it first came out and it takes me to a week spent at Black Lake, NY. I could run down a long list of bands that I enjoyed and share the memories associated with them but I will try and stick to important ones.

When I started junior high school, my musical taste did take a turn, to some degree. I think as soon as you got to 7th grade at Argyle Central School, they gave you your locker combination and a copy of Aerosmith's Greatest Hits. That was the album of choice, it seemed, for my class. That, and AC/DC, seemed to be regulars on field trips and such. I enjoyed them, but I also found I liked nontraditional music as well. I remember our class was going to Canada for a field trip and of course someone was playing the required listening in the back of the bus. My friend brought his boom box (I miss boom boxes, it was a much simpler time) and he had a tape that he had gotten recently by some guy named Falco. We listened to it in our seat, and to quote McDonald's, I was loving it! I talked him into slowly turning the volume up, little by little, because I wanted others to hear this awesome music. I think I got to about volume level 3 before the first "Turn that shit off" came from the "cool" kids in the back. It went off.

At this point, I was at a bit of a crossroads. What music was going to define me? Was I going to fit in and listen to what everyone else was listening to, whether it be the Top 40 stuff, or the prescribed classic rock of my peers? It was around this time that THE ALBUM appeared to me and redefined my musical taste for years to come. Sifting through my parents collection I found an album that caught my eye. On the cover was this guy swinging a sword or something. He had a shield and was glowing with motion blur all around him. I read the title: Black Sabbath Paranoid. I played the album and instantly fell in love.

I played that album countless times, over and over again, for months. I was a little partial to side one, but that may have been a bit of laziness on my part (you had to flip albums over when they were done, this being directed at anyone under a certain age) but all of the songs were awesome. (Well, Planet Caravan was my least favorite, and there was a skip on the beginning of Rat Salad that I always would forget about. To this day, when I hear that song, I am always surprised when there are only two little riffs before the song starts in earnest. I would hear at least 4 before I bumped the player.)

Heavy metal was to become my music of choice. Paranoid was my gateway drug to progressively harder music. Being geographically isolated, I didn't even know about Punk Rock music until I got to college, but for the later years of High School, it was Iron Maiden, Anthrax, Judas Priest, Pantera, Megadeath, etc. I never grew my hair long and you could not tell I was a heavy metal lover, but I was. I arrived at college with a collection of hair metal bands and a stereo/dual tape deck/record player combo, ready to rock out with my roommate. Unfortunately he was from India and played classical Indian music on his violin. This tale I will leave for another time.

College would be my next big musical shift as I discovered Punk rock. I didn't even realize this genre existed. The Ramones, the Dead Kennedys, The Descendents, Black Flag -- all of these bands I discovered when I became a DJ at the school radio station. For the sake of not making this a novella, I will tell you all about my radio show at KSLU, the only K in the east, another time. My big hair band collection started collecting dust as my new favorite genre took its rightful place.

I brought punk rock home with me, much to my parents' dismay. Not only because the singers tended to liberally use profanity in their songs, but also for my tendency to crank the radio up to the point of ear-splitting volume, but forget to turn it down when I got out of the car. Surprise! Punk both made me feel happy and sad when I bought an album: one album could have 20 something songs on it -- now that is getting your money's worth! Then I would realize the album was only 30 minutes long, and feel a little cheated. Punk rock and the emotion in the music was something that helped me through some rough times and helped punctuate the awesome times. I can remember sitting under the stars on a deserted bleacher, with the Descendents telling me that "my day will come, someday I'll be the only one" in reference to that girl I was pining for (it never did, by the way). When I got dumped by my very first girlfriend, it was Suicidal Tendencies telling me that "You can't bring me down!" 

As I have grown, I find myself realizing I never stopped liking the bands I listened to in the past. Today I love just about every kind of music. I still sing along when Hungry Like the Wolf  comes on, as well as The Trooper by Iron Maiden. My musical tastes have even broadened as I discovered Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Loius Prima and other musicians that I would never have given a second listen to in my youth. I just love music, in any form (except Justin Bieber -- I'm just saying).

Despite the broad range of music I like, I find I gravitate to 80's and 90's punk bands like NOFX, Pennywise, The Descendents, The Ramones, etc. Because I listen to these bands, I am actually passing the torch on to my kids. Nothing makes me happier than watching my kids sing along to the Blitzkrieg Bop on Rock Band or singing along with my CAKE albums in the car. Even my two year old surprised me with her own rendition of I Will Wait by Mumford & Sons. It's my job as a parent to make sure that they realize that there are a lot of different styles of music and that they should feel free to listen to whatever they want, to hell what anyone else says. Except for Barney -- that shit has got to go!

Just in case anyone asks you, or you are trying to hack my account and this security question comes up, my favorite band is Bad Religion. And if you are in Glens Falls or Hudson Falls and the weather is nice and some yahoo is blaring really fast, loud and obnoxious music out of there car, it's probably me.