My favorite music

There's no shortage of good music in the world; from classics like Beethoven, Bach or Hendrix, to much more mundane acts like the Dropkick Murphy's, A Tribe Called Quest or Jack White.

But what makes good music great? Lyrical symmetry? A classic arrangement of major vs. minor chords? A hooky chorus? A bumpin' beat?

I honestly don't know. I can't play a lick of music myself, and I've never taken a music theory class, but this is the internet dammit! I don't have to know what I'm talking about to have an opinion!

All hail Wally, King of the shammers!

So, I'm going to keep it simple and narrow it down to what makes a good song one of my favorites. It's very simple and completely subjective.

I could name thousands of great songs, but my favorite ones, the tunes that really mater to me all have on thing in common; I can remember the first time I heard each one of them.

I remember being 7 or 8 years old doing dishes with my dad at my family's apartment in Anderson, Indiana, when The Charlie Daniel's Band came on the radio.

It would be years before music became a consuming passion of mine, but I remember bouncing around our tiny kitchen swinging a wet dishtowel around like a bull whip whooping with glee as I heard the story of some kid named Johnny kicking the devil's ass for a fiddle.

I think it was probably the coolest thing I had ever heard in my young life, and honestly it probably still is.

I can also remember sitting in the front seat of my mom's car when I was maybe ten. We were on a road trip of some kind and driving through the back end of nowhere. Needless to say there wasn't much on the radio, so it was my job as the passenger to scan through the stations. We came within range of a tiny backwoods classic rock station just as they put on The Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go?.

It was freaking awesome.  Mick Jones voice a couple notes south of pitch perfect, Joe Strummers echoing in Spanish (Ecuadorian Spanish according to Wikipedia.) I started a one man mosh pit in that car. I don't care what anyone says it is possible to pogo while seated, it’s just less graceful... which makes it more punk... I think.

I first heard my favorite band (at least favorite current, touring band) Black Rebel Motorcycle Club in the Army just days after graduating from basic training. I was stationed at Ft. Meade Md. for Advanced Individual Training and was in shock over all of the freedom I suddenly possessed. I could use my laptop, eat from the dessert line at the dining facility and most importantly listen to music.

I was walking down the hall when I heard Peter Hayes, voice heavy with angst and anger, howl, "Whatever happened to my rock and roll?"

I immediately followed the tune to a complete stranger’s room and demanded to know who the hell he was listening to. I've been hooked on the band ever since. If you've never heard them you should check them out. 

I could go on for pages like this. I could tell you about the first time I heard Rage Against The Machine (Guerrilla Radio, play Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2), or the Pixies (same as everybody else my age, Where Is My Mind? at the end of Fight Club)

Like I said, I could go on like that all day but then you would get board and never read anything I wrote ever again.

I don't think many people will argue that these are all good songs, but objectively speaking they might not be the best in the world. They are some of my favorites though, because they made an impression on me.

One Last thing, I want to here what you think, what are your favorite songs or artists and why? Post a comment here or on my Facebook page.

Cheers!

Punk is dead

I was at the bookstore today and stopped by the Starbucks inside to get a coffee. I don't go in for that caramel macchiato, venti frappuccino nonsense. My dad raised me to be a man not a 15 year old girl. I drink my coffee straight black... because I'm a man and because when I was 14 and put cream and sugar in my coffee my father called me a wuss, and now I do the same to any man drinking that watered down bull-crap.

Anyway, I'm at the Starbucks and on the CD sale rack I see the Ramones' Rocket to Russia. So I scan the overhead menu and exclaim, "I'll have a venti Iced mocha frappaccino with extra whipped cream!"

We've lost the war punk rockers. It wasn't all the Blink 182 wannabe's bubble gum bullshit, or Greenday's self-aggrandizing rock opera's/F-ing Broadway shows. It wasn't even the poor little emo kids clamoring their genesis began with solid introspective punk bands like Minor Threat, that discredited the genera I always saw as the conscience of rock and roll. It was freaking Starbucks.

So to all you kids out there listening to your cool uncles old Dead Kennedy's LPs or Bad Brain's tapes, to all you pissed off teens channeling your rage through a three chord progression in your garage or basement with your 2 or 3 best friends; to you 35 year old who still wears his CBGB's to work at least once a week; turn off the record player, hang up your axe, buy a suit.

We've lost the war, brothers and sisters. I'd recommend cutting ties as quickly as you possibly can: take a bunch of E and going to a Lady GaGa show.

 ...Screw that!

It doesn't matter if Joey Ramone and Sid Vicious come back from the dead just to open up an American Eagle franchise together, punk is bigger then the artists who play it. It's stronger than record executives bent on defining and packaging a product to angry kids, and it's more enduring than any label we could put on it.

Punk rock is the small reminder in back of our sonic consciousness that Rock and Roll is not about stadiums or sex or fame or even talent. Punk reminds us that Rock and Roll can be as simple as a scream of futility and frustration, that any kid with a resolve to be heard can make a racket with a 50 dollar guitar until somebody, anybody takes notice, and no mater how music changes and is distorted that will never change. We won't let it.

