Origins: Country

Yeehaw!
I mean, I live in Texas, so I'm required by law to enjoy country music.  Right?  No?  Well, I have to say that I was late to the party, and I am not a faithful follower of the genre, but there are certain segments of country music that I love.  So, how did I get there?

My first memories of country are from my dad.  I can remember, to the limited extent that he ever listened to music, my dad chose country in the truck or in his woodworking shop.  I can also recall times that he would pick me up from some activity - scouts or sports or youth group - and he would be listening to the bluegrass specials they played on the NPR station sometimes at night.  But the old man never really listened to music, so there was never a hard push or draw to go along with that genre.  

By junior high/high school, I would not have been caught dead listening to country music.  We are talking about the days of Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, Reba, Randy Travis, Clint Black, Brooks & Dunn, Alan Jackson, and Alabama.  There are people in the world who love those artists, but when I was 12 to 16, they were about the worst kind of music to ever exist on the planet.  I'd choose my mom's nap-inducing classical sonatas over having to listen to Alan Jackson drawl about rocking the jukebox or Garth Brooks warble on about how God answered his prayers by helping him hook up with the right lady friend while self-important strings swell behind him.

Oh, dear Lord.  Look at that hair feathering out from beneath that hat.  Oh my.

I was edgy!  I was jamming R.E.M. and learning the dance steps to Stand!  I was rocking Midnight Oil and thinking about the raw deal the aborigines got!  I was singing along with U2 and feeling alone and very important.  No way in the world was I going to associate myself with the "kickers" who listened to country music.  Not going to happen.  Maybe, just maybe, I was a massive nerd and the kickers wanted nothing to do with me, but I'm going to assume for the purposes of this story that they would have accepted me with open arms if I had just bought Red Wings and a copy of Song of the South.

But, the tentacles of down-home musicianship worked their way into my brain anyway.  The first and main culprit for that transition was summer camp.  I started going to Laity Lodge Youth Camp when I was 7 or 8, and continued going and working there into college.  It was the greatest place on the earth - still love it and am excited to be sending the boy there for the first time this summer.  Every session, they have a legitimate rodeo, by summer camp standards, with horse riding and calf wrestling and pie eating.  Good fun, followed by the rodeo dance.  The rodeo dance was a blast, but it was also fraught with terror.  You got IBC root beer in a bottle, the work crew strung lights up and set hay bales around the edges of the dance floor, and everyone had a pretty good sweaty time under the bright stars of the Texas hill country.  BUT, you also had to dance with a girl if you wanted to dance - none of that grooving in a crowd, trying to impress with your hip thrusts and thumb throws.  And asking a girl to dance was terror incarnate for years.  But I digress, this is about country music.

At the rodeo, one guy was in charge of the mike for years, Doug Cooper.  He was a HUGE lover of Bob Wills, and would brainwash all of the kids into professing their love for Bob Wills in order to win spirit points, and he would make some young camper girl sing Faded Love in front of the whole rodeo crowd at each rodeo.  From my well-faded recollection, he would push that way beyond the point where it went from fun to ridiculous, but my memory of it is good, so must not have been too bad.  After the rodeo, all of the music at the rodeo dance was, of course, country music, so I was then exposed to all of the popular country of the day.  I recall the dudes performing sit-ins in the center of the dance floor during Shania Twain's Any Man of Mine, and people doing extremely complicated twisting dance moves to John Michael Montgemery's Sold.

And we ended the dance with Shake Russell's Deep in the West.  I have no clue who found this song or chose it to close out the dances, but it still makes me feel happy and wistful at the same time right now.  Such a great song, and perfect to sing to a camp crush who you think is going to last forever.

Apart from the rodeo and dance, camp counselors also played good country and helped me wade through the Nashville garbage that was so heavily promoted out in the real world.  I started learning about Willie, Jerry Jeff, Robert Earl, and Willis Alan Ramsey out at Laity, and started to realize that country itself wasn't bad, just the over-processed garbage playing on the radio.

Then I went away to college and joined a fraternity.  Two things about that.  First, in Sherman, Texas, there was one real bar in the entire town, called Calhouns, where they played top 40 country and the Electric Slide every single damn night.  We went there at least once a week, and after the garbage country gets familiar, it stays terrible but at least feels better to sing along with a big pack of friends.  Second, when you have nothing to do (like in Sherman), drinking beer and listening to beer drinking songs becomes a darn fine way to pass the time.  So you end up listening to Viva Terlingua and The Road Goes on Forever about eight million times while sitting on a moldy couch in front of a rental house.

After college, I moved to Dallas right when KHYI started broadcasting with a great mix of classic country and newer Texas-centric artists who were picking up the torch from Jerry Jeff and Robert Earl.  I immediately got in to Bruce Robison ("Wrapped" should have been my first dance at my wedding, but I wasn't thinking straight), Charlie Robison, Slaid Cleaves (Broke Down is a classic, with "Lydia" one of my favorites), and Chris Knight, and then started going back to some classics from Cash, LeDoux, Steve Earle, and Waylon Jennings.  It was an eye-opening time for me to realize the depth of great song writing available in the country genre if you had a well-curated playlist provided to you.

