Late 1993 or Early 1994. I was working part-time at Toys R Us and needed to get insurance. I needed a checking account to pay the monthly fees. I wrote my very first check at work to buy a copy of the Disney musical Newsies on VHS. I'd been eying the video for a while, even though all I had heard about the movie was that it was a musical. In fact, it was one of the last big musical movies to be made until Moulin Rouge in 2001. However, there was this guy on the cover...
I loved it. I tracked down the CD soundtrack, which at the time was a bit of a mission. It had yet to become the Gleek cult classic that it is now. My favorite song was Christian Bale's solo, "Santa Fe." When I took an acting class at MDCC, our first assignment was to prepare a song to sing in front of our classmates. I picked "Santa Fe." Which was a nice change from the 900 girls singing "Part of your world" from The Little Mermaid. It's hard to hear that song today without rolling my eyes and grimacing. I even had the Newsies poster on my wall.
But most importantly, I discovered that Christian Bale was not just a cute actor, but an awesome one. I became addicted to watching his films, to the point of interrupting Christmas tradition by going out to see Little Women when it opened on Christmas Day in 1994. I'd become such a huge fan of Christian's that as soon as I got my first computer and hooked up to the internet, one of the first things I did was visit his website, where I met other fans. This is how I ended up meeting Lisa, who became one of my closest friends. (A few years later, we'd actually meet Christian when he appeared at an awards show in Orlando) So picking up that random video because of its cover pretty much changed my life.
The movie also featured a group of actor/dancer/singers who would appear on a great sketch show called "Roundhouse" that followed "Ren & Stimpy" on SNICK! Eventually I'd even start up a webpage for one of these guys, David Sidoni, who became an AOL acquaintance/unrequited crush and went on to host shows for Nickelodeon before becoming a hardworking husband/proud papa.
It was really the first instance of me being a fan of something that led to connections and friendships. I'd experience that a lot once I became involved in the Indigo Girls fan community a few years later.
In 1988 high school came around. So did Hair Bands. Of course at the time we called it heavy metal. Which is like calling Kenny G "Jazz". There is a big distinction between heavy metal (which it turned out, I don't like) and hair bands, which were a more mainstream, pop-oriented kind of hard rock also known as "glam metal." Now I can see how fans of true heavy metal must have felt about all of us kids calling Poison and Skid Row "heavy metal" bands when I think about Miles Davis or Louis Armstrong or Charles Mingus and see the Kenny G, Chris Botti & other background music makers of "smooth jazz" pop being called jazz musicians. Although, I do have a couple of late Miles albums that sound very "lite jazz" so maybe it's a case of disappointing evolution of a genre. But the Marsalis boys and Cassandra Wilson make me think that's not so.
But dude. I won't even listen to a jazz record for almost another decade. Right now it's 1988 and I am wearing ripped jeans and flipping through channels to get to MTV and watch Headbangers Ball. I loved Skid Row.
I remember listening to their debut, Skid Row on cassette all the time, going to the fair and getting all psyched when "Youth gone wild" played while we were on a ride. I also loved the ballads "I remember you" and "18 and life." Also, I think that even though I always remember having my first very strong boy crush on Mark Slaughter (okay, fine, and later on, Jordan Knight), it was actually on Rob Affuso, Skid Row's drummer. I know I had a poster with just him on it on my door for a while, which I believe replaced my Desperately Seeking Susan one. It was clearly the beginning of my trend for always crushing on the rhythm section. Give me a drummer or a bass player any day.
Skid Row was by far my favorite of the lot, but I remember listening to: Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, Poison, a little bit of Mötley Crüe, and yes, even Vixen, the ladies of Hair Metal. My love for this kind of rock was shared by my friend Kristi Perazzini. Our friendship began during the first year of high school, right when Skid Row and hair metal was starting to get to me. By our senior year we were pretty inseparable. I almost followed Kristi to Troy University in Alabama, but eventually lost touch with her. One of the last things I do remember about her is buying Skid Row's second album, Slave to the Grind from a music store out on Kendall Drive. We played it all the way home in her mom's giant Cadillac. Eventually I sold my copy of it for Sex. But that's another story.
After I graduated high school, I remember going to this concert festival thing at the Miami Seaquarium, mostly because Snake (that's Dave "The Snake" Sabo, the band's guitar player) was going to be there signing autographs. I have a few pictures. However, what I ended up remembering the most about that day was watching a musician I had never heard of called Chris Whitley play a set and being totally blown away. I think that Skid Row is together still, only without Rob or lead singer Sebastian Bach, who ended up having a recurring part on one of my favorite TV shows, Gilmore Girls. Only he didn't look as pretty as he did way back when:
Here's an excerpt from my short story Birdwatching that touches on my love for hair bands. You can read the whole story here, in three separate parts. Start from the bottom! One day I was hanging out at the store, flipping through the S bin. Casey asked if I was doing some Mood Therapy Shopping. "Come on, Benjamin. You always do this. You get depressed about something and find yourself buying a buncha cds that you'll listen to once and then forget." "Casey, you know that having material things cheers me up. Now look, I'm in this whole... Hair Band Rock That I Listened To In Junior High mood. So I'm trying to decide between Slaughter and Skid Row, because unlike what you've assumed, I'm just in the mood for some cheesy eighties rock today. So. Okay, Mark Slaughter- way cuter than Sebastian Bach. But- Sebastian always wore those sexy snakeskin pants. Plus- the Skid Row album is way better than Slaughter's." "Yeah, but didn't Sebastian Bach wear that shirt that said 'AIDS Kills Fags Dead'?" I sigh and say, "Okay let's try Bon Jovi. I'm thinking 'Slippery When Wet'..."
