My journey pt.1

[longhouse]

(tonight's blog - wanted to share it here)

Why is someone drawn to a particular instrument? Toots Thielman played a Hohner Chromatica harmonica and tulip-shaped Rickenbacker guitar. A young man named John Winston Lennon was apparently a big fan and later employed both that harmonica and a Rickenbacker of his own to good use. Some people are raised in musical families and others pick it up in church or school. As with most things in life, I came to it circuitously. When I was young, my parents always had music in the house. One of the many phases my father went through was ‘audiophile’. So we owned a pair of Bose 901s, a Kenwood tube amplifier, some sort of reel-to-reel, and a turntable complete with a venerable stack of classic vinyl from the 60s and early 70s. Dad had his Beatles, other Brit groups, and some early hard rock. My sister Amy and I would poke through the LPs picking our favorite Beatle or Raider. Mom had her Van Morrison, Laura Nyro, and Chicago. I only vaguely recall those days. I’m told that Dad (and bear in mind that my parents have long been quite altruistic –often to their own undoing) loaned out his entire record collection to a friend who was having a party. Precious little of the collection was ever seen again. At the start of my second school year, we moved to Augusta, Georgia and music in the house diminished considerably. At one point a great many of our possessions were ransacked in storage. We lost the stereo equipment and the lion’s share of our family photos. If only for the latter, I hope a terrible fate befell the thieves. When I was in fourth grade I purchased my first proper album: Styx ‘Paradise Theatre’. It featured highly detailed artwork on each side of the jacket, photographs on the inside, lyrics on the sleeve, and even had a watermark graphic on each side of the vinyl. I studied the art –which I still recall to this day. One side showed an art deco theatre in full glory; its marquis glowing, a well-dressed crowd was arriving while klieg lights pierced the sky. The opposite side showed the same theatre now in ruin; posters hung in tatters, a fading testament to another age. Of course, it was pretentious and bore no real relation to the album’s material save perhaps one song. Mom insisted they sang ‘like the Chipmunks’ (in retrospect her appraisal was spot on!). Though I’ve not listened to the record since those days, I still occasionally hear a few cuts from it on the satellite music at my workplace. ‘Too Much Time on My Hands’ is asinine to my older ears but ‘The Best of Times’ is a well-crafted song even now. The guitar solo, which dips into the George Harrison well, is magnificent.

One ‘art project’ my class did that year was to illustrate ourselves as adults. I wish I still had mine. It showed a Noel in his early twenties with shoulder-length blond rocker hair, a sleeveless black shirt, and a guitar. Remember children, this predated MTV, thus my exposure was limited. So the generic arena rock god was my fourth grade idea of cool [it may be of interest to you that a similar project done the following year saw me pictured as a distinguished old military officer, ribbons and medals on my chest and a neat white beard].

Long before I learned my first chord there were times when music set me alight. Those moments are still vivid in my memory. As a young boy (pre-school through 2nd grade) I idolized my older cousin Mark. He had a tarantula, an albino snake, and a room full of fascinating things. When my parents visited Uncle Ron and Aunt Lois, I would follow Mark around. We were ‘hanging out’ in his room when he played Queen’s ‘News of the World’ for me. This had to be early 1978. What struck me was the forbidding, dangerous quality I heard in the music, particularly the single ‘We Will Rock You’. It occurred to me that a darker, more exciting world existed out there; people were doing bad things. The clarion moment came when Brian May’s guitar solo began. The biting distortion and warm resonance of his AC30s stirred my young ears.
Other songs would catch my attention over the next few years but none had the same visceral impact. The notion of music as a gateway to some sort of forbidden fruit was not lost on me however. Even today I can remember riding in my grandmother’s station wagon (metallic olive with simulated wood grain, extra rear-facing seats in the back, window controls which were obvious leftovers from Apollo-Soyuz, the car itself being in the neighborhood of 30 feet long) listening to the radio. Songs by Blondie and especially ‘Brass in Pocket’* by the Pretenders gave clear indication of a sort of naughtiness which left me uncomfortable and strangely curious simultaneously.

The next wake-up call came in the middle of the night. We were moving from Georgia to Kentucky; I was around 10 years old. The seats of our little car folded down; my sisters and I were wrapped in blankets, lying side-by-side with our feet toward the rear of the car ‘for safety’. Amy and Bridgette promptly went to sleep. Looking back, my sleeplessness must have worn on my parents; so many moments of ‘you’re still awake?!’ Since I couldn’t sleep, I lie there listening to my parents talk, the hum of the road, and the car radio. A song came on which jarred me with its insistent, jagged intro. The guitar came in like a Spitfire strafing, howled, and settled into a dirty groove. I recognized the singer’s voice but it was different somehow, edgier. “Who is that?” I asked. “It’s the Beatles, Noel”, Mom told me. The song was ‘Revolution’. John’s last scream of ‘alright’ still ringing in my ears, I watched the shadowed pines yield to the inky black of the Appalachian foothills and finally fell asleep. In the months to follow I would spend hours listening to Abbey Road at night and, while it lacked the impact of ‘Revolution’, it certainly opened my little eyes and ears to the depths of emotion music could reach.

Early teen years came and went without significant discoveries but I eventually forsook the more pedestrian appeal of the Police and Duran Duran to immerse myself in the music of the Beatles. Mom suggested I put aside my compilations and go for the actual albums (sage advice). Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was good –I especially liked ‘Good Morning’ and the title reprise. The two which blew me completely away however were Rubber Soul and Revolver (the reissued British version). Each song trumped the previous and the playing was superb. Every song was literally perfect yet one stood above all others and became the next wake-up call.
‘And Your Bird Can Sing’ changed my perception of what a guitar-based pop/rock song could be. To this day it stands alone as one of the most inventive, distinctive songs ever recorded –and it clocks in at UNDER 2 minutes. Its beautiful descending double-stops (played on a bright Casino with a bit of natural amp distortion) in harmony with a clean capoed rhythm track still sound vibrant (and impossible) today. The lyrics were ambiguous but seemed to speak to me directly, expressing my feelings in crystalline clarity. Twenty-plus years later, they still hit me with the same impact.

It occurred to me that most songs said NOTHING to me which in any way related to my life. Since then I have sought that quality in music. Songs which were not dedicated storytelling pieces, or of an alarmist political nature, were dismissed when they didn’t apply to me in some way (however sinuous the connection was). Thus I was able to steer clear of so much musical tripe. Increased mobility, social networking, and especially reading in my teenage years brought a great many artists new and old to my attention. I mined the 50s and 60s for the innovators and the stars, discovering I had a penchant for Spector’s ‘wall of sound’, tremolo guitar, Motown progressions, weedy British guitar groups, and epic songs. Still nothing surpassed the Beatles and I soon amassed a collection which covered their career from Hamburg to the rooftop concert (I was eventually robbed of these).

Actually playing music seemed out of reach to me –it was as remote as sex. I marveled at people who could string together chords and play songs. For reasons lost to me now I never approached my parents to ask for lessons. But I continued to fill my ears, becoming well-versed in Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Simon and Garfunkle. Pink Floyd, the Pixies, the Kinks, the Who, Jesus and Mary Chain, Hoodoo Gurus, Violent Femmes, the Smiths, and the Cure. And I’m not ashamed to admit I enjoyed the crassness of the Dead Milkmen. Somewhere in there my mother bought me my first reggae album. Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ captivated me (still does). REM’s ‘Radio Free Europe’ grabbed me by the ears (wouldn’t want Stipey to do that now) as did U2’s ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ (who can resist that guitar and violin?).

(cont.)