Heart first showed up on my radar when I was about 11 or 12 and they released their big 1985 album, simply titled Heart. I had the 45s of the singles "What about love" and "These dreams." I remember that a few years later, my Mom's boyfriend's brother, Terry, had a poster of the Heart cover on his wall. I coveted it!
When their follow-up, Bad Animals came out in 1987, Mom got the cassette and we would listen to it on the ride to work at the swimming pool when I wasn't listening to Debbie Gibson or Martika. My favorite song was "Alone" but I also really loved "Who will you run to?" I think it may be one of the first cases of my mom and I really loving the same music. I'm not sure how crazy she was about all the hair metal and bubblegum pop. During the 80s, she listened to a lot of Kenny Rogers & Lionel Richie and stuff I liked, but wasn't in love with. But we both loved Heart a lot.
So much so that when Brigade came out we listened to it all the time, too. I still think that one of my all-time favorite Heart songs is "Stranded." When the band toured for Brigade, Mom and I went to see them play at the Miami Arena. Well, we sort of saw them- our seats were up in the top section and our view was obscured by some kind of column or something. Whatever, Heart rocked, even if at the time I didn't know that this band had such an amazing history behind them, that they had been recording for more than a decade before I had even heard them. I had no clue that these fierce women had rocked since the 70s. "Barracuda"? "Magic Man"? "Crazy on you"?? These were all lost on me at the time, because I only knew the 80s Heart. And I'm sure it's not cool to admit, but the truth is... I still like their 80s stuff better.
I was getting into other kinds of music, gradually leaving the world of hair metal and teen pop behind. I remember having this compilation on cassette called Cutting Edge, part of a series called Rock the Planet. It had R.E.M., Erasure, 10,000 Maniacs, Laurie Anderson, Jesus & Mary Chain, Faith No More, The Replacements, Tanita Tikarim's wonderful "Twist in my sobriety" and my favorite, "Strangelove" by Depeche Mode.
I had probably heard "Strangelove" before, since it was originally from DM's 1987 album, Music for the Masses, and they were certainly on my radar by then because Violator had come out that spring. During that summer, my last before I was a senior in high school, I spent about a month in Central Florida, spending half the time with my mom's mom, my Granny, and half the time with my mom's dad & his wife. It was a pretty laid back summer, but I remember having fun.
One clear memory I have about the summer was picking up this special issue of NEWSWEEK called "The New Teens." It was sort of a field guide to the day's teenagers, or Generation X as we had been recently dubbed. There was one group, I can't remember what they called them, but it was basically your thrift shop clothes/Doc Martens wearing, Twin Peaks watching, alternative music listening kids. I was like, "Oh, that's me, then." Despite the fact that I wouldn't shop at a thrift store for another 6 months, wouldn't own a pair of Docs for another year or two and was just starting to get into alternative music. I had obsessively watched the first season of Twin Peaks when it aired that spring. Regardless, it was kind of a revelation to me because frankly, there WERE no kids like that in the Miami I was growing up in. At least nowhere I could see. And there I was, starting to like things that were outside of the popular AND coming to terms with being a gay teen. It was nice to think that I could fit in with some sort of group and maybe that article is what made me so open to befriending the people I would get to know later that year.
I played that Cutting Edge tape out and eventually my copy of Violator as well. I'm not a huge Depeche Mode fan, but "Strangelove" will always be a favorite. I present to you the MP3s of the songs from this amazing compilation, that I think shaped my musical tastes more than I realized until looking at it again:
Around 1988-89, I caught the video for "Like the weather" by 10,000 Maniacs and really loved the song. I liked it so much that I bought the cassette of In My Tribe.
The music I discovered was so different from the pop music and the rock n roll I'd been listening to. Some of the songs told stories, some of the lyrics were cryptic, the music more organic and layered than what I was used to. Some songs, like "What's the matter here" were truly about something other than romance and rebellion. It excited me. I started to say that I listened to "Progressive" music. This is a couple of years before people would invent the term "alternative." I loved Natalie Merchant's unusual voice and some of the songs from In my Tribe are still deeply beloved. I can play "Verdi cries" over and over and over again.
A year after I left high school, in 1992, they would find even more popularity with their superb album called Our Time In Eden. A truly perfect disc, it was more thoughtful and lush and beautiful than anything they'd ever done. It's a necessary album in my opinion. After Eden they released a live disc from their appearance on MTV Unplugged and soon Merchant would leave the group to follow her own path. With the exception of a couple of songs, her solo work never really connected with me. However, I can never forget how just listening to "Like the weather" managed to open my ears to a new type of music.
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'..."
While writing about Debbie Gibson and calling the radio station to dedicate "Lost in your eyes" to someone, I realized that I had to write about another great song. Years before Debbie, about five give or take, I literally waited an entire day for Y100 to play a song I had requested. It was probably '84 or so, when I had fallen hard for Pat Benatar's song "Love is a battlefield" but had not yet scored the cassette of Live on Earth. I called them at least three times, probably in the hopes of taping the song when it played. I waited and waited, roller skating circles around the patio and making sure that we had the radio on while we ate dinner, but to no avail. Until finally, as night fell outside, "Love is a battlefield" played. SUCCESS!
You HAVE to watch this video. It is only one of the greatest music videos ever in the history of the entire fucking universe. See, Pat ran away from home. And now she's selling herself for money. But she stands up for herself and her fellow ladies of the night. And they stand up for themselves by dancing. It is amazing.Watch it on youtube RIGHT NOW!
