Teenage Wasteland

One of my blog resolutions (besides “laughing over the online graves of so many liberal blogs”) is to spend a little less time on politics this year, and a little more on some of my other main subjects – history and of course music.

The band I played in back in 1987. This was the poster for the gig I wrote about in this story, almost ten years ago.

Music’s gotten short shrift lately; I wrote a grand total of thirteen posts about music all last year, and three of them were obituaries.

So it’s time to do a sort of musical palate-cleanser, I’m just going to reprise something that was going around social media the week of New Years; the top ten albums that affected you as a teenager.

Which is of course, a curve-ball; there are albums that have had a bigger influence on my life than some of these; “Shoot Out the Lights” by Richard Thompson, most of the Dire Straits catalog, and so on.

But here’s a start, in rough ascending order.

Gordon Lightfoot, “Gord’s Gold”

Yep. You heard that right. Loved that album back then. Still do.   Part of it was just that Lightfoot had a real way with a hook.   Part of it was that I learned a lot about playing acoustic guitar from listening to him.

And part of it was because even then, I very counterintuitively liked Lightfoot’s persona.  Not sure why that very un-teenagery image grabbed me, but it did.  So sue me.

Styx, “The Grand Illusion”

This one’s going to be a little counterintuitive.  If you know me, it may even come as a shock.

I detest Styx. Especially anything sung by Dennis DeYoung. However, one of the defining things about my identity as a teenager – really, the first part I liked – was as a guitar player and a rock and roller.

And “Come Sail Away”, “Fooling Yourself” and “Miss America” were the first songs I figured out how to play on guitar by ear, without any help or sheet music or anything. And once I figured them out, the dam broke and I learned *hundreds* of songs just by listening to the radio. Indeed, throughout high school my evening homework-time ritual was to tune in KFYR in Bismarck and listen as I did my reading and math; if I heard a song I liked, I’d grab my guitar and figure it out along with the radio.

And so as much as I loathe Styx, being able to play “stump the band” with the best of them was a yuuuge influence on me as a teenager.

Pretenders

Yeah, I’ll cop to it; the album had the whole “Chrissy Hynde meets teenage hormones” bit.  And you had the same issue, back then (assuming you’re a straight male of a certain age, a lesbian with impeccable taste, or a hetero-curious gay guy, I suppose.  I dunno).

Anyway, the album (especially James Honeyman-Scott’s guitar parts) was just as manic and all-over-the-place as I was back then. Listening to Honeyman-Scott, I started to think “maybe I can do this “lead guitar” thing.

And that was a very, very big thing for me.

And did I mention Chrissy Hynde?

Boston

To a genation of hipper-than-thou punks, “Boston” was to music what WalMart was to shopping.

But even at the nadir of my hipper-than-thou punk phase, I loved this album. The *sound* of the record itself was just freaking thrilling. I think even before I knew anything about *producing* music, I was drawn to the whole idea of production as art, and this record is why.

Case in point:  the wall of guitar feedback from 1:49 to 1:57 of this song.  Feedback was nothing new – Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townsend had made it an art form – but this particular little squall was a simultaneously a raw blast of power combined with a subtle harmonic progression (like opening up the drawbars on a Hammond organ) and and rhythmic, like using feedback as a drum fill.  It was a little production filigree, a gorgeous little instrumental aside that turned a run-of-the-mill seventies pop-rock song into something you could dissect for hours, and years, and write about (ahem) forty years later, and always find something new in.   It was about as organic as Splenda – it was the product of layering guitars like a Phil Spector “wall of sound”, and more high-tech processing than a Queen album.  But who cared?  It – among many similar little bits of production magic – was just glorious and made you feel glad to be alive.

Also – “More than a Feeling” was the first guitar solo I ever learned how to play.  I sat down when I was probably 15 and learned the whole thing, note for note, like someone trying to learn how to order food in Japanese phonetically.

And once I knocked that out, I was a lead guitar player – ergo, for the first time in my high school life, I was cool.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, “Damn the Torpedoes”

This album was, and is, my audio encyclopedia of everything that is great about rock and roll.

Seriously – it’s hard to even count the number of ways this album smacked me, 37 [koff koff] years ago.

But goodness knows I’ve tried; this article here did as good a job of it as I’ve ever managed to pull together myself.

And the song “Even the Losers” gave me hope, back then; sometimes, even us losers did get lucky.  And it probably did the same to you.

Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, “Men Without Women”

Men Without Women is a glorious record in its own right – all huge hooks and raw, blazing emotions and pure brilliance. It’s still one of my three favorites of all time.

Beyond that? There wasn’t a lot of musical diversity in rural North Dakota when I was a kid. Seventies R&B never really spoke to me.

