Music and Me

Music rules. I’ve always liked the band The Killers. Sometimes I feel like its bordering guilty pleasure music, but the drummer is astounding and that’s what got me into that band back when Hot Fuss was released. I remember hearing Jenny Was a Friend of Mine and thinking wow, these drums are energizing. Hearing more of the album I realize the drummer can really play behind the beat, in front of it, and right on top of the beat and he has some really cool fills. Nothing complicated, but the kind that make you play air drums during the song for emphasis. What’s more is I’m even hearing the bass in these songs. Maybe it’s being a guitarist, but I rarely find bass that interesting, see Schism by Tool for one of the best bass leads I’ve ever heard. (photo: Ronnie Vanucci of The Killers putting an emphasis to a few simple notes)

So besides how cool it is that all this is already flowing through my head in just a few seconds of hearing music - two days ago I realized The Killers had a b-sides album I had never heard about. That this is pretty bold to release a b-sides album when you only have something like 3 full length albums. Regardless, I picked it up and they have a cover of a Joy Division song called Shadowplay. I know nothing about Joy Division other than who they were, but this song basically has the drums as the lead (main) instrument which sounds so awesome. Not many songs like that; Everlong I’d argue the drums are the lead instrument in that song. Anyway, the beat of this song is amazing. There is an electronic drum beat, but a real kit in there too and the way Vanucci makes use of an open and closed high-hat in between verses really hooks you in. Soon enough I’m on YouTube comparing The Killers version to the original by Joy Division and there is a live video of them from 1978 – cool! This tune is VERY catchy and the sound of an electronic beat getting interupted by a real drum kit sounds amazing. Listen to this Killers version solely for the amazing drum beat by Vanucci.

But the whole point of what I’m getting at here is that an often overlooked band like The Killers just introduced me to Joy Division. How cool is that? Music does this to me all the time. It’s rarely with cover songs though. Usually I’ll hear a phrase of a song that sounds like another song and it’ll remind me to listen to that song/band and it’s just a domino effect from that point on. Pretty soon I’m holding my guitar and trying to play different things or just improvise over them. We rip off music from each other every day, but it’s ok. That’s music. You take snippets here and there and make it your own. Anyone who plays rock n’ roll I would argue is ripping off Chuck Berry and maybe Berry ripped off Robert Johnson, etc. Plenty of professional musicians will tell you they made a living on ripping of other licks and beats and phrases they have heard. Although that is exaggerating things, there is truth to it as well. Yesterday I had never heard the music of Joy Division, now I have a new respect for them and have an interest in acquiring some of their tunes to see if I’d like more of them.

I’ll end this with going back to The Killers. I really like the album Hot Fuss, but every day their album Day & Age grows on me. Not so much because the whole album is good – it’s not. But the first half of the album has an amazing tribute to 80’s music. There are so many traces of licks and beats and just little things from the 80’s that I can’t begin to start naming the bands they borrowed these ideas from (The Cure, Depeche Mode, lots of one hit wonders that I couldn't place, and even a reminiscence of Cindy Lauper). I'm not saying I like any of that 80's music - it's not the point. To me this is pretty amazing how we take music and re-arrange the puzzle to make something completely new, yet we never lose sight of those before us regardless of our like or dislike for a band.

Sometimes something so abstract and new sounding isn't so abstract afterall and can be traced back to other musicians. Even a band like The Killers who are to most I’d argue a take it or leave it band can still get your brain moving with ideas and thoughts and remembrances about music. And we all understand how music triggers other memories. And someday someone might even hear The Killers sound in another song and maybe they won't be able to place it as The Killers. There really are no limitations to music if you let it be your own interpretation; and I mean that as in playing music AND listening to music. One of the multitude of reasons of why music means so much to me. On a side note, if you’re interested in any of these 80’s style songs off Day & Age: Losing Touch, Human, Spaceman, Joyride, Neon Tiger, This Is Your Life are the main ones I’d recommend.

Weird Dreams Are Made of These

Sometimes people don’t understand my humor and/or people just chalk it up to me being the weirdest dude they know. Well, sometimes I weird myself out too. I don’t understand dreams at all. This morning I woke up with the window open and my dog laying on the edge of the bed licking his paws and occasionally barking at anything walking. I should have figured that was just enough to wake me up and put me back to sleep for a few lucid dreams this morning. It’s always interesting when you can think in your dreams and do what you want. Ok, so not lucid in that I knew I was dreaming, but I was making decisions, albeit weird ones.

This dream was really weird. Ok, so let’s start with the fat lady who was beating up little girls. Oh yeah, that’s how it started, just jump right in with me. I am walking to my car and the whole atmosphere is dead grass and huge hills. I see this really large woman with coke bottle glasses and black nappy hair wearing a black wife beater shirt, black tight jeans, and a HUGE red thong sticking out of her pants…the classic whale tail. And she’s pretty much chasing these, maybe around 8 years old, girls around the outside of my car and punching them. Only, when she’d punch them they’d disappear, just poof! And it was more like a long arm whack versus a punch. So I’m walking to my car parked on a hill of dry brown tall grass in the middle of nowhere. As I start running to save the girls I can’t get there quick enough. All these girls are getting dusted by the fat lady with coke bottle glasses. She finally bonks the last one on the head and looks bored. Ut-oh she’s bored. I knew exactly what this meant. Yep, she see’s me. Now she starts waddling after me fast. I’m admittedly nervous that the fat lady will kill me and quickly I have to decide my plan of attack. Trip her? No. Fight her? No. Run from her? YES! So, I flank around her to the outside and just start high-kneeing it like a bat out of hell. She’s on my tail and all the sudden I can’t run fast in this tall brown dead grass. No matter how hard I try, it was like I was in a video game and she put in a Game Genie code to make me slow. I’m screwed. Her hands are just getting the back of my shirt. But then I finally gain just enough traction to cut around the back end of my car. Ol fatty doesn’t turn too well and I’ve found her weak spot. She’s got the turning radius of a semi-truck. Then I see now there is another car parked back where I came from off to the right in the distance and some woman is in that car. I’m now running with keys in hand to the other car. I am yelling to the woman to start the car, but when I get there she never heard me and the fat lady is on my tail gaining momentum again.

I know, I know. Where is this nonsensical dream going? I’m beginning to wonder myself. Annnnd we’re back. She has no interest in the woman in this car, just me. So my new plan is this: I’m going to run back to my car. I’ll use the unlock button on the key fob and have the key ready to put in the ignition when I get there. I should have just enough time to beat her back to the car and step on it. I start my trek back to the car and fatty is on my tail, she’s trying to trip me now and she’s all sweaty and dusty, but I have cat like reflexes and am hurdling every time she tries to trip me or grab at me. I Dukes of Hazard it over the hood of the car and get in and lock the doors. Car is started and fatty is pulling on the driver’s handle. I barely got in and I’m panicking. This is my normal Audi with all-wheel drive. But for some reason I can’t gain any traction…again! So, I am slowly chugging along and I can hear fatty trying to get in the car. She’s jogging along punching it and trying to find a way in. Just when I think I’m getting away from this area and from fatty, fatty shoves my car into the other car Godzilla style and the whole side of my car gets scraped up. I’m ticked off. I step on it again swaying all over the place but rocks and dust are now hitting fatty from every angle. I finally lose fatty and get away. I look in the rearview mirror and see dust everywhere filling the air and fatty in the middle of it all holding her fists in the air, back arched, and belting out a scream of frustration. And then Eddie stepped all too close to the twig & berries and I woke up instantly.

So what does all this mean? I don't know. Maybe I'm afraid of fatty 2 by 4's in tight black jeans.