Tunage. Shows. Youth. Memories.

Cap'n Noise posted recently on concert attendance for a band from his past. Have not had the same reaction to seeing live music from youthful influences or enthusiasms. For me, these events incur positive nostalgia.

CarolinaMom and I saw Johnny Mathis at Chastain Amphitheater a couple o'years back here in Atlanta. Wow. That man's voice is still buttah: late in "Misty" when he sings "On my own" an octave higher than the rest of the melody gave me goose bumps. I cried a bit with "The Twelfth of Never," as it's one of my Mom's favorites. We sat next to two women my Mom's age, and the 3 of them waxed on about their teenage crushes, other popular music at the time, etc.

I've seen James Taylor many, many times. His music framed my childhood, and I shoved countless quarters into the jukebox at Anna's Pizzeria in Hampton to play "Handyman".

But these music tastes were my parents' and became mine by osmosis. The ones I sought out myself as Noise did, in 'tween and teen years, and seen recently? Many still bring it. But they weren't as frantic or punk or alternative as Noise's B52s. My sister and I saw Peter Frampton, and I heard no tales from her about feelin' old 'n'stuff, or that Frampton was any less intense as a balding older white dood. He still showed the way (just watch Almost Famous - he and Nancy Wilson wrote the original music, and the movie brings that time's feel back in spades.)

Crowded House last fall at The Tabernacle was one of my top 5 concerts, ever, and their musical chops had only improved with time. More subtlety and complexity. Neil Finn's age couldn't have shown more, what with his son opening the show and all. But it didn't have me finding Neil an old fart, nor did it make me feel similarly old-farted with being closer to Neil's age than his son's.

How much NEW live music do you witness, Cap'n? Vampire Weekend at Variety Playhouse in June drew a multi-generational audience vividly engaged to each of the 75 minutes played. Why only 75? Well, they've only the one album, dontcha know. Fans from age 10 to age 60 in the demographic spread, with density in the college-age. Plenty of boozing and dancing in the crowd. I was transported to 1983 and Coyote having me listen to the Violent Femmes.

Feist at Masquerade this Spring blew me away. No Kate or Cindy or alt punk feel, but I felt no age distance between myself and the teenage urchins I chaperoned. Neither did my concert consort, Kimplicated. The sound harkened be effortelessly back to Boone introducing me to "new" chick music during college: The Cocteau Twins, The Sundays, The Innocence Mission, Sarah McLachlan.

Sheena baptized me with The Legendary Shack Shakers in Tallahassee in 2005, and Cap'n, they done did bring zany. And let's not forget my aforementioned serendipitous newish crush.

Speaking of Kimplicated, another of my top 5 concerts is seeing 311 with her at Lakewood Amphitheater. They brung it hard, but my fondness for the event was witnessing Kimplicated's unmitigated joy and thrash dancing so hard that her specs went flying a few rows in front of us (rescued with a mad dash forward). The dancing was contagious. I bounced up and down and happily remembered the ghosts of shows past: A Flock of Seagulls, R.E.M., Oingo Boingo, The Cure, U2.

And then there's Eddie From Ohio. My passion for their music fully integrates my parent's osmossissing, my teenage discoveries, and my adult acoustic penchants. In their harmonies I'm back on a long trip in the station wagon, the 8-track player booming Peter Paul & Mary, The Kingston Trio, John Denver, and my folks and us urchins singing 5 part harmony. In their joy for entertaining I'm transported to meeting Robbie Schaefer in high school at a variety show audition, and seeing his band Knightly Jest whip teenagers into frenzied (albeit mostly sober) dancing to The Stray Cats and The Who. In their wit I'm hanging out with Robbie in college at JMU, meeting Michael Clem, and am in the thick of late night banter and Jellyfish Blues Band gigs. In their soulfulness and Julie's passionate voice, I'm back in Mr. Boren's choir at Cocoa Beach High School, singing 8 part a capella harmony with my brother and Otter and Coyote. And then I'm in The Swede's kitchen after an EFO gig at Variety Playhouse, drinking beers with the band and reading our names on the back of a high school regional chorus competition album: me, Robbie, Julie, Chad of Knightly Jest, and Robbie's peep Vern.

