Red Mosquito

#1: Tom Waits - Bone Machine

Spoiler: show

My first introduction to Tom Waits came by way of movie soundtracks. The Fall of Troy and Walk Away were songs included on the Dead Man Walking Soundtrack; those were the first two Tom Waits tracks I remember hearing and I was lukewarm on both of them (though, I liked Walk Away significantly more and even included that on a couple of mix-tapes back in the day).

Then in 2000, the film Keeping the Faith featured Waits' song Please Call Me Baby, which I loved! It became one of my all time favorite songs from a film soundtrack and I put that on a ton of different mixes over the years.

A year later Tori Amos released a covers album called Strange Little Girls. The best track (hands down) was her version of Waits' Time. Her version is breathtaking and arresting. Still, to this day, it's one of my favorite covers. I remember wanting to track down the original version but I was apprehensive, uncertain that it could possibly be as powerful as Tori's version.

Later that same year (2001) I was at my grandparent's house in Kentucky and my grandfather and I got to talking about music, as we tend to do. After debating the virtues of Vince Gill for the better part of an hour my grandfather switched gears to "something I might really like." That's when he asked if I'd ever listened to Leonard Cohen. I told him no but that I'd been meaning to ever since hearing Jeff Buckley's cover of Hallelujah. Then he said, "What about Tom Waits?" I told him I knew like three songs but that was it. So (Ralph Kats being the hippest grandpa of all time) he gave me two burned CD's: one was Leonard Cohen's The Future an the other was Tom Waits' Mule Variations.

Somewhere between that exchange and 2010 (when I started posting regularly on RM), my friend Eric kept talking about this album called Rain Dogs and how it was the greatest album he'd ever heard. I said I didn't know it. Then he said, "How the fuck do you know Tom Waits but you don't know Rain Dogs." I confessed that I knew OF Tom Waits but I was certainly not a fan. I'd given Mule Variations a spin when grandpa first gave it to me, and it was fine, but nothing I wanted to listen to really. I liked a few of the songs but it was a difficult listen; I mean that voice! Yikes! Eric got mad, totally flipped out on me, and drove me over to Best Buy where he made me purchase Rain Dogs. I took it home and listened to it (by myself, Eric had to get to work). It was... not my cup of tea. At the time I didn't much care for Mule Variations but I fucking hated Rain Dogs. What a mess of an album! The one bright spot was that I finally got to hear the original version of Time... but sadly I was heartbroken to discover that it wasn't anywhere near as good as Tori's cover (I have since completely changed my mind on this). The whole thing was a giant let down and I couldn't get past that booze soaked gravel voice and oddball musical arrangements.

Jump to 2010. I'm on RM, like, A LOT. I start getting wrapped up in the Tom Waits thread. Many of my favorite posters, people I really respect and share a lot in common with, are huge Tom Waits fans and I want to appreciate him on their level. I want to finally "get" Tom Waits, whatever it took. So, I start over. I put on Rain Dogs first. It's a record I hadn't given a second thought to in years. But now I was able to discuss and dissect the record with people who are huge fans with deep knowledge and passion. Plus, my tastes have shifted significantly and I've expanded my musical exposure. Slowly, things start to click and I begin to really dig Rain Dogs.

It's through the Tom Waits thread on RM that I begin my deep dive. Different people recommend different Waits records for me to move onto. Bone Machine is the fourth Tom Waits record that I listen and digest. It quickly becomes my all time favorite album. The music is simultaneously unlike anything I've ever heard and completely familiar. It evokes all kinds of strange emotions and mental pictures and it inspires me in exciting new ways. And still, even now, every time I listen to it, I'm blown away by how fantastic the record is. It always feels new and dangerous. It's a constant thrill that always exceeds expectations and reveals new truths.

#2: Pearl Jam - Vitalogy

Spoiler: show

I wasn't a Pearl Jam fan from day one. Of course, like all kids in the early 90s, I had MTV and I watched it with fervor and an unhealthy level of addiction that only prepubescent boys can fully understand. I knew Even Flow, Alive and of course (the ubiquitous) Jeremy. My friends were huge Pearl Jam fans. But my mother hated them and made fun of Ed's trademark hurr-durring mumble-growl. I was eleven so I trusted my parents and their taste. Guys, I was a fucking Eagles fan! Pearl Jam was super uninteresting to me.

In 1993 Vs dropped. I was 13 and my best friend, Travis, had gotten me a copy of Ten on cassette. I loved the record (especially Black, Release and Once; all early favorites) but I wasn't ready to commit to the band. My past was riddled with too many unfortunate examples of bands who had one great debut album but then turned out turds as follow-ups. So, in October of 1993, I went over to my dear friend Adam's house. He had Vs on CD. I wanted to hear it before I bought it and he was dying to share it with me. It blew me away. I was officially hooked, ready to tattoo die-hard status on my skin.

Now, in 1994 I was eagerly awaiting Pearl Jam's third LP, Vitalogy. I remember when Spin the Black Circle (the album's lead "single") dropped. I had to go to school so I put my stereo on my favorite local rock station and put a tape in the deck. I hit record, hoping that I'd catch the drop if I just let the thing run. When I got home from school I had a two hour tape waiting for me. I had to wade through a ton of nonsense but I finally got to the premiere of the newest Pearl Jam song. I liked it. But I didn't love it. Okay, so fine. I was not detoured. I was still excited. As we all know now, Pearl Jam didn't want to release official singles for the record at first. As a result radio stations dropped whatever song they wanted after StBC. As a result, before Vitalogy dropped, I'd heard StBC, Corduroy, Nothingman and Better Man. The latter of which I heard in my parents car as we drove from Kansas to Kentucky to spend Thanksgiving at my grandparent's house. I had my headphones (I was listening to Garth Brooks' incredible In Pieces record) and my mom tapped me and told me there was a new Pearl Jam song on the radio. I dropped my headphones and Dad cranked the volume. All three of us really loved the song. It's amazing how much my parents turned around on Pearl Jam after I started to get into Nirvana. But that's a much different and longer story.

ANYWAY... cut to February of 1995. Vitalogy had been out for about three months. I still hadn't had a chance to pick it up, tough. One night, my mom said, "Hey, we haven't hung out in a while. How about I take you to the mall and you can buy whatever you want?" I was thrilled! The thing I had her buy me was Vitalogy, on CD. I was SO pumped. We stopped off at Baskin Robbins on the way home. I flipped through the liner notes as mom picked up a couple of cones. We sat at a cold table by the fogged window.

Then she dropped the hammer. "So, have you had sex?" She asked me. Out of fucking nowhere. I was shocked. I was still 14 (I'd be 15 in April) and my girlfriend at the time was two years older than me. Yes, we'd become sexually active. But we weren't fucking advertising it! I told my mom no, said she was crazy. She said, "Oh, okay, because I found this in your jeans." She pulled a note from her pocket. It was a note my girlfriend had written me and passed me in school. It was extremely sexually graphic. There was a lot of "I can't wait to have you inside me" type stuff in it. I read the entire note, debating in my mind what lie I could tell. I considered making up something about how it was a fake letter that I left in the laundry intentionally as a way to trap my Mom, as evidence that I KNEW she was spying and digging through my stuff and violating my privacy.

In the end I decided to tell the truth. I admitted to my mom that her 14 year old son was indeed having sex with this 16 year old girlfriend. As an aside: it was also the day I vowed to learn to do my own fucking laundry. We talked for about an hour. When I got home I didn't even want to listen to Vitalogy. I spun it in the morning, laying in bed, letting my head spin. I hated the record. But that probably had more to do with how I felt about being "caught" than anything else. It was years before I was able to fully appreciate the album and not feel embarrassed and attacked while listening to it.

