Isn't it funny how when you grow up, you never give two craps about
music, and sooner or later it finds you? I'm not really sure why people
discover music in a different way than they would movies, for example.
I guess it has something to do with the radio and having the right song
play at the right time.
For a good portion of my life, I detested music. Oh, I listened
to music, but never by choice. I spent a lot of time growing up in my
dad's old Pontiac, driving for three hours at a time to see relatives
who smothered me with kisses and forced me to eat all the pasta on my
plate. On the way, obviously to distract themselves from the monotony
of seeing the same road signs over and over again, they turned on some
music. Unfortunately for me, all they ever seemed to listen to was Elton John, Stevie Wonder
or "golden oldies" stations that basically played the same inoffensive
pop rock one hit wonders all day long. Rock, rap, reggae, or basically
anything more edgy than Heart did not even exist in my childhood
memories. You can see that from a very early age I couldn't stand what
I knew as music, with its sweet melodies, inoffensive rhythms and
politically correct lyrics.
In order to fix this (or perhaps to just give me something to do), my
father had me take piano lessons downtown, with a nice little teacher
named Jennifer. I vaguely heard of classical music, but had never
delved into the world of Beethoven and Bach until I started to play. I
was pretty good, but didn't quite keep up with the lessons for a few
reasons. I could never sit still for an hour to practice scales, I had
trouble with sheet music, and classical music was downright boring to
me. As a result I had an on-again/off-again relationship with my
keyboard, and eventually gave up with the damn thing. Not that having
lessons was a bad thing - it helped my ear a lot and gave me enough
knowledge of theory to play guitar well. But classical music was not my
forte, and I needed something a bit more stimulating.
Fast forward to seventh grade, when I was about thirteen years old. I
was going into a private Catholic school, uniforms and all, I guess
because religion classes were supposed to make me an obedient,
God-serving little child. For those who have never been to a private
school, it seems that kids who go to private schools have some sort of
complex that makes them think they are more hip and "street" than they
actually are. On a near regular basis, white kids in shirts and ties
would refer to each other as "homeys" and themselves as "gangstas". As
the new kid, I was a bit perplexed by this behavior, as well as the
music they listened to. By this point I had heard *of* rap music, but
other than maybe "Ice Ice Baby" I had not heard any actual songs. One
day the one black kid in the school played me a rap song, and needless
to say, it was a shock. The drum beats were huge, and played the same
shockingly loud rhythm over and over...no human could play like this.
And the singer...well, it was more like shouting than singing, and the
words were simple but bound to piss somebody off: "MOVE BITCH, GET OUT
THE WAY!"
I had to have some more of this.
Another friend had introduced me to a little downloading program called Kazaa, and within a few minutes Ludacris
and other rappers were blasting on my computer speakers. Yes, the
lyrics were misogynistic and sexist, and yes, the rappers themselves
had little to no street cred (of which I was to find out about later).
All I really cared about was the beat and the rhythm, the way these
people stripped music to its very core. Little to no melody was
present, there were no motifs other than the backbeat and occasional
string sample, and all the niceties of pop music were thrown out the
window.
It wasn't enough. I had to have something else. I once heard in passing of a band named Linkin Park that combined rap and rock and were coming out with a new CD called Meteora. After about 5 songs, I was hooked. This band
somehow mixed the raw pumping power of rap music with the rage and
anger of drop-d alternative metal. What got my attention the most was
the singer, Chester Bennington. Before I heard the likes of Bruce
Dickenson or even Roger Daltrey, Chester was the most intense singer I
had ever heard. (Fans of true metal are probably gnashing their teeth
or laughing in their seats at this point, but I must continue.) He
could sing with a malice I hadn't quite heard on record yet, and he
could scream! For someone about my age, it was the perfect remedy for
two years of bullying and acne.
The next year, it seemed the tastes had changed. The black kid who
played Ludacris for me had left, and suddenly it was no longer cool to
be a homey g. The sideways hats were turned backwards, and the phat
people became brats. Rap music was out, and punk rock was in. Or at least, what I thought was punk rock. Truth be told, those at my school never listened to anything harsher than Sum 41,
and so my notion of punk rock was mostly guys wearing Hurley shirts
playing fast-paced guitar pop with a few bittersweet harmonies. Perhaps
it was because we were all in eighth grade and getting ready for high
school, but the song Dammit
became our anthem, most notably the line "Well I guess this is growing
up". I accepted the change, although a bit suspiciously, as if songs
about partying and girls weren't really much better than...songs about
partying and girls. However, I did listen to something a bit better.
The same person who mentioned Linkin Park in conversation also
name-dropped a band named Nirvana.
What is Nirvana, I wondered? What was so great about them? That day, I
went back to Kazaa and listened to the first song I found. Can you
guess which one it was?
Stay tuned for Part 2, delivered some time in the near future. (I know
for a fact nobody is going to read the novel that is the entire
thing...in one sitting.)
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My discovery of music. Part 1 blog