Mayhap it's my frequency of live music worship, but Cap'n my Cap'n, I'm not taken where you go. I lose myself in appreciation of the sound, the shared enjoyment, and a bevvie or two. The experience connects me philotically to youthful show going joy. It's a communion. It's part mind-, part heartf*ck. It's social object enthusiasm enjoyed best when shared, not solo'd, and always connects me with my peep music influencers.

Getting old does not *completely* suck, Cap'n Noise. It may *mostly* suck. But it does not *completely* suck.

A Summer of Sundays

It's not been a secret, my un-love affair with summer. I've made some pretty harsh, judgmental statements. But summer did its best to win me over at the beginning of September. I think she even forgave my brash, rude, petulance.

Visiting FloridaDad and SWEJudy the other week, each afternoon found us taking cover from the daily Central Florida summer storm. Only instead of abating after an hour or so, the rain kept coming. And coming.

But on my last night, a reprieve. Post-dinner cleanup found me grabbing my iPod and heading a block away to the beach as the sun was setting. I hit play on my "Summer of Sundays" playlist and set to strolling.

"& its you and me in the summertime
We'll be hand in hand down in the park
With a squeeze & a sigh & that twinkle in your eye
& all the sunshine banishes the dark"
- The Sundays, "Summertime"

The song ended as I kicked my flops under the sea grapes and set towards the water. Not many walkers that late. A few blokes casting. The lights of cruise boats twinkling off shore.

"well the heat was enormous
it fell like a gorgeous
blanket of indian clay
time drifting over us, stagnant like thunderclouds
pregnant and heavy with rain"
- Eddie From Ohio, "This My Town"

The breeze reminded me that the morning's showers had chased away the languor of humidity and stickiness of heat. My toes hit the edge of the perfect water, same temperature as the air. My cadence slowed to a surf strut.

"Maybe sometimes, we've got it wrong, but it's alright
The more things seem to change, the more they stay the same
Oh, don't you hesitate . . .
You're gonna find yourself somewhere, somehow."
- Corinne Bailey Rae, "Put Your Records On"

The lights inside the condos loomed brighter as I moseyed south. My pace quickened to a jaunt - almost a dance - as the next tune bubbled up.

"If everything is nothing, then are we anything?
Is it better to be better than to be anything?"
- Counting Crows, "Einstein On the Beach"

At least three times, I jumped up and down in the surf, once landing on a sand crab. Ouch! Out of breath, a respite as Herbie Hancock's "Cantaloupe Island" chilled me out.

I couldn't have timed the scoring better. As I saw the last glimpse of sun to the west, The Sundays returned with words to bid the day's glow adieu:

"The thought of heaven couldn't drag me from the path
When I'm wandering here alone
I climb higher move towards the fire.... so blaze sun
Watch until it dies slow falling from the sky
Pale fading sun"
- The Sundays, "Folk Song"

Have you ever cha cha'd to XTC in the surf? I recommend it.

"You play hard to get
'Cause you're teacher's pet
But when the boats have gone
We'll take a tumble excuse for a fumble"
- XTC, Grass

My only picnic of the summer was dining with PJamaMama on the lawn at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens for the Indigo Girls show. What a fine evening that was!

"and my family takes picnics to the park
on warm weather holidays
and we ask all the neighbors, and they invite all their friends in kind
and we all bring side dishes, and we form one big holiday buffet line"
- Eddie From Ohio, "I Don't Think I Know Me"

"Nightswimming, remembering that night
September's coming soon
I'm pining for the moon"
- R.E.M. "Nightswimming"



It struck me during this tune that I had not skinnydipped before. I turned around and realized the sun had fully set. I was halfway through my playlist, so I about faced and headed for home.

T.B.C.

Prom. And the next OtterPop generation.

From Hugh MacLeod's Gaping Void

I had the best non-prom ever.

I know. It’s summer. Prom season is SO over. But there’s a method to my ADD delayed madness. Wait for it.

Spring 2006 brought prom back to mind for the first time in years. I worked a prom special event shift at the Georgia Aquarium. Spying the teenage urchins arriving in their finery took me back. The flowers. The bling. A spectacle to watch. More interesting to note the cliques: the popular folk. The stoners. The punks. The dorks. And those that defied classification as anything other than ORIGINAL – my favorite ilk.