In the years since then, I've grown less enamored by the "Texas Country" or "Outlaw Country" sound that has followed behind Pat Green and his progeny.  I don't categorically dislike new country like I used to, but for the most part I feel like a lot of it is just trying too damn hard.  What I'm left with enjoying:

• the classics like Jerry Jeff (give Viva Terlingua a shot if you need a suggestion), Willie, Robert Earl (go Gringo Honeymoon for my fav), Johnny Cash, Bob Wills, George Strait (but not all of King George, stick to the older classics), Steve Earle, Slaid Cleaves, Bruce Robison with Kelly Willis, etc.
• the new wave of bluegrass type tunes: Nickel Creek (still the best, hope they are really getting back together), Punch Brothers (Who's Feeling Young Now is amazing), Sarah Jarosz, and even Trampled by Turtles.
• and a few new acts:
• I've liked getting to know the Turnpike Troubadours through this blog.  Good stuff.
• Kasey Musgraves is a bad ass country woman.  "Merry Go Round" is fantastic (link below) with a line that has stuck in my head for months - "Just like dust we settle in this town."  That is money.  One of two CDs I have actually bought this whole year.
• Nikki Lane is another bad ass, who has a new album produced by the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach and has a classic meets new thing going on that is great.

As evidenced by the recent "Country" issue of Rolling Stone, this music is HUGE these days.  I'm not buying in to the large majority of the popular country sound that they are talking about in there - rock and roll guitars, good times with your honey in the tight jeans down by the river on an old dirt road, or empowered ladies whippin' ass because their man's a cheatin' jerk - but I'm happy that innovators like the Punch Brothers and Kasey Musgraves are out there updating the sound and making country music exciting again.  Give them a shot and let me know what you think.

Origins: Rap/ Hip-Hop

If you have been looking through these posts or paying attention to my thoughts on music, you'll know that I am a musical omnivore.  Bring it on.  I probably enjoy rock more than anything else, but rap, pop, country, folk, metal, bluegrass, and EDM will generally also have a home in my playlist as well.  This is why I think Girl Talk is genius - mixing Smashing Pumpkins with Salt n Pepa with Neil Diamond with Ice T?  Come on.  In thinking about other things to write about here, I thought it would be fun to dissect and recount exactly how it is that I swerved into each of the genres I enjoy.

So, rap.  If you are old enough to recall the genesis of rap, you'll probably know that it was not normal for a white kid from Austin to be singing along with N.W.A.  But by the time I hit junior high or so, one seminal event occurred that opened the door for me, you, and everyone who finds joy and pleasure in a good groove to get you in the right mood.  On November 15, 1986, the Beastie Boys released Licensed to Ill, which became the best selling rap album of the 1980s and went platinum more than nine times.  But for me, it took rap and merged it with rock to create a new style built on punk guitar, relatively simple beats, and terrifically silly lyrics. I was intimidated by, and could not relate to the darker side of hip hop that existed before then. Instead of Eazy E spraying people with bullets, you had these three goofy-looking white kids talking about their right to party and good times.  Speaking of which, here is (You've Gotta) Fight for your Right (to Party).

Classic video.  Great song (especially when you are all of 12 years old and have no clue what a sweet house party would even be about, although I fear I'd be the guy getting wedgies and beer spit in his face in this scenario).

I was first exposed to Licensed to Ill by my older sister, Sharon, who brought home a cassette tape from Sound Warehouse and invited me into her room to check it out with her.  That was awesome.  I recall that she was working on some sweet cheerleader moves to the beats, while I was honing my beat-boxing skillz.  Brass Monkey was a major jam (even when I had no clue what it was about and had never once drank alcohol), Slow and Low, No Sleep 'Til Brooklyn, Girls, the whole album is full of classics you have heard of unless you are weird or old or both. 

But the best song on the whole album is Paul Revere.

That beat - simple little shakers, blips, a little trumpet blast, and that backwards looped bass whump - is so deceptively simple, but instantly recognizable, groovy as hell, and just menacing enough to make their story of thieving bad asses meeting while on the run from the law seem legit.

The Beasties went on to make Paul's Boutique (the best collection and use of samples I think I've ever enjoyed), Check Your Head (a top all time album for me that still sounds amazingly fresh now), Ill Communication (another strong classic with Root Down, one of my favs), Hello Nasty, and then a few progressively weaker albums until Adam Yauch died a few years ago.  Which was sad and meant that they cancelled their ACL appearance a few years back when I was super psyched to finally get to see them play live.  Sorry to see him go.