#3:

The Beatles - The Beatles (The White Album)
Growing up, The Beatles were always around. There was no beginning or introduction to their music. It was just always there. My parents were pretty big classic rock and folk music fans -- Dad especially. My father was in a band when he was younger, he played trumpet. He would often brag about his biggest (and only) "claim to fame": his band trounced REO Speedwagon twice in battle of the bands contests in and around Champagne, Illinois. So, Zepplin, The Beatles, The Eagles, CSN, The Moody Blues, Harry Chapin, Elton John; these artists formed the foundation of my musical experience and taste because they were all I listened to until I turned 10 years old and got SUPER into Paula Abdul. It was all downhill from there.

Abbey Road was the Beatles album my parents played most often. However, they sprinkled in some stuff from The White Album and Let It Be from time to time. When the Beatles One Compilation dropped in 2000, it entered into heavy rotation. And of course it wasn't just around my house. The Beatles' music was omnipresent in American culture. They were everywhere, all the time.

I met Nina Witt at Johnson County Community College. She was then and continues to be one of my best friends, one of the singularly outstanding people I've ever known. She's amazing. I even asked if she'd be my "Best Man" at my wedding. She felt too weird about it (because she knew how close I was with the man who ended up landing the gig) but she agreed to stand up there with me as one of my "Groom's People." In return, I read her favorite Shakespeare sonnet at her wedding some years later.

When we first met we hilariously thought we could date each other. We spent a lot of time wooing and making out. But we never slept together, which may be a big reason why we're able to be such great friends even to this day. As part of the courting process we would stay up until 4 am listening to music in my car (Alan Parson's Project was a big one we'd often return to -- who knew Eye in the Sky could be so fucking romantic?!). Sometimes we'd drive around Kansas City. Sometimes we'd just quote Shakespeare to each other. Sometimes we'd go to her place and watch movies. We often talked about dreams and regrets; about our family dysfunctions and our shared passion to get the fuck out of Kansas and move to New York City.

Through all of this, Nina introduced me to all kinds of new music. Radiohead was a big one. OK Computer was one of her favorite records and I was largely unfamiliar with it, outside of Karma Police. But her all time favorite band was The Beatles. George was her favorite. She had posters of him on her wall when she was a little girl and even as an adult she'd kept one smaller 8 x 10 window card of him on the wall above her headboard where her mother would have preferred a crucifix.

I consider this my "introduction to The Beatles." I started at the beginning of their catalog. I wanted to know all of their songs the way Nina knew them. And she fucking KNEW them, knew everything about them. She had books detailing the stories behind every songs. She knew who wrote which specific lines and each track's length. She knew all the different versions, she had bootlegs and demos! The Beatles were in her marrow. She knew the Beatles at least as well as (and maybe better than) I knew Pearl Jam. So, as I said, I started with their first album: purchased at Best Buy (duh!); because all music purchased in the suburbs in the late 90s/early 2000s was purchased at Best Buy. I played it in my car all afternoon as I drove around KC. The deal was: I gave each record at least one full week of listening before I bought the next one in the catalog. And I reported my thoughts back to Nina after each week.

Through this process I discovered Rubber Soul and Revolver, albums my parents had never owned as long as I'd been alive (though Dad often talked about how much he adored Rubber Soul, but until I brought it into the house I never once saw him listen to that record). Anyway, ultimately, it was The White Album that stopped me dead in my tracks, that made me shiver with excitement. Through all of this, Nina refused to tell me which album was her favorite until I'd listened to them all. I had a sneaking suspicion The White Album was her favorite because it was the one she talked about least. It was like she didn't want to sway me, she wanted me to decide independently of her opinion. Though, I do recall stories she'd tell of getting high and listening to Dear Prudence and finding an indescribable comfort there. And one time she told me that "Mother Superior jumped the gun." But at the time I had no idea what the hell she was talking about.

Rocky Racoon was a song I knew all too well. That was one of my dad's favorite songs. There were countless road trips where Rocky was sung, full lung, several times in a row. I knew Blackbird but I was more familiar with the CSN version. Of course, Obla-di Obla-da and Back in the USSR and Birthday: those were on the radio all the time. But those weren't the best songs on the record. No, no. I was blindsided by While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Happiness is a Warm Gun and Glass Union and Mother Nature's Son. There wasn't a single dud on either disc. Something about that record completely worked. It was magical and defied all logic, to me.

After my customary week of listening was up, I didn't run to Best Buy for the next record. I kept at The White Album. It lasted another week, then another, then another, and before I knew it, The White Album was the only album I listened to for three straight months.

As we drove around one night (late into that three month run) Nina commented on how The White Album was the only CD in my car (normally, I kept three in the glove compartment at all times). She said, "So, I take it this one is your favorite so far." I laughed and confirmed. She rested her head against the passenger-side window, gazed at the lights glowing in the mansions atop manicured lawns in Mission Hills and said, "Yeah, it's mine, too."

Good shit, Joe.

I'm going to do this Joey-style, in fits and starts. They're also not in order and may not actually be my real top ten, but they're all albums I love and can talk about personally beyond just saying "I bought this album and liked it."

Pearl Jam - "No Code"
By summer '96 I was a card-carrying member of the PJ Fan Club (metaphorically speaking of course -- even at 13 the idea of of the 10C was weirdly unappealing to me). When "No Code" was announced, the manager of the neighborhood record store where we pissed away all our free time told my young grunge-loving friends and me that he'd break protocol and sell us the album a week early if we brought him 100 Pepsi rewards points (he was saving for a leather jacket that cost hundreds of them). So our summer of '96 was basically an epic quest around town trying to locate these rewards points (little cutouts that came on the insides of Pepsi 12- and 24-packs), which resulted in several instances of petty theft and one of rummaging through fraternity dumpsters, plus a short-lived stint as a neighborhood lawnmower to earn the money for the actual CD. It remains the most hard-won album of my life, and though it would be a long time before it would surpass "Ten" et al. in my power rankings, in retrospect it was worth every piece of rancid trash. This album changed how I thought about music in so many ways, as it was really the first time I'd been thrown a curveball since really falling in love with music several years prior; until "No Code," my responses to music were strictly visceral/emotional, and here Iearned to think of it from an intellectual/artistic angle as well.

Pearl Jam - "Yield"
This one came to me in spurts. First was the "Given to Fly" CD single, which I probably listened to more in January of '98 than I've ever listened to another CD over the span of a single month. Then about a week pre-album-release, I heard "Given to Fly" on the radio (not uncommon), but instead of going into whatever alt-rock hit would have normally followed it at the time, to my delight, another new Pearl Jam song started up. By the time I realized they were playing the whole new album and managed to dig up a blank audio cassette, "Pilate" was half over, but I managed to get all the rest of it. So for the week leading up to the album I listened pretty exclusively to my crappy dubbed copy of "DTE" through "ATY," just reveling in it; unlike "No Code," I loved all of "Yield" from the start, every song an experience unto itself, yet all flowing together so beautifully. By then I'd warmed to the idea of PJ as a "textures" band, and suddenly the more accessible songwriting was back too -- the best of both worlds. When the album dropped, only the first three tracks were truly new to me, though hearing the full finished product made it all once again feel completely fresh.

