[Songs My Son Should Know] Oasis | Whatever / Wonderwall / Live Forever

It was a fine two weeks of Anglophilin' all up on the Brits during their big sporty showcase over the past two weeks -- and also reminded me to re-up my annual dues to The Culturists for the Queen, flip through old fanzines with articles praising Martin Rossiter and Louise Wener, and sniff my 90's-pressed vinyl copies of The Great Escape and Different Class. 

Yes, my fondness for Britain knows little boundary, excepts for the shitheads up at Old Trafford and maybe the entirety of UB40's discography.

However, for every Red, Red Wine, there are 30,000 examples of British kickassery: Tudor architecture; three button suits; The Kinks, Queen, and The Beatles; India pale ales; Earl Grey Tea; Bill Shakespeare, Dickens, Wilde, and Rowling; fish & chips; 007, Winston Churchill, Simon Cowell, and Kate Middleton; The EPL.   Alan Mother Fuckin' Shearer.

I could really just go on and on, can't I?  But I won't because people get real cautious of others who are too bent on the Eng-er-lish, and I don't want you to lose focus.

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It was the 21st day of April in 1996 -- a Sunday -- when my buddy Alex and I drank cans of Shiner Bock in the general admittance of the old Austin Music Hall, watching Oasis perform their album What's The Story Morning Glory with highlights interspersed from Definitely Maybe -- all at the frenzied apex of the band's world-wide popularity.

We felt like teenaged kings, drinking college beer, ditching the road-traveling school days of Friday and Monday, getting swallowed in the howl of a delirious crowd, and witnessing the extraordinary melodrama of the Ghallager brothers providing a spectacular circus assured to linger long in our cortices beyond the 90-minutes of this English brilliance.  It was an impact that cratered our fragile teenage emotions like soft earth, and likely diverted any residual senior-year shittiness into one of the best years in life.  

Bigger than the Beatles, they said.  Bigger than the fucking Beatles, indeed.

1. The Swamp Song
2. Acquiesce
3. Supersonic
4. Hello
5. Some Might Say
6. Roll With It
7. Morning Glory
8. Cigarettes & Alcohol
9. Champagne Supernova
10. Slide Away
11. Cast No Shadow
12. Whatever (w/ Octopus's Garden)
13. Wonderwall
14. Don't Look Back In Anger
15. Live Forever (encore)
16. I Am the Walrus (encore)

Back in those days, it was a serious pain in the buttox to get a hold of show tickets, and even more so when one was dealing with an out-of-town gig.  You actually had to talk to a human about it.

I really can't even remember how or when specifically we had the brilliant idea to leave town for that weekend -- probably missing some crucial exam -- to act like higher type of class at the old Ginger Man when it was still spectacular and The Tavern before it had 6,000 TVs.

Somehow, we did persevere through the trials of the 1990s-TicketMaster grind, my brother Chris' janky Ford Escort, the middling Sonora to Ozona Dairy Queen HungerBuster shits, and my other brother's pre-hipsta South Lamar apartment linoleum.  Its those kind of trip descriptions that makes one remember it as being legendary of sorts.  We thought it was, at least.

So, as I was saying, I don't know exactly how or when we made the final decision to embark on this adventure, but I would say that this is the song that provided the 'why'.  If I could take away one song from the final semester of 1996, I would say that this would be it.  "Whatever" was never on an official album release, which meant Alex and I wore the fuck out of the 3-song CD single with the constant reversing of the CD skip button.

But let me back up a substantial bit and reflect on the personal devotion to the band as a 17-year old American living by the gospel of MTV Europe while studying abroad in Scandinavia.

By the time I reached my temporary destination of Denmark in the summer of 1995, Oasis was fairly acquainted with Radio 1 and Top of the Pops in Europe on the strength of their first album.

But that was nothing -- I mean, really, nothing -- compared to the hysteria caused by their second album, which dropped in the Fall of that year.  Wonderwall could not be overlooked, even by lift operators and chimney sweeps, shut out from society all through the day.

One of my most distinct memories is seeing -- possibly hearing -- this track for the very first time in the living room of one of my Danish friends apartment.  The memory of that is just burned right up there in my head, forever.

And finally, the song that started all the hysteria in the first place and tapped the world on its unsuspecting shoulder.  Live Forever is as tied to Brittania lore as Queen Elizabeth's handbags, and continues on as perhaps be the greatest closer in concert history.  Most definitely, maybe.

Gonna live forever.

[Songs My Son Should Know] Summer Soundtrack Part II (2012)

How does the saying go?  Better a shit summer day in Northern Michigan than a good day in the furnace of Central Texas.

Only, fucking hell, the weather didn't exactly cooperate this year at all, and all the beanies I packed with glorious anticipation of an icy 65° became just beer padding for the plane ride back home instead. 

Sweaty or not, there are few things better than having fuck all to do with anything beyond starting a fire in the woods and popping the caps off regional beers with the ass-end of a cigarette lighter.  Oh, and the grilled meat.  Grilled meat is also a large part of our summer zodiac; along with a relevant and a highly anticipated summer soundtrack.  No other season tithes your memory bank quite like summer jams do -- songs made more magnificent by persistent twilight and the aromas of hops and burning animal flesh .  This is how we've come to know summer.

During our trek from Detoit to Tahquamenon Falls in Michigan's Upper Peninsula by way of Traverse City, and then back down again to Detroit by way of Lansing -- a trip that canvassed 1200 miles of the country's shittiest roads -- we somehow missed the iPod auxiliary connection cord that sat dormant in the glove box of our piece of shit rental.  This made for a lot of regretful words as we're pulling into the rental return at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport.  We listened to a metric asstonne of horrible early-aughts Nashville Country and everything Clear Channel throws at its insipid audience.  It got really bad at about the 600 mile mark, so a lot of times we just drove in silence, waiting for another campsite with which to plug in the portable iPod player.  

