Do you still listen to the music you loved in high school? Lately, I'm beginning to feel that the worse the news gets, the more us 30 and 40 somethings retreat into our past, into the music we cut our teeth on during the last great economic downturn.

Every semi serious music lover experiences changes in their musical taste as they become exposed to more and different kinds of genres. Part of blogging about music, for me, is looking back on how I received new music at different points in my life and comparing those memories to how I listen now. A great post over on Pretending Life Is Like A Song has me reminiscing and analyzing my transition from guitar-driven rock and roll to Punk and New Wave music in the early 80s. Adam unravels the meaning of "Alison" by Elvis Costello in both an academic and quite personal way -- this is great blogging folks, check it out.

And yes, Elvis Costello was pivotal for my transition. Other groups of the time also opened my eyes to a less regional sound (southern USA, "hard rock" bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Outlaws, The Allman Brothers, Molly Hatchet and Tom Petty dominated the airwaves where I lived. I took that to simply be what rock music was, not knowing how much more there could be). Soon, like everyone my age, I was lapping up everything the UK could offer me and American bands were evolving as well. But Elvis Costello--he was first.

This transition morphed into a very important social marker in highschool. There were three crowds to fit into: The Jocks/Preps, The Nerds/Geeks, and The Stoners. As you might guess they were closely aligned with social class, identified by the kind of clothes you wore, and the grades you earned. Until Punk and New Wave music hit, I had firmly been a member of The Stoner crowd. We liked our Southern Rock just fine, and threw it back with a hefty shot of Jack Daniels, a Budweiser chaser and some imported Colombian you-know-what. Football games were spent under the bleachers, Saturday nights saw us huddled around a blanket on the beach getting high to the sounds of a car radio.

Then the 80s hit and I began to find a niche academically. New Wave and Punk music had a cache that tore me out of my stupor, the lyrics were witty and meaningful. Reagan and Thatcher were gutting the working class, the mentally ill, and the children while the upper classes' wealth grew. My teenage angst was in high gear. I knew I'd never be "cool" but I might as well enjoy pretensions of Continentalism now if I were to ever escape my little beach town. I dreamed of college, Socialism, travel, love- all things that my Stoner friends hated with justifiable class resentment. But academics might be a way out, I reckoned and indeed, I was one of the lucky few who did make it. Music propelled me to aspire to larger things, it still does.

So the first major transition occurred. Another big one would happen about 10 years later, but that's another post....

Goodbye Stranger Supertramp Breakfast In America, buy it
Kid The Pretenders Singles, buy it
Is She Really Going Out With Him Joe Jackson, Classic Joe Jackson, buy it
Cockney Kids Are Innocent Sham 69 The Punk Singles Collection 1977-80, buy it

Pop over to the great blog, Fong Songs and hear how the author atteneded the world premiere of the rock doc It Might Get Loud at the Toronto Film Fest. It's a cool story and he was actually in the audience with Jimmy Page, Jack White, and The Edge. He includes a recording of some of the Q&A at the end of the screening... totally cool!

It Might Get Loud, official site

I Like You, Morrissey, Live at Earls Court

buy Live At Earls Court

but do go over to Matthew's blog and hear a fantastic bit of folk music by James Yorkston. Yes, Song, by Toad has done it again and given us the kind of review that makes you want to not only hear the music but also just soak up as much of it as you possibly can. That, my friends, is good blogging, and one of the main reasons I began doing this.

And James Yorkston has given us thought-provoking, rich, melodic music with which to while away a gloomy fall day. It hit me perfectly between the eyes this afternoon and you just had to know about it! (Plus, I've always been a sucker for a red-headed Scot, now don't you get pervy on me, you know I mean musically!)

thanks Matthew, xoxoxo

Hear two tracks from James Yorkston's The Year of the Leopard on NPR, here
James Yorkston on MySpace
buy his NEW album, When the Haar Rolls In

Song, by Toad
photo credit: jethro*

1. kept me up way past my bedtime
2. caused Meatpocket (Mrs. Tart) some concern for my well-being -- yes sympathies JC
3. increased the size of my fucktunes library by at least 10 G in the past 3 months, aaack
4. brought me back to the world of live shows, yay!

