seagull screaming! (kiss her) (kiss her)

as i was leaving muncie this morning, i flipped through my cd's looking for that perfect one for a crisp morning as i trekked back to northwest indiana. i fell upon one of my standby's for driving, seagull screaming kiss her kiss her and i thought i should write about the role and progression of music in my life. actually, i have been thinking to write this for a long time, but now i am actually doing it.

growing up, i listened to the oldies. like the oldies station, 104.3, all the hits from the 50's and 60's. this was what my mom listened too and up until about 12 years old i spent much of my music listening time around her. so that was the music i liked, she also had an affinity for old musicals...oh, mom.

after that i mostly listened to the music my dad listened too, which was the classic rock station. music from the 60's and 70's that had more of a rock edge to it. i latched onto this much easier than the oldies. i took in my own direction and fell particularly for a band called 'the doors.' this persisted for at least four years. in that time i devoured everything i could about the band. i have read every book about the band that was released before 1996. i obtained every single one of their albums, including imports and harder to find ones like the album released after jim morrison died.

it was during this time that i got my first cd player and my first cd. ironically, the first cd that i ever had was vanilla ice. that was a good album. and, left to my own devices, my musical tastes could have progressed more along the lines of vanilla ice. luckily, they didnt. through the doors i started getting all other kinds of classic rock music, liking creedence clearwater revival quite a bit and eventually finding the velvet underground.

this was a revelation. one of my favorite albums ever is white light/white heat. after finding this band i devoured their discography and then fell into the trap of finding out more about them. that led to a deep appreciation for lou reed and laurie anderson. specifically i liked that they broke free from musical barriers. and certainly didnt give much of a shit what the public wanted to hear, they made music for what they wanted to make. commercialism be damned.

it was around this time - 1995 - when my family went to visit some family in wisconsin. the family in wisconsin is my dads family, consisted of his "cousins" (this is in quotes because they are actually his real brothers...but he wasnt brought up that way), including my uncle stuart. i dont know this family very well (as if i know my moms side of the family any better) 1995 might have been the last time i went to see this family. i have seen some of them independently over the years. but whatever.

while i was there, i told my uncle stu about liking the velvet underground and other experimental bands. then he changed my life forever. he gave me a double disc cd, the greatest hits album of a band called 'half japanese' i had never heard of them, not many people had at the time. maybe not many have even now. they are two brothers, jad and david fair, who started making music in 1975. the music they were making was punk, but not in the way people were thinking about punk at the time. their musical philosophy was that tuning and even learning the "proper" way to play an instrument inherently limited the number and variety of sounds that you could produce from any instrument.

david fair explained how to play guitar in the liner notes: I taught myself to play guitar. The skinny strings play the high sounds, and the fat strings play the low sounds. If you want to play fast, move your hand fast and if you want to play slower move your hand slower. That's all there is to it. You can learn the names of notes and how to make chords that other people use, but that's pretty limiting. Tuning the guitar is kind of a ridiculous notion. If you have to wind the tuning pegs to just a certain place, that implies that every other place would be wrong. But that's absurd. How could it be wrong? It's your guitar and you're the one playing it. It's completely up to you to decide how it should sound.

and after i listened to this cd and read the liner notes my entire idea and appreciation of music had changed. thanks uncle stu!

i didnt stop listening to other music, but i listened to this much more than other music. later that year my love of classic rock and the doors would peak and then make a drastic decline. the peak came when i visited paris and went to the pere lachaise cemetery to see jim morrisons gravesite. i beleive it was the first and last time in my life that i made a conscious trip to a graveyard.

when i got back the luster had died down and anyway i had this new stuff to listen too. i ramped up listening to the velvet underground, especially after i learned that moe tucker (the drummer for vu) was an on-and-off-again member of half japanese. how awesome. delving into the world of the velvet uunderground and that whole scene around andy warhol's factory in the late 60's and early 70's also produced a literary gem that changed my life.

the book was called "the SCUM manifesto," written by valerie solanas. i read this book dozens of times, it was dog-eared and highlighted beyond belief. one of my high school teachers found me reading it in class and confiscated it, i was very unhappy about that. i dont know if i ever got it back. but reading this book was where i first started learning about dominant power structures and the role i play as a white male. born into a natural power position and able to walk all over women and people of different races based purely on the color of my skin and the junk in my trunk. i was more conscious about my role in the world, certainly not all-aware but somewhat aware.

