How it was for me
Posted on May 18, 2007 by Tito
[Editor's Note: If I had more time, this would be shorter....and done. Instead of actually finishing it, I'll post this in its current incomplete slate. A la Microsoft: shipping is a feature. Further errors are unintentional, and left in place due to laziness. Enjoy.]
At the Guardian, Craig Finn wrote an excellent account of what it was like growing in suburban Minneapolis in the days of (to steal a line from him) the days of rock-n-roll before the internet. In many ways I can relate, excepting the possible probable delusion that I wasn’t a loser. Since I didn’t have an older brother/sister or any benevolent arbiters of cool on my block, I was left to my own meandering musical discovery devices. And so, Tito’s musical1 history! Form of: Bullet Points!
Warning: this looks to be one of my all time longest blog posts. Continue at your own risk!
Up to (and including) 2nd grade
Saturday mornings in the Perez house were often “chore days”, and I recall being waken to a revelry that was a combination of
- Janice Joplin – Pearl (specifically, Me and Bobby McGee)
- Rod Stewart – Do You Think I’m Sexy? (a 45 my mom had confiscated from one of her students)
- Ocean – Put Your Hand In The Hand of the Man (Looking back, I guess this was some sort of religious song … but the opening drum part would fit in any DJ Shadow set) [MP3 Here]
- My dad’s Evita soundtrack.
During summers (which my mom had off from teaching) post-lunch mandatory nap times were the rule. To help pass the time we’d listen to:
- Anne Murray
- The Sound of Music
- Any of my mom’s collection of music from her quasi-hippie college days, which included an extensive collection of Joan Baez, Peter Paul & Mary, with some Dylan thrown in to boot.
I may have seen Kiss on Sesame Street (or some other PBS show for children). I recall being confused & amazed that bands could have songs with the same name, specifically “Jump” by Van Halen and The Pointer Sisters.
3rd grade (Conestoga)
Back in the days of Omaha Public Schools (OPS) mandated cross-town bussing, I went to Conestoga for 3rd grade. I don’t recall any specifically unique external music (i.e, no sudden shift to hip-hop, etc..) however, 3rd grade is when OPS starts offering optional music lessons to students. I was promptly enrolled in the (Suzuki method) violin lessons and Takka Takka Stop Stop still comes to mind on a fairly regular basis.
Bus driver “Rudy” (who would show up for our predawn pickup with full on silver reflective sunglasses — I used to think he was cool, but now realize he was probably just hung over), had a boom box on the bus where he’d play the hit of the day: combining the driving ability of Otto with the instincts of a seasoned call-and-response DJ, he’d mute the volume during the chorus as the delighted bus load of 7 year olds would scream out, “Ghostbusters” during the rides home in the afternoon. (The AM commmute was a decidedly more muted affair, where notable (to me) land marks en route included Johnson’s Sash and Door, just east of Saddle Creek Road and Skeet’s BBQ in the home stretch approach.
4-6th grade (Edison Elementary)
After one year of the West O kids going to North O, the script gets flipped for the balance of elementary/jr. high.
During this time I got my first exposure to hip-hop, notably DefJam-ers: Beastie Boys, Run DMC, LL Cool J. De La Soul may have later asked where you were when you first heard Criminal Minded, but the first time I heard Paul Revere was on Edision’s “short” hoop (8/9 feeet?) playing ball with R. Rusinko and C. Mann3.
Some time in this period, i also got my first FM radio — which introduced me to the saccharine ways of Omaha’s top-40 channels:
99.9/KGOR – I don’t recall any DJ’s, in particular. Each weeknight they featured a Top 10 at 10 (the ten most request songs of the day played count-em down style at 10PM). KGOR did a daily announcement of birthday wishes for the day — kicked off with exuberant stylings of the Beatles’s duh duh duh duh duh duh Today’s Your Birthday!!, usually dedications between spouses and friends, I called in one year on my birthday using a pseudonym to dedicate birthday wishes to myself. This should have been clue #1 as to my “coolness”
98.5/KQKQ “Sweet 98″ featuring notable DJ Hot Scott” . Not to be outdone by KGOR, this seemingly younger, hipper station (though similarly Top-40 based) featured a “Sweet Nine at Eight”, with …. surprise the 9 most requested songs of the day replayed at 8 PM.
Also during this time, I began to note some of the t-shirts worn by other students4. T-Shirts of bands I had heard of, but never heard: Metallica, Anthraxx, AC/DC, etc…
Looking back, I take ex post facto solace from the words of Mike Watt who said you can’t contorl when/where you’re born. Clearly, I wasn’t ready to be “cool” … so while he was doing Double Nickels on the Dime, I was “enjoying” Senor Haggar’s 55 MPH frustrations. 5
4th grade (or was it 5th?) marked the time when OPS students could expand their musical choices. I opted for Saxophone because I thought Clarence Clemons in the Bruce Springsteen videos (and Diffren’t Strokes cameos) was pretty cool … and what 4th grader doesn’t want to be cool? I continued playing violin and saxophone in parallel through 6th grade. In addition to the method books, I would also take home the song books from St. Leo’s to learn such classics as On Eagle’s Wings. As Triumph would say, “some sort of uber-dork!”. Dorky, perhaps…but still one of my favorite songs.6
7-8th grade (Beveridge Jr. High)
For two years I rode the bus out to the junior high near 120th & Pacific. As in third grade, a boombox serenaded our scholarly sojourn. Some of the the biggest tapes from these bus trips.
