getting my chest Thumped

I am a huge music fan. I have always loved music. Admittedly, the last 12 years have made me somewhat of an indie rock music snob. I'm not one of those true followers of the Belief who scour import racks so they can get Absolutely Every remix of Every Song that Bjork made/re-made/re-re-made so that I can claim exclusive omipotence over that particular artist. Neither am I (like a good friend of mine) one of those fanboys who has amassed hundreds of band/concert T-shirts only to store them away in boxes for ever and Ever because they're all too Precious to soil with use. I just love music. I have downloaded hundreds of hours of music, bought hundreds more in CDs and now I'm the proud owner of a turntable and purchase almost all my music on vinyl. I'm not quite there, but I think that I felt the back end slide a little around the last curve.

I love it when I muster the energy to drag myself out of the cave and take the subway downtown to a small club and hear a band for the very first time and really feel the emotion in those power chords as my second vodka tonic sends me into that sweet spot of drunkeness where the thumping bass in my chest carries me up into the riptide of sound where I simply HAVE to mosh or pogo or maybe even just stand in one spot nodding my head in time to a song that so frigging Rocks I can't believe that I don't do this every Night of the Week and then a week later I get the wonderous release of listening to that same great song on my headphones because it's been rattling around inside my head all day, begging for me to play it the second I get home. The Kills, Public Enemy, Tommy Makem, Jefferson Airplane, Johnny Cash, The Postal Service, The Notwist, Low, Magnetic Fields, The Buzzcocks, Television, The Clash, PJ Harvey, Country Joe and the Fish, Underworld, Patsy Cline, Jimi Hendrix, Modest Mouse, Sun Kil Moon, My Morning Jacket - the list goes on and on and on and I don't ever want it to end.

It wasn't always like this. There was a time when lyrics and rhythm were a background for me like the soundtrack in a Spielberg movie or hum of a car on a cross-country roadtrip. It was there either as an excuse to press bodies on the dance floor with a girl I liked or as theme music for whatever activity I was doing, from memorizing the amino acids for a biochemistry class to taking jump shots off the driveway basketball court. My albums and CDs boasted such titles as "Slippery When Wet", "Hysteria", "Faith", "Poison" and "Thriller". True, there were some good titles nestled amongst the bad but I wouldn't have known it at the time. Most of my early collection resonates with me like a bad fashion trend that you pull out of your closet, try it on, laugh and reminisce, then return it to the dark corner from whence it came. One hair metal band sounds like another until only the joy of remembering another age has prevented me from throwing everything away and disavowing all knowledge.

By my junior year of college, it was apparent that I was heading down that long, slippery slope that ends with Kenny G, Phil Collins and Celine Dion (where my poor father now resides). My first exposure to a rock and roll concert was Huey Lewis and the News Small World tour in a grand, classical music hall in Mannheim, Germany circa 1986. I had paid some astronomical amount of money and sat in the nosebleed seats to let that mullet-headed blip down on stage to belt out "Heart of Rock and Roll" in my presence. Needless to say, my education was somewhat lagging. In college, a friend of mine saw my music collection, took pity on me and decided that an intervention was in order. He dragged my social-phobic ass to Gabe's Oasis in Iowa City where I was introduced to Uncle Tupelo. The entire experience was a shock. The stage at Gabe's was narrow and barely rose more than a couple inches off the floor. The band stood 3 feet from me nearly at eye level, there were more guys in the band that could fit on the stage and they shared amongst themselves at least a dozen instruments including accoustic guitars, electric guitars, steel guitars, banjos and a mandolin. None of them were playing anything that resembled a musical category that I could nail down. One moment they sounded like some Alan Lomax, folk-country relic from 1943, then the next minute they were doing a cover of "I Wanna Be Your Dog". I had no idea that music could sound like that and what's more, they fucking ROCKED. 'Why aren't these guys getting played on the radio,' I wondered and thus my long transition from naive youth was finally begun. It was like I had accidentally slipped into another dimension that just required a slight shift in perspective to be seen.

I always try to remember where my extended education came from whenever I start to come down too hard on bad music and their fans. I remind myself that I too was once a casual listener who thought he knew how the world worked and what it had to offer... then I was resoundedly kicked on myass. I guess that's what friends are for.