Category: rock Page 19 of 20

Do you ever what accounts for good taste? I mean, I can easily ridicule people who love nothing more than to dance at a wedding to a little Meatloaf or ACDC, but then I go and request that the DJ plays Old Dirty Bastard’s Got Your Money. Who’s to say that’s any better? (Oh, but I think all of my OU friends will agree that it is so much better. And easier to dance to than either Meatloaf or ACDC.)

Many of the people I socialize with are music snobs. They try to stay on the cutting edge of music and keep up with everything that’s deck (cool). I am not a music snob. I learned long ago that I will never be admitted into the Cool Music Club because:

1. I like a little boom-boom music on occasion.
2. I like, yes truly like, country music.
3. Sometimes when I see cool artists play in concert, I think their cool stage presence is silly looking and I giggle. Giggling at the performers at cool rock shows is, I have learned, unacceptable.

So here is what I, a longtime non-member of the Cool Music Club have learned:

• There is no such thing as cool music. Now, President of the Cool Music Club, read on before you get mad. It’s true, I think, that music just is. And you can like it or not. But really, there is no music that is better than any other. Music, good music, is anything that makes your toes tap. Good music magnifies your mood – it makes you laugh when you’re happy, cry when you’re sad and dance when you’re hyper. Good music gets even the most bashful dancer on the dance floor. Good music is an excuse to dance close to the person you love, the person you have a crush on, the person you want everyone to see you with. Good music accompanies your singing voice perfectly in the car, in the shower and on stage.
• When members of the Cool Music Club start talking about cool bands and cool songs, and you have no idea what they are talking about, you can easily get by with nodding and smiling. If you are a little more gutsy, when they talking about a good song / group / musician, go, “They’re okay.” It makes you look indifferent and like you have some clue what people are talking about. I have gotten away with this unknowing style of following along in conversations for years.
• Members and non-members of the Cool Music Club can be friends. They can date. They can marry. What really matters is that you can dance to Old Dirty Bastard’s Got Your Money.

I called Joseph Beth Bookstore and was on hold. They had music playing. It was Christian music. With these lyrics:

“God is never busy
The line is never busy
Tell him what you want”

Is it just me or is that weird for on hold music?

I recently went to this bar that’s near where my boyfriend lives. It’s a little hole in the wall that doesn’t really get your attention. I could focus on the porno paneling on the outside of the bar, or the woman who was high as a kite (not on pot) and hitting on my guy – going so far as to be kissing on his check – but I would rather focus on the juke.

I think that a so-so bar can be great with nothing more than a juke. I’ll happily drink my Miller Lite out of a can if for $1 in quarters I get to enjoy some good tunes. This bar had a good juke with some great variety.

And then I got to the last CDs. Now, bear in mind that this bar is in a predominantly black, urban area. So imagine my surprise at seeing not only a CD for Diana Krall in the juke, but also one for Charlotte Church, the Welch opera singing sensation, who’s like 15. I think Church might be the whitest white girl ever. You can check out one of her tunes.

Weird.

Entry 2:

I love country music. I love that it is crossing over. I hate that I have to listen to popular songs twice as much as the rest of you. A country song gets big on the country stations and I listen to it for a few months until it fades away to the music-hits-graveyard. Then when it is reincarnated as a pop song, I listen to it all over again. It’s too much.

I stopped listening to Shania Twin long before I stopped think her music was any good only because I was so sick of hearing her all the time.

Enter Faith Hill’s This Kiss.

While a senior in college my friend Mandi and I decided to get drunk on an entire bottle of SoCo (Southern Comfort), the mere smell of which now makes me nauseous. Her thing was to take small sips chased with apple juice. She felt if you alternated SoCo and apple juice enough, you eventually wouldn’t know the difference and could drink the SoCo without a chaser. But she was out of apple juice so we used cherry Hi-C.

I am not a sipper, I admit it. So I would drink as much SoCo as I could handle and quickly chase it. I did this much too fast and quickly got drunk. Mandi, pissed that I was drinking her drink more quickly than she was started sipping faster.

That night I am told I threw up, but I don’t remember. Although, if Angela said it I know it was true. Mandi thought she was fine and went to a party. And threw up on the front porch. So much they had to hose off both her and the porch. It was the first time she ever threw up.

While we had been drinking our SoCo, Mandi played her newest favorite song at the time: This Kiss by Faith Hill. I of course, was sick of the song by this point and asked her to it on something else. “As soon as it’s over” she kept promising.

Sneaky little girl had the song on repeat and played it all night but I was too drunk to catch on.

I missed out on some great things growing up when I did, and I am doing best to make up for them. Take 80s rock music, for instance. While some of you were out jamming to the like of Poison, White Snake and Warrant, I was home bopping along to my parents’ oldies music.

Last night though I played catch up. I saw a true rawk show.

The lights were dimmed and a curtain hung in front of the stage. One spotlight shone on the curtain and behind it stepped up the most over-the-top silhouette of a man – a man with big hair and wings jumping up with his guitar ala David Lee Roth. The curtain falls to the ground dramatically and there, standing in front of a crowd of thousands, stood a Brit with bad teeth, big hair and wearing a black leather unitard unzipped down to his nether regions and singing in notes so high Freddie Mercury would have been proud.

The Darkness are undeniably ridiculous but they pump up their crowds and have a great stage presence. They give old burnt out rockers from the 80s a reason to don their block, faded concert shirts again. They make having long, scraggly hair at concerts appropriate again.

Through a night of said block leather unitard, a pair of pink Lycra, sparkly pants and a hot pink and white striped unitard, The Darkness entertained and helped me achieve that once-missed-out-on experience of attending a true rawk concert. (Combine that with the *N Sync concert from a few years back – my one and only teen idol / boy band experience – and I am a complete woman.)

For a full rundown of The Darkness, I suggest you visit their site. Also, take a listen to I Believe In A Thing Called Love (their first single off of their album).