Feb. 20: Classic rock vs modern music
Time for something enlightening.
A friend of mine who teaches high school tells me that students are always misplacing their iPods. When he finds one, it's usually pretty easy to identify the owner. But my friend is a bit of a snoop. He doesn't peruse the students' emails or text messages but he does look at their playlists. I guess he's just curious to know what today's teenagers groove to.
And yes, he says that there's a lot of Demi Lovato and Bieber and Nicki Minaj and Brittney Spears. But there's also a lot of Zeppelin, a lot of Stones, a lot of Aerosmith and Ozzy and Eagles.
"They know good music," he says.
*
In high school, I loved Alice Cooper. When I walked to school, most of the time I had an early Alice tape in my walkman. From the Inside was my favourite because it was an album about crazy people. I liked it because I thought I was crazy. I wasn't crazy, of course. I just needed to believe I was crazy so I could differentiate myself from my fellow high school students. People like me were probably wholly responsible for Alice Cooper's success.
I discovered Alice Cooper in Grade 9 when our English teacher, Rick Jelinek, played us three songs from Alice Cooper's Welcome to my Nightmare album. The songs were Years Ago, Steven and the Awakening. Mr. Jelinek says the songs described a man who went to a carnival with his wife and son and suddenly regressed back to his childhood. He got on the merry-go-round and refused to get off.
The lyrics to Years Ago:
Here I go again
Up and down alone
All my friends went home
Years ago
All my toys are broken and
So am I inside mom
The carnival has closed
Years ago
I'm a little boy
No, I'm a great big man
No, let's be a little boy
For a little while longer
Maybe an hour?
No Steven
You have to go back now
Isn't that our mom calling?
"Steven, Steven, Steven come home!"
*
Mr. Jelinek told us he's been using those lyrics in his class for years. Once the school board challenged him, saying they were not appropriate for a junior high school classroom
Quick as a whip, Mr. Jelinek pointed to the Grade 9 English textbook, which contained Edgar Allen Poe's short story, the Tell-Tale Heart. "That story is about a murderer who dismembers his victim and lays the pieces of the body beneath the floorboards of his home. If that's appropriate reading material for teenagers, why can't I play them some Alice Cooper songs?"
There was no response. Consequently, I became an Alice Cooper fan.
*
I bought Welcome to my Nightmare at a music store at Southcentre mall shortly after Mr. Jelinek played it for us. Later I bought From the Inside and a bunch of Alice's other albums. My favourites were Killer, Billion Dollar Babies and School's Out, which was released one year before I was born (and this made me feel really cool because I liked music that had stood the test of time and I didn't like new music like New Kids on the Block.)
I got Alice Cooper tickets for Christmas in 1989. The concert was on Jan. 16, 1990 and I took my best friend, Jason. I really wanted to take a girl but there were no female Alice Cooper fans at Bishop Grandin High School. (Side note to Amanda, the person who gave me this note title. I think I asked your mom if she'd go with me but she was not able to. Randalyn wouldn't go either.)
*
My iPod has 18 Alice Cooper songs on it. From the Inside is on there in its entirety. When I listen to it, I can feel the presence of my 16-year-old self in the room with me.
*
Jason was an exceptional musician and was, for a time, a metalhead. His bedroom was papered with posters pulled out of Hit Parader or Circus. You'd walk into Jason's room and Ozzy would be staring at you. Or Vince Neil. Or the boys from RATT or Bruce Dickinson or Blackie Lawless from WASP.
Once he gave me a black cassette tape. On one side was the word Stairway written in Liquid Paper. "Listen to that," he told my Tears for Fears-loving ass. "That's good music."
On one side of that tape was Stairway to Heaven. On the other side was Black Dog and half of Whole Lotta Love.
*
Anyone who's heard Keith Richards' guitar lick on Satisfaction will remember it forever. That is permanent earworm. Same with whatever Page is doing on Black Dog or whoever played guitar for Deep Purple in Smoke on the Water. Yeah, I know that lick can be mastered by a novice guitar player, but it had to be written first by a genius. I ain't never gonna go to a Deep Purple concert but when I hear that song, I know that something great is going to happen. It's on the radio now. Shut up while it plays. Gotta get the sunroof down and make sure the speedometer hits 100. And quit complaining that it's cold outside. You kids who were born in the 90s piss me off.
