An Audio Story

I wonder about the power of music, and I worried about writing this story. And is it a story? Am I giving you a real narrative? I have had a very hard time with this particular piece, and I had to write down all of my material in freehand before I could even think about typing this out. And I needed a particular set of rules:

• I would limit myself to ten musical moments or songs (I could not be as strict as some of the others out there who limited themselves to one track from one musician or group). Not a complete portrait, but pretty close.

• I would go back to my childhood and try to bring the list up to the present day (I did not want to get stuck to a particular past).

• I would embarrass myself (the best errors of my musical past provide the best lessons).

So, here we go…

1. Sharon, Lois and Bram – “Smorgasbord”: This trio of performers had a huge impact on the childhoods of many Canadians, and I was completely hooked by them. My half-sister had given me a small turntable as a Christmas gift and I was fascinated by it, especially since I had no albums to play on it besides the ones my father had in his collection (not really my style…yet). That was a problem that I soon solved once my mother took me to the library and I realized that you could borrow more than just the occasional book. The strange thing is that no one introduced me to their music. I had no friends who listened to their music. No teacher had them as part of a lesson plan. It was my own instincts that led me to the wonderful image of the three of them sitting in front an overloaded table of food from around the world. And the music itself was also just as diverse, colourful and inspiring.

2. The Beatles – “Yellow Submarine”: This one was, once again, a discovery I made on my own. Yes, I knew that there were many adults and friends around me who knew the Fab Four and had fond memories of their first encounter with them (one friend’s mother even trusted me enough to let me borrow a picture-sleeved 45 of “Do You Want to Know a Secret? /A Taste of Honey” – I handled it better than Sotheby’s with a Van Gogh painting). I had even heard some of those early hits and found them…charming. But not really inspiring (“She Loves You” did not seem that far from the noises you could hear on the rest of AM radio). And then, one Saturday or Friday night, I watched their animated classic and finally got it. This band went beyond the conventions of their time and created a body of work that may never age (I was particularly moved by the “Eleanor Rigby,” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” and “Nowhere Man” sections, the latter being one of the first Beatle songs I learned to play on the guitar). I am still grateful for my childhood curiosity.

3. Mahalia Jackson – “Go Tell It on the Mountain”/ Joan Jett and the Blackhearts – “I Love Rock and Roll”: Yeah, yeah, it is a weird pairing, but I can explain… The first person I ever saw with a guitar that I could call a “rock star” was Ms. JJ. And the interesting thing about that was everyone in my family loved her. And they loved that song (my cousins would sing it when it was played on their turntables and stereos). So, she was important as an introduction to what a rock star could be. And Ms. Jackson also played an important role. We had a Christmas album with a pop-out scene of the Nativity when you opened the gatefold (a nice touch). There were tracks by Nat King Cole and Dean Martin (his version of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” should be more of a classic). And then there was Mahalia. I had never heard anyone that passionate performing solo with such a voice; I had never really heard anyone besides the people in my church pews singing religious tracks (not quite Catholic chanting there). So, I have no choice but to put these two women together in my musical thoughts: one for the attitude, the other for the voice. Thank you, ladies.

4. The entire oeuvre of Supertramp from 1974 to 1982: Okay, another explanation. I was a total and complete fan of the group when I was a child. Apart from S, L and B, I would play their records and the occasional birthday gift of a tape when I could. And I was lost. It got so bad with this particular musical addiction that I could name every track off of every record in order if called upon to do so (no one ever asked, but still…) There were plenty of embarrassing moments when I should have kept this interest to myself, but I also had a few supporters. At summer camp, counselors would discuss the merits of “Breakfast in America”; a Canadian television program called W5 used “Fool’s Overture” as theme music; parents of the most heavy-metalloid kids were impressed that I carried around copies of “Crime of the Century” and “Even in the Quietest Moments”. So, I owe them, too. Approval mattered to me. And then, there was the turn…

5. R.E.M. – “Feeling Gravitys Pull/Pretty Persuasion”: 1985 was the year when things truly began to change for me; the turn was taking place. First, I switched from AM to FM radio (something that was significant at the time; friends wondered why it took me so long). I also had my brother’s guitar – long abandoned by him – and was making some progress with it. But I realized that I did not want to play Supertramp or S, L and B on it. I wanted to play something that was easy for my naïve hands. And independent music helped. Now, R.E.M. was not the first indie band I heard (there were punk and new wave groups all around the early 80s), but I had not heard anything like those two tracks when they were played back to back one night on a late-night video show. Peter Buck’s guitar lick on the former got under my skin, caught my ears, and would not let me go (I learned it almost by accident quite soon); Michael Stipe’s interesting editing choices in the video for the latter stood out for me as much as the music. You did not have to follow all of the predictable patterns that were being thrown at us throughout that decade and it was a relief to hear a band trying something so different. Nothing about this music made me popular. No one had even heard of them; no one liked what I would play on my stereo. And I did not care. The sound was worth the ostracism. I was now the “weird one with the weird music” (some variant on that quote was thrown at me). Good… I have recently been proven to be so correct.

