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My love for music

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I've been wondering lately which one of my kids is going to catch the music bug. Or if any of them will. I was about 8 years old (Wyatt's age) when I caught the bug. I remember a Christmas around that time when I got two albums, Elton John's Greatest Hits and Neil Diamond's Greatest Hits. I wore those albums out! And my aunt Nan loaned me a stack of albums and said that one day I'd thank her. I can't remember the exact albums, but I know one was Frank Zappa. One was the Rolling Stones. I believe there was a Zeppelin and a Grateful Dead.


When I first got into music, it was all vinyl. There was a local music shop in Fayetteville called Paradise Records. They also had tapes. Then one day these things called CDs appeared. The CD section was tiny at first. And my first CD was Huey Lewis and the News 'Sports.' But that section quickly grew and before you knew it, the record section was almost non-existent.

We used to go to the record shop all the time. Back then you had to buy your music. And you had no way of knowing if you'd even like it. It was a complete leap of faith. But one thing you definitely did was listen to the whole thing. Back then we actually knew all the songs on an album. And we knew the order. Crazy, huh? That's unheard of these days.


I'm sure each and every one of you that's old enough to remember them thinks that they are the king or queen of the mix tape. I'm here to tell you friends that I am the true master of the mix tape. When my sister and I were little, I can remember taking long car trips from Michigan back to North Carolina. During those trips, we'd listen to my father's mix tapes. They were all oldies and they all were AWESOME! It got to the point that my sister and I would know the order of each tape and start singing the next song as the current song was ending. It was these trips and those tapes that started my intense love for oldies and Motown. But back to my mix tapes. I'll admit I wasn't the best at first. But I quickly honed my skills and soon I stood out in the crowd. My tapes were sought out. They were cherished. They were the shit. There were genres. There were themes. There was crazy randomness. And there was one consistent thing I did on every single mix tape I made. My calling card. On the B side, the very last song of each and every mix tape I ever made, regardless of the theme, was Led Zeppelin's 'Bron Y Aur.' Two minutes of Jimmy Page awesomeness. Very chill. And the perfect way to end the mix tape. Ask anyone who ever had one of my mixes what the last song was and they'll tell you Bron Y Aur.


And then came digital. I gotta tell you, I was reluctant at first. I saw the first iPod and I thought, 'No way. Never going to happen.' But I quickly changed my mind and went all in. I gave away my entire CD collection and put all my time and money into my iTunes account. And it was solid. Matter of fact, I still have all my iPods. My kids think they're some kind of small, weird phone. I haven't charged them in ages, but they're still there.


Next we have the music subscriptions. And, like the rest, I was sceptical. But I quickly saw the genius in it. And the convenience. Now I essentially had every single song I could ever want to listen to at the click of the mouse. And rather than mix tapes, I had play lists. At first, I approached my play lists like mix tapes. I would add songs in a particular order. Then I just dragged and dropped. And dropped. And dropped. My play lists got massive. Today, I only have a handful. The main one I listen to on Spotify has 413 songs and lasts 29 hours. For me, that's pretty much all I need. One big play list that has all the songs I like. Granted, its lacking diversity. But I'm old and set in my ways.

And speaking of Spotify, they do this thing at the end of the year that's really cool. They'll give you your year in review. They get pretty comprehensive in there analysis too. I always get a kick out of the results. When I was bartending at Midtown, I played my playlist. It was a given. If I was working, the restaurant was listening to my music. For those 8 years, my Spotify end-of-year reviews were pretty consistent. INXS was the number one band played most years. The number one genre was 80's. And the number of hours listened was some obnoxiously large number. Last year, my number one overall artist was Taylor Swift and second was the Bluey soundtrack. Sounds like someone might have two little girls at home, huh?


I did more than just buy music. I also went to a shit ton of shows and concerts. As I got into music and started really learning about it, I always wished that I had lived in the 60s. I was super into the Grateful Dead, as well as all things 60s. I was a Gen X hippy. Turns out that I was the perfect age to see a bunch of jam bands in their infancy. Phish and Widespread were the big two. In college in the early 90s, that's about all we did. We followed Phish, Widespread, and Dave Matthews almost anywhere they went. And looking back, I can say that I've seen my fair share of amazing shows. Too many to get into and too many to try to remember.


So, yeah, I wonder which kid of mine is going to catch the music bug? Because I have so much to show them and teach them. It's going to be a wild, wild journey!  

 

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