My parents had some financial/marital troubles that reached a breaking point a couple weeks after "Yield" came out, and we had to move out of my childhood home and away from my neighborhood friends, whom I loved. We stayed a few different places -- with friends and relatives mostly -- for about a year and a half while my parents sorted things out. I was a sophomore at a private school (where I can only imagine my folks received very generous financial aid), where all my friends lived in expensive houses and drove nice cars and could generally afford whatever frivolous material things they wanted, while my family always struggled just to make ends meet. "Yield" played in the background as I confronted a lot of these questions about what things in life really do and do not have value; I don't feel like it's an overstatement to say that the album's themes of introspection, solitude, and letting go helped me reach some of the correct answers to those questions. I remember looking out the window of what ultimately became our permanent home, listening to "Low Light" before school one particularly stormy morning, and being overcome with the sense that I must have aged some hundred years in the previous 18 months; my old life in my old neighborhood, before I'd been asked to confront all these unexpected personal challenges, just felt that long ago. "Yield" being PJ's "enlightenment" record is a bit of a cliche but it always rings 100% true to me -- a watershed coming of age moment for me that remains my favorite piece of recorded music to this day.

GREAT write-up, KD. I know that Pepsi-points story. Is that in Mystery Pill? Or have you told it here on RM somewhere before? I love that story.

durdencommatyler wrote:GREAT write-up, KD. I know that Pepsi-points story. Is that in Mystery Pill? Or have you told it here on RM somewhere before? I love that story.

It's in MP.

LetMeSleep wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:GREAT write-up, KD. I know that Pepsi-points story. Is that in Mystery Pill? Or have you told it here on RM somewhere before? I love that story.

It's in MP.

That's what I thought. It's been a long time since I last revisited the book, so I wasn't 100%. But I was about 90%.

It all gets so confusing though since we all post on a message board together.

Miles Davis - "In a Silent Way"
When I was in high school, we were required to complete 100 community service hours before graduation, so I did mine at the local science museum's book court. Basically I sat and read for two hours every day after school, and occasionally accepted a crumpled dollar from an old man buying a Tom Clancy novel. One of my favorite literary items at the book court was a copy of Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Albums of All-Time" issue (or whichever edition of such was making the rounds at the time). It was a pretty standard Rolling Stone list, but at the time a lot of those albums were still new to me, and I was especially intrigued by the inclusion of Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue," the only non-rock album on the list (it was ranked right below U2's "Zooropa"). I wondered why an exception was made for this one album -- there was precisely zero rap, country, blues, etc., yet there was this one distinct outlier. Not long after, I bought the album out of curiosity. While I appreciate what is so special about "Kind of Blue" now, at the time it sounded -- as I suspect many newbies' maiden voyages into jazz do -- just kind of "like jazz." But I kept listening, and after a few months was compelled to dig further.

I picked "In a Silent Way" because I wanted to try out Miles's fusion-era stuff for a change of pace, and "Bitches Brew" seemed too obvious. "In a Silent Way" seemed like a dark horse; it was advertised via a sticker on the jewel case as "the calm before the storm of 'Bitches' Brew,' and that had an aura of mystery to it that I really liked. It was one of the most memorable "first listens" I've ever had -- it was a spring night, about 70 degrees, with a light mist coming down; I just drove aimlessly through town, at about 10:00 at night, past all the city lights and closed businesses, down the auxilary highway that cuts from one end of town to the next, absorbing this stunning, hauntingly atmospheric music, full of chattering organs and nervously sputtering guitar arpeggios, keyed to the sound of Miles's sad, stoic trumpet, with that April mist coming spitting in through the car window. It was the perfect marriage of setting and subject matter. I have never found another album that sounds like this, and I wouldn't want to -- it's one of those albums that I never listen to casually, as if it would be disrespectful to have something so sacred-sounding on and not give it my full attention. This is also the album that began my slow slide toward favoring instrumental music over music with lyrics, which were always such a defining part of my listening growing up (and especially in the years leading up to my discovery of this album).

Kevin Davis wrote:Miles Davis - "In a Silent Way"
When I was in high school, we were required to complete 100 community service hours before graduation, so I did mine at the local science museum's book court. Basically I sat and read for two hours every day after school, and occasionally accepted a crumpled dollar from an old man buying a Tom Clancy novel. One of my favorite literary items at the book court was a copy of Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Albums of All-Time" issue (or whichever edition of such was making the rounds at the time). It was a pretty standard Rolling Stone list, but at the time a lot of those albums were still new to me, and I was especially intrigued by the inclusion of Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue," the only non-rock album on the list (it was ranked right below U2's "Zooropa"). I wondered why this one album -- there was precisely zero rap, country, blues, etc., but there was this one distinct outlier. Not long after, I bought the album out of curiosity. While I appreciate now what is so special about "Kind of Blue" now, at the time it sounded -- as I suspect many newbies' maiden voyages into jazz do -- just kind of "like jazz." But I kept listening, and after a few months was compelled to dig further.

I picked "In a Silent Way" because I wanted to try out Miles's fusion-era stuff for a change of pace, and "Bitches Brew" seemed too obvious. "In a Silent Way" seemed like a dark horse; it was advertised via a sticker on the jewel case as "the calm before the storm of 'Bitches' Brew,' and that had an aura of mystery to it that I really liked. It was one of the most memorable "first listens" I've ever had -- it was a spring night, about 70 degrees, with a light mist coming down; I just drove aimlessly through town, at about 10:00 at night, past all the city lights and closed businesses, down the auxilary highway that cuts from one end of town to the next, absorbing this stunning, hauntingly atmospheric music, full of chattering organs and nervously sputtering guitar arpeggios, keyed to the sound of Miles's sad, stoic trumpet, with that April mist coming spitting in through the car window. It was the perfect marriage of setting and subject matter. I have never found another album that sounds like this, and I wouldn't want to -- it's one of those albums that I never listen to casually, as if it would be disrespectful to have something so sacred-sounding on and not give it my full attention. This is also the album that began my slow slide toward favoring instrumental music over music with lyrics, which were always such a defining part of my listening growing up (and especially in the years leading up to my discovery of this album).

its as if i'm reading Bob Belden

lets just open a bottle and listen to mademoiselle mabry..

let's make it happen tout de suite, doug

can i bring ron carter?

Uh, yeah -- and make sure he knows it's BYOB (Bring Your Own Bass).

durdencommatyler wrote:GREAT write-up, KD. I know that Pepsi-points story. Is that in Mystery Pill? Or have you told it here on RM somewhere before? I love that story.

Thanks, Joey -- loving your stories as well.

My sister was in Columbia House ( I think that was it) anyway, when she was away at Clemson she got still got the cds send to the home address. Most I didn't like, but one day In Utero arrived. I didn't have it and at the time I liked Nirvana ok n'all but I wasn't all in. I grabbed the cd, smoked up, when for a car ride and fell in love with the album. After I heard it I instantly thought it was one of the best things I've ever heard. Shortly thereafter I got Insecticide and Bleach and became engrossed with Nirvana. Insecticide has since become my "go to" Nirvana album, but I'll always love In Utero.

this thread is taking different turns so I'll tell a story..I was in Phoenix in february of 91 for spring training..a buddy of mine was playing so a few of us went down for a week..we we're driving back to his place after the game and the guy on the radio announced that they were about to play the new REM song Losing My Religion..we were all fans of the band and decided to pull off into a grocery store parking lot to listen to it.

#1: Tom Waits - Bone Machine

Spoiler: show

My first introduction to Tom Waits came by way of movie soundtracks. The Fall of Troy and Walk Away were songs included on the Dead Man Walking Soundtrack; those were the first two Tom Waits tracks I remember hearing and I was lukewarm on both of them (though, I liked Walk Away significantly more and even included that on a couple of mix-tapes back in the day).

