My Musical Evolution – Page 21 – Mapping Influences Over Time

My Musical Evolution – Part 213 The Metal Years Stand Up And Shout

We are the sum of the choices we make and the experiences we have had. In 1984, The Rise was incredible, The Fall was devastating. Did it change me? It had to, right? I didn’t dress differently. I might have partied harder. I might have been more focused on the Heavy Metal Music.

Enter Dio. Rainbow In The Dark was making the orunds on MTV and getting airtime on the metal hour radio programs. Ronnie James Dio filled the vacancy in Black Sabbath when they fired Ozzy Osbourne. If you thought Van Halen was different with Sammy Hagar , you should check out some of the Black Sabbath albums with Dio. Oh wait, we will.

Holy Diver was a good addition to the pile of Metal records I was. The guitar work was impressive and the percussion on Dio albums is always mixed in such a crisp manner. Of course Ronnie James Dio’s voice is a powerful force of its own. The guy has the lungs to do opera.

It was around this time that I upgraded my home stereo. I had been rocking my old Sears all in one for years. I wanted something a little louder. Something more modern. I really wanted a kick ass Pioneer component system with massive speakers and 50,000 Watts of power. What I could afford was another Sears all in one. This one was designed to look like a component system. It really was a major upgrade from the previous. It had dual cassettes with high speed dubbing that I never actually used. It have a graphic equalizer and those Mountain Dew Green LED driven peak meters and other lights. The speakers where about 3 feet tall and features 8″ woofers and 3″ mids and 2″ tweeters. For the price range it was really good stuff. It eventually would get passed along to my sister. I wish I would have taken a good picture of it.

It was considerable louder than my previous model. One afternoon I was rocking out to this very Dio album at high volume. My angry mother entered the room yelling about how loud it was and I couldn’t hear her. After turning it down, she told me she could hear it as she pulled into the driveway.

It has been a long time since I’ve given these old metal albums a serioius listen. They stir up more emotion than memory. With the music of The Academy Days, I’d get mental images of people, places and events. With The Metal Years, I get a more physiological response. The urge bang my head as it were.

Stand Up And Shout

Holy Diver

Don’t Talk To Strangers

Straight Through The Heart

Invisible

Rainbow In The Dark

My Musical Evolution – Part 212 The Rise & Fall Of ’84 Another Brick In The Wall Part 3

I don’t know when or how I decided that I had to do something else but finally I did. I wrote a note to Lisa and went to the restaurant where she was working as a waitress. They called her to the counter where I was waiting, She smiled at me. I took the Cross necklace that I had gotten at the catholic retreat in my hand and pulled until the chain snapped. I laid it on the folded note I had written and pushed it towards her then walked out of the restuarant.

The note read:

I don’t need your arms around me
And I don’t need no drugs to calm me
I have seen the writing on the wall
Don’t think I need anything all
No, don’t think I need anything at all
All in all it was all just bricks in the wall
all in all you were all just bricks in my wall

It sounds harsh doesn’t it. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that but at the time it felt like the only way to break out of where I had become trapped. It is here where The Rise & Fall Of ’84 ends. It would take some time but I would eventually be grateful to have gone through it and regardless of how I may have sounded in the posts leading up to this, I really do look back at this time with great warmth and fondness. It really meant a lot to me and was such an important experience to live through. I still saw Lisa from time to time over the next couple of years and it was always nice.

I put The Wall away for a very long time after that. Every once in a great while, I’ll play it all the way through and just sit and listen and contemplate. It really is a phenomenal piece of work. I’ve shared it with many people but always with the warning “Don’t listen to it after a break-up.”

Another Brick In The Wall Part 3

My Musical Evolution – Part 211 The Rise & Fall Of ’84 Another Brick In The Wall Part 2

To this day my advice to anybody who has just been through a break-up is to avoid Pink Floyd’s The Wall for a few months. It was weird, like the album and I were swirling downa drain together. It never left my turntable for weeks. I even recorded it onto a blank 8-Track. Remember my old stereo had an 8-track player. That way I could let it cycle over and over without having to even get up out of the chair that I was sinking into.