then i met steve and he introduced me to more recent punk rock music. really, i met alex and he introduced me to the music, but i wasnt ready to appreciate it until steve re-introduced me. it was at this point that i completely renounced classic rock and worked to be punk rock. i changed my style of dress, cut and dyed my hair, applied copious amounts of knox gelatin and voila. a young punk kid.

the bands at this point were operation ivy, rancid, the suicide machines, things like this. i progressed this way eventually finding more punk - crust punk - bands and also local music from chicago. almost weekly, in 1997, we made trips to the fireside bowl to catch whatever show was playing. it was in this way i met a girl named kelly and she introduced me to minor threat, janes addiction, slapstick, and gave me reasons to appreciate the smashing pumpkins and also some world music. there was something missing though. all of the music i listened to was made by men, and mostly white men. because of this, i started to think that women just couldnt make good music.

and that led directly to one of the most vivid memories of my stupidity. now we are in 1999, and i am living in new york - with tiffany. at some point virgina (our other housemate), she and i got into a discussion about music. and i can see the room and myself so clearly...and the words that came out of my mouth. for some reason, during this conversation, i got heated and announced that women (i probably said girls) couldnt make music as well as men. so much for whatever i had gleaned in my younger years from the scum manifesto.

at the time i stood by and defended what i had said. luckily tiffany spotted me for an idiot and started indoctrinating me on some really amazing music made by women. she introduced me to sleater-kinney, cadallaca, k-records, kathleen hanna (in the form of bikini kill, le tigre, and julie ruin) along with countless other bands (and record labels), predominantly women or at least fronted by women, that were making awesome music RIGHT NOW. i didnt acquiesce straight away. i played dumb, but i found myself taking out her BMW with more regularity simply to listen to the cd's that she kept in the car. and, instead of admitting that i was wrong, i just acted like nothing happened and that i had enjoyed this music all along.

by the time i left there i was more punk than i had ever been before, more well read, knew a greater diversity of music and bands, and i was vegan. the last time i ate meat (before 2008 when i renounced veganism) was may 2000 in bryan, tx at tiffany's moms house.

steve and i were traveling and i found myself back in indiana, with a ton of money and no desire to move back to the region. so i picked up a copy of time magazine (a magazine that i loved at the time and still find myself reading with some pleasure). on the cover was sleater-kinney, and the main article was about the music revolution happening in olympia, wa. i got on the internet, found an apartment and wired a down payment. in two weeks i would move to the other side of the country, to a place that i had never been within 1500 miles of....because i read an article about music made by women in time magazine. my dirty little secret.

a drawing of my apartment in olympia

when i got there it was another opening for music. i didnt know anyone, and in the 9 months i would live there i didnt meet anyone. but i did rediscover the library. and many of the local bands and labels would deposit their releases at the library for circulation. i ate it up. and my horizons expanded. on one mix-cd i learned of the mountain goats, dead moon, mirah, calvin johnson, little red car wreck, and seagull screaming kiss her kiss her. i was constantly checking out cds from all styles and just listening to them. i had nothing in my apartment aside from a chair and a cd player.

punk rock was fading a little bit from my preferred style of music to listen too, but half japanese remained in my top five. i mail ordered for thier entire catalog (like 16 albums or so) and they werent very easy to get. i also got a very hard to find record by a band called "the stinky puffs" which was some of the members of half japanese and some of the members of nirvana fronted by a seven year old. it was hilarious.

also, while i was in olympia, i got to rekindle my love of musicals with my first rock opera. the show was called 'the transfused.' and this show, this amazing show, changed my life in so many ways. i know i have been throwing around the "changed my life" stuff, but really, this was an epic event. there are some clips on youtube watch and find out just why it was so amazing. the week after that show closed the first lady fest was staged in olympia. this was why i had come here and now i was a part of it all. it was great.

anyway, so my musical tastes were rounded out for the next couple of years. i left olympia and eventually moved back to indiana for awhile. there i started collecting records (hello eBay...and tons of money down the drain) and buying all sorts of wierd new music. i also got back into classic rock some - mostly because of the records i was getting at garage sales. and life was good. it was also during this time that i found out about plan-it-x records and started listening to folk-punk music in general. it was a very good melding of a few different styles and i liked it alot.

since i started writing this, i kind of lost focus. because i had to listen to all of the different music i was writing about and then watch some youtube videos and such. but, what i wanted to get across with this post is that there is a band called 'seagull screaming kiss her kiss her' and it is one of my favorites. top five. the album 'red talk' is the one that i have been listening to in my truck. bye!