Midnight Memories

It’s just noise. That’s the common refrain heard by every child about their music from every parent. You heard it. I heard it … especially when I was listening to Diesel Rhino.

Of course, it goes the other way around, too. The younger generation has a hard time coming to grips with the music of its elders. They don’t understand why their parents and grandparents like what they do as much as they do. I remember taking road trips with my grandparents, and the scariest thing I’d hear was, “Let’s listen to Boxcar Willie one more time.” My soul would scream. I could not understand the appeal of Boxcar Willie. I couldn’t relate to him or his songs. Nor could I relate to my dad’s love of Johnny Mathis, or my mother’s need to play Judy Collins.

On the flip side of that, I’m sure my parents cringed whenever they heard Kiss, Iron Maiden, or later on – Skinny Puppy. How could my parents relate to it? It wasn’t their music, and it wasn’t their memories.

That’s where the power lies. Music moves people for different reasons. It creates different memories in different people. How it connects with you as a child may be different than how it connects with you as an adult, but if that connection was strong enough when it originally was created, it will most likely always stick with you no matter how little you listen to it in your later years. I do not listen to Kiss much these days, but if it comes on Sirius, I’ll crank it up and I’ll have some sort of memory attached to it. The last bit of music I bought was Essence! by Death in June. I do not have early memories attached to that band, but I’m interested in making new ones – a new soundtrack for this point of my life. I don’t just stick with the songs and albums I know. My parents did the same thing. I remember my mother buying the newest Blondie release. I remember my dad getting excited when he got a new Anne Murray eight-track.

The music that sticks, though, is what we’ll never understand between generations. We don’t share the memories and that’s okay. We’ll go on not understanding each other’s music choices and it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t diminish either side in either way. We don’t have to understand each other in this sense because it’s so personal that it could never be fully understood anyway. Just remember that the next time you question your grandparent’s love of Boxcar Willie, though I have a hard time coming to grips with that ever being an acceptable music choice.

Music to Murder By

I've been listening to Skinny Puppy since the late '80s.  It was a mainstay in the Walkman on the way to school, an outlet from the human misery that was high school.  The sounds swirling in my brain were nothing short of a nightmare.  There were rumors (I have no idea if they were true or not) that Jeffrey Dahmer looked for victims at Skinny Puppy shows.

That seems about right.

These days I listen to the band on the way to work as part of my "meet, greet and beat" the day routine. Tonight I was blasting a little of the industrial mayhem when I got a call from a friend.  He could hear the music in the background and surmised that I was either writing or carving up some door to door salesman because, as he put it, "Skinny Puppy is music to murder by."  Hell, it beats reggae.

Skinny Puppy is by no means an easy band to digest.  You aren't going to listen to it while trying to study for a big final or paint landscapes (unless those landscapes are what Vlad the Impaler saw from his bedroom window).  It's not that it's too bleak or violent (though it is), it's because it really is a nightmare made audible.



I remember when I first had a fairly decent stereo system in my room.  There were speakers in every corner, and playing Skinny Puppy on it and sitting in the middle of the room was quite the trip.  My brother's girlfriend came over, and while waiting for my brother to show up she made the offhand comment that she didn't think I could scare her.  (She didn't like me much, as I often made fun of her love of Air Supply, but if there's one thing I do well, it's scare people.  I will go that extra mile to get the desired result.)  So I took her up on the challenge.

I placed a chair in the middle of my room.  I had her sit down.  I turned out the lights and put on Too Dark Park, which is a classic.  I let her know all she had to do was say she was scared and I'd turn off the music and turn on the lights.  She said the music was weird, but it wasn't scaring her.  I didn't think it would, but the things I started whispering in her ear did.  Wonderfully dark and forbidden things.   By the time we made it halfway through the second song, "Tormentor," she was done.  She was shaking, and she never really talked to me again.  I proved my point.  She was wrong.



I don't always listen to Skinny Puppy while writing.  I typically only listen to it when I'm writing certain scenes, as I can't see making it a soundtrack to a manuscript.  (There is a scene in Melinda that was written under the influence of Skinny Puppy.  If you've read the story and have listened to the band, you can probably guess it.  The story itself does not seem like it is inspired by the band's music, and it's not, but that scene has a Skinny Puppy feel to it, and the way I wrote it directly corresponded to the song I was playing as I wrote it.  The song was "Testure (God Lives Underwater Remix)," if you were curious.)  It is too busy to center an entire novel around, but as a scene setter few can beat it.

I wasn't murdering anything but characters tonight, but Skinny Puppy was playing.  Had a door-to-door salesman come to the door, however, I can't guarantee I wouldn't screwed with him just a bit.  Maybe said some of those dark and forbidden things.  And people think hip hop is dangerous...


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The Amazing Power of Lard

I never thought Jello Biafra would work well with industrial music, but when I heard Lard I realized I was wrong. It actually works really well.

Industrial music is one of those things you either like or don't. I can understand why some people just can't get into the repetitive sounds and jarring noises. Some people don't like the fascist links/imagery to some of the music. For me, however, the music is a powerful mood booster that helps me face the day. Driving in to work listening to Ministry helps me get through the day. Writing to Skinny Puppy sets the mood. Listening to Lard inspires me.

Like metal, the industrial music of the eighties and nineties is powerful stuff meant to evoke emotions. It succeeds. Heck, I remember reading a report that Jeffrey Dahmer looked for victims at a Skinny Puppy show. I never knew if it were true or not, but it did seem fitting. That music would attract that sort of thing.

I once played Too Dark Park for one of my brother's girlfriends. She liked Air Supply and had never heard anything like it. She described it as "scary" and made me turn it off.

And that is why I like it. It accomplishes its goal. Granted, there are always arguments about what is industrial versus what isn't, but set those aside and you find a genre that actually succeeds on the level it is playing on. It attracts the right kind of listener and alienates the wrong.

If only hip hop were so lucky.

4/20 Is Coming

4/20 is tomorrow, and while potheads take to various parks around the county, the sounds of reggae will once again become prevalent in this great county. As if Reggae on the River wasn't enough.

I have no problem with drugs or music to do drugs to. I don't take drugs myself, but I have no doubt that techno is easier to tolerate if you've got Ecstasy coursing through your system. Reggae, however, just irritates me to no end. I must admit, though, its inherent musical laziness fits the whole pot vibe perfectly.

There's an old punk song by a band whose name I can't remember this late on a Sunday called "Reggae Gets Us Laid." The song can be found on the "Get the Hell Out" CD, which is a compilation of Leigh Valley, PA punk bands. The song is pretty accurate. Reggae bands get laid because pothead females are easy if they think pot will be involved at some point.

Of all the different musical genres, reggae, contemporary country and opera are the ones I dislike the most. Reggae, however, is the only one out of the bunch that I dislike mostly because of its fans. They are just so damn annoying (almost as bad as Phish fans) that I can't help but hate the music.

Give me some GG Allin, Skinny Puppy, Pantera or Jane's Addiction any day. All of those acts had performers on drugs, many of whom even wrote songs about drugs ... drugs much harder than pot, too. But they were proactive. They didn't sit back, smoke a joint and watch the sun go down. They got angry, violent, crazy. They are everything reggae is not and never could be.

Yeah, 4/20 is coming. I think I'll blare Nashville Pussy's "High As Hell" and know that even if you like your drugs, you're still a musical loser if you listen to reggae.