*
Believe it or not, I don't hate Justin Bieber. If I was 19 years old and I was a multi-millionaire world famous singer with hundreds of thousands of teeny bopper fans who thought I peed champagne, I'd probably do a few crazy things too. You probably would as well.
Every generation will have its Justin Bieber. When I was in high school, it was New Kids on the Block. We mocked them mercilessly because we were jealous of them. They frightened us because we knew that if they showed up at our school, most of the girls would go gaga over them.
Having said that - I have no Justin Bieber songs on my iPod. The fonkiest I get with my music is Kid Rock.
*
My real name happens to be Steven Tyler. This is a coincidence. I was not named for Aerosmith's frontman, but many was the day I wish I was.
Also in 1990, I attended the Aerosmith concert at the Olympic Saddledome in Calgary. Going back home, I met a fellow teenager on the 79 bus that would take me back to the family home in Canyon Meadows. It was a girl and she said that she'd loved the concert and that Steven Tyler was so sexy. I showed her my driver's license and she was very impressed with my name. Asked if I was named for him and I lied and said yes. I should have asked her for a date but I didn't because I was too shy and I am still mad at myself for that 24 years later.
*
There was a classic rock station in Calgary that refused to play Prince. I called them to complain about it.
"You play Jimi Hendrix and he was a huge influence on Prince," I said. "And you play Lenny Kravitz who was hugely influenced by Prince. So don't you think you should be playing Prince?"
"No," said the DJ. "Those are valid points. But no."
On my 20th birthday, I called the DJ and said: "look, today's my birthday. Will you play a Prince song?"
"Prove it and maybe I will."
So I faxed the station a copy of my driver's license. Later that night, they played Let's Go Crazy.
*
I'll take From the Inside, Purple Rain or Permanent Vacation over anything released in 1990 and later.
Time marches on. And the music just sucks more and more.
A friend of mine who teaches high school tells me that students are always misplacing their iPods. When he finds one, it's usually pretty easy to identify the owner. But my friend is a bit of a snoop. He doesn't peruse the students' emails or text messages but he does look at their playlists. I guess he's just curious to know what today's teenagers groove to.
And yes, he says that there's a lot of Demi Lovato and Bieber and Nicki Minaj and Brittney Spears. But there's also a lot of Zeppelin, a lot of Stones, a lot of Aerosmith and Ozzy and Eagles.
"They know good music," he says.
*
In high school, I loved Alice Cooper. When I walked to school, most of the time I had an early Alice tape in my walkman. From the Inside was my favourite because it was an album about crazy people. I liked it because I thought I was crazy. I wasn't crazy, of course. I just needed to believe I was crazy so I could differentiate myself from my fellow high school students. People like me were probably wholly responsible for Alice Cooper's success.
I discovered Alice Cooper in Grade 9 when our English teacher, Rick Jelinek, played us three songs from Alice Cooper's Welcome to my Nightmare album. The songs were Years Ago, Steven and the Awakening. Mr. Jelinek says the songs described a man who went to a carnival with his wife and son and suddenly regressed back to his childhood. He got on the merry-go-round and refused to get off.
The lyrics to Years Ago:
Here I go again
Up and down alone
All my friends went home
Years ago
All my toys are broken and
So am I inside mom
The carnival has closed
Years ago
I'm a little boy
No, I'm a great big man
No, let's be a little boy
For a little while longer
Maybe an hour?
No Steven
You have to go back now
Isn't that our mom calling?
"Steven, Steven, Steven come home!"
*
Mr. Jelinek told us he's been using those lyrics in his class for years. Once the school board challenged him, saying they were not appropriate for a junior high school classroom
Quick as a whip, Mr. Jelinek pointed to the Grade 9 English textbook, which contained Edgar Allen Poe's short story, the Tell-Tale Heart. "That story is about a murderer who dismembers his victim and lays the pieces of the body beneath the floorboards of his home. If that's appropriate reading material for teenagers, why can't I play them some Alice Cooper songs?"