Ballroom shifts are pretty lame as a volunteer. "Where's the bathroom?" "Where's the exit?" Most are interested in the event and not the aminals, but these kids were more curious than I’d expected. Seems prom at the aquarium is the shiz in being there, doing that, and many hadn't been yet.

Didn’t work a prom this season, but prom was everywhere. First, with word on Georgia's small town of Ashburn and their first desegregated prom.

Next was Nougat’s prom attendance. She and her peeps did the group grope thing – the limo, hanging together, good times. She was gorgeous, eh?


And then Rick blagged about his son’s prom, with great snaps.

Prom. High school. I was *so* not a cool kid. I wasn’t uncool (or heavy and uncool, as Neil would say). But I was in the flotsam between acknowledgement and derision. Acceptance was conspicuously absent, with one exception: The Otters.

Now, The Otters were some cool ass-kids. “Membership” crossed clique lines, with monikers originally derived from Animal House. Otter and Boone were the appointed and anointed golden boys. Parties on the beach and at Otter Pop’s. Piling in the van to eat at Bennigan’s and Friday’s in Melbourne. Their adventures to the Keys. Much tomfoolery and righouteous revelry. Otter and Boone playing in 12 Hands and Feet at various parties – singing “Walking in L.A.” and “Private Idaho” with them was a HOOT!

Two years older than me, I feel into Otter and Boone’s gravitational pull during the halcyon summer before their college freshman year. Their visits home mapped my social calendar. By my own senior year, admiration of them had segued into the beginnings of lifelong friendships.

Otter’s seasonal college migration homeward coincided with my senior prom. Chatting on the phone that late afternoon about weekend plans, he had a WTF moment. His sister had just departed in her finery for prom, and why wasn’t I going? It was a no one asked, f*ck it policy, for me. Otter went into social cruise director mode and demanded I mosey my ass over for a non-prom experience.

It wasn’t anything special. Underage drinking at Otter Pop’s, watching 120 Minutes, The Young Ones, and Jack Mack & Rad Boy on MTV. A movie.

I left to head home in Das Boat (Grandma’s 1968 Plymouth Fury III), making the U-turn to head back up the street. Was just hitting some speed when I had to screech to a halt – Otter was in the middle of the effing street. He was damn lucky I didn't knock him down.

Seems Otter had to make sure I had at least one traditional prom experience: a kiss goodnight. Not a platonic peck, mind you, but a sweet, romantic kiss. I drove home the most serendipitously pleased non-prom goer. I may carry angst of missing out on ultimato dress up affairs (no prom, and a dress-down wedding to boot), but that kiss is one of my best memories. Of one of my best friends.

Fast forward 21 years, and Otter became an OtterPop on July 2nd, 2007. His chops with chicks are long standing and well formed, and his new baby girl is in the most excellent of hands. His gentle, open, and welcoming heart is already wrapped around hers, for life. Her future prom date has some HUGE shoes to fill, I tell ya.

Word Power

Get Fuzzy from 22-Dec-2006, by Darby Conley.

A tip o' the hat to CarolinaMom for starting my love of words. Pre-kindergarten library afternoons, reading languidly and racking up the gold stars as the completed tally grew. Another shout out to Jill Rock, who suffered upon the 12th grade English Literature class my first paperback school text: Word Power, the only book I've ever burned. Don't get yer knickers in a twist - tradition was to cathartically light that weekly quiz-driven pain in the *ss and watch it smolder.

This post is more about the stars than the burning. For many years now, I've enjoyed A Word a Day. Words known and new, with a quote nestled inside (usually of the provocative variety). It joins the vaulted Links That Don't Suck, and I hope you'll consider subscribing to enjoy it every morning as I do.

The power of words is rather stunning. We can't think, feel, or connect with others without them. Wit can't exist in their absence. Poetry may not be universally cherished, but without its lyrical form in music the human race would be SO missing out. Learning is utterly, ultimately dependent on them.

So, words = knowledge. knowledge = power. low word knowledge = ignorance. From here, if you choose to maintain low word knowledge, that equals being clueless (without clue and damn proud of it to stay that way). Clueless = Stupid, and stoopid people suck. If you take the road less traveled and opt for expanding the vocab, then your state can change from cluefree (currently without clue but willing to seek one out), to clueful. Clueful people are the cheekier kind, in general.

G'head. Be particular. Choose not to suck.