08-09-2004, 11:43 AM
(Yes...the title is sarcastic. :p Just a piece written to show just how freakish the world of Rock can seem through a kids eyes. I wrote this trying to capture exactly what I thought wayyyy back in the day.)
The headphones my brother handed to me were so big that they seemed to engulf my entire head when I put them on. Big, black and cushy...they consumed my ears and sucked me into a void where nothing else existed except the music he was about to play.
I remember sitting on the edge of the bed anxiously, tugging at my knee socks and waiting for the snap and crackle of the needle to strike the edge of the vinyl record. It would steal my breath away, never failing to sweep me away into a journey that was better than Alice and Wonderland. It was like sneaking a peek at the splatter flick on late night television. It was getting away with stealing a truck full of cookies. It was rock and roll.
Introducing Led Zeppelin to an 8 year old's mind is a pretty dicey thing. I can only imagine how owlish I looked as John Bonham's meat-handed drums began to pound into my senses. Robert Plant screamed into my ears about giving me every inch of his love, and I would sit there with an oblivious gap-toothed grin, my head bobbing beneath the weight of the headphones. Stereo sound. Jimmy Page's guitar licks switching from left to right and back again. How cool was that?? It was alien and weird, and was so far removed from playing tag on the playground that I was convinced my brother had tapped into another universe with these albums he had.
I didn't realize you could go buy records. I figured these were the things given to you when you were born, and that you played over and over to add sound to your life like the people on TV had. And believe me, my brother had it covered. I liked his soundtrack better than mine. Mine consisted of The Sugarbears and, for some odd reason, Tommy James and the Shondells. I couldn't imagine why the rest of my life had to have Mony Mony in it, so I traded that for what was in my brother's collection.
He didn't explain to me how records were made. He didn't tell me how bands would come out with new albums, and that the radio would play their songs and their sales would skyrocket if something caught the public's attention. In my mind, these songs had -always- existed. Bo Diddly, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Queen. All these people and more came from a world where musicians lived eternally. They weren't born. They didn't have childhoods and they didn't have to struggle for airplay. They simply beamed their music from another planet where everyone came to life all grown up and ready to rock.
They all knew eachother, I was certain of this. Jim Morrison hung out with Robert Plant, probably over at John Lennon's house. When they decided to make music, that little man who lived up in the Sattelite (there was only one you know) would tell me who was going to be up next, and then the band would gather around the microphone and sing to me through the FM waves.
Albums were sacred. If they weren't, my brother wouldn't have threatened to kick my ass if I messed one up. So I'd sit as quiet as I could in his room, pulling the records out of their covers, looking at the sleeves...the lyrics...the weird pictures. Elton John always had the best album covers. I distinctly remember seeing lots of butts and tits on one cover...but they were on birds and animals. Did monkeys really have asses like that?? I really wanted to know!! Then I realized...these were creatures that lived on Rock Star Planet. Birds with huge boobs and Edgar Winter with lipstick on. That's what they had at the Rock Star Zoo.
I always liked it when my brother would forget I was there. He'd be slumped on his bed, checking out lyrics to a song, and we'd just sit in the big throb of sound that threatened to break the windows if he turned the stereo up much louder. Those were the times I could feel the music in my body. It thumped and hummed, and seemed to simmer my blood in my veins. I'd laugh when Frampton would sing with the voice-box. It sounded squawky, but my brother said it rocked. So it was said, so forevermore it would be. That's how it worked. What he said was gold...and when it came to music, there wasn't anyone else in the world who knew more than he did. So when I'd head back to my 4th grade class and tell them about Pink Floyd and Rush, they'd scrunch their noses up at me and run away across the playground with their Barbie dolls.
Alice Cooper scared me. The sound of him calling for 'Steven' would echo in my head as I ate my Spaghettios, or when I'd be walking home from the bus stop. It chased me down the dirt path that I'd run on when I'd cut across the graveyard to get to my grandma's house. It would tease me when I was in bed, staring at the glow of my night light. My brother tried to convince me that Alice was actually very cool, but between him and Gene Simmons of Kiss...I had realized that there was a haunted house on Rock Star Planet, and that's where these two guys lived. Black Sabbath and the Rolling Stones lived there too, along with that big robot monster on the front of Queen's album "News of the World". Seeing Freddy and crew all crumpled and dead in that robotic hand was just too much for me to handle. After all, I had a crush on that big toothed Freddy Mercury. He had huge brown eyes and he wore bright clothes that made him seem somewhat like the Pied Piper. It would be a number of blessed years before I understood exactly why Mr. Mercury fancied satins, silks and drama.
