[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.

[Songs My Son Should Know] Tamba Trio | Mas Que Nada

Sometimes life comes at you slow, sometimes life is very easy.  Its an open-net sitter, and all that was required of your efforts was to be in the right place at the right time.

In fact, life is not as hard as we allude to in text form or around attentive audiences.  Perceived strife is empathy, and I get why we are normalized to do it.  Tension builds an audience and it captivates people.  Some people cannot even have a simple conversation without some sort of labored monologue.  This is how cable news networks overwhelmingly succeed and the Hallmark Channel is buried somewhere deep in the lower 300s of your dial.  Also, this is why women have -- and keep -- crazy friends.  Its both entertaining and therapeutic for everybody.

But life slows down if you allow it.  It will let you pause and have a lengthy look around the place.   Life is very spectacular most of the time, it really is.  It is when you begin living for moments -- and recognizing when you are actually in one, that things start to really get good.

Living in a moment is the primary canon to life; becoming fully cognizant as if in a wonderful dream, infallible for the next minute-and-a-half before alert consciousness takes you over.  It is what separates us from lesser intelligent species, recognizing that fleeting moments don't return, programming ourselves to capture them internally. 

We remember seemingly inconsequential moments because somehow they've impacted us so profoundly, but like a janitorial keyring, you have to remember what emotion they unlock -- pride, love, comfort, exhilaration.  I still remember what it was like to be proud of myself for a shitty Honorable Mention in kindergarten.  Its very possible that the motivation to succeed could have stemmed from that.  I remember what it was like to kiss my wife for the first time -- not why or how or where, anyone would remember that -- but what it was physically and emotionally like; awkward and sweet.  Life slowed down for me when I met her.  It got better.  These kinds of moments have to be internalized because they will stay with you and guide you forever.

Something your mother and I are really, really trying to be perceptive of is how much we enjoying each of those moments with you.  Yes, we will remember the first teeth, the first steps, the millionth laugh -- but we also remember your first look of recognition, the first time you looked upon mom and me as if you had wished on everything for us.  How happy it made us that you approved of who we were, and that it meant everything to you to be a part of our small family. You were all we wished for too.  We remember.

For our first anniversary, your mother and I set out on kind-of a big fucking adventure knowing that the chances of being as whimsical and free of the real-deal responsibilities in the near future were dwindling.  Mom had the hilarious idea to try to invent you on this trip, and together we were dead set on naming you after the relevant city: Rio.  Relax,  it could have been Casablanca had only Morocco been more inviting to its female guests.

If you do the maths, well, obviously, that didn't happen.  You granted us a couple more months of leisure and latitude that we parlayed to a bunch of really fun, really drunk nights of scenester dancing.  I thank you for this because this is surely something that would have never been a part of our history -- your mothers and mine -- because, though short-lived, it was fucking wild and fucking spontaneous, and just generally a nice time to spend as a happy couple.  A moment.

But back to Brazil: One of my favorite memories -- one of those nearly imperceptible life-moments that I've been going on about here -- was after our visit to the top of Corcovado to see Cristo Redentor.    Shopping around the district of Ipanema, we deviated into a very quiet and quaint record store, more similarly resembling a musical library than a place of commerce.  There was a kind, older gentleman keeping inventory of the place, which would have been better suited in an educational setting or research institution someplace away from the bustle of Rio.  The gentleman, without other customers to tend to (not that it would have mattered)  led your mother and I on a very precise and historical audio tour of Brazil's most famous musical export: Bossa Nova, playing one record after the next with the grace of a professor and the enthusiasm of a student.

This was a moment.  I could remember myself thinking that: remember everything, as if willing myself to internally ledger the smells of the vinyl, the very low din of ambient noises coming from the megalopolis of 13 million people, painted and accompanied onto the pantomimed bodies of women in sarongs walking towards the beach and men in yellow Brazil jerseys walking to the pub.  There was something so pure and genuine about listening to first-print records from this man's impressive, but concise collection.  This was an art class taught by the distinguished scholar, surreal in perspective, as we were his only audience, surreal in proximity because we were literally in the center of Brazil's cultural mass of humanity.

The next record played, and he lit a smile:

At this point in time, as I'm listening to him precisely place the correct "ba-bum" percussion beats with his articulators, it is quite difficult to resist a squeeze of your mother's hand in silent urge to cede our former lives, take up a small residence near the beach, and set forth on an alternate autobiographical path.  It was in that moment, where the bustle of soot and industry and millions futbol fans bypassing the storefront, that time slowed to its most deliberate crawl.  I'm telling you son, find these moments and capture them.

Instead of selling our worldly possessions and camping on the beach forever, we regained our sensibilities and went to a Bossa Nova niteclub instead.  Gruff with knowledge and perspective, we proceeded to drink rum-and-cokes and "ba-buh" to the beats until we could no longer distinguish between Portuguese and a stapler.  We smiled at people when they looked at us.

Life is just a collection of these moments, and the way you process them, sequence, and recollect them makes your own library of nostalgia.  That is what I live for, this is how I slow life down because it will move too fast if you let it.

[Songs My Son Should Know] Band of Horses | Marry Song

The third date with a one you've been fancying is probably around the time when you start attaching together pieces of the puzzle that ask your subconscious, 'so, where is this going'?  

But with Melissa, I had already gained that insight.  This gig was going on  a week-long, college-style, fun-bender to San Francisco; away the sultry heat of Arizona with a family-sized back of jerky, a 6 hour playlist that would have to be played twice, a winery map, and one trusty Japanese SUV.  That was it.  That was the third date.  Two unfamiliar people mapping out a future together, immediate and distant, 12 hours or 60 years?

That was the July of 2007.

Two summers later we were off to the other coast, New York City, exchanging nuptials like graduates of La Société de la Fortune, alma mater to the colleges of  Preparation & Opportunity, an imagined Wes Anderson plotline with an ensemble cast of friends and family, thoughtful dialogue, strange happenstance, and most importantly, a poignant soundtrack. 

With every great film score comes the definitive musical crux of the story's plot -- Mark Renton's flop house Perfect Day, Max Fisher's Ohh La La moment, or The Dude's Man in Me.  There is so much derivative meaning in music, and we found it crucial to heighten the emotion of the room set to the climax of our courtship biography.

Not only should the song be hopeful, but also triumphant, peddling towards life's dénouement with the aplomb of an old French man with dinner groceries.  The delivery should not be pantomimed or false or have veiled social critique.  It should not have opposition to the context in which it is be used; Marriage should be its only category.  It should not be clumsy or used; its message aesthetic and pretty.

Though obvious in name, Marry Song is inconspicuous in public ovation.  The meter wavers with both pace and patience, an important characteristic for dancing through a marriage through its seeding and its harvest.  Its message is spartan in its approach, stripped and honest, like a telegram.  It presents love as a humble dowry, weary minds long pursuing peace. 

This was the Express to San Fransico five years ago.  She is gone now, but may she live forever.