Conundrum

For as long as I can remember, I have been against music nostalgia, especially in people who didn't experience particular bands in their initial heyday. Specifically I am talking here about Deadheads.

(Aside, people who like music that sounds like it ought to be from another period, e.g. jam bands, also annoy me. On the other hand, people who like Yma Sumac, the Limelighters, Julie London and Mario Lanzo do not annoy me. So maybe it's just Deadheads and jam band fans who annoy me. But that doesn't let me address my conundrum so my aside is not relevant.)

Let me start again. I've always thought that people should like the good music that is being made "now". At least, I thought that until I thought the music that is made "now" is not as good as the music that was made "when it was good." I think the late 80s through mid-90s were a particularly golden period for music, both rock and rap, and my musical tastes haven't evolved much past that time. I hadn't really noticed that I had become a music nostalgic though, until a friend sent me a link to Riot on the Dance Floor, a documentary about City Gardens, a punk club from my youth. The interviews are with bandmembers from some of my favorite bands, and wow, does everyone look old. Okay, so they were older than me then, but it didn't seem like it.

I'm not gonna go on punk nostalgia trip here. Actually I am worried that the strict cultural moral code of my youth now requires me to reject myself, hate me, find me to be stupid and flaccid and lame. Which of course I don't, but out of affection for myself want to embrace. Does that make any sense? I love my younger self like a child, and like the parent of that child want to agree with her!

Musical Influences

On Saturday, Liam asked me if people ever have pet rats, which caused me to sing*, "Freddy tried to strangle me with my plastic popper beads, but I hit him back with my pet rat. Yes, I hit him back with my pet rat!" Li thought this was hilarious, so I spun Germ-Free Adolescents by X-Ray Spex for him in the car the next day. It only took one chorus for him to sing along to Plastic Bag. "My my-nd is like a plas-tic bag (do do do do do do doo)."

I was so proud. I mean, even prouder than the fact that both my kids love Ozzy (well, Crazy Train). But here's the trick. X-Ray Spex released that album in 1977. The year my sister was born. I was three, the same age as my younger son. It was old when I discovered it in 1991. So how can it be cool for me to be playing it for my kids? It just isn't, right? It's the equivalent of my mom playing Phil Ochs and The Band and Simon and Garfunkel**, which was still mildly contemporaneous with my early childhood. So in essence, I am even more of a throwback than my mom was when I was a kid. ~~~ Does not compute ~~~

This marked lack of coolness is something I've never adjusted to. Time to just own up to it and bust out the Doobie Brothers, I guess.

* I have this genetic condition that I inherited from my mother, and passed to my son, whereby I sing non-relevant song lyrics in response to friendly questions. This would drive Mr. Scobie "insane" if he weren't already in that condition due to our children's horrible table manners and their shambled, broken-toy-strewn bedroom.

** I still love The Band and Simon and Garfunkel. Here is my friend Dave's answer to the question "Beatles or Rolling Stones?": "Simon and Garfunkel", and he's right.

Top 25 Most Influential Bands

I tried to make a list of the most influential albums in my life, but I'm too busy today to research the specific albums. And some of these bands didn't have albums, so here you go, in chronological order:

1. The Band

2. Earth, Wind & Fire

3. Bruce Springsteen: Born in the USA 

4. Soul II Soul

5. Living Colour

6. Sade

7. Huey Lewis & the News 

8. INXS

9. REM

10. De La Soul: 3 Feet High and Rising

11. Colors Soundtrack

12. U2

13. Dag Nasty: Wig Out At Denko's

14. Fugazi

15. Tribe Called Quest

16. Native Nod

17. Choke

18. Tsunami

19. Shudder to Think

20. Ting

21. Team Dresch: Personal Best

22. Missy Elliott

23. Sleater-Kinney

24.  Black Star/Mos Def

25. Outkast

This hardly seems to cover it, now that I've made the list. Where's Nation of Ulysses, Slint, Codeine? Everything Calvin Johnson has ever done? The Shams, Dave Clark 5, The Monkees!? Lois/Courtney Love (the band), Mary Lou Lords, Heavenly/Marine Research? Jane's Addiction, The Smiths. ALLEN CLAPP! Simon and Garfunkel, definitely huge, especially Simon. Dog-Faced Hermans, Sufjan Stevens. The Minutemen, Sebadoh, Sonic Youth. Flaming Lips, Bikini Kill. Toulouse. Auto-Voles. 

Okay, I am going to revisit this, and re-organize it by stages of my life.