Wanna be startin’ something

All right, Ed McMahon… I knew he was probably still alive, but I wouldn’t have been surprized to learn he’d kicked off and I hadn’t heard before. Farah Faucett… a little closer to my awareness, enough that I knew she was sick with cancer, and so when she kicked off, at the very least, I was prepared to hear the news. But Michael Jackson to complete the trifecta? Colour me utterly shocked. I never imagined I’d be hearing that one this year. I guess because his work had such a profound effect on me and my ilk, who were coming into their own in the early 80′s, I feel like I want to write a little bit about what goes through my head when I think of Michael Jackson.

I guess the first time he showed up in earnest in my little music world was in 1983 with the release of Thriller. That’s no real surprize, given it was his masterpiece and the fact that it was pretty damned near omnipresent. I discovered all his other stuff retroactively, as so often happens with me. I hear something, and then go looking, and a lot of the time, I find that I actually know the artist from singles or radio play, but just never really followed up. I discovered I actually knew a load of Jackson’s earlier work, although I’m not sure how. But yeah, the main hit came with Thriller.

It was presumably sometime in 1983, which places me in about grade 7. Ye gods. Anyway, one of the things to do at the time on weekends in Ontario was watch the CHUM top 30 video countdown. Video was just about to come into its own with MuchMusic launching in about a year’s time, so we as budding consumers of all things culture had to get our hit of music videos from shows like Toronto Rocks, hosted by Jon Majhor (and OMFGBBQ he’s dead too… a small search reveals he died of lung cancer in ’07 jesuschristthey’redroppinglikeflies) and the CHUM top 30 video show. One fine weekend, I was watching the top 30 show and something completely unprecedented happened that changed my musical landscape. A song and video, which had not yet tracked on the top 30, leapfrogged into the number one spot. Nothing like that had ever happened, and I don’t think it’s happened since (not that shows like the top 30 are around anymore to inform us). When they got down to number one, I distinctly remember thinking something must be wrong, because they had wayyy too much time left in the show to have only one video left to air. Well, I was wrong. With 15 minutes left, they started playing Thriller, and it changed everything.

Not only was it instantly the de-facto standard for ubercool, it managed to synergize music and video in a way that no one had seen before and the ripple effects were also unprecedented. Before we just listened, but now, it was an ears AND eyes sort of thing. The song was awesome, danceable, energetic fun firepower. The video embodied the 80′s at the same time it confused the hell out of us by being cool, scary, and fun at the same time. And more, we we were shown what cool was, how you had to move when you listened. In a way it was pretty constrictive, I suppose, but in another way, it brought teenage confusion to a clear focus, and my god, it was all that. Kinda like joining the cult of Mac–you give up control to King Steve, but you get some awesome stuff in return.

And so, all of Motown entered into my world when I started digging into MJ’s, and much more too. Radio at that time was popular top 40 stuff, and while I didn’t know it at the time, it was largely formulaic. This certainly doesn’t detract from its charm, at least not to me, even decades later. But Jackson was coming from a totally different place, and my god, it was like a beautiful black Trans AM in a sea of Chevy Impalas. You couldn’t help but look and just say, “dayam!”

Suddenly everyone wanted to be Michael Jackson. Break dancing clubs formed in my school and the minority of black kids all suddenly could be cool just by sheer association. Jackson, you boob… you had such a power of mentorship and you blew it with your wanting to become white. Sigh. But to us white masses, we didn’t give a shit. We wanted to be Michael, too. We wanted to move like that. To this day, I can still moonwalk. But yeah, I couldn’t ever hold my own with the other break dancers. I nearly effin’ killed myself trying the worm–what sane person pitches himself head first into the pavement without any training or practice? Sigh.

From there, I think I started to seek out other forms of music in addition to top 40. I discovered Jackson’s back catalogue, and loved it all, but I also suddenly had permission to enjoy all of Motown and discovered more folk, too. I branched out, and I think that’s Jackson’s doing… at least a little. It was cool to be different.

And the hits off of Thriller just kept on coming. And ALL of it was awesome, and people started to emulate Jackson on their recordings. In particular I always think of Rockwell, who sometimes sounded more like MJ than MJ did. And then there were TV crossovers like Alfonso Ribeiro, who showed kids our age how kids our age looked when we were emulating MJ. And we all grew up, and although the trail is cold, you don’t have to dig very far to find musicians today in the R&B and Rap genres who will happily point to MJ as an influence.

Oh, yes Mike, you did start somethin’.

