Rock a My Soul

I like the rock. It's a plain fact. Ever since I was a young'un, music has played a big role in my life. One of my first memories, and this was confirmed by my parents, was groovin' as a 2-year-old to a song by Eric Burdon and War on the radio, which I'm guessing was "Spill the Wine" because that was the band's only hit at that time (1970).

The obsession continues to this day. Why, just last night I was at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston checking out the Sonic Youth/Feelies show. You can read my review for Senor Breitling's blog.

But the idea for this post actually came from Pitchfork, which runs a recurring feature called "5-10-15-20," in which artists talk about the music they listened to at 5-year intervals in their lives. Today's featured comic Aziz Ansari, an Indian homie who stars on NBC's "Parks and Recreation." I'm always interested in what other people are listening to, whether it's what's on their iPods or old mixtapes or in their entertainment centers.

So since I'm never going to be interviewed by Pitchfork, I'm going to take my own look at what I listened to starting at...

AGE 5
I was too young at this age to have my own music, so I mainly was stuck listening to whatever radio station my parents had on. At this point, in 1973, they were still listening to pop top 40 stations, as opposed to the easy listening stuff they got into later in the decade. One song I definitely remember digging was Jim Croce's "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," which was a pretty catchy tune. Come to think of it, I still like that song:




10
Okay, I'll admit it. I liked disco in 1978. Hey, I was 10. My parents were getting into it, my friends were into it, how could I not be also? I was listening to top 40 radio (Toronto's CHUM-AM 1050) and Andy Gibb was the king of the mountain that year, along with his brothers, the Bee Gees. They collaborated to make "Shadow Dancing" the biggest song of the year. And I dug it:




15
It was 1983. Life was much different for me than it had been five years earlier. At the end of '81, we moved from Canada to Washington state because my dad had found a new job. In June 1983, we moved once again, this time to New Hampshire. I was pissed off at everything and everybody. And I was listening to much heavier music. In truth, I started listening to hard rock in 1981, but a few years later, I was feeling pretty antisocial and metal brought an edge to that. Iron Maiden's Piece of Mind album came out the week before we moved; I actually carried the vinyl copy I had just purchased with me on the flight to NH. Couldn't wait to get there to listen to the record, but at the same time, I was totally bummed that I was leaving the few friends I had to move to yet another town and school. "Flight of Icarus" helped make that summer a little more bearable, even when I had a nasty case of poison ivy up my right arm:




20
The summer of 1988 was another pivotal time period in my life. I was doing a reporting internship at the Peabody Times newspaper after my junior year at UNH, getting a taste of the world of journalism. I was only earning $57 per week after taxes, so I ended up commuting to Peabody from my home in Kingston, NH. I listened to a lot of rock radio, mainly Boston's WBCN and Lynn's WFNX. My tastes were gradually shifting: I still dug the metal and hard rock, but also was getting into more of the so-called alternative rock: U2, REM, The Cure, Midnight Oil, in addition to bands like Guns 'N Roses, Living Colour and Jane's Addiction. There are any number of songs I could pick, but The Church's "Under the Milky Way" stands out because the jangly guitars were a real change from the meaty riffs I normally enjoyed:




25
On to the early '90s, 1993 to be exact. Another important year. After dating my girlfriend for four years (living together the last two), I found myself a single man again in the spring of '93. We had drifted apart and in June, I moved from the apartment we shared in Beverly (located in the house I own today--a story for another day) to a house in the middle of a field in Middleton, where I rented a room. I was excruciatingly lonely; it was a shock to the system to go from living with someone to essentially living on your own, even though there were three other guys in the house, including a 67-year-old divorced man who liked to walk around in his boxers. At the same time, I made a radical work shift, going from reporting to working as a design editor with a 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. workday. I was about as depressed as I've ever been. Really, all I had keeping me going was music. I had gotten caught up in the whole grunge thing: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains. But the album that really got to me was PJ Harvey's Rid of Me; the spare, atmospheric, claustrophic sound was in turns depressing and exhiliarating:



30
Fast forward five years. Life is great. I'm back in Beverly, working at a publishing company, dating the woman who would become my wife. Musically, I'm listening to a lot of alt-rock, but also getting into older punk stuff like the Stooges, Ramones, New York Dolls. Still, the album that kicked the most butt that year was Sloan's Navy Blues, which combined a lot of stuff I loved: hard rock, power pop, catchy melodies. And "Money City Maniacs" was (and still is) just immense:



35
Cue the new millennium. I'm married, with a one-year-old daughter. Life is very different, but all good. Musically, I was discovering lots of new bands through college radio and the Web. One such band was The Black Keys, a guitar-drums combo who played old-fashioned, greasy blues rock. It was glorious:




40
The big 4-0 arrived and life was still good. Now I had two kids and was enjoying a whole new set of challenges. Fortunately, there was still plenty of good music. I've documented what I've listened to for the last few years pretty closely here, but suffice it to say that King Khan and the Shrines' comp album The Supreme Genius of... was a kick-ass collection of rock 'n soul jams. Check this out:




So what will I be listening to at 45? I've got three years to go until I find out, but I don't expect to switch over to the easy listening station any time soon.