Death to the 80s part 1

 Like a lot of middle-aged guys of today, I came of age in the 1980s when music was very important to our collective pop culture. At the time I went to high school, 1984-1988, everyone had a specific idea about what their musical identity was. I bounced around a lot between musical factions - I started as a metal head, a fan of Black Sabbath, AC/DC and Metallica and then moved to new wave when I started meeting girls and guys who were into the Cure, Smiths and Flock of Seagulls, and then moved more towards punk and alternative music as I discovered great bands like the Ramones, Dead Kennedys and Black Flag, ultimately identifying with SST bands like Meat Puppets and Husker Du. Most of the kids at school were just into top 40 pop music and also rap music of the day, which was limited to Run DMC and the Beastie Boys. The popular kids were, "Main-hall kids," typically jocks and cheerleaders and they didn't mix with the bulk of us commoners. 

As mentioned before, the "Main Hallers" had their lockers in the Main Hall. There were 4 total halls of lockers in my high school - Main Hall, Yellow Hall, Blue Hall and ?? I don't remember hall. Blue Hall was typically full of freshman and stoners, tough hicks and cigarette smoking metal chicks. Yellow hall was for all of us in-betweeners - band geeks, computer nerds, new wave kids, a few punks and a few queer kids as well as the moderately popular girls who weren't cheerleaders. Quite a mix! My locker was mid-way down yellow hall, a few blocks down from my friend Bär who was in the first section of Yellow where it joined with Main Hall. Behind my locker block was my rocker friend Loren and my friends Kyrie and Loretta. We all made a point of decorating our lockers with cut out pictures of music artists from magazines and/or movie stars. Prince was a popular locker theme as were hair metal bands like Motley Crüe and Ratt. My locker was pretty lame – I think I had some sad pictures of the Who, Led Zeppelin and U2, along with a stack of unused books and smashed moldy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The hippest lockers belonged to a suave olive skinned dude who’s name escapes me, but it was neatly plastered with a montage of Bananarama and Prince – all the girls loved this guy, he was very good-looking and had a very metrosexual fashion sense – and the also very-popular gay kid Luis, who’s locker was a love statement to Madonna, perfectly wallpapered with her images. I felt like a wet and moldy peanut butter sandwich next to these guys but hey, I respected their polished style sense.

Coming up next time: Skunk attack! Stoner Electronics class, Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo (for real!) and more 80s style tips

Eugene Rock City Memories

 Back in my day... I used to spend a lot of time at bars and music venues in Eugene, Oregon, where I lived from 1992-2012. Some of my favorite venues to come and go over the years are/were the Wow hall (still there), John Henry's, Downtown Lounge, Samurai Duck, Wild Duck (wtf is it with all these Ducks?) and of course Sam Bond's Garage and let's not forget the many basement and unofficial venues that have come and go over the years - River Ruin, Ryder's basement, the Monkey House (RIP), that place on 13th and Washington that has a basement (where the punks would frisk you for weapons and also tell you what to do in the event of a fire or emergency - very considerate.) There has always been a vibrant and radical music scene in Eugene, a combination of punks, anarchists, college students, hippies, homeless crust punx, belligerent frat boys and just regular folks with good taste. The first show I ever attended in Eugene was at the WOW hall in 1991 - Nomeansno and Victim's Family, the ultimate prog-punk bill. NMN were already one of my favorite bands at that point. Victim's Family were at their peak and really shredded, but NMN brought the doom, starting with a free-form "jam" on the intro of "The day everything became nothing." It was killer. 

Some of my favorite shows over the years: 1. Jonathan Richman at the WOW hall with a pick-up band of semi-pro guys that did not know his material that well - the entire show, Jonathan was calling the names of the chords back to the bassist and keyboardist - "E!", "C sharp!" "F 7!" while also singing the lyrics and dancing the way he does. 2. Chris Knox at Sam Bond's Garage, Chris being a former member of New Zealand's Tall Dwarfs, he played a great set with a drum machine and his guitar, awesome New Zealand pop 3. Sebadoh at old John Henry's 1993 I think this was one of the very first times I went to John Henry's, was already a Lou Barlow fan. I loved the fact that his guitar only had 3 or 4 strings on it and yet the band sounded awesome, no one needs 6 fucking strings. 4. Tom Waits at the Hult Center 1999, probably the only time I will ever see one of my songwriting heroes, Tom had a great band that included Smokey Hormel on guitar and banjo. 5. Circle Jerks at the WOW hall 2009 I'm surprised they even made my list but the band was so smokin hot that night and Keith Morris was really funny with the stage banter that night, chastising the bumbling mosh-boys for running into the girls and women near the front of the stage, "that's no way to get a girl interested in you, by running into them like a football player - why don't you try just talking to them after you've calmed down?"

