We talk a lot about music issues and
the artists but Marie Braden asks "what about the fans?" Good question,
and that's what this series is all about-- The Fans. We now turn it over
to Marie for this month's Fan Fair.
As always the views expressed
by the writer do not neccessarily reflect the views of antiMUSIC or the
iconoclast entertainment group .
Magic Power: The Making of
a Music Freak
Are rock and roll fans born or made? What
is the combination of influences that causes someone to be touched so deeply
by little more than sound and concept? Why is it that some people are able
to enjoy music while not caring about it, and others take it as some sort
of personal religion?
I can only speak for myself, but I think
it has been a combination of both nature and nurture. Perhaps it began
with my father's Sunday afternoon tradition of "having a beer with Hank(Williams)".
Every Sunday, we'd go down to the cemetery, and he would drink five out
of a six-pack, leaving that last one open for "ol' Hank". I'd play, as
children do, but I saw, even then, how much it moved him to have this personal
sort of communion, and I guess it made an impression. So much so that I
asked for my first stereo when I was five years old.
Now, in today's world, that's not such
a big thing. The marketers even TARGET the preschool set these days. But
in the Seventies, it was usually a rite of passage to go beyond the tinny
sound of a clock radio and into the world of vinyl....Forty-fives, the
irritating adapters, picture sleeves....Today, the experience isn't as
heady as it was then, with all the attendant baggage. But I was five years
old and asking for something that my teenaged brothers and sisters weren't
even asking for. And, amazingly, I got it.
But I wasn't the type to sit there and
listen to "kiddie records." Oh, no... I wasn't allowed to have my own records
yet, but I did just fine with Mom's Janis Joplin and Dad's Tanya Tucker,
and everyone's Elvis Presley. It was about this time that Elvis died, and,
living in Memphis, I saw just how a world could change overnight. There
was something uniting about Elvis. As Lester Bangs said, "We will never
again agree on anything as we did on Elvis." And it's true. Even by the
time of his death, the rock audience had fractured into hundreds of pieces,
where today it's in millions. I can, if I choose, never listen to ANYTHING
recorded since 1990, if I want toeven over the commercial airwaves. Whatever
my particular passion, I can curl up with it. But I won't ever get to share
that universality that once meant so much to fans.
Finally, as I was approaching fourth grade,
my parents decided that I had taken well-enough care of my equipment that
I could begin to get my own records. Gone were the Frank Zappa LPs that
I had cherished....replaced by Olivia Newton-John, Hall and Oates, and
other forms of vapid insipidity. The first full-length album (for to me,
they are still albums) that was ALL mine was Stevie Nicks' Bella Donna--so
I supposed even the worst tastes of a pre-teen sometimes take root in something
real. By this time, I was living with my teenaged cousin and began to devour
Hit Parader as if it were Biblical truth. Scarily enough, to this
day, I recall a five-month series of articles that covered each member
of REO Speedwagon in-depth. Or as much depth as Hit Parader ever
allowed.
I was lucky, I suppose. Through that cousin,
I was exposed to REO Speedwagon, Journey, Styx, and every other forgettable
AOR hack. Through my father, I was exposed to "the best of country music,
old and new". Through my mother, it was Frank Zappa, Janis Joplin, Bette
Midler. And through my siblings, welcome in heavy metal with AC/DC, Van
Halen, Triumph, and Judas Priest. Interestingly, I think it was the sheer
range and variety that made it all matter so much to me. No matter what
I felt, there was a song that expressed it. And, amazingly, there were
others like me. The music press, floundering along in the first days of
celebrity journalism, as opposed to true reportage, still seemed to hold
itself out as a glittering prize, and I latched on as if I were drowning
in a sea of molten vinyl.
It's easy to remember the Seventies as
"when punk ruled" or the early Eighties as "Dawn of the New Wave", but
to this Top 40 chick, it was a world of "housewife rock" and more of that
insipid vapidity I referred to earlier.
Marty Balin's "Hearts", Dave Edmunds' "Slippin'
Away"...it was, truly, the death of rock and roll as it had been, but it
was still able to move me in a way that nothing else could. There was some
truly groundbreaking music being made, but I never discovered it until
later. I didn't care that "Hungry Heart" was a shining gem of pop craftsmanship.
