The Musical Making of a Man

Saw Thor for the second time this weekend. I will now cop to something I was in denial about last week, which is that I can’t see SHIT if the movie is in 3-D. So although the wife and I caught a midnight showing of the movie, our only options to do so were in the dreaded third dimension, so I didn’t really SEE Thor originally. I only HEARD Thor. Now I’ve actually seen it. And it is quite good.

I believe it has the BEST superhero movie kiss ever.

In other news:

The new Beastie Boys CD, I am sure you must already know, is AMAZING. I forced the wife to listen to it twice this weekend. And by “forced” I mean to say that I played it once and when the first track started again and I moved to switch CDs, she yelled at me and slapped my hand.

The Beastie Boys are a lot like the Ramones to me, in that I don’t know ANYONE who hates them. I know people who love them, and I know people who like them okay. But I have never met another human being willing to look me in the eyes and tell me that the Beastie Boys suck. Do you know how rare that is, in the world of super-opinionated culture snobs that I occupy? SOMEBODY always hates EVERYTHING.

I will cop to not particularly loving License to Ill the first time I heard it. I was 11 or 12, I believe, and my musical palette was still fairly undeveloped. I really liked Weird Al a LOT at that point, if that puts things in a frame of reference. By the time Paul’s Boutique rolled around, though, I was a committed fan. Remembering this last weekend made me think a bit about the musical journey a person goes through, and how their taste develops. Most people I know are painfully dishonest about this sort of thing. Almost everyone I know who loves punk will claim, at least half-heartedly, that they have ALWAYS loved punk. As if they were born with copy of Black Flag’s “My War” clutched in their little fists. But unless you are lucky enough to have an older sibling with impeccable taste, you usually fall ass-backwards into the good stuff. I know I did.

EARLY MUSICAL LIFE – Like most kids, I listened to what my parents listened to. Fortunately, my dad has really good taste. So I heard a lot of Beatles, Beach Boys, Stones, Doobie Brothers, etc. Many of my friends’ parents seemed obsessed with Alabama. I count myself fortunate.

FIRST TAPES I SPECIFICALLY WANTED TO BUY – Weird Al’s “Dare to Be Stupid” and Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”.

WHEN I WAS 9 – My older cousin Kevin’s cool friend carried around a boom box and a case of cassette tapes roughly the size of a dorm fridge. Left to spend ten minutes with me alone, the young man asked me what I liked to listen to. I told him I liked the “Eye of the Tiger” song from Rocky. He said, “That figures”, and played Twisted Sister for me.

FIRST TAPES I BOUGHT WITH MY OWN MONEY – Guns and Roses “Appetite for Destruction” and Motley Crue’s “Girls, Girls, Girls.” My Dad took me on a ride in his pickup truck and let me play the G N’ R tape. I was worried I’d get in trouble because there was swearing, but my dad declared that Slash’s guitar playing was “fantastic”.

I WAS A TEENAGE METAL HEAD - I went to a parochial junior high school, and hair metal was the latest in French Cool, although I never got far enough into the shallow end of the pool to own anything by Trixter or Enuff Z’Nuff. The Holy Trinity in my little Catholic world wasn’t the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It was Guns N’ Roses, Motley Crue, and Metallica. Poison was acceptable because the girls liked them, and we were starting to like the girls. Def Leppard and Bon Jovi, it was declared, were for “fags” (but I secretly loved them both).

IN EIGHTH GRADE – I expressed an appreciation for Aerosmith’s “Permanent Vacation”, and someone called me a hippie.

IF YOU HAVE A SONG ABOUT COMIC BOOKS, I WILL LOVE YOUR BAND - My cousin Kevin, knowing that I loved comics, told me I should check out a band called "Anthrax", because they had written a song about Judge Dredd and wrote a lot of songs about Stephen King books. Okay, don't mind if I do! (This phenomenon also explains why I have owned two copies of Joe Satriani's "Surfing With the Alien", one on tape, and one on CD.)

IN NINTH GRADE – My older cousin, Lynn, attempts to take me to see Poison at Riverside Park. My parents say “no”. I have a memory of seeing Herman’s Hermits when I was a very small child. That might be apocryphal, but if it’s not, that counts as my first concert.

IN HIGH SCHOOL – I had a huge crush on a girl named Mary Ellen. Her favorite band was the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. She made me a mixtape of her favorite Bosstones stuff. At the same time, Grunge hits, and Nirvana annihilates my opinions on what “heavy” music sounds like. Through these two channels, I gateway into punk and ska.

MY JUNIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL – I attend my first local punk show, at the West Hartford American Legion Hall. The lineup is Roadkill, Scumdumbone, Blunt, Toxic Field Mice, and Big Mistake. I spend the next 15+ years in sweaty little hole-in-the-wall clubs seeing bands playing for gas money and the chance to sell a T-shirt. For many of those years, I am ONE OF THOSE GUYS.

STUFF I LIKE THAT YOU MIGHT LIKE...

1) Seriously, go see Thor. And then if you need me to, I will explain all the geek stuff you might not have understood.

2) THINGS I HAVE SEEN AT SHOWS – For all my friends who dig seeing live music, pick up this comic by the amazingly talented Allan Norico and enjoy both his killer art stylings, and the deep gut laughs of things that are funny because they are true.

3) GRAYHAVEN COMICS are donating all the proceeds on orders of "The Gathering" anthology collected until May 21^st to the American Red Cross, to help support victims of the recent tornadoes in the South. If you haven’t already picked up Volume 2, featuring a story by me and Pat Loika, now’s your chance to do so and contribute to a good cause. This is all further evidence that Andrew Goletz is one of the finer human beings on the planet.

Hugs and Kisses,
(The)Travis

SONGS I LISTENED TO WHILE WRITING THIS

• M.I.A. - "Paper Planes"
• Misfits - "Where Eagles Dare"
• Rise Against - "Help is On the Way"
• Lonely Island - "On a Boat"
• Nas - "Hate Me Now"