I’ve got to warn you, this one is going to be intensely personal. So, if you don’t want to know, and I mean, if really don’t want to really know, then I suggest that you go somewhere else. It probably won’t make sense to anyone but me, and I’m probably going to regret writing all of this down. I’m just to write and publish without proofreading this. One draft, check the spelling and pull the trigger.

I just left a party, well not really a party, just a gathering at work. Everything was fine and then the hermit part of my brain kicked in and told me to leave. I fought it for a while, and then this part of my brain kicked in. These ideas have been simmering in my brain for a long time, and for some reason, everything crystalized tonight. My brain started writing this and I just fled. I knew I had to get home home home, I had to get home before I lost it, because I knew, and I know, that if I lose it this time, it will probably never come back.

Right now, Dinosaur Jr’s Without A Sound is playing. This is playing and not something else because this is one of few albums that is just for me. All of the other songs that I know are tied to someone else, and right now, I need to hear something that is just for me. I’ve got to finish this before Seemed Like the Thing to Do comes on, or I’ll never ever finish.

I told Ivan once that every time I hear a song, it reminds me of a person, and conversely, any time I thought of a person, there associated song played in my head. He told me that he thought it was odd that my life was “mediated by music”, as he put it. I think the odd thing, the sad thing, really, is that I can’t tell the story of my life without talking about these songs.

Blake wrote “the singer said something I could only feel”, and while that is true, and goes along way to explain how I got to where I am today, I prefer the thing that Michael wrote, “This one is on the soundtrack ot the story of my life”. He’s my brother, so of course I like his better.

I don’t know if this is odd or not, or exceptional, but what I said to Ivan is the truth. I really can’t think about people without thinking about music. Every memory I have of my life is tied to some song.

My very first memory is walking barefoot with Michael down a sandy road, delivering my Dad’s lunch of bologna sandwiches to him while he was DJ’ing at the local AM radio station.

My second memory of my life is a rainy night, laying in the backseat of my parent’s car with my Michael. My parents were stopped at some parking lot, I think in front of the JC Penny’s near my hometown. I lay quietly in the backseat watching sheets of rain pour down the windshield while listening to Blondie’s The Tide is High.

Every person I know is tied to a song or an album. My father is Dire Straits, my Mom is Reba McEntire; Michael is REM’s Dead Letter Office and also 7 Seconds Walk Together, Rock Together. Vincent is Johnny Klegg and Sivuka. Sebadoh belongs to the first girl who broke my heart and didn’t know it; Wilco’s Box Full of Letters belongs to the first girl who did. Black Box Recorder is the one who got away. Pam is always going to be my Velocity Girl, Mark is always going to be 16 screaming Fugazi’s Waiting Room in the basement of the junior high, and Zac is always going to be Liz Phair’s Chopsticks, dancing in his living room yelling “that way we can fuck and watch TV”.

Alot of people write diaries so that they can forget. I listen to music so that I can remember. In too many cases, the person is gone and their song is the only thing I have left.

I was thinking about “the soundtrack to the story of my life” a few weeks ago, which is how this whole thing starting percolating the first place. I was making Holly a compilation, and it was horrible, so I tossed it. I started anew and decided to make for Holly that soundtrack. In all honesty, I’d been thinking about it for months, but never gotten around to making it because I never had a reason.

I finally had a reason. I think it’s really important for friends to understand one another, and I mean really get how the other person clicks. I have a few friends for whom this is true, and it is partly because we share the same songs. If I just say the word Freakscene to Rebecca, she knows my precise mental state. that counts for something I think.

There is this small, strange part of my brain that had been trying to. . . I don’t know. . . force some understanding through visual osmosis. Like if I looked at Holly fiercely enough, for long enough, that I could force the entire contents of my brain into hers through some sort of telepathic mind meld. Or maybe make our brains switch places. Which, upon further reflection would be the worst sort of punishment that one person could inflict upon another. Most of us have our hands full dealing with the strange currents of our own minds, and I for one know that I couldn’t take on another person’s in addition to my own.

Seemed Like the Thing to Do is on. I’m sunk.

So I did the other thing. I made the compilation. I made the “soundtrack to the story of my life”. I also did another smart thing, which was making myself a copy. The thing is that I can’t listen to it. I get about half-way through and lose it. There is something about hearing my own voice singing back to me that really unnerves me. So now I have this thing that finally tells my story in a way that I never could, and I can’t even listen to the damn thing.

What would Blake say about that?

inally.

On Tuesday, Dischord Records finally released the Dischord 20th Anniversary box set. I know what you’re thinking, “Why is Dischord releasing a box set? Box sets are for dead musicians (Hank Williams) and virtually dead musicians (Metallica).” I was thinking the same thing until I heard it, and I have to tell you. . . fucking punk rock.

