Musicology II

I was reading a post over at Almost Lucid that got me to thinking about my musical tastes, and the evolution thereof.

In my 4th decade I find that I still love a thumping beat and a loud guitar, but I've found that there can be so much more. My tastes are pretty varied. The dates here are rough estimates-

@1969 -- 1st grade :
I discovered rock and roll. There was a record player in the corner of my classroom, and a '45 of "Green Tambourine" that I listen to over and over and over again with my classmates. Sometime in the next few years I'll be a fan of TV shows like The Partridge Family and The Monkees.

I have to confess that even now, I still take somewhat guilty pleasure in hearing those songs.

@1971 -- 3rd Grade :
My first record album was In-a-gadda-da-vida by Iron Butterfly. I listened to it constantly, and to this day I pretty much still have the whole thing committed to memory. An entire side that's all one song.  In-fucking-credible.

@1973/74 -- 6th grade :
Chicago and the Beach Boys were my 2 favorite bands. My dad took me to see both of them together in a show at the Arena. It was my first concert. I still remember the Beach Boys coming out on stage during Chicago's set and singing the back ground vocals for "Wishin' You Were Here". It was a great show.

@1974/75 --7th Grade :
I discovered Bachman-Turner Overdrive. I got the BTO II album that had the song "Takin' Care Of Business" on it.

@1975/76 -- 8th Grade :
I began listening to Electric Light Orchestra. But the capper was when I won an album from KSLQ FM for--I swear this is true--doing the best dog bark. The album was Queen's A Night at the Opera" and to this day it is still one of my favorite albums.

@1976/77 -- 9th Grade :
A friend turns me on to Ted Nugent, his older sister turns me on to Supertramp. The same friend introduces me to marijuana. Life has been forever altered, along with my consciousness. Steve Miller released Fly Like An Eagle around this time. My friend Bill C. and I liked it so much that we spent hours up in our rooms, seperately and together, learning to play most of the songs from this album on the guitar.

We thought we were pretty good...but then again, I was smoking a lot of dope.

@1977/78 -- HS Sophomore:
I meet up with Bart. He introduces me to Led Zeppelin. I discover what was once the greatest radio station in the world KSHE-95, and a whole new world of rock and roll opens up for me. Some of my favorite bands around this time are

• Styx(The Grand Illusion)
• The Charlie Daniels Band ( Saddletramp)
• Aerosmith (Toys in the Attic)
• The Marshall Tucker Band
• Bob Seger
• The Electric Light Orchestra
• Queen
• Boston.

But my favorite at this time was probably REO Speedwagon. They put out a live album called You Get What You Play For that is still one of the best live albums I've heard.

Also, this is the time that I start to see a lot of concerts. At this point, a concert ticket is only slightly more than an album. The idea was to tour to support the album and sell a lot of records. Bands weren't looking to score a big profit on the tour. Some of the better shows I saw over my high school years:

• Ted Nugent
• Jefferson Starship
  
• REO Speedwagon
  
• Pure Prarie League
  
• Santana (2 times)
  
• Judas Priest
  
• Electric Light Orchestra
  
• Crosby, Stills, & Nash (2 times)
  
• The Charlie Daniels Band (3 times)
  
• Chuck Berry
  
• The Little River Band
  
• The Who (More on this...)
  
• Jethro Tull
  
• .38 Special
  
• The Michael Stanley Band
  
• The Grateful Dead (More on this too...)
  
• The Marshall Tucker Band

Many hours of hearing damage done...not to mention the brain damage from the recreational pharmeceuticals consumed.

@1978/79 -- Jr year of HS
Bart and I both went to see The Who, but neither one of us knew that the other was there until we saw each other at school the next day. Both of us were totally blown away by the concert. It is still the best show I've ever seen. I have been a fan of The Who and Pete Townshend ever since.

The so-called New Wave started to hit around this time, but the only band I was listening to from this genre was The Cars.