A gigantic part of my teenage years revolved around the music of one Deborah "Debbie" Gibson. I loved Debbie from the minute I first heard her song "Only in my dreams." I totally had a crush on Debbie. I wore out my Out of the Blue cassette, not to mention the VHS of her music videos AND the Out of the Blue Tour Live video. She was so awesome AND she played piano AND wrote her own songs! She loved Billy Joel, I loved Billy Joel. It was major fandom.
The first single from her second album was "Lost in your eyes." I remember calling the radio station over and over again, asking them to play it. I believe that I even asked them to dedicate it to a girl in my French class that I had a crush on. Eventually I asked her to go to a school football game with me. She said maybe she'd see me there. She did not. *shrug*
I remember the day Electric Youth came out. I think it was the beginning of my habit of buying albums on their release dates like the total geek I am. It was even better than Out of the Blue and I would even get to see Debbie in concert that year. Two years later, when I got my first CD player for my 17th birthday, Debbie's Anything Is Possible was one of my other birthday gifts. I remember listening to Body Mind & Soul when I was in college, eating lunch at MDCC and listening to "Losin' myself" on my Discman over and over again. Her Think With Your Heart album was actually really good and very Billy Joelesque.
Even in the spring of 1997 I was still a devoted fan. My family and I had flown up to NYC for the first time, where we met up with my friend Lisa to see Rent (which was still pretty new and featured the original cast). We landed and spent the evening with Lisa and Shawn and a couple of other friends from the Ani DiFranco mailing list I was on. The next day, my mom, Dave and Lisa and I walked around the city. One thing on the itinerary was finding Debbie's new album, Deborah. It was being released independently and so far only through Tower Records in NYC. But not at the first Tower we went to. Nope, we had to go to the Tower in Trump Tower! At this point, it was raining. But we walked and walked in the rain just to get to Trump Tower and pick up my Debbie Gibson CD. I think we still had fun, but it was a bit of a waste to spend so much time of our trip hunting down a CD that I'd eventually be able to get online anyway. I guess I justified it to myself.
While I would eventually go on to live in NYC, Debbie- Deborah- would go on to make a lousy album called MYOB and pose for Playboy. However, her album of showtunes, Colored Lights is pretty good. But the truth is that I've moved on. Her early music lives on in my heart (and, I admit, on my ipod).
More proof that I didn't spring out of the womb fully formed and listening to thoughtful singer/songwriters. I loved Tiffany. Not as much as I loved Debbie Gibson or Martika. But I did sing along to "I think we're alone now" and swooned to the beautiful and almost country ballad, "Could've been." I don't remember much about what the rest of her album Tiffany sounded like. I'm not sure it would hold up today, but those two songs are keepers.
Tiffany sounded a bit like a teenage Stevie Nicks, vocally. Back then I never would've thought twice about a 15 year old singing the words "It could've been so beautiful/could've been so right/could've been my lover/every day of my life" but now of course I'd roll my eyes at the idea. It reminds me of when I was selling music in Miami and my boss played one of those damn Kids Bop albums. Listening to a group of children sing Dido's song "White Flag" - "I will go down with this ship/I won't put my hands up and surrender/there will be no white flag across my door/I'm in love and always will be" -was the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
But at the time I was 13 and singing along with all my heart. Tiffany famously did a tour of malls around the country. I got to see her in Miami at Bayside mall. I was thrilled. After the show she was signing autographs at the Sam Goody music store. The entire audience trooped from the performance space to the store and waiting on line along the banister of the second floor of the mall. I stood in line as she walked towards us. I readied my camera. I was so nervous about making sure that I got the picture. I clicked a moment too soon. I ended up with a photo of my reflection in a window and Tiffany's arm peeking in from the edge of the shot. Inside, she autographed my Tiffany poster. I'm sure that I mumbled some words of thanks or vow of love or something.
The next year, I went with my dad and some of our family to Bayside to see the New Year's Eve fireworks. I took the opportunity to go back to that same Sam Goody shop and buy her second album, Hold an Old Friend's Hand. After that, Tiffany and I went our separate ways.
A few years ago, I decided that I would make an autobiographical mixtape of songs. I love music more than just about anything in the world (except for maybe movies), so many of my memories are connected to songs. Now in the age of itunes, I've turned these songs into the mother of all playlists and thought it might be fun to blog about the songs and the memories that go along with them.
