Monday, June 18, 2012

Punk Rock and the Young Writer



Well into middle-age now, music still holds a very important place in my life. I find it odd that so many people in my age group, people who once LIVED for cool music, have moved on and forgotten the role music played in their younger lives. That hasn’t happened to me, fortunately.

I was lucky to grow up in a household where music was essential. My mom was a fanatic for Elvis Presley, had all his records. She also dug Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Eddie Cochran, etc. Her collection of 45’s and 33 1/3’s was big enough to keep a ‘50’s-‘60’s style radio station going for months without repeating a single song. And she listened to records every day.

My stepdad was a country fan. And I mean REAL country, not this modern pop-country crapola. Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Hank, Merle Haggard.

So that was the music I grew up listening to. Other kids my age were into Journey, or Steve Miller Band or The Eagles. I didn’t like any of that stuff. I still don’t.

In fact, I didn’t like most of the music my peers were listening to until I was sixteen and was finally introduced to punk. I DID have a slight obsession with Pink Floyd (because I was a moody little fuck) but punk changed the game. I owe that to a girl named Lana Mini (who is still, against all odds, a good friend of mine after all these years). I remember telling her I kinda liked that Billy Idol song “White Wedding”, which was getting a lot of air play on MTV at the time. Lana gave me two cassette tapes (kids, a “cassette tape” is an ancient form of recording sound, used by the cavemen back in the days before the Great Digital Revolution). The cassettes were: The Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks and Iggy Pop’s Soldier.

Those two tapes changed my whole life. Honest.

Within a year an entire world that I hadn’t even suspected existed opened up to me. I discovered The Clash, The Ramones, the New York Dolls. The Stooges, of course. X. The Cramps. The Dead Kennedys. The Velvet Underground, the Modern Lovers. On and on… so many great bands. And it wasn’t long before my entire life was consumed with the pursuit of new sounds.

At the same time, I maintained a solid love of old music—country, rockabilly, surf, psychedelic, soul. In my mid-twenties, I started unearthing obscure garage stuff from the ‘60’s (thanks, in large part, to the monumentally life-altering Nuggets box set). Bands like The Sonics, The Count Five, ? and the Mysterians, made me realize that punk had been around a LOT longer than the term “punk”.

There were musical side-trips along the way. In the mid-to-late ‘80’s, there was a short-lived but inspired sub-genre called “cowpunk” that grabbed me by the throat, mixing punk up with more traditional folk sounds like country or blues. My favorites were Beasts of Bourbon and The Gun Club. I think that genre crossing opened up punk’s horizons dramatically.

In my ‘30’s, I started getting interested in old bluegrass and roots country, like Jimmie Rogers and the Carter Family. Also, about that same time, jazz, cats like Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, King Oliver. I followed that thread through to Dizzy, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis. Stopped short of “fusion jazz”, which I still don’t care for. I NEED melody.

In fact, I just NEED MUSIC. I NEED it. Could you imagine a world with no music? I don’t think I could survive it, I really don’t. It means as much to me as reading and writing.

So there’s my little musical biography, if you care.

Now excuse me, please. I’m gonna go listen to some Tom Waits.

19 comments:

  1. Somewhat similar to my own. My mom and family listened to lots of '50s rock 'n roll and R&B ... the originals, never Pat Boone crap. So punk came easy, as it was in many ways a rebellion against the bombastic overproduction of the early '70s. I found the Ramones, Dead Kennedys, Pistols, Stooges, Motorhead, and the like. I got into country and bluegrass later, too.

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    1. Thomas, I got into bluegrass much later, myself. And I probably should've mentioned the effect Blues had on me.

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  2. I'll second that: I grew up with non-stop music in the house. I was grateful living in the wastelands of Michigan that at least there was Iggy Pop because he was local and they could argue for it. The 70s in the US was endless crap bands: prog, arena, and solo-heavy wank. I was never so grateful for anything as I was for punk then -- and then the Pythons and a load of classic British comedy (i.e. not Benny Hill). I remember the Sex Pistols tour being on the night news and my parents appalled. I wanted to reach into the tv and bring them to me.

