#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
- Spoiler: show
- 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.
#5: Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon
The summer of 1993 was brutal in Olathe Kansas. Temperatures topped out steadily in the 80s well into October. I started Middle School/Junior High that September. It would end up being a crucial year for me in a lot of ways. My seventh grade year was when I discovered acting and theater. It was the year I met the girl who would become my first serious girlfriend and to whom I would lose my virginity in a year's time. It was also the year that my favorite band released their best record. Just before the autumnal equinox, like a balm to ease my teenage growing pains, Nirvana released
In Utero: an album I'll talk more about later in this exercise.
The warm weather was a blessing and a curse. The biggest benefit was that it allowed me to continue my weekend lawn-mowing service. I manicured many a neighbor's lawn for a fair fee. This income coupled with the modest allowance my parents gave me kept me well fashioned in my favorite films, albums, and flannel prints. If you asked my father, he'd tell you the biggest drawback of the extended summer weather was that it kept my windows open and kept me outside. This meant that he was subjected to my music at "an unreasonable volume" later into the year than he felt comfortable with. Pearl Jam's
Ten and
Vs, Nirvana's
Nevermind,
Incesticide and (the brand spanking new and therefore relentlessly replayed)
In Utero were the staples. Mixed in were healthy helpings of Alice In Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Metallica and They Might Be Giants; all bands my father had exactly zero interest in diving into and experiencing. I'm sure he longed for the days when I would listen to Weird Al Yankovic and Paula Abdul ad nauseam. He knew my days of listening to his music were fading; perhaps gone forever.
Toward the end of October, Dad couldn't take it anymore. He was at the end of his rope, and so he made me a generous offer. He said he would take me to Best Buy and buy me a new CD. I could save my lawn money and allowance that week. He would foot the bill... BUT the catch was that he got to choose the album. I was completely at his mercy.
We shook on it, like all gentleman must, and headed off the nearest Best Buy location. On the way we talked about music. We talked about why I liked Nirvana and Pearl Jam so much. We talked about how those things moved me the way The Moody Blues and The Eagles moved him. Those bands spoke to something very real and ineffable deep down. I had all these strange and terrifying emotions and these bands were tapping into those things, giving them voice. He said he could understand the sentiment but was ultimately unmoved. He couldn't understand how the bombast and the fuzz and the abrasive vocal styles of those modern grunge and heavy metal bands could offer the same exaltation provided by the expert precision, talent, and majesty of more polished bands like Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd. I talked about Mike McCready's guitar solos on
Ten. He countered with David Gilmore's work on
The Dark Side of the Moon. I asked which one was
Dark Side? Was that the one with
Money on it? Dad said, "How do you not know
Dark Side of the Moon? It's the most famous rock album of all times!" (One thing I adore about my dad is his insistence in adding an 's' at the end of 'all time.')
I was all, "Dad, do you even own that album? I've never heard you play it."
"I have it on vinyl."
"That turntable hasn't worked in my lifetime."
"Yes, it has."
"You NEVER play it."
"It doesn't work right now!"
"Ah. Well, my mistake."
"That's it, you're getting
Dark Side of the Moon. You need to listen to some real music for a change."
He parked the car, marched into Best Buy, grabbed a copy of
The Dark Side of the Moon, paid for it, marched back to the car and threw the thing in my lap. I worked that plastic shrink wrap from the jewel case as Dad sped home. My father didn't say another word to me until after dinner that night. He asked if I liked the album. I said it was really great. He said, "Told you. Best of all times."
It ended up being one of my favorite gifts that my father ever gave me. The album is... exquisite. It's about as close to perfect as a record can be. And it lead me on a fantastic journey through psychedelic rock, to glam rock, to new wave, to prog-rock. Things I love about Bowie and Talking Heads and Jethro Tull can all be found somewhere on
The Dark Side of the Moon. It's a revelatory piece of art. It's ageless and profound. Even in spite of my early aversion to instrumental music and long stretches of rock music without vocals, THIS album connected. It transcended all of that. It was my all time favorite album for more than a decade. And, really, it's only been the last three years or so that it's fallen out of the #3 spot. I think it's because the challenges of records like
Bone Machine and
Vitalogy and
The White Album have become far more satisfying to me as I've gotten older. It's not that
Dark Side is too polished but I like an element of discomfort in my listening, I think. At least, I do right now.
One final thought about the album: it's crazy how good every track is.
Money, probably the biggest hit from that album, and one of Pink Floyd's all time biggest hits, is not even in the top half in terms of "best" song on the album. That's bonkers to me. It's completely stupid that one band was able to compose such a diverse, deep, and melodic record that is equally beautiful and strange; joyful and maddening. Of all the great albums that enjoy tremendous success and new discovery throughout the years,
The Dark Side of the Moon is the only one that makes 100% sense to me. I totally get why this thing spent 14 years on the Billboard Top 200 chart. And I'm glad I discovered it when I did, at a time when it seemed like exactly the wrong album for me, when I was at an age in which I
wanted to disagree with my parents, at a time when none of my friends had any interest in Pink Floyd, at a time when "drop the leash/get out of my fucking face" was about as powerful and profound a piece of poetry as I could imagine, that's when
Dark Side found me -- was literally delivered to me. And fuck man! It hit. Everything changed. The doors that opened to me musically because of that record! And I've never dived into it too deeply, but I'd be willing to bet there is some crazy bond that my father forged with me that day that will last long after both of us are gone.