Okay that's my short list and overview of Eugene as a warped and funny music town. Thanks for reading -Ed 

Dog Days 2021

 Every year since I can remember late August has evoked a kind of stagnant melancholy. The hot days start to wane, trips to the river seem less urgent, the kids are coming out of their summer stupor with the grim realization that school is right around the corner, waiting to pounce, kind of like adulthood is waiting to pounce a few years down the road. With the repeat years of experience under out belts we've gotten pretty good at planning and executing several Summer getaways per year. This year we stayed on track and got out camping four times and at least as many times again going to the river or lake with friends. Despite Covid, and with our mainly vaccinated peoples, we've managed what feels like a normal summer, a normal life. Count us among the privileged few.

Back in June I had the idea for writing Letter to Deej, a letter to Dan Jones on an audio cassette full of songs. It started as one idea but soon took on a life of it's own. Not often, but sometimes, songwriting carries you along and writes YOU instead of the other way around. The end resulting 13 songs are kind of a diary of the Cole family's early summer life, 2021:

Among the fun travels we had this Summer - hitting Jed Smith park in the Redwoods and the Smith river with friends, visiting more friends in Chiloquin, seeing the awesome Crater Lake - the most memorable was visiting the Alvord desert hot springs for the first time. Our visit coincided with the Perseid meteor shower, so we had more shooting stars and meteors than we could possibly take in, all the company of a friendly group of strangers sitting in the hot springs in the dark. The Alvord desert playa was also quite scenic and amazing. We may have let the kids drive the minivan a bit on the vast expanse, going for a new land speed record for Toyota Sienna ... or that may not have happened, perhaps I am imagining it. Pictures or it didn't happen:

Alvord expanse

Soak time

Hanging with Dusty in Chiloquin

Visiting Crater Lake with Jess

The coldest swimming hole we've ever swam in on the Wood river

North fork Smith river

Tape Goobers

 

Some guys have a mid-life crisis and buy a Porsche. I buy cassettes off of tapeheadcity.com . A cheap fix and a great way to listen to tunes. I'd forgotten how nice it was to plug into a Walkman and have a listening experience without driving everyone around me crazy with my taste in music. I put fresh AA batteries in the Walkman 10 days ago and have been listening pretty much non-stop - no slow down or distortion of playback so far. Of course fast forward and rewind don't work on a 41-year-old tape player - the plastic gears that govern those functions tend to become brittle and break over time and are hard to replace. I'm okay with that, it still sounds killer and the tape hiss kind of matches the frequency of my tinnitus. Stay tuned for more tape fun!

Spring Fling Party With Andy

 Greetings from Sunny Vancouver, where the Spring weather has become the perfect Summer, this week only. Sometimes I joke about June being "June-uary" in the Portland area - it can often be 45f and rainy and cold, garden plants and vegetables stunted and camping trips ruined by miserable weather. I wish I had planned a trip for this weekend - the weather is perfect, sunny and in the 80s. I know the water is cold at the Washougal river but it's tempting to go for a quick dip; not recommended however since a few people die every year in our area from hypothermia. 

I had the most pleasant dream last night. Tina and I were at a party that Andy Warhol was hosting. The party featured an array of characters including Atlas-style muscle men, vampy women dressed like Morticia Adams, my friend Pat and my friend Rachel from work and Hilary from the local rock scene. Andy had a crate of records that were categorized by genre, including "Glam Rock", which was a single picture disc of Lou Reed with sunglasses. I remember shuffling the genres and that Andy was pleased with my re-categorization of the discs. Mr. Warhol made us a drink with cranberry vodka and a few Kalamata olives - I could taste it in my dream and it was delicious. I had to pee badly in the dream - never a good sign - and I had to use the urinal in the middle of the room in front of friends. My pee lasted forever it seemed like. Later, Rachel walked Tina and I home to our modern house. There was a koi pond moat around our house. Rachel stepped off the tiny bridge that was our "porch" and her feet got wet. She was unhappy. 

End of dream.