The later years were what everyone knows they were. He just let it all get to him, and I think, while maybe he could have avoided all that, I think it was really hard to do. I dunno if I want to blame Jackson for his idiocy in later years, or if I want to blame all of us for creating him. Either way, it kinda got sad after Thriller faded, and he became a caricature of himself, as anything that’s as big as he was eventually does. I think that one of the people I heard interviewed recently had it right–his apex was Thriller, but he kept trying to top it, and it was totally untoppable.

But if I want to really enjoy his work, it’s just about putting it on and forgetting all that other sensational mumbo-jumbo. Seriously, put on “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” and try not to move. It’s bottled positive energy. I love it all. No one will ever do that again, and that loss sorta makes me feel sad. And old.

Michael Jackson was among the first of my generation’s idols to die of something not suicide or substance related. While one can argue that his lifestyle was such that he did indeed do this to himself by taxing his body with stress and psychological sickness teamed with media stalkarazzi, at the end of the day, he had a heart attack.

My iron gods are starting to have their clay feet kicked out from under them. My generation is starting to die, and that is a thought that creates a feeling in me I can’t quite quantify yet. But I think that yeah, even now, Jackson’s startin’ something. Sigh.

I am so going to go marinade my ears in his body of work for a while. He was one of a kind. Truthfully, the Jackson I know has been gone for a long time already. I guess it’s time I both mourn and celebrate him. This is the Jackson I remember. I watch this, and I still think, “dayam!”

Prog-rock

I never really considered it before, but I think that prog-rock is a label that works for a lot of the stuff I like to tune my ears into.

This morning, I was trying to arrange a get together with a friend and we were going back and forth trying to figure something out for this week to no avail. So, she suggested next week, and I said that only time will tell (my time’s loopy right now mostly thanks to the volatile nature of all things happening in Suz’s life). But that phrase, “only time will tell” immediately put me in mind of the following classic:

Such are the pathways mental of Martin. Tee hee. Anyway, I was watching this video and musing about a few things:

First of all, the choices they made with regard to the presentation of the video. Propping up TVs and the like to show various things is way cool. I don’t think anyone’s done that since, and it’s a good idea that merits plagiarism and update to LCD screens by some post-prog-rock band. But what about the random chick doing the backflips? I’m not sure about that. I’d love to know what she’s doing today (probably not backflips). The thing is, it’s an extension of the presentation of the band and music in a visual form. Asia’s album covers are all friggin’ awesome, and some of the coolest stuff I ever saw. What I didn’t click into was that they are all done by one guy who does other famous artwork for other bands which explains a lot, and that this tendency to put together cool-ass artwork on your album was part of the prog-rock philosophy. That’s an ingenious little thing, as not only do you have a way cool album visually, you have all the material you need to put on a t-shirt or concert ticket or whatnot. Add to that the fact that it no longer matters a fig what the band looks like. It never dawned on me, but I’ve been saying that Journey was one of the ugliest group of mo-fo’s on the planet for a while–but my god, they were talented out the wazoo. Not putting their picture on the album and instead including way cool artwork is a subtle masterstroke I didn’t even pick up on consciously until now. But then, everyone was a dork in the 70′s.

Next thing was the music itself. I was listening to it and thinking that it was a step up in sheer musicianship from most of the pop music scene. Seems like it had elements of disco in the beats and use of strings that often showed up, and elements of folk with the harmonies. But then it had this full, huge sound owing to synth and track layering, and it had these great subtle guitar bits of the sort you got before the shredding guitar heroes of the 80s. It was much more about the music than the lyrics, which are sort of a step back from the folk that preceded or paralleled this stuff. Strange how I never thought of this before.

But yeah, run down the list of prog-rock bands, and they’re all favourites of mine starting with Zeppelin and Pink Floyd right up through Genesis, ELP and Asia. Funny thing though is that they mention King Crimson in there, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard a thing from them.

Mental note: must check them out. Hmmm.

M-tv

Heh.

So, for the last little while, I’ve been posting over on Facebook the song that I have going through my head on any given morning. Not sure if I’ve mentioned this (probably have) but I will commonly wake up with a song in my head. This is a gift (eccentricity? sickness? disorder?) I have had for nearly as long as I can remember. In the last few years, I’ve ignored it, but it used to be the driving force behind my collection of music. If I woke up with a song I didn’t own, I’d go out and get it. Nowadays, I own practically everything I could ever have going through my head, but the question is, will I be able to find it out there on the big, bad internet?