Then in 2000, the film Keeping the Faith featured Waits' song Please Call Me Baby, which I loved! It became one of my all time favorite songs from a film soundtrack and I put that on a ton of different mixes over the years.

A year later Tori Amos released a covers album called Strange Little Girls. The best track (hands down) was her version of Waits' Time. Her version is breathtaking and arresting. Still, to this day, it's one of my favorite covers. I remember wanting to track down the original version but I was apprehensive, uncertain that it could possibly be as powerful as Tori's version.

Later that same year (2001) I was at my grandparent's house in Kentucky and my grandfather and I got to talking about music, as we tend to do. After debating the virtues of Vince Gill for the better part of an hour my grandfather switched gears to "something I might really like." That's when he asked if I'd ever listened to Leonard Cohen. I told him no but that I'd been meaning to ever since hearing Jeff Buckley's cover of Hallelujah. Then he said, "What about Tom Waits?" I told him I knew like three songs but that was it. So (Ralph Kats being the hippest grandpa of all time) he gave me two burned CD's: one was Leonard Cohen's The Future an the other was Tom Waits' Mule Variations.

Somewhere between that exchange and 2010 (when I started posting regularly on RM), my friend Eric kept talking about this album called Rain Dogs and how it was the greatest album he'd ever heard. I said I didn't know it. Then he said, "How the fuck do you know Tom Waits but you don't know Rain Dogs." I confessed that I knew OF Tom Waits but I was certainly not a fan. I'd given Mule Variations a spin when grandpa first gave it to me, and it was fine, but nothing I wanted to listen to really. I liked a few of the songs but it was a difficult listen; I mean that voice! Yikes! Eric got mad, totally flipped out on me, and drove me over to Best Buy where he made me purchase Rain Dogs. I took it home and listened to it (by myself, Eric had to get to work). It was... not my cup of tea. At the time I didn't much care for Mule Variations but I fucking hated Rain Dogs. What a mess of an album! The one bright spot was that I finally got to hear the original version of Time... but sadly I was heartbroken to discover that it wasn't anywhere near as good as Tori's cover (I have since completely changed my mind on this). The whole thing was a giant let down and I couldn't get past that booze soaked gravel voice and oddball musical arrangements.

Jump to 2010. I'm on RM, like, A LOT. I start getting wrapped up in the Tom Waits thread. Many of my favorite posters, people I really respect and share a lot in common with, are huge Tom Waits fans and I want to appreciate him on their level. I want to finally "get" Tom Waits, whatever it took. So, I start over. I put on Rain Dogs first. It's a record I hadn't given a second thought to in years. But now I was able to discuss and dissect the record with people who are huge fans with deep knowledge and passion. Plus, my tastes have shifted significantly and I've expanded my musical exposure. Slowly, things start to click and I begin to really dig Rain Dogs.

It's through the Tom Waits thread on RM that I begin my deep dive. Different people recommend different Waits records for me to move onto. Bone Machine is the fourth Tom Waits record that I listen and digest. It quickly becomes my all time favorite album. The music is simultaneously unlike anything I've ever heard and completely familiar. It evokes all kinds of strange emotions and mental pictures and it inspires me in exciting new ways. And still, even now, every time I listen to it, I'm blown away by how fantastic the record is. It always feels new and dangerous. It's a constant thrill that always exceeds expectations and reveals new truths.

#2: Pearl Jam - Vitalogy

Spoiler: show

I wasn't a Pearl Jam fan from day one. Of course, like all kids in the early 90s, I had MTV and I watched it with fervor and an unhealthy level of addiction that only prepubescent boys can fully understand. I knew Even Flow, Alive and of course (the ubiquitous) Jeremy. My friends were huge Pearl Jam fans. But my mother hated them and made fun of Ed's trademark hurr-durring mumble-growl. I was eleven so I trusted my parents and their taste. Guys, I was a fucking Eagles fan! Pearl Jam was super uninteresting to me.

In 1993 Vs dropped. I was 13 and my best friend, Travis, had gotten me a copy of Ten on cassette. I loved the record (especially Black, Release and Once; all early favorites) but I wasn't ready to commit to the band. My past was riddled with too many unfortunate examples of bands who had one great debut album but then turned out turds as follow-ups. So, in October of 1993, I went over to my dear friend Adam's house. He had Vs on CD. I wanted to hear it before I bought it and he was dying to share it with me. It blew me away. I was officially hooked, ready to tattoo die-hard status on my skin.

Now, in 1994 I was eagerly awaiting Pearl Jam's third LP, Vitalogy. I remember when Spin the Black Circle (the album's lead "single") dropped. I had to go to school so I put my stereo on my favorite local rock station and put a tape in the deck. I hit record, hoping that I'd catch the drop if I just let the thing run. When I got home from school I had a two hour tape waiting for me. I had to wade through a ton of nonsense but I finally got to the premiere of the newest Pearl Jam song. I liked it. But I didn't love it. Okay, so fine. I was not detoured. I was still excited. As we all know now, Pearl Jam didn't want to release official singles for the record at first. As a result radio stations dropped whatever song they wanted after StBC. As a result, before Vitalogy dropped, I'd heard StBC, Corduroy, Nothingman and Better Man. The latter of which I heard in my parents car as we drove from Kansas to Kentucky to spend Thanksgiving at my grandparent's house. I had my headphones (I was listening to Garth Brooks' incredible In Pieces record) and my mom tapped me and told me there was a new Pearl Jam song on the radio. I dropped my headphones and Dad cranked the volume. All three of us really loved the song. It's amazing how much my parents turned around on Pearl Jam after I started to get into Nirvana. But that's a much different and longer story.

ANYWAY... cut to February of 1995. Vitalogy had been out for about three months. I still hadn't had a chance to pick it up, tough. One night, my mom said, "Hey, we haven't hung out in a while. How about I take you to the mall and you can buy whatever you want?" I was thrilled! The thing I had her buy me was Vitalogy, on CD. I was SO pumped. We stopped off at Baskin Robbins on the way home. I flipped through the liner notes as mom picked up a couple of cones. We sat at a cold table by the fogged window.

Then she dropped the hammer. "So, have you had sex?" She asked me. Out of fucking nowhere. I was shocked. I was still 14 (I'd be 15 in April) and my girlfriend at the time was two years older than me. Yes, we'd become sexually active. But we weren't fucking advertising it! I told my mom no, said she was crazy. She said, "Oh, okay, because I found this in your jeans." She pulled a note from her pocket. It was a note my girlfriend had written me and passed me in school. It was extremely sexually graphic. There was a lot of "I can't wait to have you inside me" type stuff in it. I read the entire note, debating in my mind what lie I could tell. I considered making up something about how it was a fake letter that I left in the laundry intentionally as a way to trap my Mom, as evidence that I KNEW she was spying and digging through my stuff and violating my privacy.

In the end I decided to tell the truth. I admitted to my mom that her 14 year old son was indeed having sex with this 16 year old girlfriend. As an aside: it was also the day I vowed to learn to do my own fucking laundry. We talked for about an hour. When I got home I didn't even want to listen to Vitalogy. I spun it in the morning, laying in bed, letting my head spin. I hated the record. But that probably had more to do with how I felt about being "caught" than anything else. It was years before I was able to fully appreciate the album and not feel embarrassed and attacked while listening to it.