And I listened to Mw/oW, and a light went on over my head, and I wandered into the back room at the station I was at at the time, and dug out a bunch of Sam and Dave and Smokey Robinson and Four Tops records, and felt that clicking sound when ideas drop into place.

Mw/oW opened the door, first to Stax/Volt, then Motown, and an entire new world of music.

John Denver’s “Greatest Hits”.

When I was 14, I was a little too tall, coulda used a few pounds.  I was a junior high loser, never made it with the ladies…

…’til I decided to give myself a “cool” transplant and teach myself the guitar.  And I figured, using my analytical sense, that I needed to learn to play something.

I’d heard a few John Denver songs.  They sounded accessible.  And so I bought a copy of his Greatest Hits for $3 in a cutout bin, because I figured (correctly) it’d be a good way to each myself at least something on guitar.

And it worked!

“Follow Me” and “Leaving on a Jet Plane” were the first songs I ever managed to play coherently, reading from book of sheet music. “Back Home Again” was where I had my “ah hah!” moment on how fourths and fifths play together, and how to do a rolling sixth (which you use in every Chuck Berry song, and thus most everything the Rolling Stones and Mike Campbell ever played). “Take Me Home, Country Roads” taught me how relative minors work – and you can’t play anything on Born to Run without relative minors!

“Sunshine On My Shoulders” is the perfect song for teaching yourself the basics of fingerpicking (the whole thing is a languid eighth-note pattern – hard NOT to play right!). And “Rocky Mountain High” is a great little workout on how chords fit together (and, I discovered after thirty-odd years of being too cool for it, not a half-bad album or song); combine that with your finger-picking from “Sunshine”, above, and kablooie, you’re Mark Knopfler.  Just like that!

So while I hushed up about the whole “I own a John Denver record” thing by about eighth grade, it was that record that was the key to playing the guitar, and playing the guitar was the key to whatever self-confidence I had as a teenager – including the self-confidence I needed to walk up to Bob Richardson and apply for my first radio job.

So it’s kind of a big deal.

The Clash, “London Calling”

Mostly first and second takes, recorded rough and ready, it was sort of the “do it yourself” album that spoke to my chaotic nature, making me think “I could do this!”.

Also, nobody else at Jamestown High School was into the Clash in 1979.  Which made me, for the first time in my life, way way way ahead of the curve.

Maybe the last, too – but let’s not get side-tracked, here.

Also, so good that I thought “I am going to have to get much better at what I do to do this”.

Bruce Springsteen, “Darkness on the Edge of Town”

I know, no surprise, if you’ve read this blog at all.  But I don’t care.

If you’ve known me *since* high school, you probably remember me talking about this album. The best album ever written about isolation – which certainly spoke to a kid in one of the most isolated places in the country.

Still my favorite album of all time.

The Who, “Who’s Next”

But let’s forget about “all time” here.

I was a nerdy, gawky, athletically inept teenager in a town that revered athletes. This album showed me that the guitar I was plinking away on could be my weapon of mass destruction, my full contact sport, my identity.  With a windmilling slash at my Fender, I slew dragons.

If you knew me in high school, you knew I wanted to be Pete Townsend.   I had enough gashes and bruises on my hand from “windmilling” accidents to prove my dedication.

Apropos not much.

37 thoughts on “Teenage Wasteland

  1. I matched three of those, including Styx. You were listening to the guitar, I was listening to the keyboards. But you’re right, Dennis DeYoung is dire. Great post!

  2. “(assuming you’re a straight male of a certain age, a lesbian with impeccable taste, or a hetero-curious gay guy, I suppose. I dunno).”
    Was still true during my high school days in the ’90s.

  3. Still not a Styx fan.

    Always liked Peter Frampton’s style, even going back to his Humble Pie days with Steve Marriott.

    Really got into Robin Trower’s soulful and somewhat mournful sounds.

    But some of my favorite guitar work was by Billy Jones and Jimmy Martin on The Outlaws’ Green Grass and High Tides.

  4. I match on some, not most. Boston has to somewhere on anyone’s list from anywhere near that era, of course, but I’d replace Darkness with Born to Run if no other reason than “… I’m pulling out of here to WIN!” I preferred my alienation/loneliness to be big, aggressive, and rebellious. Besides, Darkness reeked of permanent desperate loser without an upside hope, while BtR had an attitude that you might be down but were fighting for a way out.

    I’d like to add Rush’s 2112 since that really fit into my growing away from my parents’ liberalism to a more libertarian orientation. I got into Rush from pop radio and discovered that nugget from their previous catalog and wore out more cassettes of that than I can count.