- Guns’N'Roses – Appetite For Destruction. Far and away the biggest record of our bus trips. Sweet Child O’Mine on the bus — some of the greatest days I remember. Mrs. Henry (my 8th grade “core” teacher) held some sort of auction where student’s could spend “points” accumulated during the year for good behavior. Students could also donate items to the auction to get points (in case they hadn’t accumulated any during the year). So I was able to “buy” some kid’s donated, used copy of Appetite — making it the first rock record (tape) I ever owned. 6Bon Jovi – Slippery When Wet. I think this was more of a 7th grade record, so we can write it off to the folly of youth (as opposed to the cosmopolitan 8th graders who would quickly move on to GNR – see above). The big song on this one was “You Give Love A Bad Name”
- Skid Row – For some reason, the song “Youth Gone Wild” stands out. The wildest thing I ever did on the bus though was spit out the window — and it wasn’t even a “real” loogey, but some dorky saliva bubble.
In addition to these songs allowed by our bus driver to be cranked up to 10 on some pre-pubescent Grand Prix “ghetto blaster”, underground “classics” sung by the children including 2 Live Crew and the like.
9-12th grade (High School)
The high school I went to was a weekly boarding school — that is, my parents would drop me off Sunday evenings (usually after I finished watching The Simpons and In Living Color) and would pick me up Friday afternoon. This new ‘dorm-living’ environment brought along some new music, too. At this point there were a few major new developments:
- Classic Rock – Before this, I’d never listened to a lot of bands that were mainstays at Mt. Michael: Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Steve Miller, David Bowie and the like. I know grouping these all together as classic rock is rather odd, but these are the bands that dominated the dorm
- Hip-Hop – Yo! MTV Raps was winding down, and along with that show (the last good thing from MTV), my previous method of finding new groups was to scour through the cassette liner notes for groups’ “shout outs”. If I saw a group enough from “trusted” groups, odds were decent I’d take a flier on the group at Sam Goody. (Public Enemy’s extensive notes in “Fear of a Black Planet” probably was the greatest in this regard). But now I started to get the skinny from some other people in my freshman class — though their tastes were often dubious. At least this solidified my own preferences. Around this time, the “explicit lyrics” labels were starting to become the norm, and I believe the first two tapes I bough with this distinction were “Ice T – Original Gangster” and NWA’s “Efil4zaggin” – purchased at the little music store at the Montgomery Ward entrance to the Westroads, for those who remember.
- BMG – Given the dorm-living and “referral” bonuses that BMG music club offered, I added to my CD collection tremendously during high school using these referrals as a pyramid scheme of sorts. Though I was limited to the BMG catalog, so choices remain limited — but I can thank them for freely launching my Creedance, Bowie and Nirvana collections. I would take this to the “next level” in college, where the “mailman” was my “roommate”, so I could “order” unlimited CD’s under the aliases Phil McCracken – who would in turn enroll his many friends Jacques Strappe, Ben Dover, et al. Free Ninenty Nine.
- Grunge – Ah yes, somewhere between freshman year and sophomore year “Smell’s Like Teen Spirit Dropped” and music would never be the same. Hah! How’s that for a pompous pronouncement … but fairly true.
[Editor's Note: It looks like this is where I crapped out. Maybe some day, I'll come back and fill in the rest. I wouldn't bet on it, though]
University (as if I were British)
After College – the early years (Napster + Dial-Up)
The Days of Internet + Broadband to Present
1All locations: Omaha, Nebraska unless otherwise noted.
3First names omitted to protect the potentially innocent.
4My parents (especially my dad) enforced a strict dress code that required: collared shirts (tucked in at all times) and NO sneakers. This clearly precluded me from owning any band t-shirts, and also helped me feel like somebody a little different from the rest. Here’s a picture:
5If you haven’t seen it yet, run out and watch the Minutmen documentary “We Jam Econo” along with Finn’s article — it really struck a kindered spirit chord with yours truly re: semi-clueless kids overcoming their own ignorance, driven by a love of music and desire to be part of something bigger.
6Always loved some of those church songs, but would never cop to it. I realize now how liberating it can be to embrace your un-coolness can be.
6Later that year, when they would drop a couple f-bombs during the Grammy’s I actually threw away this tape for fear my parents would see it and assume I was some sort of bad apple. What an brown noser I …… was(?).
UPDATED 6/17/2007 – Added link to Ocean MP3, uploaded some period photos and starting delving into high school. More to come.
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love it – hope you finish it!