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    1. Kate, I was only a wee kipper when the Pistols were in the States, but I vaguely remember the horrified news casters. Funny...

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  3. Great blog, brings back so many wonderful memories of dancing around with the stereo so loud the floor and walls shook. I had and still do live and love for the music. I am quite old now and still a full die hard "Punk, Rock and Roller"

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  4. Amen, brother. Music is still a huge part of my life and I, too , went throu the punk rock conversion of early youth. I played in bands for years too. I'm so glad my two daughters have developed a love for music early on thanks to my incessant playing of anything and everything. They are eclectic listeners too. They love Disney songs as much as indie rock and old timey mo ie songs and country. They've already announced plans to start a band. I couldn't be more proud.
    Curious - do you write to music or prefer silence?

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    1. Eric, I can't listen to music while writing. It's too distracting; I always want to actually LISTEN to it. And that's cool about your girls-- mine is the same way. She grew up with punk and is now branching out into other music. These days, she's introducing ME to bands instead of the other way around.

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  5. Great post!! Music also did it for me. I got really into the blues when i was about 17 which was awhile ago!! I started to play guitar and went to see every blues player that I could when they came to NYC...I saw Albert Collins, both Albert and BB King, Etta James and so on. All of my friends were listening to Bruce Springsteen,-who I like now but hated when i was in high school-Queen and so on..

    The guy that really did for me tough was the Irish Blues guitarist Rory Gallagher. I never saw anyone perform a live show like him...He was just a tornado on stage. I still think he was the best live performer I ever saw. Hes gone now, like most of artists I saw in the late 70's. Died in 1995, if I remember correctly.

    Also gone are all the old little clubs people like Rory use to play when he came to NYC. The Bottom Line, Lone Star Cafe, My Fathers Place out on Long Island and of course CBGB's were I saw, believe it or not ACDC!!. All gone.

    Side note: I really enjoyed "The Bastard Hand." Thought it was a terrific book. I also liked "Hell On Church Street" I thought it was interesting that the two books had similar themes to them. New Pulp puts out some great books. Look forward to your next one!!

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    1. Thanks, Messi, I appreciate that. I'm sorry I never got to visit places like CBGB's. But in Detroit we had Bookie's, which was a great venue for live punk shows.

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  6. Yes indeed. My mother gave me disco but my adoptive dad gave me the Rolling Stones.

    I met Billy Idol at Auckland airport when I was 13, he was such a sweetheart with kids (not unlike the role he played in the Adam Sandler movie). Also saw Beasts of Bourbon play a few times in their heyday, that Tex Perkins could fall down drunk onstage like nobody's business.

    I've played in DIY anarchist punk bands, toured on your continent and made a record (not even a cassette - I"m talking vinyl)... and I reckon fiction, music, art, comics, film, it's one big thing. It's THE thing.

    Thanks for the excellent post, you have good taste and I can hear all this music in your work, especially The Bastard Hand.

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    1. Btw wasn't suggesting Stones were at all punk, just that my dad gave me a better jumping off point than, say, Boney M.

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    2. It is THE thing. Yeah, well-said, Nicola.

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  7. My parents dug The Rolling Stones and The Who and dissed The Beatles; my first love as a 5-year-old was Cat Stevens, but then I discovered Suzi Quatro and then Blondie - and then punk by the likes of Dead Kennedys, Pistols, PIL, etc - and stumbled into electronic experimentalism by Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire. It's all a journey - and what an amazing one it can be. Thanks for the refresher, Heath.

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    1. Susie Quatro... man, I forgot all about her. She was great. And PIL, too.

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  8. We talked a bit about Thin White Rope, Heath. But oh, the '80s were so full of great bands when "alternative" hadn't become a catch-all. Jason and the Scorchers...The Blasters...Husker Du...Meat Puppets...Eleventh Dream Day...I could go on.

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    1. Hell yeah, Rory. The '80's were the hey-day of "post-punk".

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  9. Finding you way into the right music is almost like finding your way into yourself, I think. Interesting post.

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  10. Top post, Heath.

    Many a night my dad and I listened to Hank, Cash, and Waylon. Great memories.

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