Why I love music

This is not a religious blog, but to know where I'm coming from you need to know where I came from.

Two days before my 11th birthday, I moved to South America with my missionary parents. They are great people, I love them very much, and growing up as a third culture kid gave me a unique prospective on life that I am grateful for.

That being said, growing up in Quito, Ecuador, even with American programming on television and attending one of the largest English speaking schools in the country, I was cut off from a lot of what was going on in the U.S. at the time.

Most kids develop their musical tastes during the formative years of middle school and the first couple years of high school.

By age 14 or so I knew I loved music. I also knew that almost all of the music I'd heard sucked. At the time Reggatone was about the biggest thing around and no mater where I went, from dance clubs to the back seats of taxi cabs, I was assaulted by the "Dame más Gasolina!" chorus of stupid Daddy Yankee song.

I hated it.

It didn't help that the only Rock music to be found came in the form of post-grunge and Nu Metal wussies like Creed and Limp Bizcit. Friends would bring these watered down excuses for rock n' roll back with them after a summer in the States.

I'll admit I pirated the crap out of  them and listened to these middle class crybabies whine about how daddy didn’t love them enough over and over again, because... well... they were all I had... I didn't know any better.

Then one day, I think it was in 8th grade, but it might have been 9th, one of my buddies older brothers showed me Nirvana's Nevermind.

 I hit the freaking roof.

By living in the insular bubble of a missionary community, I had the privilege of experiencing the magnum opus of the grunge era as it was originally meant to be listened to: as a pissed off teenager in a world bereft of anything resembling honest rock n' roll.

From that day on, I dedicated myself to finding this elusive "good music."

I scoured my friends CD collections and listened to a lot of crap, but that almost made the gems I did find all the more precious to me.

Great acts like Jimi Hendrix, AC/DC, Led Zepplin and the Chili Peppers were almost immediately available to me,  but almost hostilely commandeering CD booklets from everyone around me lead me to The Ramones and the Clash, and even lesser known, yet hugely influential punk acts like Bad Brains and The Replacements.

Raiding my dads old CDs and tapes I found Rush, Boston and Clapton.

When I ran out of people to steal from, I went to the internet. Even though our bandwidth was way too low in Quito to download music legally or otherwise at the time, I'd sit at the computer for hours watching YouTube videos of bands I'd read about on Wikipedia entries.

It was hard work to be a fan and very few of my friends at the time understood it, but the hours I spent searching for the sounds I liked, the feeling of desperation behind Paul Westerberg’s voice or the sheer tipped out joy in a Hendrix solo, completed some broken circuit in my brain.

I believe that is what honest art does for all of us. Bob Dylan lyrics can answer questions we didn't even know we were asking. Aretha Franklin's voice could turn an atheist into a true believer.

I'm a cynical sarcastic SOB, but at the end of the day, I'm a romantic.

That is why I love music. 

It's all relative

There was a time, not long ago, when I was one of the most confrontational bastards when it came to music. I couldn't understand, (still can't for that mater) why somebody would listen to the banal nonsense plastered all over the billboard top 40.

I would take great relish in bashing the iPod selections of the pretty blond girls who listen exclusively to Madonna wannabes in the vain of Britney Spears, Katy Parry and Lady GaGa.

It didn't matter to me that these socially masochistic rants ensured I'd never get laid again, after all I have principles. I'd rather listen to Tibetan monks throat sing while getting a root canal, than listen to Nicki Manaj in the sack.

At least that’s the sort of thing I'd say to girls at the bar. As you can imagine, I don't get very many phone numbers with this tactic.

I was on one of these rants a few months back, going on about the purity of rock n' roll or something pretentious like that, comparing Justin Bieber's love of Elvis to Hitler's love of Charlie Chaplin, I think, when a friend of mine brought me up short. She said something “so profound” I will share it with you here, as it has had a great impact on my life.

"So what?" she said. "Who cares if somebody likes crappy music?"

This simple question rendered me speechless.

I had to re-evaluate my entire outlook on music.

From the time I became aware of popular music, at about the age of 14, to now a decade later, I have been vicious in the defense of the music I love and unflinchingly critical of almost everything else.

I'd give some leeway when it came to country and rap. No I don't really care for the genres, but I recognized the talent and honest drive in most of the artists, so I let them slide, but heaven help the poor backstreet boy fan who happened to cross my path.

So for the past couple of months I've been thinking about it and I've come to this conclusion.

There is good music and there is shitty music, but at the end of the day, our subjective opinions on the subject have no bearing on who we are as people. My friend was right, it really doesn't matter.

Honestly most musicians out there, good or bad, are just trying to get through the day, make a buck and maybe say something they feel is important.

And there is nothing wrong with any of that.

That being said, it's a lot of fun to share the bands we love with other people. It might be even more fun to pass judgment on those we hate.

So that is exactly what I am going to do on this blog. I'll keep my opinions out of people’s faces and on the internet where, if I hurt your feelings, you are more than welcome to leave an equally scathing comment for the whole world to see.

I hope you enjoy.