6. Public Enemy – “Don’t Believe the Hype”: And now we get to one of the most exciting new musical forms of the last fifty years. I have a very long and spotted history as a lover of hip-hop and rap. I admired and loved the Sugarhill Gang, Fab Five Freddy, Grandmaster Flash with his Five and Three, Kurtis Blow, all those early break-dancing movies and the fashion (never could afford all that Adidas). But then, it stopped. By the time I discovered R.E.M., rap music had become a serious force on the charts…and I ignored it. Run-DMC and Beastie Boys seemed very suspect to me. First, they were popular with the very people who never listened to anything exciting or new. Second, these same people would get on my case about not being a fan (being black in the Golden Horseshoe of Ontario was a tricky tightrope walk). I liked some of the music, but I never bought the records or became so fanatical that I would dress like the people in those videos or on those album covers (plenty of the white kids in my school wanted to be black). It was not my thing. And then, there was a trip. The summer of ’88 saw me being sent overseas to visit family in London, England. I knew very little about them, hated most of the time I spent in the East End when I was in their company (always happier when travelling about on my own – tricky as a fourteen-year-old), and had the stereotypical complaints about the food and weather (justified, believe me). What they did have that impressed me was the music. Public Enemy’s second record was a top-ten hit, and this particular track woke me up and made me aware that hip-hop was going through a second phase, much in the same way rock and roll did after the British Invasion (gotta thank the Brits…twice). They opened my ears up to the brilliance of the rhyme, samplers, and attitude.

7. Cowboy Junkies/Velvet Underground – “Sweet Jane”: Again, I find myself turning to two groups with very different sounds and impacts. But this is a special case. First, I heard Canada’s own version of Lou Reed’s classic. And then, the real shock, the discovery that the two songs were on very different plains of audio experience. How did they do it? How did Margo Timmins and company find a new way into the track with such a beautiful creation that even the poet laureate of New York – Lou, again - declared himself a fan? There are some mysteries that cannot be solved. But I did learn that what you take away from a song, and what is added to it, creates a very different emotional experience. And this turned out to be another track that easily transposed to my weak guitar skills. I remain a grateful student of this simple work…

8. Nirvana – “Smells like Teen Spirit”: Okay, okay…an obvious one, maybe, but it was not so obvious to me at the time that things had changed. I had been playing the guitar for quite some time when Kurt and company appeared on the charts. But the popular music at the time was rap, dance and techno, with a large amount of pop and other musical mush on the charts. So, to sit in our front room and hear a kid in what looked liked the most chaotic pep rally in music video history both mumble and scream and advise people to “load up on drugs and bring your friends” was more amusing that life-changing (I had already seen these actions up close in many live gigs and unforgettable house parties). Honestly, it seemed to be another song that I would like that most of the world would forget. And its popularity disturbed me. I knew it was the music that I had been hoping to hear on the charts for years and years, but there is something to be said for the fight, not the win. “Nevermind” came out the day before my eighteenth birthday…and I ignored it. Not that ignored the songs that were released later – “Lithium”, “Polly”, “Territorial Pissings” still rock – but I did not buy the album. When Depeche Mode fans begin to dress like polyester and lumberjack wear are king, I become very suspicious. But I had my turn. And I did love the song, especially when I learned to play it from a friend and impressed quite a few people (okay, girls). Such a short ride with grunge, but it was a fun trip…

9. Eminem – “The Real Slim Shady”: And then I was teaching overseas, trying to save some money for a return to school. I was into dance music, jazz – a real love that was easy to indulge in with clubbing and various festivals – and what we love to call world music. Fela Kuti had just passed away, and all of his music was reissued on CD, often as double albums. That was on my playlist, not hip hop or rap. The reason why I listened to Marshall Mathers was chance. I often went to Tower Records – remember them? – and found a copy of “The Marshall Mathers LP” at a listening station…and always returned to the same spot to hear it. I had to buy it after the security guards wondered if I was casing the place. It was too funny to ignore – a real comedy album – and his verbal skills were truly remarkable (I could have picked “The Way I Am”, “Stan”, “Marshall Mathers” or almost any other track). The one I picked was the most popular one in the house I lived in and shared with many people who knew more about him than I ever did. And I was back to rap…

10? Well, I said that I would end this with ten sounds (not music; I kind of cheated there). I think that the best way for me to end this is to say that the music that gets to this position is always the next great surprise out there.

There is so much out there that I love and that I hope you get to love.

Now, open your ears and listen...

Thank you for reading!

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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