#3:The Beatles - The Beatles (The White Album)

Spoiler: show

Growing up, The Beatles were always around. There was no beginning or introduction to their music. It was just always there. My parents were pretty big classic rock and folk music fans -- Dad especially. My father was in a band when he was younger, he played trumpet. He would often brag about his biggest (and only) "claim to fame": his band trounced REO Speedwagon twice in battle of the bands contests in and around Champagne, Illinois. So, Zepplin, The Beatles, The Eagles, CSN, The Moody Blues, Harry Chapin, Elton John; these artists formed the foundation of my musical experience and taste because they were all I listened to until I turned 10 years old and got SUPER into Paula Abdul. It was all downhill from there.

Abbey Road was the Beatles album my parents played most often. However, they sprinkled in some stuff from The White Album and Let It Be from time to time. When the Beatles One Compilation dropped in 2000, it entered into heavy rotation. And of course it wasn't just around my house. The Beatles music was omnipresent in American culture. They were everywhere, all the time.

I met Nina Witt at Johnson County Community College. She was then and continues to be one of my best friends, one of the singularly outstanding people I've ever known. She's amazing. I even asked if she'd be my "Best Man" at my wedding. She felt too weird about it (because she knew how close I was with the man who ended up landing the gig) but she agreed to stand up there with me as one of my "Groom's People." In return, I read her favorite Shakespeare sonnet at her wedding some years later.

When we first met we hilariously thought we could date each other. We spent a lot of time wooing and making out. But we never slept together, which may be a big reason why we're able to be such great friends even to this day. As part of the courting process we would stay up until 4 am listening to music in my car (Alan Parson's Project was a big one we'd often return to -- who knew Eye in the Sky could be so fucking romantic?!). Sometimes we'd drive around Kansas City. Sometimes we'd just quote Shakespeare to each other. Sometimes we'd go to her place and watch movies. We often talked about dreams and regrets; about our family dysfunctions and our shared passion to get the fuck out of Kansas and move to New York City.

Through all of this, Nina introduced me to all kinds of new music. Radiohead was a big one. OK Computer was one of her favorite records and I was largely unfamiliar with it, outside of Karma Police. But her all time favorite band was The Beatles. George was her favorite. She had posters of him on her wall when she was a little girl and even as an adult she'd kept one smaller 8 x 10 window card of him on the wall above her headboard where her mother would have preferred a crucifix.

I consider this my "introduction to The Beatles." I started at the beginning of their catalog. I wanted to know all of their songs the way Nina knew them. And she fucking KNEW them, knew everything about them. She had books detailing the stories behind every songs. She knew who wrote which specific lines and each track's length. She knew all the different versions, she had bootlegs and demos! The Beatles were in her marrow. She knew the Beatles at least as well as (and maybe better than) I knew Pearl Jam. So, as I said, I started with their first album: purchased at Best Buy (duh!); because all music purchased in the suburbs in the late 90s/early 2000s was purchased at Best Buy. I played it in my car all afternoon as I drove around KC. The deal was: I gave each record at least one full week of listening before I bought the next one in the catalog. And I reported my thoughts back to Nina after each week.

Through this process I discovered Rubber Soul and Revolver, albums my parents had never owned as long as I'd been alive (though Dad often talked about how much he adored Rubber Soul, but until I brought it into the house I never once saw him listen to that record). Anyway, ultimately, it was The White Album that stopped me dead in my tracks, that made me shiver with excitement. Through all of this, Nina refused to tell me which album was her favorite until I'd listened to them all. I had a sneaking suspicion The White Album was her favorite because it was the one she talked about least. It was like she didn't want to sway me, she wanted me to decide independently of her opinion. Though, I do recall stories she'd tell of getting high and listening to Dear Prudence and finding an indescribable comfort there. And one time she told me that "Mother Superior jumped the gun." But at the time I had no idea what the hell she was talking about.

Rocky Racoon was a song I knew all too well. That was one of my dad's favorite songs. There were countless road trips where Rocky was sung, full lung, several times in a row. I knew Blackbird but I was more familiar with the CSN version. Of course, Obla-di Obla-da and Back in the USSR and Birthday: those were on the radio all the time. But those weren't the best songs on the record. No, no. I was blindsided by While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Happiness is a Warm Gun and Glass Union and Mother Nature's Son. There wasn't a single dud on either disc. Something about that record completely worked. It was magical and defied all logic, to me.

After my customary week of listening was up, I didn't run to Best Buy for the next record. I kept at The White Album. It lasted another week, then another, then another, and before I knew it, The White Album was the only album I listened to for three straight months.

As we drove around one night (late into that three month run) Nina commented on how The White Album was the only CD in my car (normally, I kept three in the glove compartment at all times). She said, "So, I take it this one is your favorite so far." I laughed and confirmed. She rested her head against the passenger-side window, gazed at the lights glowing in the mansions atop manicured lawns in Mission Hills and said, "Yeah, it's mine, too."

#4:

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Okay, so, for a long time I had this really big problem with instrumental music. It was thoroughly uninteresting to me; at times frustrating and borderline offensive. I needed a human voice to listen to. I didn't need great lyrics (something as simple as like "Sha-na-na-na" worked just fine), but if a song didn't have a vocal melody then I had a really difficult time enjoying it. My father loved long instrumental songs by the likes of Pink Floyd or The Moody Blues or Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and Milt Jackson's Sunflower album was in fairly regular rotation as early as I can remember. My mom was big into Beethoven and Chopin. I'm not certain where my aversion to voiceless music came from but it was strong and deep seeded until my early 20's. Bands like Tool never spoke to me the way they did many of my close friends, largly because so many of their songs had these long musical interludes that just seemed to roll on forever. I remember listening to some of those songs thinking, "fuck, just get to the lyrics already, I don't have all day!"

In the summer of 2001 I was working as an Assistant Manager at Eye Masters in the Metcalf South Shopping Center. My boss, Angela, was a good friend of mine from high school. We'd spent 7th through 11th grade sort of dancing around each other; swimming in the same social circles but never quite finding friendship. That all changed senior year when we started bonding over bands that we loved (and the fact that she was developing a not insignificant crush on one of my very best friends). After high school, we were both at Johnson County Community College (studying very different things: theater for me, education for her) and she mentioned she needed some help at the Eye Masters store she was managing. I desperately needed a job and asked if I could apply. She gave me the job and we spent hours goofing off at a nearly-empty, dying mall, occasionally adjusting some old fart's metal frames and rinsing them in the sonic bath.

We had a pretty amicable system for music consumption. She'd pick a record. Then I'd pick a record. We took turns, back and forth, trying keep some sort of flow going. We were only allowed to pull from her CD collection because she knew everything in the travel case was retail appropriate and Manager approved. Fine by me, like I said, we liked a lot of the same stuff.

One day I had to pull a double shift, open to close, alone. Angela came in for an hour to relieve me so I could go to lunch but most of the day I worked by myself. It was a great deal for me because it allowed me to get a ton of studying and writing done. Foot traffic was practically nonexistent at Metcalf Mall. There were leagues of Mall Walkers (old people in running shoes and khaki pants power walking in infinite circles for hours around the main floor), but not many actual customers.

That day, I'd exhausted almost everything from Angela's CD collection that I wanted to listen to. I was flipping through page after page, trying to find something interesting, something that sparked. Finally, I landed on a record I'd never heard (in fact, had barely heard OF) before. I knew nothing about Miles Davis but I put on Kind of Blue, picked up my pen and started working on a short 10-minute play. Half way through the opening track, So What (a song with a 9 minute plus running time and no lyrics, by the way) I realized I wasn't writing. I wasn't thinking. I was only listening. I was captivated -- no, spellbound. I played the album, beginning to end, back to back, four times in a row before it was time to close for the night.