Well, we’ll see. Not sure if this’ll get old, but it will certainly keep the tunes going, and it acts as a weird kind of tally of the goings on in my cranium on any given morning. As a note to interested parties: this is a good way to get into my head before I even know what’s going on. usually, the songs are reflective of my moods or overall state of operations. So, if you ever want to know how it’s going, this is a good (although not perfect) indicator.

I’m going to start this little experiment off with Murray Head. Breaking my own rules, this one isn’t one I woke up with, but rather one I got on the way home. Another little-known fact. When I’m riding on my motorcycle, and there’s no radio, I tune in to songs in my head. I don’t know where those come from either. This evening, it was this. Go figure.

Tea can be dangerous

I went to bed early last night, because the night before was really bad. In preparation for a good night’s rest, I drank a cup of “Good Night” tea blend from my favourite tea store. Basically, it’s a blend of Valerian root, Anise, Rosehips, fennel seed and a few other things tossed in there. I did have a decent night of rest, but I had dreams that were so surreal I can’t even put words around them. The kicker was, all through my crazy dream sequences the soundtrack was Beethoven’s Fifth, in disco style. I knew this one was buried somewhere in my subconscious (too close to a mental image of John Travolta in black bikini underwear) but really… what in the heck?

For your listening pleasure:

5th Symphony (Disco/Techno) by Beethoven – Beethoven

15 Albums

This one was originally on Facebook. Thought I’d share it here too, just to get the content going.

Think of 15 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life. Dug into your soul. Music that brought you to life when you heard it. Royally affected you, kicked you in the wazoo, literally socked you in the gut, is what I mean. Then when you finish, tag 15 others, including moi. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill. Get the idea now? Good. Tag, you’re it!”

Now, I have one preamble to all of this in that I’ll say that I didn’t start listening to full on ALBUMS until much later in my life. I lived off of top 40 radio pretty much until I got into high school. So there’s so very many songs that defined me in my youth, but the albums came much later.

That, and I don’t have 15 friends who I thought would want to participate. So, I only tagged you if I thought you might appreciate. If not, carry on.

1. Def Leppard – Hysteria. This album WAS 1987. Every song released from this album became a favourite of mine, and still is today. It was the second CD I ever bought with my own cash, after I raised the 20 bucks necessary having spent every last dime I owned on a CD player, something I was convinced was the newest and most awesome invention known to man at that time.

2. Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon. This is THE first CD I owned (still plays great). I would listen to this album nonstop, at least once a day, all through grade 10. There was a time when I couldn’t get enough of Pink Floyd in general. In the interest of not having this become a Floyd list, I’m going to lump The Wall, The Final Cut, Atom Heart Mother, Animals, and Wish You Were Here right here under Dark Side Of The Moon. All of them were sheer awesomeness in sonic form for me… for the same Pink Floyd flavoured reasons.

3. Indigo Girls – Indigo Girls. And, while I’m here, let’s lump Strange Fire, Nomads Indians Saints, Rites Of Passage, and Swamp Ophelia in under this category. I completely forget when the first time I heard an Indigo Girls song was, or what the circumstances were, but they came into my life at the same point i developed a love for playing guitar, and I hungrily devoured everything I could, learning to play whatever they put out, even though I couldn’t sing it to save my life. I loved the lyrics, and I loved the harmonies and they made me love my six string.

4. Sarah McLachlan – Fumbling Toward Ecstasy. This album was my introduction to Sarah’s work (although truthfully ‘Vox’ was one of those single songs I mentioned before – retroactively discovered the self titled debut album later and loved it). The album came at roughly the point of the dissolution of a long term relationship, and Sarah sang me though it. Lots of tears, lots of love. The tour for this album was the first full-out concert I saw. Up until then, I was too anxious to go anywhere like a concert, but I loved Sarah so much back then that I braved all my fears for her, and came out better. It never occurred to me before now just how much I owe her a debt of thanks for this album.

5. Survivor – Vital Signs. This might have been the first time I started listening to albums in their entirety. I bought this *tape* of all things because of one song, “The Search Is Over” which was my first ‘dedication song’ in that for my first girlfriend and I, it was “our song”. I was pretty amazed to find out the rest of the album not only contained other tracks I knew but wasn’t aware until then Survivor did, but was pretty good album overall.

