My Musical Evolution – Part 3 Book ’em Dano

OK, when I started this, I didn’t intend for it to be a song-a-day type thing. I promise it will speed up  soon. It’s just that in thinking back to that first song which we talked about yesterday, I stumbled upon this one, The Hawaii Five-O Theme. I guess my mother was into crime drama back in the 1960’s. We watched Five-O, Adam 12, Dragnet, Mod Squad and more. I remember seeing this opening to Five-O so many times that I had it all memorized. Of course I was too young to read the credits back then and it would be years before I would take stupid pleasure in saying “Kam Fong as Chin Ho”. I did think that Jack Lord looked like a bad ass on the balcony in that shot. His haircut reminded me of that big wave at the beginning.

I think James MacArthur was the first actor that I recognized in something else.  We were watching some movie that he was in and I was thinking “What’s Dano doing here? Is somebody going to be booked?”  Ken told me of a similar experience when he and his son were watching Star Wars for the first time. When Luke and Obi-Wan hire Han Solo to fly them to Alderaan, Tim said “Do they know that is Indiana Jones?” Zach did a similar thing when we watched Dirty Harry for the first time. At the “Do you feel lucky punk?” line, Zach says with amazement, “He saw The Mask!”

I don’t really remember watching the show past the opening credits. I was still only three and once the song was over, my interest was gone. We got the single of the Hawaii Five-O  theme and wore the grooves out it. I feel sorry for my mother, having to hear that over and over again. We were victims of technology. When my kids were that age, we’d load up 5 CD’s in the carousel and shuffle away so I didn’t have to listen to the same song 3,600 times. I wonder how my mother feels when she listens to this today? Is it fond memory or mental anguish?

The Hawaii Five-O theme is also a foreshadowing thing. It connects the dots to the Ventures which I discovered by the side of the road in 1977 and was the thread that accidentally got me into Roberto Delgado in 2006. I’ll explain those in greater detail later on but for now, check this out, the next dot in the timeline!

 

My Musical Evolution – Part 2 A Headless Horseman

After considerable head scratching, I’ve determined that the very first song that I was really into came from a Disney 45. I couldn’t have been more than 3. I can still recall the jacket depicting the Headless Horseman holding aloft the flaming Jack-o-lantern. It was cool and scary.

Headless Horseman

I don’t recall how this record came to be in my possession. I can only imagine that I saw that cover on a shelf some place and convinced my mother to buy it for me. What an appealing piece of art. I don’t remember seeing the actual Disney feature The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow but I recognized this image when I found it online.

I had one of those bouncy horses that I’m sure came from my grandparents. You know the dangerous old plastic horse, scaled to my size and mounted to a metal frame with high powered finger pinching springs. I used to spend a considerable amount of time wearing a cape, riding that horse and listening to this song. I’d imagine myself terrorizing quiet little post colonial villages.

I’m sure that I didn’t understand the full meaning of the lyrics. I just liked the ominous sound of the singer’s voice [is this the late great Thurl Ravenscroft of Mr. Grinch fame?] and that it was about ghosts, banshees and such. I mean “Some don’t even bother to wear their skin”. How cool is that to a three year old? I knew enough of the story to get the significance of the bridge in the picture but for me it was all about galloping after somebody and scaring the crap out of them.

Even at three years old I can remember being asked what I was going to be when I grew up. At that point in my life I was determined to be a Headless Horseman. I didn’t have it all planned out or anything.  I didn’t know which colleges I should look into for Headless Horseman training. I just knew that I wanted to race down old overgrown country lanes at midnight and throw flaming pumpkins at people.

While this one song doesn’t really play too much into my overall Musical Evolution, I felt that I had to start here as this was most likely the absolute first song that I ever loved. Of course, at that age, my choices and ability to express them were limited. It could have been any number of songs that my parents selected for me. I just feel that this one had to come from me. Here is the first dot in the timeline.

 

My Musical Evolution – Part 1 Introduction

I’ve got a pretty large media library. It holds just shy of 4,000 albums and 50,000 songs. It covers a wide variety of genres and artists. It has been called The Eclectic Collection for about two decades. So long that I’ve forgotten who originally came up with that. Here we are on the first day of 2012 and I thought it would be an interesting project to try to piece together my Musical Evolution and try to illustrate how I got from point A to point B. Along the way I’ll be sharing some of the tracks that support this illustration.

Have you seen the movie High Fidelity starring John Cusack and Jack Black? If you haven’t, do it. If you have, let me remind you of the scene after Rob and Laura break up and Rob decides to reorganize his vast music collection. His friend Dick observes the process but cannot comprehend the system. It’s not chronological, not alphabetical? Rob tells him that it is biographical. I personally store my CD’s alphabetically by artist then by album but in this project, I will attempt to reconstruct the entire thing autobiographically.

 

 
I hope to accomplish this in around 300 to 320 installments over the course of 2012. I’m going to try to be as thorough and honest about this as I can. Of course, I appreciate any help or advice you can offer. Use the comments section of each post to help me with my memory or to express your thoughts.

I have to tell you, I’m kind of excited about the project.  Our musical tastes are kind of like a stream flowing down the mountain. Any number of objects can influence the direction and speed. As I look back on my musical evolution, I can point out some definite moments of impact where directions changed. Actually now that I think about it, forget the stream thing. It is more like playing the original version of Zork on the Digital PDP 11/34. No DEC system should be without it. Here’s why. As you wander through the maze of twisty little passages, all alike, it is like listening to the music you’ve been listening to for years. Then something happens. A discovery is made. A riddle is solved. It doesn’t really matter if the discovery was made by you or shared with you by a friend, the result is a renewed interest and a whole new area to explore. Who knows where you will end up? Perhaps you won’t travel too far. Maybe you’ll find yourself getting back to where you were before. You might end up miles away from where you thought you’d end up. Enjoy the journey.

When my kids were very young, I told them to let music be personal to them. I encouraged them to like whatever music they liked regardless of what their friends thought.  If your Metal friends don’t like Spandau Ballet, it doesn’t mean that you have to hate them too. When you think about it in purely non emotional, scientific terms, music is really just sound waves and your thoughts are electric impulses. How do those waves affect those impulses to result in such a strong emotional manner. I think that answer to that might have to be explored in the 2013 project.

A quick scan of my media library tells me a few things, I’m a bit of a digital hoarder. Not all of the songs present are my favorites. For some I’m at a loss for explanation. How did I end up with J.J. Fad? There are quite a few tracks that are present for nostalgic purposes just so I could complete this project.  Most of it can be categorized into about a dozen sections that begin with the “Scratchy 45’s Days” and at the moment end up at DeadMau5.

I hope I didn’t build this up too much. That is one of my personality disorders. I have a pretty rampant imagination. I can visualize in great detail but my execution is no match for my imagination. Let me wrap up this part with an apology for any disappointment that you will eventually feel.