I took the CD home with me (Angela would have been PISSED if she'd found out I borrowed it without asking; luckily, I opened the following morning and was able to slip it back in the case without her being any the wiser) and I burned a copy at home that night. For the rest of the summer I spun Kind of Blue any time I had the shop to myself. I ended up writing three 10-minute plays, one full-length play, and two screenplays between July and December of 2001: all at work while listening to Kind of Blue on an endless loop in the background. It was the first album I'd ever loved that didn't have lyrics or singing of any kind. Since, I've tried to listen to a couple different Miles Davis records and I've enjoyed them (especially In A Silent Way) but none of them have moved me to my core the way Kind of Blue does. There is some kind of wicked and terrific sorcery in that record. It's something I've never been able to describe or define, not fully, not accurately. But it's in me now. It has burrowed and still rarely a month goes by where I don't pour myself a kind drink and put Kind of Blue on the turntable and just... listen. Just sit and listen. That record made me a better consumer, a better listener, and a better writer. Few albums have literally changed me the way Kind of Blue has changed me. It was totally worth spending a year and a half of my life in fucking retail to discover that gorgeous, perfect record.

doug rr wrote:this thread is taking different turns so I'll tell a story..I was in Phoenix in february of 91 for spring training..a buddy of mine was playing so a few of us went down for a week..we we're driving back to his place after the game and the guy on the radio announced that they were about to play the new REM song Losing My Religion..we were all fans of the band and decided to pull off into a grocery store parking lot to listen to it.

That's awesome. LMR is another one of those songs that feels like it was just always there. I remember the video, remember watching it over and over again on MTV. But I don't remember the first time I heard the song.

Kevin Davis wrote:Miles Davis - "In a Silent Way"
When I was in high school, we were required to complete 100 community service hours before graduation, so I did mine at the local science museum's book court. Basically I sat and read for two hours every day after school, and occasionally accepted a crumpled dollar from an old man buying a Tom Clancy novel. One of my favorite literary items at the book court was a copy of Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Albums of All-Time" issue (or whichever edition of such was making the rounds at the time). It was a pretty standard Rolling Stone list, but at the time a lot of those albums were still new to me, and I was especially intrigued by the inclusion of Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue," the only non-rock album on the list (it was ranked right below U2's "Zooropa"). I wondered why an exception was made for this one album -- there was precisely zero rap, country, blues, etc., yet there was this one distinct outlier. Not long after, I bought the album out of curiosity. While I appreciate what is so special about "Kind of Blue" now, at the time it sounded -- as I suspect many newbies' maiden voyages into jazz do -- just kind of "like jazz." But I kept listening, and after a few months was compelled to dig further.

I picked "In a Silent Way" because I wanted to try out Miles's fusion-era stuff for a change of pace, and "Bitches Brew" seemed too obvious. "In a Silent Way" seemed like a dark horse; it was advertised via a sticker on the jewel case as "the calm before the storm of 'Bitches' Brew,' and that had an aura of mystery to it that I really liked. It was one of the most memorable "first listens" I've ever had -- it was a spring night, about 70 degrees, with a light mist coming down; I just drove aimlessly through town, at about 10:00 at night, past all the city lights and closed businesses, down the auxilary highway that cuts from one end of town to the next, absorbing this stunning, hauntingly atmospheric music, full of chattering organs and nervously sputtering guitar arpeggios, keyed to the sound of Miles's sad, stoic trumpet, with that April mist coming spitting in through the car window. It was the perfect marriage of setting and subject matter. I have never found another album that sounds like this, and I wouldn't want to -- it's one of those albums that I never listen to casually, as if it would be disrespectful to have something so sacred-sounding on and not give it my full attention. This is also the album that began my slow slide toward favoring instrumental music over music with lyrics, which were always such a defining part of my listening growing up (and especially in the years leading up to my discovery of this album).

Man, this makes for lovely reading (and great listening too, of course).

durdencommatyler wrote:#1: Tom Waits - Bone Machine

Spoiler: show

My first introduction to Tom Waits came by way of movie soundtracks. The Fall of Troy and Walk Away were songs included on the Dead Man Walking Soundtrack; those were the first two Tom Waits tracks I remember hearing and I was lukewarm on both of them (though, I liked Walk Away significantly more and even included that on a couple of mix-tapes back in the day).

Then in 2000, the film Keeping the Faith featured Waits' song Please Call Me Baby, which I loved! It became one of my all time favorite songs from a film soundtrack and I put that on a ton of different mixes over the years.

A year later Tori Amos released a covers album called Strange Little Girls. The best track (hands down) was her version of Waits' Time. Her version is breathtaking and arresting. Still, to this day, it's one of my favorite covers. I remember wanting to track down the original version but I was apprehensive, uncertain that it could possibly be as powerful as Tori's version.

Later that same year (2001) I was at my grandparent's house in Kentucky and my grandfather and I got to talking about music, as we tend to do. After debating the virtues of Vince Gill for the better part of an hour my grandfather switched gears to "something I might really like." That's when he asked if I'd ever listened to Leonard Cohen. I told him no but that I'd been meaning to ever since hearing Jeff Buckley's cover of Hallelujah. Then he said, "What about Tom Waits?" I told him I knew like three songs but that was it. So (Ralph Kats being the hippest grandpa of all time) he gave me two burned CD's: one was Leonard Cohen's The Future an the other was Tom Waits' Mule Variations.

Somewhere between that exchange and 2010 (when I started posting regularly on RM), my friend Eric kept talking about this album called Rain Dogs and how it was the greatest album he'd ever heard. I said I didn't know it. Then he said, "How the fuck do you know Tom Waits but you don't know Rain Dogs." I confessed that I knew OF Tom Waits but I was certainly not a fan. I'd given Mule Variations a spin when grandpa first gave it to me, and it was fine, but nothing I wanted to listen to really. I liked a few of the songs but it was a difficult listen; I mean that voice! Yikes! Eric got mad, totally flipped out on me, and drove me over to Best Buy where he made me purchase Rain Dogs. I took it home and listened to it (by myself, Eric had to get to work). It was... not my cup of tea. At the time I didn't much care for Mule Variations but I fucking hated Rain Dogs. What a mess of an album! The one bright spot was that I finally got to hear the original version of Time... but sadly I was heartbroken to discover that it wasn't anywhere near as good as Tori's cover (I have since completely changed my mind on this). The whole thing was a giant let down and I couldn't get past that booze soaked gravel voice and oddball musical arrangements.

Jump to 2010. I'm on RM, like, A LOT. I start getting wrapped up in the Tom Waits thread. Many of my favorite posters, people I really respect and share a lot in common with, are huge Tom Waits fans and I want to appreciate him on their level. I want to finally "get" Tom Waits, whatever it took. So, I start over. I put on Rain Dogs first. It's a record I hadn't given a second thought to in years. But now I was able to discuss and dissect the record with people who are huge fans with deep knowledge and passion. Plus, my tastes have shifted significantly and I've expanded my musical exposure. Slowly, things start to click and I begin to really dig Rain Dogs.

It's through the Tom Waits thread on RM that I begin my deep dive. Different people recommend different Waits records for me to move onto. Bone Machine is the fourth Tom Waits record that I listen and digest. It quickly becomes my all time favorite album. The music is simultaneously unlike anything I've ever heard and completely familiar. It evokes all kinds of strange emotions and mental pictures and it inspires me in exciting new ways. And still, even now, every time I listen to it, I'm blown away by how fantastic the record is. It always feels new and dangerous. It's a constant thrill that always exceeds expectations and reveals new truths.

you and kevin are going to make me cry

#2: Pearl Jam - Vitalogy

Spoiler: show

I wasn't a Pearl Jam fan from day one. Of course, like all kids in the early 90s, I had MTV and I watched it with fervor and an unhealthy level of addiction that only prepubescent boys can fully understand. I knew Even Flow, Alive and of course (the ubiquitous) Jeremy. My friends were huge Pearl Jam fans. But my mother hated them and made fun of Ed's trademark hurr-durring mumble-growl. I was eleven so I trusted my parents and their taste. Guys, I was a fucking Eagles fan! Pearl Jam was super uninteresting to me.