    Then there’s the whole Pink Floyd and Dire Straits thing. My list would be clogged with some of those, especially Wish You Were Here which still counts as probably my favorite album.

  5. Listening to a late night show on the Sirius 90s modern/alternative rock station. They were playing a CD of top modern rock songs for a year or certain time frame. When it got done, the on air talent gave the list of titles and what the top 40 chart position each made it to. I was surprised at how poorly they tunes did on the mainstream chart. These songs were all I listened to then, so I assumed they were very popular overall.

  6. Boss,

    “Still not a Styx fan.”

    I’m FAR from a fan. But the album affected me – it helped me learn guitar. Which was all it was worth.

    Nerd:

    “Then there’s the whole Pink Floyd and Dire Straits thing”

    Dire Straits hit me hard – but not in my teens.

  7. My basic early soundtrack was: Hank Williams, anything by Ira and Charlie Louvin, George Jones, The Band, John Fahey, Pentangle, Jansch and Renbourn, Ian and Sylvia, Dylan from Highway 61 on, Robert Johnson, Canned Heat, George Thorogood (saw him at the Prom Ballroom – he’ll be at the State Theater Mar 26th), Fairport Convention, Tanya Tucker, and Tom Waits.

  8. This is one of the areas where Mitch and I diverge. How can you discuss the greatest albums of all time without mentioning “Thank You Music Lovers” as one of them?

  9. Got anything made this century? Or do I just have to accept I’m the only millenial reader of this mostly baby boomer/Gen X blog?

  10. my early albums were Nike back (still don’t Audioslave, a linkin Park and Green Days American idiot. Yeah it preached against what I stood for but it was a damn good album. Also I was a late bloomer to music

  11. POD: you mean like “Straight outta Lynwood”, “Poodle Hat”, “Alpocalypse”, and “Mandatory Fun”?

  12. Joe,

    “How can you discuss the greatest albums of all time without mentioning “Thank You Music Lovers” as one of them?”

    Because we’re not discussing “greatest albums of all time”. I mean, Styx, for chrissake.

    We’re talking albums that affected me as a teenager.

  13. POD,

    “Got anything made this century?”

    That’d be a neat trick, as I was a teenager in the ’70s and ’80s.

  14. I somehow misread, my bad. But seriously its great you are all having this GenX (I’m being kind) lovefest but is there any reader of this blog within 5 or so years (either way) of me that I can wax poetic with? And yes I can say that shit now that I am 30.

  15. BB how old do you think I am? Also, all great Weird Al songs, I watched that straight outta lynwood video so many times I had the lyrics nailed. Its a classic. And I could relate so well growing up with the ‘wigger’ (white kids trying to act ghetto and black) phenomanon. Also I played Pretty Fly For A White Guy every day I left my high schools parking lot Senior year. Not sure anyone figured out I was actually making fun of them which frankly made it even better

  16. I think you’re 30, obviously. :^)

    Seriously, I had no clue until you gave me the information. I just listed some of my favorite 21st century records. Weird Al helped me survive the 1980s and my teen years by mocking the “cool” music, just as it seems to have done the same for you, just a touch later.

  17. AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds with Bon Scott. Raw and loud. Who does not love Big Balls? It was one of the first two albums I purchased when I first moved here. The other – The Pretenders. Back in the old country, it was a Hotel California bootleg tape, since originals were outlawed as Western propaganda.

    Other notables – Frank Zappa’s YCDTOSA series, Robert Johnson boxed set and Karajan directing Beethoven’s 9th.

  18. How bout some input from the looming retirement generation: Chuck Berry Twist: nothing but a hits collection with a picture of a piece of rope (a twist, get it? I didn’t). The Chess brothers brilliant marketing plan to cash in on the then current Twist mania. But hey, a Chuck Berry hits collection! The Ventures: a live in Japan lp. I played this so loud neighborhood kids said they could feel the pavement trembling when they got off the school bus half a block away. The Clancy Brothers’ Hearty and Hellish. Oh to have been at that Chicago club the night this was recorded. And oh the hangovers they must have had the next day! Shut Down Vol 2, a collection of drag racing and street racing songs. You could smell the burning rubber when you spun this one. The Rolling Stones, Englands Newest Hitmakers, for strutting in front of a mirror pretending to be the oh so cool Jagger.

  19. Some Enchanted Evening would be on my list, but there is simply not enough cow bell.

  20. MP, Then Came The Last Days of May: built a whole D&D campaign around that where most of the group got killed by one of the players in on the scheme. Given how into BOC most of us were, I was shocked that nobody caught on since it’s pretty damn rare for the DM to announce dates during a campaign.