At any rate, I had a fantasy that the guys of Cheap Trick would save Queen from the robot monster. Sort of a Godzilla-esque daydream, where Rick Nielsen would shoot lazers from his double-necked guitar and save the day while Mick Jagger sang a battle cry of "Paint It Black". Why not? The hero sure wasn't going to be Cheap Trick's drummer, Bun E. Carlos. He was fat and dumpy, and reminded me of my math teacher...and so he was sent to the cellar with Keith Richards, where they'd chainsmoke cigarettes and wait for the threat to pass. This same scenerio would be played out when I heard "Live and Let Die" too. The crazy orchestra playing in that song creeped me out, and I couldn't listen to it while I was alone. I figured if a song could sound that powerful, that a rift between my world and the Rock Star Haunted House would open...and I'd be left to fight off Gene Simmons and his bloody tongue. Good god, that thought STILL scares me to this day.
As for The Beatles; they really confused me. I'd dance around the living room to "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" one moment, and then in the next I'd be left wondering what the hell 'monkey finger' was, and why anyone would want to sing about someone who had a toe-jam football. I knew what Coca-Cola was, but why would you want to shoot it? My dad shot a lot of things. Groundhogs primarily. We'd be on a family picnic, and while mom and I were feasting on our bologna and cheese, Dad would grab the shotgun from the window rack in the truck and blast the furry critters off the rocks nearby. I could freakishly relate to that (didn't everyone's Dad do that??)...but shooting Coca-Cola? Maybe Paul McCartney meant target practice with the Coke cans.
Some music didn't fit in the land of my imagination though. Closing my eyes and listening to Neil Young for the first time, the music sounded frail and thin...like old skin revealing too much of the guts beneath it. It clanked along as if he were sitting outside on the back porch, picking at my grandma's old banjo. An 8 year old shouldn't feel nostalgic, but looking back now... Neil had managed to pluck that chord within me. Perhaps that's why I'd take the monstrous headphones off...not wanting to hear him sing 'old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you were'. It just wasn't my time to realize how fleeting life was.
So, when I'd get too close to discovering the awful truths about life...I'd slip away from that secret place in my brother's room and disappear back into the world of an 8 year old kid. The screen door would slam behind me as my bare feet hit the sidewalk, and I'd be off into another endless summer day. I knew it would all be waiting for me when I returned...like a twisted Dorothy with her Oz. Just a click of the heels, a tap of needle to vinyl, and there was no place like home. No place like home. Just like Aerosmith sang... "Take me back to a south Tallahassee
Down cross the bridge to my sweet sassafrassy
Can't stand up on my feet in the city
Got to get back to the real nitty gritty.
Hoooome...sweeeeeeeeeeet...hooooooome."
The headphones my brother handed to me were so big that they seemed to engulf my entire head when I put them on. Big, black and cushy...they consumed my ears and sucked me into a void where nothing else existed except the music he was about to play.
I remember sitting on the edge of the bed anxiously, tugging at my knee socks and waiting for the snap and crackle of the needle to strike the edge of the vinyl record. It would steal my breath away, never failing to sweep me away into a journey that was better than Alice and Wonderland. It was like sneaking a peek at the splatter flick on late night television. It was getting away with stealing a truck full of cookies. It was rock and roll.
Introducing Led Zeppelin to an 8 year old's mind is a pretty dicey thing. I can only imagine how owlish I looked as John Bonham's meat-handed drums began to pound into my senses. Robert Plant screamed into my ears about giving me every inch of his love, and I would sit there with an oblivious gap-toothed grin, my head bobbing beneath the weight of the headphones. Stereo sound. Jimmy Page's guitar licks switching from left to right and back again. How cool was that?? It was alien and weird, and was so far removed from playing tag on the playground that I was convinced my brother had tapped into another universe with these albums he had.
I didn't realize you could go buy records. I figured these were the things given to you when you were born, and that you played over and over to add sound to your life like the people on TV had. And believe me, my brother had it covered. I liked his soundtrack better than mine. Mine consisted of The Sugarbears and, for some odd reason, Tommy James and the Shondells. I couldn't imagine why the rest of my life had to have Mony Mony in it, so I traded that for what was in my brother's collection.
He didn't explain to me how records were made. He didn't tell me how bands would come out with new albums, and that the radio would play their songs and their sales would skyrocket if something caught the public's attention. In my mind, these songs had -always- existed. Bo Diddly, Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Queen. All these people and more came from a world where musicians lived eternally. They weren't born. They didn't have childhoods and they didn't have to struggle for airplay. They simply beamed their music from another planet where everyone came to life all grown up and ready to rock.
They all knew eachother, I was certain of this. Jim Morrison hung out with Robert Plant, probably over at John Lennon's house. When they decided to make music, that little man who lived up in the Sattelite (there was only one you know) would tell me who was going to be up next, and then the band would gather around the microphone and sing to me through the FM waves.