There was no response. Consequently, I became an Alice Cooper fan.
*
I bought Welcome to my Nightmare at a music store at Southcentre mall shortly after Mr. Jelinek played it for us. Later I bought From the Inside and a bunch of Alice's other albums. My favourites were Killer, Billion Dollar Babies and School's Out, which was released one year before I was born (and this made me feel really cool because I liked music that had stood the test of time and I didn't like new music like New Kids on the Block.)
I got Alice Cooper tickets for Christmas in 1989. The concert was on Jan. 16, 1990 and I took my best friend, Jason. I really wanted to take a girl but there were no female Alice Cooper fans at Bishop Grandin High School. (Side note to Amanda, the person who gave me this note title. I think I asked your mom if she'd go with me but she was not able to. Randalyn wouldn't go either.)
*
My iPod has 18 Alice Cooper songs on it. From the Inside is on there in its entirety. When I listen to it, I can feel the presence of my 16-year-old self in the room with me.
*
Jason was an exceptional musician and was, for a time, a metalhead. His bedroom was papered with posters pulled out of Hit Parader or Circus. You'd walk into Jason's room and Ozzy would be staring at you. Or Vince Neil. Or the boys from RATT or Bruce Dickinson or Blackie Lawless from WASP.
Once he gave me a black cassette tape. On one side was the word Stairway written in Liquid Paper. "Listen to that," he told my Tears for Fears-loving ass. "That's good music."
On one side of that tape was Stairway to Heaven. On the other side was Black Dog and half of Whole Lotta Love.
*
Anyone who's heard Keith Richards' guitar lick on Satisfaction will remember it forever. That is permanent earworm. Same with whatever Page is doing on Black Dog or whoever played guitar for Deep Purple in Smoke on the Water. Yeah, I know that lick can be mastered by a novice guitar player, but it had to be written first by a genius. I ain't never gonna go to a Deep Purple concert but when I hear that song, I know that something great is going to happen. It's on the radio now. Shut up while it plays. Gotta get the sunroof down and make sure the speedometer hits 100. And quit complaining that it's cold outside. You kids who were born in the 90s piss me off.
*
Believe it or not, I don't hate Justin Bieber. If I was 19 years old and I was a multi-millionaire world famous singer with hundreds of thousands of teeny bopper fans who thought I peed champagne, I'd probably do a few crazy things too. You probably would as well.
Every generation will have its Justin Bieber. When I was in high school, it was New Kids on the Block. We mocked them mercilessly because we were jealous of them. They frightened us because we knew that if they showed up at our school, most of the girls would go gaga over them.
Having said that - I have no Justin Bieber songs on my iPod. The fonkiest I get with my music is Kid Rock.
*
My real name happens to be Steven Tyler. This is a coincidence. I was not named for Aerosmith's frontman, but many was the day I wish I was.
Also in 1990, I attended the Aerosmith concert at the Olympic Saddledome in Calgary. Going back home, I met a fellow teenager on the 79 bus that would take me back to the family home in Canyon Meadows. It was a girl and she said that she'd loved the concert and that Steven Tyler was so sexy. I showed her my driver's license and she was very impressed with my name. Asked if I was named for him and I lied and said yes. I should have asked her for a date but I didn't because I was too shy and I am still mad at myself for that 24 years later.
*
There was a classic rock station in Calgary that refused to play Prince. I called them to complain about it.
"You play Jimi Hendrix and he was a huge influence on Prince," I said. "And you play Lenny Kravitz who was hugely influenced by Prince. So don't you think you should be playing Prince?"
"No," said the DJ. "Those are valid points. But no."
On my 20th birthday, I called the DJ and said: "look, today's my birthday. Will you play a Prince song?"
"Prove it and maybe I will."
So I faxed the station a copy of my driver's license. Later that night, they played Let's Go Crazy.
*
I'll take From the Inside, Purple Rain or Permanent Vacation over anything released in 1990 and later.
Time marches on. And the music just sucks more and more.
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