I seemed to connect to it on so many levels. Absent father, over protective mother, didn’t really ever have a life threatening illness or a dead rat but I now had the woman leave me for another man. What did it all mean? I was numb but not very comfortable.

I knew every note and every rest. I listened to The Wall so many times that I was able to translate the backwards dialog embedded in Empty Spaces. The album opens with “we came in” on the very first track. The last thing on the last track of side 4 if you are still listening to vinyl is “Isn’t This Where”. When you listen to that on continous 8-Track it says “Isn’t this where we came in?” It was like Roger Waters knew that I’d be listening to The Wall just like this.

I don’t remember how long I sat there like Bob Geldof in the movie. In the chair, staring ahead. Unable or unwilling to do anything else but build a wall.

The Wall

My Musical Evolution – Part 210 The Rise & Fall Of ’84 Impact

She agreed to meet me one last time. I had one last chance to convince her that it was a mistake. In the parking lot of Hardy’s over spilled Diet Coke and tears we closed the door on what could have been. It wasn’t the last time that I would see her. Over the next month or two our paths would cross in one way or another but she wasn’t mine any longer. The fall ended with a crash against The Wall.

Helix – Never Wanna Lose You

Styx – Don’t Let It End

Scorpions – Still Loving You

Pink Floyd – Don’t Leave Me Now

Pink Floyd – Goodbye Cruel World

My Musical Evolution – Part 209 The Rise & Fall Of ’84 The Plunge

Suddenly, the music turned sad and soulful. Suddenly all the songs were about heartbreak and loss. Were they always there? I spent my days in a fog. Trying to figure out what could have happened. Trying to get her to talk to me. Trying to negotiate a return to how things were just a couple weeks prior. All those songs that I couldn’t relate to before were suddenly surrounding me.

The Cars – Drive

Chicago – Hard Habit To Break

Phil Collins – Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)

Phil Collins – One More Night

Def Leppard – Bringing On The Heartbreak

My Musical Evolution – Part 208 The Rise & Fall Of ’84 The Deep Breath

If I had to graph my relationship with Lisa during The Rise & Fall Of ’84, I feel it would look like this. It was a steady climb that suddenly reached the stratosphere only to instantly come crashing back to earth in flames.

So I go on that church weekend and after it was over Sunday evening, Lisa and I went to the Mall. It was closed of course so we started walking around the outside of it. We had parked by JC Penny and did lap after lap walking and talking. I have no idea what we were talking about but I can tell you without a doubt that at that at that moment I had never felt closer to another person. Was it real? Could it have been euphoria of surviving a catholic retreat? It felt real to me. Maybe it was too real. I have to keep reminding myself that she was only 17. Looking back as a parent, I can understand how those kinds of feelings could have been overwhelming. That same feeling of closeness is what gave the Fall so much impact. Two weeks later, for reasons unknown to me, The Rise was over. The Fall was upon me and all the music changed.

Chicago – Look Away

Prince – When doves Cry It is too bad that Prince has this hate / hate relationship with YouTube.

Huey Lewis & The News – If This Is It I actually did hear her say “Tell him I’m not home.”

Cyndi Lauper – Time After Time

Thompson Twins – Hold Me Now

My Musical Evolution – Part 207 College Intermission Eliminator

So has the braiding of College Intermission, The Rise & Fall Of ’84, and The Metal Years been OK to follow? Do you see why I think it is important to represent them as three simultaneously occuring but yet separate threads? I guess it could have been less emotional and more chronological. I’m just giving it to you as I have always had it organized in my mind. For better or worse, there it is.

ZZ Top’s Eliminator is one of those albums that I nearly forgot. When it was released, I was still a senior at the Academy. Im pretty sure that I bought this in the fall of ’83. I probably should have mentioned it earlier but thruth I forgot about it.

Eliminator had a bunch of songs that were getting attention on the radio and MTV. That’s how I found out about them. The songs were good enough and I still play Sharp Dressed Man on my bass. I think I just never was too much of a ZZ Top fan. Maybe it’s the beards.

I don’t know. For whatever reason, I never felt compelled to upgrade my Eliminator record to CD. A few years ago, I picked up a ZZ Top Greatest Hits compilation and that semes to be all I need.