Evidence of what I dumbass I was when I was younger: I went to my first Grateful Dead show with Bart. We hated it. We were not in tune with the scene at all. Plus, we smoked so much pot that we melted the screw threads on the pipe's bowl. I've since gotten a tape of that show, and I can only shake my head. It was a great show. Since then I've been to 15 more Dead shows, and I'm going to see them this summer.

In this vein, I should note that Disco was very popular around this time, but not with me, or the crowd I ran with. Disco was great for dancing, and dancing was a way to get laid, but other than that we had no use for it. Now I find myself nostalgic for it, and I enjoy listening to it. Perhaps I did more brain damage than I thought...

@1979/80 -- Senior year of HS
Senioritis had set in. Nothing wonderful in the way of new music discovered by me, just the same old routine. Rap started to come on the scene, but I was barely willing to accept any kind of Funk music, so Rap was out of the question.

I didn't go to college right away, so I spent the next few years partying and working (The two were not always mutually exclusive). Nothing much changed musically for me. I was pretty well mired in a classic rock rut until I finally left for college. The only new band I enjoyed was some guys called U2 that had just released this amazing live album called Under a Blood Red Sky.

As cable TV began to make it into all of the neighborhoods MTV came into my view, but I was really too old for it. I never saw any point to sitting around watching music, although there were some interesting videos.

1984
I moved to Texas in the fall of this year in the hopes of starting college in the spring of 1985 at North Texas State University. College was the place where I finally broadened my horizons. When I arrived at college, I started hearing all kinds of new (for me) artists.

I've recounted how I came to find Prince , but there were lots of others. Bands like The Clash, Talking Heads, The B-52's and REM were being played at parties, and I realized that I'd been very narrow minded.

I also discovered Jazz around this time. KNTU-FM was the campus radio station, and since NTSU had one of the largest jazz music programs in the country, it seemed only natural that the radio station had a jazz format. I was DJ at the station for several years, and in that time I discovered some smoking hot musicians. Cannonball Adderly, Thelonius Monk, Sarah Vaughn, Etta James, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, The Crusaders, and Weather Report were some of the many jazz artists I discovered, and still listen to today.

Interestingly, I credit the jazz with leading me to Country & Western music. Living in Texas, it's almost impossible not to at least hear some C&W being played. The jazz experience opened my ears, and I realized that there were some kick-ass musicians playing C&W.

I mentioned that NTSU had a great jazz music program, right? That meant lots of great bands forming up, and playing around Denton. I spent many a night at The Library, a little club near campus.

There I discovered:

• The Rev. Horton Heat The Rev. is one of the ten best guitar players I've ever seen or heard, and I try not to miss him when he comes through. Music to make your butt sweat.
  
• Brave Combo Polka with an attitude. You've never lived until you've heard their heavy metal polka version of "The Hokey-Pokey" 
• The New Bohemians These guys were awesome even before Edie Brickell got drunk on Jack Daniels and stood up to sing with them for the first time. (No, I wasn't there, but I heard about it the next day.)
  

Plus there were a host of other bands that never saw more than one demo tape. (One of these years I'm going to get back down to TX for the Fry Street Fair. An awesome day of music!)

So 1984 was the turning point.

When I started writing this, I'd thought that there'd be more progression, but really it stops there. Or rather, it continues in the same vein

Now I find myself listening to pretty much anything. I switch from one format to another on the radio. When I make a CD for myself, there's no telling what will be on there. While I surf, Audion shuffles all of the .mp3s on my computer. As I wrote this piece, here's what came on-

• Del Amitri
• Toby Keith
  
• Prince
  
• Monica
  
• The Monkees
  
• The Who
  
• Nelly
  
• Tragically Hip
  
• Bruce Hornsby
  
• Eminem
  
• Noir Desir
  
• Stevie Wonder
  
• Uriah Heep
  
• Prism
  
• Beastie Boys

tags: music  concert  

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