Albums were sacred. If they weren't, my brother wouldn't have threatened to kick my ass if I messed one up. So I'd sit as quiet as I could in his room, pulling the records out of their covers, looking at the sleeves...the lyrics...the weird pictures. Elton John always had the best album covers. I distinctly remember seeing lots of butts and tits on one cover...but they were on birds and animals. Did monkeys really have asses like that?? I really wanted to know!! Then I realized...these were creatures that lived on Rock Star Planet. Birds with huge boobs and Edgar Winter with lipstick on. That's what they had at the Rock Star Zoo.
I always liked it when my brother would forget I was there. He'd be slumped on his bed, checking out lyrics to a song, and we'd just sit in the big throb of sound that threatened to break the windows if he turned the stereo up much louder. Those were the times I could feel the music in my body. It thumped and hummed, and seemed to simmer my blood in my veins. I'd laugh when Frampton would sing with the voice-box. It sounded squawky, but my brother said it rocked. So it was said, so forevermore it would be. That's how it worked. What he said was gold...and when it came to music, there wasn't anyone else in the world who knew more than he did. So when I'd head back to my 4th grade class and tell them about Pink Floyd and Rush, they'd scrunch their noses up at me and run away across the playground with their Barbie dolls.
Alice Cooper scared me. The sound of him calling for 'Steven' would echo in my head as I ate my Spaghettios, or when I'd be walking home from the bus stop. It chased me down the dirt path that I'd run on when I'd cut across the graveyard to get to my grandma's house. It would tease me when I was in bed, staring at the glow of my night light. My brother tried to convince me that Alice was actually very cool, but between him and Gene Simmons of Kiss...I had realized that there was a haunted house on Rock Star Planet, and that's where these two guys lived. Black Sabbath and the Rolling Stones lived there too, along with that big robot monster on the front of Queen's album "News of the World". Seeing Freddy and crew all crumpled and dead in that robotic hand was just too much for me to handle. After all, I had a crush on that big toothed Freddy Mercury. He had huge brown eyes and he wore bright clothes that made him seem somewhat like the Pied Piper. It would be a number of blessed years before I understood exactly why Mr. Mercury fancied satins, silks and drama.
At any rate, I had a fantasy that the guys of Cheap Trick would save Queen from the robot monster. Sort of a Godzilla-esque daydream, where Rick Nielsen would shoot lazers from his double-necked guitar and save the day while Mick Jagger sang a battle cry of "Paint It Black". Why not? The hero sure wasn't going to be Cheap Trick's drummer, Bun E. Carlos. He was fat and dumpy, and reminded me of my math teacher...and so he was sent to the cellar with Keith Richards, where they'd chainsmoke cigarettes and wait for the threat to pass. This same scenerio would be played out when I heard "Live and Let Die" too. The crazy orchestra playing in that song creeped me out, and I couldn't listen to it while I was alone. I figured if a song could sound that powerful, that a rift between my world and the Rock Star Haunted House would open...and I'd be left to fight off Gene Simmons and his bloody tongue. Good god, that thought STILL scares me to this day.
As for The Beatles; they really confused me. I'd dance around the living room to "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" one moment, and then in the next I'd be left wondering what the hell 'monkey finger' was, and why anyone would want to sing about someone who had a toe-jam football. I knew what Coca-Cola was, but why would you want to shoot it? My dad shot a lot of things. Groundhogs primarily. We'd be on a family picnic, and while mom and I were feasting on our bologna and cheese, Dad would grab the shotgun from the window rack in the truck and blast the furry critters off the rocks nearby. I could freakishly relate to that (didn't everyone's Dad do that??)...but shooting Coca-Cola? Maybe Paul McCartney meant target practice with the Coke cans.
Some music didn't fit in the land of my imagination though. Closing my eyes and listening to Neil Young for the first time, the music sounded frail and thin...like old skin revealing too much of the guts beneath it. It clanked along as if he were sitting outside on the back porch, picking at my grandma's old banjo. An 8 year old shouldn't feel nostalgic, but looking back now... Neil had managed to pluck that chord within me. Perhaps that's why I'd take the monstrous headphones off...not wanting to hear him sing 'old man take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you were'. It just wasn't my time to realize how fleeting life was.
So, when I'd get too close to discovering the awful truths about life...I'd slip away from that secret place in my brother's room and disappear back into the world of an 8 year old kid. The screen door would slam behind me as my bare feet hit the sidewalk, and I'd be off into another endless summer day. I knew it would all be waiting for me when I returned...like a twisted Dorothy with her Oz. Just a click of the heels, a tap of needle to vinyl, and there was no place like home. No place like home. Just like Aerosmith sang... "Take me back to a south Tallahassee
Down cross the bridge to my sweet sassafrassy
Can't stand up on my feet in the city
Got to get back to the real nitty gritty.
Hoooome...sweeeeeeeeeeet...hooooooome."