6. Supertramp – Crisis? What Crisis? I think this is yet another “lump” category, as I’d put Crime of the Century, Famous Last Words, and Breakfast In America under here too, but Crisis… was my fav. It plays a little like a rock opera, and Sister Moonshine is one of the awesomest songs ever. I first heard this album walking around in Natural Sound dreaming of the day where I’d be able to afford an awesome stereo, and they had it on. I think I stayed in the store for the full length of the album, asked the sales dude which one it was, and rented it, copied it and loved it. It was years later that Suz gave me a CD. Still listen to this one lots… but it’s been too long.

7. Boston – Boston. Pure 70′s rock and roll firepower. This album is a ride front to back with nary a throw away. One of my favourite things in the world to do on a summer day is roll down all the windows, open the sunroof and cruise the back roads of Southern Ontario singing at the top of my lungs. It is divine.

8. Melissa Etheridge – Melissa Etheridge. I was one of the fortunate ones who loved Melissa from the get-go. I bought this CD on a whim, and it was so raw and so awesome that I couldn’t get enough of it. To this day, this album stands as one of the best debuts I’ve ever heard, and I have been happy to listen to anything she’s put out since. Melissa’s husky, passionate voice is one I can listen to whenever I need to scream and feel better.

9. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV. Nuff said.

10. Enigma – MCMLXV. This was my introduction into Electronica as a genre. My friend Jake listened to this, and I found myself completely drawn in. There was something primal about the beats. Many was the time I was driving, listening to Mea Culpa and realized I was speeding quite a lot. This album can go around and around and around and I just never get tired of it.

11. Fleetwood Mac – Rumours. Although it was years after I knew the songs that I bought the album, I think that this album’s contents were so pervasive on top 40 radio in the late 70′s that I heard the whole thing sitting in the back seat of my dad’s Dodge Dart Swinger on long summer drives. Dreams is still a song that grabs me in ways I can’t even describe, and Songbird remains one of few songs that coke me up every time.

12. Meat Loaf – Bat Out Of Hell. I was recently reminded of the overblown, silly awesomeness that is anything written by Jim Steinman. But this album was both pervasive and had something about it that reached in and just took you. It’s been forever since this was released, and it is so kitschy and self-aggrandizing and just plain goofy that it should have died on the vine or gotten old and forgotten ages ago. Meat loaf and Debbie Boone should have been tossed into the same garage sale 5-cent record heap. And yet every time that honky-tonk piano plays the first few bars of the title track, I’m hooked for the whole album, listening and singing with a stupid-assed smile on my face. This one’s better than any hit of anti-depressant could ever be.

13. Ben Folds – Rockin’ The Suburbs. I don’t know what it is about Ben Folds. Maybe it’s the sheer concentration of talent that makes him vibrate at some sort of music-god frequency, or maybe the sad, melancholy lyrics that sound happy even though you swear he’s cutting his wrists and writing with the blood, or maybe it’s just his overall goofiness that makes him completely lovable in a nerdy way, but this album is still one of my very favourites. Everything on it made me want more, and damn if he doesn’t keep delivering. I love singing along with Ben. Makes me feel normal, somehow. I dunno.

14. Leonard Cohen – More Best Of. I came late into the Cohen fold. I actually remember the day. I was on a bike ride of all things, listening to my first MP3 player, a big, brick-like thing that was as unreliable as stink and on came “Suzanne”. I listened… really listened that time, and the poetry hit me. I got a taste and wanted more and more until I had me a love for Cohen that rivaled anything else. The man cannot sing, but it somehow doesn’t matter at all. It’s all in the voice, and in the poetry. It is holy. This best of album was the first i owned, and it went round and round until my world was a whiskey-and-cigarettes drenched, bohemian gnostic wonderland.

15. The Wyrd Sisters – Sin And Other Salvations. I gotta admit, after Swamp Ophelia, the Indigo Girls and I had a falling out, and damned if i didn’t miss them. The Wyrd Sisters came along with this album and filed my heart with everything I’d been missing. This album also came at a time where I was missing Suzanne as she was gone for the summer, and it sot of defined that summer. It made me feel happy and sad, holy and human. It made me hurt so good. Unfortunately, this was it. I got the next album, Wholly, and it was a steaming pile. I don’t know what th earlier works sound like. This album though, is a slice of Teh Awesome.

Dang, when I started this, I thought I’d have trouble finishing, but I could go on. I haven’t even mentioned Elton John, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, The Doobie Brothers… man. But, I guess you gotta stop someplace.

Now, I’m going to go and find some of these albums and listen again. I have been away too long. Damned MP3s and their ADHD invoking listening practices. If there’s one thing to be said for albums, tapes and CDs. You put ‘em in, and you listened front to back. That was no bad thing, and it’s a shame it got lost.

Chao!