Simply titled 20 Years of Dischord, the first two discs of the set include songs by each of the fifty bands that Dischord had released in its first twenty years. Along with the big names like Minor Threat, Fugazi, Jawbox, Rites of Spring, and Shudder To Think, the discs also cover short-lived bands like the powerful Red C, the energetic Nation of Ulysess, and the amazing Autoclave. The third disc contains unreleased material including Dag Nasty’s All Ages Show, the last recording by Slant 6 (Are You Human?), and a blistering live version of Fuzagi’s Burning.

It’s two third’s memory lane, one third unfamiliar favorites, and required listenng for anyone interested in the birth of the DC punk scene (harDCore) or evolution of underground (indie, alternative, whatever) music.

On Friday night, I saw a trio of amazing bands at the 9:30 Club. This is notable, because rocknroll shows can be alot like boxing matches, in that the mounting excitement of a superb title bout can often be undercut by a mediocre undercard.

The first band of the evening was NYC’s Stellastar, who sound like The Cure as a punk band. They were entertaining and energetic, which exactly what you expect from an opening band.

The second band was Sahara Hotnights, a Scandinavian all-girl quartet who sound alot like early Joan Jett, or similarly, The Runaways at the height of their power. Sahara Hotnights play powerful, energetic punk rock, and they have gotten a boatload of press lately, so I’ll leave it ot you to find out what you want, if that sounds like your cup of tea, bowl of chili, or other container of food.

The headliners were New York’s The Mooney Suzuki, who played an Americanized version of French yea yea music. You call tell that these guys have listened to alot of Nation of Ulysess and The Make-up albums. (Two Things at Once — see above) In fact, The Mooney Suzuki sounds and feel so much like a Mod version of The Make-Up, that I almost expected Ian Svenonius and Michelle Mae to just on stage and start screaming about “Gospel Yea-Yea”. Mooney Suzuki are so over-the-top, so ebullient, so farcical that you can’t help but beleive that they take themselves very seriously.

Go see any and all of these bands if you have the chance.

That’s it. . . I’m winded.

I’ve been busy and although I know that I risk being the last person to weigh in on this important issue, I need to talk about Madonna, so that is a chance I am willing to take.

As anyone who knows me can tell you, I cultivate an almost cultist devotion to the earlier works of Mrs. Guy Ritchie — an admiration I share with no less a musical luminary than Henry Rollins — so anyone who attempts to cover one of her songs had better have some serious musical mojo. Teenage Fanclub succeeded admirably with their fuzzed out version of Like a Virgin, and Ciconne (Sonic) Youth basically redefined the possiblities of the cover with Into the Groove(y). Thurston Moore moaning ” . . you’ve got to prooovee your love to meee” was the sultriest, scariest thing I heard in all of 1988. I tend to view that track on The Whitey Album and all of Sonic Youth’s subsequent Madonna-related output not as a series of covers or remakes, but as a singular extended homage.

So, you can well imagine my emotional state earlier today when Ivan passed me Kelly Osbourne’s cover of Papa Don’t Preach, the very idea of which fills me with a certain species of dread and trepidation that can best described as reflexive. Contemplating Kelly Osbourne attempting any sort of musical endeavour makes me want to pack myself into a very small box and ship myself, Soviet-defector style, to some small corner of the globe that has not yet blessed itself with electricity. It’s not that I don’t think she’s not a wonderful girl — I’m sure she’s charming enough once you get past the screaming and yelling and cursing — but I question her musical skill. How can a girl whose only previous musical experience is most likely limited to cleaning up after her father be expected to rise above those humble beginnings and produce some sort of worthwhile artistic expression?

And yes, I know who her father is (thanks for asking), but I am prepared to hold up Gunnar and Matthew Nelson as living proof that progeny’s talent apple often falls far from the musical tree. Furthermore, let me add more grist to the mill by also submitting Wilson Phillips and Rockwell to that list. I feared that Kelly’s Papa Don’t Preach would do as much justice to Madonna as I do to Brian Wilson when I sing Caroline, No in the shower.

I could not possibly have been more mistaken. I’m not saying that Kelly is a musical genius, only that her Papa Don’t Preach is an infectious, if straightforward rock cover of a dance hit. Kelly’s Papa is a delicious confection, perfect candy pop in every possible way, but executed with enough sincerity to make it more than just a forgettable guilty pleasure. Oh, and did I mention it rocks! Yes, little Kelly Osbourne brought The Rock, or at least paid some studio musicians to bring The Rock for her, but that’s enough for what it is.

The point is. . . and yes, there is a point buried in here somewhere. . . the point is that this song could have been an unmitigated disaster, a vanity project to fulfill a little girl’s rocknroll dreams. . it is more than that. It’s a surf/punk explosion that hits the mark. Papa Don’t Preach is my song of the week.