Now go download it ASAP because truly, this is one of the greatest pop songs ever.
Another strong memory of the summer of 1988 revolves not around working at the swimming pool itself, but the commute to get there. Morning after morning, we'd get to the same stretch of road near Miami International Airport and get caught up in the gridlock. Traffic in Miami is particularly infuriating, but I think that at the time I minded it less. Mostly because it gave me more time to hear my favorite cassette of that summer: Martika.
Martika had been on the television show "Kids, Inc." (at the same time as the unbearable Sarah "Fergie" Ferguson) and went on to find a brief bit of fame with her self-titled debut. My favorite song was the catchy and addictive single, "More than you know" and I'm sure playing it over and over again (having to rewind to the beginning every time) drove my mom insane. Now she'd probably be better known for the ballad "Toy soldiers," which ended up being used in an Eminem track.
Playing any track from Martika will make me think of that morning traffic on my way to work, or of the ride home, my towel over the car seat still in my bathing suit and smelling of chlorine.
alternate track: Chaka Khan's song "Through the fire" was always on the radio in the mornings that summer and I loved it!
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.
By the summer of 1986, the Go-Go's had broken up (and broken my heart by doing so), but Belinda Carlisle had moved on and recorded a solo album. I probably purchased the 45 of "Mad About You" as soon as I had laid eyes on it.
The song itself is one of those upbeat and romantic pop songs that Belinda would specialize in and I don't know, maybe the song shaped the sort of music I'd listen to for the next 5 years or so. I'm not sure why I was drawn to love songs like this, because despite being on the verge of teenhood, I wasn't really crushing on anyone. Except for the singers of the songs: Belinda, Martika, and Debbie Gibson. Maybe it was simply because these songs just make me happy, and still do. The b-side was a slinky and sophisticated pop song called "I never wanted a rich man" that I hadn't heard for years until recently, when I finally bought the album on CD.
The first time I purchased her debut, Belinda, it was on cassette. I actually remember it very well because it was during that summer when I went to Los Angeles to visit my Mom's side of the family. In my memory it's one of the very first things that happened there, we went to a Peaches near the ocean and I bought Belinda. It was the soundtrack of that time for me and it's unbelievable that I didn't wear the tape out. I remember riding around in the back of a truck with my Grandfather and his wife Dorothy, her daughter Doris, my California cousins, Dwayne and Veronica and my Aunt Della and her husband Mark. I remember going to Magic Mountain and testing my roller coaster mettle. I remember driving through Beverly Hills and one morning's very slight earthquake. Being on a long cross-country flight and not being the bit afraid.
I don't know why it was so difficult to find on CD, but I recently got it and listened to it on my ipod. I recognized every note and lyric despite not having played the cassette for at least 15 years. The music you love just gets in your subconscious and stays. I first played it on a train ride to work. Sometimes I find myself in these reveries where I think about my life now and how I'd never have imagined this is what it would be like. I never expected to move so far from home. Imagine going back 23 years and explaining to that kid listening to Belinda on his Walkman that one day he'd be listening to the very same songs while on a train looking out at the daily sight of the Brooklyn Bridge. Sometimes I wonder how I ever made it this far and how I ever got here. I'd go crazy if it weren't for this music, my constant companions, the songs that made me.
Both of my parents loved music. My dad played guitars and sang folk songs while my mom sang at church. I was always fascinated with the record collection that filled the bottom shelf of the behemoth wooden piece of furniture that housed our gigantic record player.
The line in Paul Rudnick's play, Jeffrey about how gay kids grow up with the picture of God as seen on the cover of the original cast album for My Fair Lady is absolutely true in my case.
I would flip through the albums, heavily populated with folk music acts like Peter, Paul and Mary and The Limelighters, featuring a dose of singer/songwriters like John Denver and some 70s AM radio stuff like Bread, Anne Murray and Olivia Newton-John. There was also inexplicably for anyone who has ever known my parents, a couple of Cheech and Chong comedy albums. The Bill Cosby made sense, but the weed-lovin' stoners? Not so much in my house.
The first singer I fell in love with was Olivia Newton-John. I remember the records we'd listen to: Come On Over and Have You Never Been Mellow, but mostly I remember the cassette that was always in the car with us, simply titled Olivia aka Let Me Be There.
We used to take lots of family vacations, the camper hitched to the back of my mom's awesome Camaro or whatever car my dad was driving at the time. We'd get through Florida, which is an interminably long and incredibly boring state to drive through- at least if you're going through the middle of it, and eventually make it to North Georgia and North Carolina and the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. On the way we'd have my dad's tape box, a simple, yet sturdy black case that held Henry Mancini and John Denver and Billy Joel's The Stranger and Olivia. Olivia was always my favorite, and as I write this, listening to her clear, cool vocals, I have to say I love her just as much as I ever did. One song that will always return me to the back seat of the car, smack in the middle of the curving roads of the Blue Ridge Mountains is "Let me be there." Before she got Physical and before she was Sandra Dee, Olivia sang a mixture of pop and country songs, including a great cover of Dolly Parton's "Jolene." "Let me be there" definitely falls into the former category. It's not the pop/country stuff of today, but something that was lyrically and musically simple and really quite lovely.
Here's a video of Olivia performing the song in 1973, the year I was born. Watch it on youtube. I also thought I'd share a link to Amazon.com and three of the Olivia albums I like.
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.