So, Licensed to Ill is the first genesis of my rap love.  The second event was my friend Aaron Smithers' Bronco 2 getting stolen.  (BTW, how lame was the Bronco 2?  Come on, Ford, you couldn't come up with another name?  This hurt the fantastic Bronco brand almost as much as OJ).  By now I was in high school, and the only rap I listened to was the Beasties or what was played on the radio (back then, we're talking about MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, Tone Loc, etc.  Not the finest hour for mainstream hip hop).  I mainly listened to alternative rock - heavy on Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Primus, Fugazi, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, The Pixies, and the like.

Anyway, Aaron's Bronco 2 was stolen and recovered not too terribly long afterwards.  However, the thievers took Aaron's little case logic box of alt-rock tapes (or tossed them out the window) and left behind three gangsta rap tapes in their stead.  We treated those three tapes like a joke for about a week, jamming them (loud) while we drove around, acting like we were hard gangstas who dug hard-core rap while winking to each other and clowning the music.  But after a little while, I realized how much I actually liked what I was hearing.

First, The Geto Boys' 'Til Death Do Us Part.  Dude.  Welcome to the harder side of hip hop in 1993.  For the most part, they take everything to the absolute next level on shock value.  When Eminem did not yet exist, it was the Geto Boys who were breaking down some terrifying tales of rape, murder, and general scariness.  They are made up of Scarface, Big Mike, and Bushwick Bill (a little person who was on the cover of an earlier album with a bloody eye from an attempted suicide, I mean, you can't make that up).  I was going to quote some of their lyrics, but they are just unpleasant and not appropriate for the most part.  However, here is one (sampling Easy (Like Sunday Morning)!) that is more of a public service announcement about how gangstas should stop capping each other and stuff.

Second, NWA's EFIL4ZAGGIN.  This one was less terrifying, but still way harder than my normal musical choices and full of the type of stuff that I had never heard in my life.  One track is called "To Kill a Hooker," another is called "She Swallowed It."  I mean, this is stuff I had never heard in my life.  Words I'd never heard.  Sexual act descriptions I'd never even imagined could happen.  Wildly inappropriate for a 15 year old boy, but set over a great collection of old school samples and beats.  You've still got Dr. Dre and Eazy E in the group at this point, but Ice Cube had already bailed by now.  This was not NWA's most popular album by any means - none of their big hits were on here, but I think Appetite for Destruction is probably my favorite off of here because of the beat (uh, video is weird NSFW for the first minute or so).

Finally, one of my favorite rap albums of all time, Ice Cube's Death Certificate.  This disc is chock full of inventive, fun, interesting samples crafted from old school funk and soul music.  James Brown, Funkadelic, Parliament, George Clinton, Zapp - just a ton of well-picked bits and pieces woven together to create new and original music that absolutely jams.  On top of the music, Cube crafts excellent story-telling raps that leave today's boring brag-fest rap in the dust. For example, My Summer Vacation, a song about moving his drug dealing enterprise from L.A. to St. Louis to escape the heat; A Bird in the Hand, about his failure to find a good job coming out of school and deciding to deal drugs instead; or Man's Best Friend, about the reasons how a gun is better protection than a dog.  Not many videos from this album, but Steady Mobbin' is a good one.

Another top example - Alive on Arrival is a great story-telling rap about a dealer who gets shot on the corner and gets taken up to the hospital, but gets hassled by the cops the whole time instead of getting help.  This is a great example of why I have become a crotchety old man when it comes to modern rap.

You can really see what is happening in your mind's eye - they run to the bushes to get away from the drive-by, and then he's running down the block and realizes the bottom of his sweatshirt is bloody.  Just before passing out, he yells to his friends to help him.  It is cinematic-level story-telling, while also providing a real commentary about the treatment of poor people at the County Hospital E.R.  Classic storytellers like Cube or Notorious B.I.G. are sadly gone, who give you a great tune/beat that piques your interest and gets you moving, while they spin a yarn about something with such great detail that you can see it.  

Meanwhile, listen to a current top rap song (Iggy Azelea's Fancy is the top rap song on Spotify right now), and you get synthesizers (no samples), generic flourishes (hey! hey! hey! hey!), with nonsensical boasts about money or cars or general fanciness.  "First things first, I'm the realest," "I'm still in tha murder business," something about haters and staying on her grind, and spelling her name repeatedly, and wishing you could touch her hotness, and a hook about being fancy and how you should remember her name.  Don't get me entirely wrong, that song is a serious earworm that makes me need to shake the booty, but its an idiotic song.  No one will remember Fancy at all by next summer.  Get offa my lawn!!!

So there you have it.  A cheerleader sister and car thieves are the genesis.  From there I found Tribe Called Quest, Black Sheep, LL Cool J, Notorious BIG, Public Enemy, Ice T, Dr. Dre, Guru (those Jazzmatazz albums!), Eminem, Kanye West, Outkast, Jay Z, 2Pac, Nas, A$AP Rocky, Kendrick Lamar, and on into the future.  I still love the storytellers (Kendrick Lamar) more than the braggers (A$AP) but both are free to invade my head and get me grooving.