Memory Lane
I’m up in PA right now visiting my girlfriend’s folks and celebrating her brother’s 23rd birthday, so that plus the dial-up connection I’m using will require that this be short.
Since last December I’ve jumped on the Guitar Hero bandwagon and last weekend picked up Rock Band. As an audiophile, I love everything that music is and can be. A book I read Spring semester 08 discussed the history of the phonograph and the impact it had on our culture and county. For instance, women sold records for two reasons: 1) women were the caretakers of the home at the time the phonograph was released and 2) women were less likely to invite male strangers into their home, so companies hired women to sell the records and the players. Women were able to work their way up from seller to executive in the recording industry because of their involvement and quite possibly helped the woman’s movement because of it. The book also discusses how music can develop collective memory with a group of people – enabling you to hear a song which takes you back to a specific moment in time, almost allowing you to relive the experience.
Anyway, driving up to PA yesterday we listed to a recently compiled playlist of songs used in the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series that we ourselves own. One of my favorite on Rock Band was the DLC track Zero by The Smashing Pumpkins. I’m not a huge fan of them, and didn’t get to see them when they came to Baltimore for Virgin Fest nor during their short, small venue tour but something about their music always takes me back.
Last night, driving down I-78, belting Disarm at the top of my lungs, I remembered a party held by my friend Jamie back in middle/high school. I can’t remember if we were friends then, but later became quite close until I moved. From my doorstep, I could hear the songs of The Smashing Pumpkins wafting through the trees from her backyard where a live band, made up of our classmates, played. I mostly remember hearing Today sung by…Emily?…I think, but my other friend Damien was on guitar at the time. He was another close friend in school that I’ve lost touch with. He introduced me to The Smashing Pumpkins, and I can remember vividly driving down the road in his Volvo listening to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Damien later played Siamese Dream for me where I heard Today, Cherub Rock, and Disarm (which would become my favorite track). Damien opened my ears to a lot of music (Future Sounds of London, Orbital, Garbage, The Prodigy – to name a few) and he was a great friend. For a while, and maybe it had to due with the close proximity of our houses, but Damien, Jamie, and I spent a lot of time together – especially the summer Jamie was under parental house arrest for someone else’s mistake. We had a lot of good times hanging out, watching tv, eating chinese, and listening to music. I can’t remember why I never went to that party – maybe we weren’t friends then, maybe i wasn’t invited, maybe I was just to damn awkward for my own good – but I’ll always have the memory of the music.
Anyway, that’s my little random trip down memory lane. I’ll add links when I get back to broadband, assuming of course that the hurricanes haven’t flooded our apartment. (Updated 9/8/08 – with sights AND sounds) Enjoy your weekend, everyone, and if you can – put on some old records. See where those take you.
Later!
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