In 1993 Vs dropped. I was 13 and my best friend, Travis, had gotten me a copy of Ten on cassette. I loved the record (especially Black, Release and Once; all early favorites) but I wasn't ready to commit to the band. My past was riddled with too many unfortunate examples of bands who had one great debut album but then turned out turds as follow-ups. So, in October of 1993, I went over to my dear friend Adam's house. He had Vs on CD. I wanted to hear it before I bought it and he was dying to share it with me. It blew me away. I was officially hooked, ready to tattoo die-hard status on my skin.

Now, in 1994 I was eagerly awaiting Pearl Jam's third LP, Vitalogy. I remember when Spin the Black Circle (the album's lead "single") dropped. I had to go to school so I put my stereo on my favorite local rock station and put a tape in the deck. I hit record, hoping that I'd catch the drop if I just let the thing run. When I got home from school I had a two hour tape waiting for me. I had to wade through a ton of nonsense but I finally got to the premiere of the newest Pearl Jam song. I liked it. But I didn't love it. Okay, so fine. I was not detoured. I was still excited. As we all know now, Pearl Jam didn't want to release official singles for the record at first. As a result radio stations dropped whatever song they wanted after StBC. As a result, before Vitalogy dropped, I'd heard StBC, Corduroy, Nothingman and Better Man. The latter of which I heard in my parents car as we drove from Kansas to Kentucky to spend Thanksgiving at my grandparent's house. I had my headphones (I was listening to Garth Brooks' incredible In Pieces record) and my mom tapped me and told me there was a new Pearl Jam song on the radio. I dropped my headphones and Dad cranked the volume. All three of us really loved the song. It's amazing how much my parents turned around on Pearl Jam after I started to get into Nirvana. But that's a much different and longer story.

ANYWAY... cut to February of 1995. Vitalogy had been out for about three months. I still hadn't had a chance to pick it up, tough. One night, my mom said, "Hey, we haven't hung out in a while. How about I take you to the mall and you can buy whatever you want?" I was thrilled! The thing I had her buy me was Vitalogy, on CD. I was SO pumped. We stopped off at Baskin Robbins on the way home. I flipped through the liner notes as mom picked up a couple of cones. We sat at a cold table by the fogged window.

Then she dropped the hammer. "So, have you had sex?" She asked me. Out of fucking nowhere. I was shocked. I was still 14 (I'd be 15 in April) and my girlfriend at the time was two years older than me. Yes, we'd become sexually active. But we weren't fucking advertising it! I told my mom no, said she was crazy. She said, "Oh, okay, because I found this in your jeans." She pulled a note from her pocket. It was a note my girlfriend had written me and passed me in school. It was extremely sexually graphic. There was a lot of "I can't wait to have you inside me" type stuff in it. I read the entire note, debating in my mind what lie I could tell. I considered making up something about how it was a fake letter that I left in the laundry intentionally as a way to trap my Mom, as evidence that I KNEW she was spying and digging through my stuff and violating my privacy.

In the end I decided to tell the truth. I admitted to my mom that her 14 year old son was indeed having sex with this 16 year old girlfriend. As an aside: it was also the day I vowed to learn to do my own fucking laundry. We talked for about an hour. When I got home I didn't even want to listen to Vitalogy. I spun it in the morning, laying in bed, letting my head spin. I hated the record. But that probably had more to do with how I felt about being "caught" than anything else. It was years before I was able to fully appreciate the album and not feel embarrassed and attacked while listening to it.

#3:The Beatles - The Beatles (The White Album)

Spoiler: show

Growing up, The Beatles were always around. There was no beginning or introduction to their music. It was just always there. My parents were pretty big classic rock and folk music fans -- Dad especially. My father was in a band when he was younger, he played trumpet. He would often brag about his biggest (and only) "claim to fame": his band trounced REO Speedwagon twice in battle of the bands contests in and around Champagne, Illinois. So, Zepplin, The Beatles, The Eagles, CSN, The Moody Blues, Harry Chapin, Elton John; these artists formed the foundation of my musical experience and taste because they were all I listened to until I turned 10 years old and got SUPER into Paula Abdul. It was all downhill from there.

Abbey Road was the Beatles album my parents played most often. However, they sprinkled in some stuff from The White Album and Let It Be from time to time. When the Beatles One Compilation dropped in 2000, it entered into heavy rotation. And of course it wasn't just around my house. The Beatles music was omnipresent in American culture. They were everywhere, all the time.

I met Nina Witt at Johnson County Community College. She was then and continues to be one of my best friends, one of the singularly outstanding people I've ever known. She's amazing. I even asked if she'd be my "Best Man" at my wedding. She felt too weird about it (because she knew how close I was with the man who ended up landing the gig) but she agreed to stand up there with me as one of my "Groom's People." In return, I read her favorite Shakespeare sonnet at her wedding some years later.

When we first met we hilariously thought we could date each other. We spent a lot of time wooing and making out. But we never slept together, which may be a big reason why we're able to be such great friends even to this day. As part of the courting process we would stay up until 4 am listening to music in my car (Alan Parson's Project was a big one we'd often return to -- who knew Eye in the Sky could be so fucking romantic?!). Sometimes we'd drive around Kansas City. Sometimes we'd just quote Shakespeare to each other. Sometimes we'd go to her place and watch movies. We often talked about dreams and regrets; about our family dysfunctions and our shared passion to get the fuck out of Kansas and move to New York City.

Through all of this, Nina introduced me to all kinds of new music. Radiohead was a big one. OK Computer was one of her favorite records and I was largely unfamiliar with it, outside of Karma Police. But her all time favorite band was The Beatles. George was her favorite. She had posters of him on her wall when she was a little girl and even as an adult she'd kept one smaller 8 x 10 window card of him on the wall above her headboard where her mother would have preferred a crucifix.

I consider this my "introduction to The Beatles." I started at the beginning of their catalog. I wanted to know all of their songs the way Nina knew them. And she fucking KNEW them, knew everything about them. She had books detailing the stories behind every songs. She knew who wrote which specific lines and each track's length. She knew all the different versions, she had bootlegs and demos! The Beatles were in her marrow. She knew the Beatles at least as well as (and maybe better than) I knew Pearl Jam. So, as I said, I started with their first album: purchased at Best Buy (duh!); because all music purchased in the suburbs in the late 90s/early 2000s was purchased at Best Buy. I played it in my car all afternoon as I drove around KC. The deal was: I gave each record at least one full week of listening before I bought the next one in the catalog. And I reported my thoughts back to Nina after each week.

Through this process I discovered Rubber Soul and Revolver, albums my parents had never owned as long as I'd been alive (though Dad often talked about how much he adored Rubber Soul, but until I brought it into the house I never once saw him listen to that record). Anyway, ultimately, it was The White Album that stopped me dead in my tracks, that made me shiver with excitement. Through all of this, Nina refused to tell me which album was her favorite until I'd listened to them all. I had a sneaking suspicion The White Album was her favorite because it was the one she talked about least. It was like she didn't want to sway me, she wanted me to decide independently of her opinion. Though, I do recall stories she'd tell of getting high and listening to Dear Prudence and finding an indescribable comfort there. And one time she told me that "Mother Superior jumped the gun." But at the time I had no idea what the hell she was talking about.

