a CD player, a dual cassette deck, and, what really impresses me, a reel-to-reel, all wired through a stereo receiver and cabled to a pricey pair of Bose speakers with a subwoofer. “That’s some setup you have here,” I tell him. Duke has only a Walkman, a boom box, and an unfortunate boy band fixation. (Color Me Sadd.)
“I’m really lucky,” he tells me. “I could never afford all of this on my allowance. My uncle gives me all his castoffs and the swag he gets from vendors. Even used, his equipment is better than most consumers could buy in a store right now.”
“Lemme check out your collection,” I say, brushing past him. The whole wall by the desk is filled with music on various mediums, too, including lots of genres outside of metal. “Elvis Presley? Lame!”
Brian arches his brow. “You are so wrong.”
Well, that’s refreshing. No one tells me I’m wrong. Ever.
He points to various albums, explaining. “You can thank Elvis for being the grandfather of rock and roll and for blurring the color lines in popular music. Without Elvis, you wouldn’t have had blues go mainstream, which led to R and B and eventually hip-hop. More important, without Elvis, there’d be no Beatles. Without the Beatles, no Rolling Stones; no Stones, no Zeppelin; no Zeppelin, no Aerosmith; no Aerosmith, no Van Halen; no Van Halen, no grunge. Shall I continue?”
“Only if you want to bore me to death.” But I say it kind of nicely and he seems amused. Brian launches into a whole genealogy of popular music, demonstrating which sounds spurred new music, and when he’s done, he’s mapped out an entire tree with most of the limbs stemming from Elvis. I grudgingly give the King of Rock and Roll some props.
(But not for the teddy bear song. Tell me that wasn’t beyond creepy.)
We listen to his uncle’s bootleg and it’s everything I remember, too. We spend the afternoon waxing poetic about music, with me sprawled in his beanbag chair and him at his desk so he can access his neatly categorized wall of sound. His deep and abiding love for Elvis/his pelvis aside, I’m surprised at how similar our tastes and opinions are, like how we both prefer the Scorpions to Ratt (despite Ratt’s glam-metal facade), and how Mutt Lange’s vision is why Def Leppard’s Hysteria sold as many copies as it has. We’re both passionately in love with the movie Spinal Tap , too, and in the middle of entirely different thoughts, we keep shouting, “No, we’re not going to fucking do Stonehenge!”
After Brian plays a retrospective of all my favorites, he starts sampling clips from the “second wave” phenomenon out of Norway that his uncle sent him. Scandinavia’s having a real hard-rock resurgence here in 1991. The music’s more thrash/speed punk, and way, way darker than the candy-coated, sexy hair metal that I prefer. While I’m not a huge fan of the beat, I’m charmed listening to Brian gush about the Viking-black-death rock ten feet away from where he sleeps on sheets patterned with Wookies and droids.
Our tastes truly diverge only when we broach the subject of Nirvana. And, trust? In 1991, everyone’s talking about Nirvana.
“How are you not enthralled by them?” he argues. “The lyrics, the raw emotion, the power behind the guitar licks, the way they’re so stripped down—they’re the very essence of rock and roll without having to rely on theatrics.”
I counter, “Pfft, I’m all about the theatrics. Plus, how are you able to get past that each one of them is in desperate need of a shower? Or if that’s not anarchy or punk rock enough for them, maybe they could jump in a fountain or something.”
Brian tsk-tsks me. “Lissy, hate to say it, but you’re way off on this. Nirvana’s going to be one of those bands everyone’s still talking about in twenty years. Cobain is the father of an entirely new genre and no one’s ever going to forget him. I’ll wager in fifty years, some other nerd will find himself with a
“I’m really lucky,” he tells me. “I could never afford all of this on my allowance. My uncle gives me all his castoffs and the swag he gets from vendors. Even used, his equipment is better than most consumers could buy in a store right now.”
“Lemme check out your collection,” I say, brushing past him. The whole wall by the desk is filled with music on various mediums, too, including lots of genres outside of metal. “Elvis Presley? Lame!”
Brian arches his brow. “You are so wrong.”
Well, that’s refreshing. No one tells me I’m wrong. Ever.
He points to various albums, explaining. “You can thank Elvis for being the grandfather of rock and roll and for blurring the color lines in popular music. Without Elvis, you wouldn’t have had blues go mainstream, which led to R and B and eventually hip-hop. More important, without Elvis, there’d be no Beatles. Without the Beatles, no Rolling Stones; no Stones, no Zeppelin; no Zeppelin, no Aerosmith; no Aerosmith, no Van Halen; no Van Halen, no grunge. Shall I continue?”
“Only if you want to bore me to death.” But I say it kind of nicely and he seems amused. Brian launches into a whole genealogy of popular music, demonstrating which sounds spurred new music, and when he’s done, he’s mapped out an entire tree with most of the limbs stemming from Elvis. I grudgingly give the King of Rock and Roll some props.
(But not for the teddy bear song. Tell me that wasn’t beyond creepy.)
We listen to his uncle’s bootleg and it’s everything I remember, too. We spend the afternoon waxing poetic about music, with me sprawled in his beanbag chair and him at his desk so he can access his neatly categorized wall of sound. His deep and abiding love for Elvis/his pelvis aside, I’m surprised at how similar our tastes and opinions are, like how we both prefer the Scorpions to Ratt (despite Ratt’s glam-metal facade), and how Mutt Lange’s vision is why Def Leppard’s Hysteria sold as many copies as it has. We’re both passionately in love with the movie Spinal Tap , too, and in the middle of entirely different thoughts, we keep shouting, “No, we’re not going to fucking do Stonehenge!”
After Brian plays a retrospective of all my favorites, he starts sampling clips from the “second wave” phenomenon out of Norway that his uncle sent him. Scandinavia’s having a real hard-rock resurgence here in 1991. The music’s more thrash/speed punk, and way, way darker than the candy-coated, sexy hair metal that I prefer. While I’m not a huge fan of the beat, I’m charmed listening to Brian gush about the Viking-black-death rock ten feet away from where he sleeps on sheets patterned with Wookies and droids.
Our tastes truly diverge only when we broach the subject of Nirvana. And, trust? In 1991, everyone’s talking about Nirvana.
“How are you not enthralled by them?” he argues. “The lyrics, the raw emotion, the power behind the guitar licks, the way they’re so stripped down—they’re the very essence of rock and roll without having to rely on theatrics.”
I counter, “Pfft, I’m all about the theatrics. Plus, how are you able to get past that each one of them is in desperate need of a shower? Or if that’s not anarchy or punk rock enough for them, maybe they could jump in a fountain or something.”
Brian tsk-tsks me. “Lissy, hate to say it, but you’re way off on this. Nirvana’s going to be one of those bands everyone’s still talking about in twenty years. Cobain is the father of an entirely new genre and no one’s ever going to forget him. I’ll wager in fifty years, some other nerd will find himself with a
Similar Books