I just liked that it made bounce up and down. And so that I could carry
that obsession with music into the hours when I couldn't listen to music,
I asked for a subscription to Rolling Stone.
Now, by the early Eighties, Rolling
Stone was a mere shell of what it had been, but I didn't know that
at the time. To me, this was vital, important journalism, and I was the
ONLY one of my classmates who, first of all, had her own subscription and
secondly, read it from cover to cover every two weeks. My mother always
operated on the principle that if I couldn't understand what I was reading,
it wouldn't affect me. How wrong she was!
Because from those pages, I learned that
it was better to be brassy and sassy than it was to be quiet and classy.
I began to emulate the attitudes I saw displayed on those pages, and I
took it to heart as if it were the gospel according to Richie Sambora.
Funny, by the time my friends caught up
to where I was, I was viewed as somewhat of a trendsetter. Because I had
already covered the ground they were covering, I was free to go backwards
and pick up all the classics that I had missed in my "youth". As they were
devouring the latest Madonna, I was able to point out that Debbie Harry
had done it all before. As they gushed over the funk-rock synthetics of
Prince, I was able to point them in the direction of Jimi Hendrix and Sly
Stone. When the Bangles hit the airwaves, I was able to point out that
they were treading the same ground as the Go-Gos before them, and before
that, the Runaways, the Shangri-Las. There was nothing new under the sun,
and by then, I knew it.
Maybe that's why I was so ripe for the
hair band explosion, which was, at heart, a very traditionalist music form,
while still carrying what pretended to be a new look. It wasn't because
it was good; it wasn't because it was new; it was because it was none of
those things. As Rik Emmett put it, "I'm young, I'm wild, and I'm free....got
the magic power of the music in me...." And while it has sometimes trickled
away, somehow, it's always remained my religion. And here I am, today,
doing what I never thought possible. Being, to some extent, a part of it.
And it doesn't really matter how it came to be--all that matters is that
it is what it is.
Posted by Marie:
Granted, Spinal--that was sort of part of my point--it HAS all been done before, but that's no reason to lambaste it :)
Posted by Spinalcold:
I do agree with the statement, "There is nothing new under the sun." ...to some extent. See, everything is just a step away from something else, nothing is just created from emptyness, there always has to be something to begin with. All artists/engineers/authors/inventors build an idea off another idea. But that is how human's evolve. So while I agree that nothing is entirely new, I do say we are more rabidly changing than ever before. And I mean anything from technology to art, it's all evolving and an extremely rapid pace. So my point is, it's pointless to say "that's been done before by them" because everything can be traced back to the beginning of music.
Posted by GREENMUSE:
one must always love hank.
Posted by 5Against1:
I cut my teeth on my brother-in-law's albums; Ten Years After, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, etc. By the the time I was in high school and had a group of friends that I hung out with, they were caught up in the Journey/Styx/REO thing, which I couldn't stand. It's funny, some people seem to have never heard any music prior to their 15th birthday, they just suddenly start listening to whatever's popular at the time and don't look back. They hear the "Emotional Rescue" Stones or the "We built This City" Starship/Airplane, and don't bother with "Midnight Rambler" or "Somebody To Love". I actually dated a girl who was a John Lennon freak, just John Lennon solo, she hated The Beatles. Odd. Keith Richards said that the Stones were "the first grunge band", maybe that's why I got hooked on it. It's all cyclical.
Posted by BUTCH:
that was a cute little memoir. I liked the part about your old man drinking at the graveyard and leaving an open beer for ol' hank. i've done that before, too. I think i was the only kid in my high school who would drive around blasting Hank Williams' song "Ramblin' Man." You lost me with the hair bands because I've never liked them. but it was a fun read. keep it up.
Posted by hikingartist:
Thanks Marie. I came up through the ranks, roughly 5 years earlier. I saw REO 4 or 5 times when they were a opening act (Riding The Storm Out!). I still give my kids Zappa, Hendrix, Sabbath CDs for gifts and take them to as many concerts as I can afford (Metal, Modern, Cultural, whatever). Music bridges the ages, opens minds and perspectives.