Rocky Racoon was a song I knew all too well. That was one of my dad's favorite songs. There were countless road trips where Rocky was sung, full lung, several times in a row. I knew Blackbird but I was more familiar with the CSN version. Of course, Obla-di Obla-da and Back in the USSR and Birthday: those were on the radio all the time. But those weren't the best songs on the record. No, no. I was blindsided by While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Happiness is a Warm Gun and Glass Union and Mother Nature's Son. There wasn't a single dud on either disc. Something about that record completely worked. It was magical and defied all logic, to me.

After my customary week of listening was up, I didn't run to Best Buy for the next record. I kept at The White Album. It lasted another week, then another, then another, and before I knew it, The White Album was the only album I listened to for three straight months.

As we drove around one night (late into that three month run) Nina commented on how The White Album was the only CD in my car (normally, I kept three in the glove compartment at all times). She said, "So, I take it this one is your favorite so far." I laughed and confirmed. She rested her head against the passenger-side window, gazed at the lights glowing in the mansions atop manicured lawns in Mission Hills and said, "Yeah, it's mine, too."

#4:

Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
Okay, so, for a long time I had this really big problem with instrumental music. It was thoroughly uninteresting to me; at times frustrating and borderline offensive. I needed a human voice to listen to. I didn't need great lyrics (something as simple as like "Sha-na-na-na" worked just fine), but if a song didn't have a vocal melody then I had a really difficult time enjoying it. My father loved long instrumental songs by the likes of Pink Floyd or The Moody Blues or Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and Milt Jackson's Sunflower album was in fairly regular rotation as early as I can remember. My mom was big into Beethoven and Chopin. I'm not certain where my aversion to voiceless music came from but it was strong and deep seeded until my early 20's. Bands like Tool never spoke to me the way they did many of my close friends, largly because so many of their songs had these long musical interludes that just seemed to roll on forever. I remember listening to some of those songs thinking, "fuck, just get to the lyrics already, I don't have all day!"

In the summer of 2001 I was working as an Assistant Manager at Eye Masters in the Metcalf South Shopping Center. My boss, Angela, was a good friend of mine from high school. We'd spent 7th through 11th grade sort of dancing around each other; swimming in the same social circles but never quite finding friendship. That all changed senior year when we started bonding over bands that we loved (and the fact that she was developing a not insignificant crush on one of my very best friends). After high school, we were both at Johnson County Community College (studying very different things: theater for me, education for her) and she mentioned she needed some help at the Eye Masters store she was managing. I desperately needed a job and asked if I could apply. She gave me the job and we spent hours goofing off at a nearly-empty, dying mall, occasionally adjusting some old fart's metal frames and rinsing them in the sonic bath.

We had a pretty amicable system for music consumption. She'd pick a record. Then I'd pick a record. We took turns, back and forth, trying keep some sort of flow going. We were only allowed to pull from her CD collection because she knew everything in the travel case was retail appropriate and Manager approved. Fine by me, like I said, we liked a lot of the same stuff.

One day I had to pull a double shift, open to close, alone. Angela came in for an hour to relieve me so I could go to lunch but most of the day I worked by myself. It was a great deal for me because it allowed me to get a ton of studying and writing done. Foot traffic was practically nonexistent at Metcalf Mall. There were leagues of Mall Walkers (old people in running shoes and khaki pants power walking in infinite circles for hours around the main floor), but not many actual customers.

That day, I'd exhausted almost everything from Angela's CD collection that I wanted to listen to. I was flipping through page after page, trying to find something interesting, something that sparked. Finally, I landed on a record I'd never heard (in fact, had barely heard OF) before. I knew nothing about Miles Davis but I put on Kind of Blue, picked up my pen and started working on a short 10-minute play. Half way through the opening track, So What (a song with a 9 minute plus running time and no lyrics, by the way) I realized I wasn't writing. I wasn't thinking. I was only listening. I was captivated -- no, spellbound. I played the album, beginning to end, back to back, four times in a row before it was time to close for the night.

I took the CD home with me (Angela would have been PISSED if she'd found out I borrowed it without asking; luckily, I opened the following morning and was able to slip it back in the case without her being any the wiser) and I burned a copy at home that night. For the rest of the summer I spun Kind of Blue any time I had the shop to myself. I ended up writing three 10-minute plays, one full-length play, and two screenplays between July and December of 2001: all at work while listening to Kind of Blue on an endless loop in the background. It was the first album I'd ever loved that didn't have lyrics or singing of any kind. Since, I've tried to listen to a couple different Miles Davis records and I've enjoyed them (especially In A Silent Way) but none of them have moved me to my core the way Kind of Blue does. There is some kind of wicked and terrific sorcery in that record. It's something I've never been able to describe or define, not fully, not accurately. But it's in me now. It has burrowed and still rarely a month goes by where I don't pour myself a kind drink and put Kind of Blue on the turntable and just... listen. Just sit and listen. That record made me a better consumer, a better listener, and a better writer. Few albums have literally changed me the way Kind of Blue has changed me. It was totally worth spending a year and a half of my life in fucking retail to discover that gorgeous, perfect record.

you and kevin are going to make me cry

Birds in Hell wrote:

Kevin Davis wrote:Miles Davis - "In a Silent Way"
When I was in high school, we were required to complete 100 community service hours before graduation, so I did mine at the local science museum's book court. Basically I sat and read for two hours every day after school, and occasionally accepted a crumpled dollar from an old man buying a Tom Clancy novel. One of my favorite literary items at the book court was a copy of Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Albums of All-Time" issue (or whichever edition of such was making the rounds at the time). It was a pretty standard Rolling Stone list, but at the time a lot of those albums were still new to me, and I was especially intrigued by the inclusion of Miles Davis's "Kind of Blue," the only non-rock album on the list (it was ranked right below U2's "Zooropa"). I wondered why an exception was made for this one album -- there was precisely zero rap, country, blues, etc., yet there was this one distinct outlier. Not long after, I bought the album out of curiosity. While I appreciate what is so special about "Kind of Blue" now, at the time it sounded -- as I suspect many newbies' maiden voyages into jazz do -- just kind of "like jazz." But I kept listening, and after a few months was compelled to dig further.

I picked "In a Silent Way" because I wanted to try out Miles's fusion-era stuff for a change of pace, and "Bitches Brew" seemed too obvious. "In a Silent Way" seemed like a dark horse; it was advertised via a sticker on the jewel case as "the calm before the storm of 'Bitches' Brew,' and that had an aura of mystery to it that I really liked. It was one of the most memorable "first listens" I've ever had -- it was a spring night, about 70 degrees, with a light mist coming down; I just drove aimlessly through town, at about 10:00 at night, past all the city lights and closed businesses, down the auxilary highway that cuts from one end of town to the next, absorbing this stunning, hauntingly atmospheric music, full of chattering organs and nervously sputtering guitar arpeggios, keyed to the sound of Miles's sad, stoic trumpet, with that April mist coming spitting in through the car window. It was the perfect marriage of setting and subject matter. I have never found another album that sounds like this, and I wouldn't want to -- it's one of those albums that I never listen to casually, as if it would be disrespectful to have something so sacred-sounding on and not give it my full attention. This is also the album that began my slow slide toward favoring instrumental music over music with lyrics, which were always such a defining part of my listening growing up (and especially in the years leading up to my discovery of this album).

Man, this makes for lovely reading (and great listening too, of course).

Yeah, Kevin Davis is good for that.