  21. “Gord’s Gold” is such a prime collection of work. The guy’s voice was fabulous with lyrics and music just supremely matched to his talent. The cut of “Old Dan’s Records” actually forces one to put the album on a list like this. The “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” marks Lightfoot as the New World’s foremost ballad singer. So excellent. Thanks for mentioning.

    “Boston” also matched my list. It has held up well through many gyrations of popular music. It was so revolutionary when it hit.

  22. PoD, since might be closer to my kids than me, you’d appreciate their tastes. One of them absolutely loved The Saga Begins that came out somewhat pre-teen for them so it wouldn’t apply to this list for them.

    Despite knowing this will throw me in the moderation queue, I preferred It’s All About The Pentiums from the same album, me being a nerd and all. As with most anything inside-joke techie, it hasn’t aged well, but it’s still hilarious.

  23. It’s one of the few songs I don’t understand why Weird Al wrote a parody for. because the original was done in the same tongue in cheek fashion.

  24. Nerdbert, there should be a special category for R&R that could not be danced to. BOC, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath . . . music for guys to smoke dope by.

  25. Felt the same way about Who’s Next first time hearing Baba O’Riley. Not a bad cut on that album, even the “Townshend throwing Entwistle a bone” track is good. Glad to see you went down The Clash punk tracks rather than follow the incredibly overrated Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks route. You wrote a piece a while back on “Something I should like, because the critics tell me I should” and for me, the Sex Pistols came to mind immediately. The most overrated band ever.

  26. PDog,

    Re the Sex Pistols – I may just do that. Because it’s gonna be a complex piece; Johnny Rotten was overrated, Steve Jones and Paul Cook and Glenn Matlock were terribly underrated, Ian MacLaren got incredibly tiresome fast, and Sid Vicious was MacLaren’s joke on the band, and on the audience. Which is one of many many reasons I like the Clash better.

  27. Late 70’s was: Southern Rock, Funk and Big Horn Sections
    – Lynyrd Skynyrd
    – Outlaws
    – Allman Bros
    – Marshal Tucker Band (How could I have ever known I’d ever live down the road from their hometown, and Oh, to have been here while they were a local band on the rise!)
    – Barefoot Jerry and Charlie Daniels
    – Black Oak Arkansas
    – Tower of Power
    – Earth, Wind and Fire
    – WAR
    And Frank Zappa

    80’s was: Insurgent Country, Bluegrass, Classical, Funk and Big Horn Sections
    – Waylon and Willy
    – Kris Kristofferson
    – Johnny Cash
    – Merle Haggard
    – Jessi Colter
    – David Allan Coe (Like to f#$^ you one more time, before you go…. Who writes stuff like that?)
    – Leon Russell
    – Townes Van Zandt
    – Norton Buffalo (Best harmonica player ever)
    -Chuck Wagon and the Wheels (You shot the TV, but you were aimin’ at me)

    90’s was Alternative & Hard Rock, Classical, Funk and Big Horn Sections (Because Minnesota is a Bluegrass wasteland)
    – CandleBox
    – Jane’s Addiction
    – Foo Fighters
    – Red Hot Chili Peps
    – Blues Traveler
    – NIN
    – The Cranberries
    – Pearl Jam
    – Disturbed
    – Smashing Pumpkins
    – Nickelback, yeah Nickelback. Problem?

    00’s to present is crap I trip over and like.
    I live dead center in Bluegrass heaven and see top new bands and legends all year at little town halls and mountain festivals within an hour of my fortified compound. We’re going to see Balsam Range tomorrow night. First saw them up in their stomping grounds in Maggie Valley NC.

  28. Thanks for the 90s list Swift. I agree with Nickleback, I still don’t understand the hate they get. 2000-07 there was a bit of a revival but mostly pop or 90s bands on their 3rd-4th albums. 2007 to current is a fucking wasteland and depressing. I still listen to 93x but once the morning show is over I flip to KQ then talk radio the rest of the day. Modern Rock is shit

  29. On the light side; you know you’re old when the music you grew up with is played by restaurants as “oldies” music.

    Also on the light side; somehow I figured that a refugee from Brezhnev’s Soviet Union, especially one who goes as “JustPlainAngry”, would love AC/DC. My experience of Communism was a lot less–a day in East Berlin and a few years in Boulder–but I get the anger at it. :^)

  30. On the light side; you know you’re old when the music you grew up with is played by restaurants as “oldies” music.
    SILENCE. I am just starting to hear that now and it makes me feel a lot older

  31. PoD, just wait until you get into the elevator and realize that Muzak tune you are listening to is Iron Man. Yep, it happened.

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