 At those interim checkpoints, there were three songs that persevered over the summer lull, each with a distinct memory of another great summer trip -- this time with our small rapscallion in tow.

The Walkmen | Heartbreaker

We discovered very quickly how awesome this album was by the early part of the summer, particularly during the drinking hours -- so we thought we'd bring it along for a nice holiday.  We didn't however, realize the greatness of this particular track until we were somewhere above the 45th parallel.  Every summer needs a poppy track to get the momentum swinging towards epic.

Beach House | Wild

One of the byproducts of camping, and nature-ing in general, is the inevitable request for a foot hike.  Look, I really DO enjoy hiking.  Hiking is fun -- but Melissa tends to overestimate my will and ability to haul 200lbs across uneven terrain in the dead of day.  One time she took me on a 5 hour hike through the Atlantic rainforest of Brazil's Ilha Grande that led to a secret, gorgeous beach (#humblebrag) -- only it wasn't so secret when a boatload (like literally a boat-load) of rested tourists sauntered up to our spread with their own, freshly folded tapestries. So, fuck hikes.

This time, Melissa took my ass through the Vietjungles of Tahquamenon Falls which felt more like survival than recreation.  Melissa at one point wanted to stop and eat some chips and I was thirsty as balls so I had to use most of my will power to not crush the damn chips in protest.  Also, there was the minor threat of bears eating our small child as we waddled through Charlie-land. 

So, what better way to ignore these concerns than to chirp indie hits at a mostly deranged decibel level?  Song of choice: Beach House's Wild.  We eventually made it -- out into the gorgeous mouth of the Falls and up into the local brewery. 

Dirty Projectors | Impregnable Question

There is always a cerebral point in the summertime -- or at least something to reflect on.  I guess I was too lazy to really think during the summer, coming off a crazy year, but this song felt like it fit that bill.  Its a great song for long rides and last calls. 

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Yeah, its a concise setlist due to dumbassery on my part, but I think that its pretty poignant and speaks well to the adventures of Enzo's first summer in Michigan.
 

You can enjoy the tracks of [SMSSK] all in one place! [An Avenue] is down with Spotify, so clickity click.

[Songs My Son Should Know] Summer Soundtrack Part I (2011)

One of the great ceremonies of summer is the ritual of making that idyllic road trip through the arterial veins of this country's underbelly.  In doing so, having a soundtrack that will narrate the exploits over those two days on the road -- or two weeks, for the more adventurous -- is an absolute necessity in order to acoustically chronicle all of the badassery and dumbfuckery that was had, along with all of the associated life lessons that were learned.

As in the summer-centric film industry, July means large-scale rhetoric of symphonic compositions and anthemic refrains that suggest celebration, bemusement, introspection; all of the spectral moods of summer.  When quarantined to a domestic crossover vehicle and beholden to a Congressional Library's worth of musical material in the iPod for eight and nine hours per day, you tend to develop some strong feelings towards all kinds of shit going on in your little mobile prison, both positive and negative. 

This was the soundtrack to my small family's 2011 Heartland road trip which consisted of my pregnant wife, our 65lb German Shepherd, Enzo the Fetus, and me.  Sounds like a kickass boys weekend don't it?  Well, I did get to visit a shitload of microbreweries and pave the entire rear floorboard with rare bombers, so, yes ... it kinda killed.

The Antlers | I Don't Want Love

I Don't Want Love got a ton of love on the way up north, primarily because we had just seen these dudes live at the old Emo's (RIP) a couple weeks before our departure.  It was another one of Enzo's in utero gigs, and the album ended up being my #1 of 2011.

Beruit | East Harlem

Driving through Tennessee and Kentucky is actually kind of beautiful, and in doing so, requires an equally pretty accompaniment.  It is a good long-state song, because the horns stick with you long past the track's duration -- which is necessary absentminded fodder when your navigator is taking another nap.

Cut Copy | Need You Now

 I can't say for sure, but I can't image that synth-pop will be exceptionally attractive to the acoustic senses of our young descendents.  Synth appears to have come on strong during the crystalline-drugged decade of the 1980s and returned for another run at the methamphetamic generation of the late-aughts.  I don't think it will get another chance at another hopped up generation, because its not that long until the Wyld Stallyns bring about universal harmony and everyone is wildin' out to Joe Satriani hymnals and wearing Oakleys.

Such a shame, because Cut Copy are tits.  As another part of Enzo's Gestational Gig Series (EGGS), Melissa and I got all electro-clashed in Detroit when we saw them perform their album Zonoscope and all their highlights from In Ghost Colors.  This was the opening number, and its a fucking treat to rock with the people of Rock City, and especially seeing your very pregnant wife dancing to electronica on top of a bench.

Bon Iver | Calgary

We depended a lot on Sirius' XMU and Josiah -- my dude on the decks -- to get us through the boring stretches of flyover country.  He always knew the right time to play it -- when things were getting contemplative and I'm dreaming about the imminent White Castle feast I would be partaking in.  That bastard Carles outright refused to throw me a bone.

M83 | Midnight City

And here was the pastoral anthem, the heroic closer to an epic summer soundtrack -- leading us across borders homeward, brisking into the state from which we were torpedoed three weeks prior; entering the outskirts in its acerbic opening riffs and minding the view of the city as it calmly boils to saxophone and longing.