Gimme All Your Lovin’

Got Me Under Pressure

Sharp Dressed Man

Legs

TV Dinners

My Musical Evolution – Part 206 College Intermission Another Brick In The Wall Part 1

Up until the summer of 1984, Pink Floyd was synonymous with Dark Side Of The Moon for me. I knew that they were more than that. I had even heard Confortably Numb at Chip’s house way back in the Academy Days. In August if 1984, my concept of Pink Floyd would be expanded and The Wall would be the instrument of that expansion.

Back then, there was a 2 screen movie theater next to Glenbrook Mall. It was called Glenbrook Cinema but it wasn’t attached to the mall proper. It just occupied a piece of the parking lot where a Super Target now stands. The great thing about this little theater was their willingness to run Midnight Movies. They did this frequently and whether or not they were trying to capitlaize on MTV, the midnight movies often were of a musical nature. Films like Led Zeppelin’s Song Remains The Same, Rocky Horror Picture Show, some movie about an assault on a radio station that was really just a bunch of music videos strung together, and of course Pink Floyd’s The Wall.

Was it fate or destiny that I should see The Wall at this particular point in my life? Maybe it was just bad timing. I didn’t know it at the time but The Wall would be a central fixture in My Musical Evolution for several weeks. On that night, it was just a great audio visual experience. The next day, I bought the album and devoured it not knowing that a couple weeks later it would consume me.

Pink Floyd – The Wall

My Musical Evolution – Part 205 The Metal Years Blackout

The Blackout album cover belongs on my list of iconic album covers. That is to say that I had seen this cover numerous times before I knew anything about Scorpions. It always drew my curious attention. Look at it. How couldn’t it.

I, like most American teens in 1984, was just discovering Scorpions music. Again, I think it was that perfect storm of MTV meets the new Heavy Pop Metal scene. I really don’t have any behind the scenes data to back this up but the perception from where I sit now indicates that record companies were looking at bands that they had under contract. They’d find an act that was reasonably close to this emerging Pop Metal genre. They’d give them a make over to make them MTV ready then adjust the songs just a touch to nudge them into that signature sweet spot betwen blazing metal guitars, pounding drums and mainstream pop music.

Really, take a listen to the big Metal chart toppers of the mid ’80s. They all seem to have some common elements like that Power Ballad. Then take a listen to the albums that those bands released just prior to their breakout albums. In nearly every case, the preceding album is more savage and heavier. I wonder if this was just luck or by design that these breakout albums would be stepping stones back to heavier material. I know that I bought Pyromania then went back for High ‘N’ Dry. I bought Love At First Sting then went back for Blackout. $$$ So what do you think luck or genius on th epart of the record execs?

I didn’t know until just now that Blackout is the 8th album by the Scorpions. I knew there was some older stuff but I wouldn’t have guessed 8. I just remembered that I bought their first two Best Of volumes. Really, just remembered it now when I was looking at their discography. What does that say about them? I never upgraded them to CD and forgot that I ever owned them. But Blackout is something much more memorable.

Blackout

Can’t Live Without You

No One Like You

You Give Me All I Need

My Musical Evolution – Part 204 College Intermission 90125

am I the only one that keeps accidentally calling this album 90210? It wasn’t always that way. 90125 refers to the catalog number of the album not a zip code.

By the time 90125 was getting air play, I had heard a few of the classicYes songs. This album although quite good didn’t sound much like their older stuff. I suppose there were plenty of people who were upset by that.

I had to have liked this album pretty well to buy something outside the sphere of Heavy Metal-dom. I’ve listened to this all the way through enough times to be very familiar with every track.

It was hard to select just a few tracks to share here. 90120 may not have that broad timelessness like Dark Side Of The Moon but it does play well and I have to tell you that I’m really digging the groove right now. It is another instance where I suddenly regret my abandoning of playing complete albums more often.

Aric and I sawYesat the Coliseum in August of 1984 but he doesn’t remember it.

Owner Of A Lonely Heart

Hold On

It Can Happen

Changes

Cinema

Leave It – I almost put this album into The Rise And Fall Of ’84 because of this song. Once in the mall parking lot, Lisa and I sang the opening to this song together and we nailed big style.

Hearts