So, while I bent your ear about the gigs I was missing in lieu of some great sex in September I should, in the interest of full disclosure (and to whet your appetite for upcoming posts to cheer your dreary Monday morning!), give you a picture of shows I do have tickets for. :)

September 6, The Wedding Present
September 12, Holy Fuck
September 19, Magic Slim and the Teardrops
October 4, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult
October 10, Ben Folds
October 29, Amy Ray

Wheee! So yeah, some reviews to come! Sorry for bragging, but here's two great tracks from El Rey to give you a giggle, quirky choices I know. But that's the best thing about the Weddoes, they're quintessentially quirky and yet as much as we make fun of pop music we love it deep down, eh?

Soup mp3, The Wedding Present, El Rey.... If you can tell me what this song means I'll send you a cool track of your choice! Honest to god, I'm mystified, but I can't get the chorus out of my head.

Swingers mp3, The Wedding Present, El Rey.... Um, yeah for most people, the question, "Is self control too much to expect?" is a really bad sign. Thankfully Meatpocket and I got that all worked out, 15 years on Tuesday and I finally found a place to purchase the requested (ok, demanded) present, lol!

buy El Rey on MySpace

photo credit: Swansea Photographer

Rol, at Sunset Over Slawit posted last week about a book that is going right on my xmas list this year, Chuck Klosterman's Fargo Rock City. One question that Rol takes from the book, is the mystery of why some girls (and women) actually like metal, or more specifically what Rol calls "glam metal" such as KISS, Poison, Thin Lizzy, Bon Jovi, etc... and I stumbled into the middle of a conversation on whether or not a particular Whitesnake video with a hot female model "having sex with a car" (as Rol describes) was sexist or not. Go see it here. I replied that some of us girls wanted to be the girl on the car, some of us wanted to have the girl on the car, and more importantly some of us knew exactly how to get the metalmen, namely by liking the music they liked regardless of the videos. So, sexist or not, we didn't really care. Scheming bitches aren't we?! Oh and thanks Rol, for a really thought provoking post! I'm not criticizing it in any way hun!

But seriously, what's so mysterious about metal? Or about any genre for that matter? Why divide the world so neatly so that The Carpenters are girly and Ozzy's for the boys? I admit, I started out listening to metal to piss off my parents like all you guys did :p Yeah, it worked for me too. Punk worked even better, I just couldn't do the satanic head trip on my poor christian mother that metal afforded me!

Now, this got me thinking, why have all the people in my life, who knew anything at all about music, been men? It's not just that certain genres of music are roped off for women, even musical knowledge is considered "a manly sport." Yeah, I know I lost some of ya there. You can smell a feminist rant coming, right? I'll try and take it easy on ya, I promise I won't go all Camille Paglia here. Just tell me when's the last time you had a real conversation about a band -- not a song, with a woman? When you go to gigs, look around? I was seriously the only woman at the Duke Spirit show the other week not wearing makeup and a low-cut fashionable blouse/dress, and I was one of maybe 5 single women there (probably the only one who wasn't "working" that night, lol!). Yeah, I'm odd that way sometimes, but this was a pretty scuzzy venue. I was there for the music (not that they weren't, of course, of course).

There's an ad in my local coffeehouse for an all women punk rock collective, they do gigs that spotlight local women's music. I usually avoid that crap like the plague. Maybe I just spent too many years in the dyke community, it was a fine place to visit but nobody wants to live in the ghetto, ya know? And yes, I understand that women don't have as much money to spend on entertainment as men, that women don't want to play by the rules of "the system" or "the man" etc... I got it. But I also see how "the industry" funnels us band after band that sounds the same, that has no female voices in the foreground and that sucks too, cause damn I love me some girly punk. Most of all, (and this is what was missing from the whole riot grrl phenomenon, in my memory) I love to see women having FUN with music and FUN with sexuality in music, for a change. Maybe I'll surprise you with a review of that local collective thing one day, who knows? ;)

Blender mp3 Amy Ray from Prom commentary on the industry
Buy it

More Rock More Talk mp3 The Butchies from Population 1975 Amy's queercore backup band for her first two solo projects, and an entity onto themselves, also known as Team Dresch
Buy it

I like Fucking mp3 Bikini Kill from The Singles great song, but honest to god, this doesn't sound like a woman who likes to fuck!
Buy it

Slide mp3 L7 from Bricks are Heavy: not a happy camper either :(
Buy it

O Bondage, Up Yours! X-Ray Spex from: The Rolling Stone Women In Rock Collection [Disc 2] mp3 * now there's a reason this is my all time favorite girly punk song! I'm just so unevolved xoxox
Buy it

*also available on Germ Free Adolescence (2005) expanded version