I wish I could remember the first time I heard music.
Presumably, the first beat I encountered was metered by my mother’s heart,
which came at me through a nest of prenatal fluids at, say, 85 beats per
minute. My own blood bag was probably thumping at about 130, which must’ve made
for some jazzy internal mash-ups.
Unfortunately, this is only speculation. My mom doesn’t know
the real facts, probably because she was too into her Abba records to measure
life’s more important tempos. Sniff, sniffle, but it’s okay. I love her in
spite of her piercing selfishness.
The first time I remember really enjoying music was when I was
about 10 years old. I lived in France and was into some children’s garbage
called Dorothé. She was this blonde woman who sang about putting her skirts in
a suitcase and tying up her shoes. Conceptually challenging though it was, I
became a big fan.
When I got back to Canada, something came over me. I think it
was puberty. First, I started listening to rap music, stuff like Run DMC and MC
Hammer.
That sucked, so I got into the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was all
about
Blood Sugar Sex Magik
,
Mother’s
Milk
and
Freaky Stylie
. My sister might’ve had something to do with this,
not because she cracked my head open when I was three (beware the perils of the
Pushing Game), but because she had
Blood Sugar
in her collection, right next to Debbie Gibson and
other unmentionables.
I used to do this thing when I listened to music. I used to lie
in my bed, curl up in a ball, and rock back and forth like a seizing retard. My
mom and dad called this “rocking,” as in “What’s that horrible sound?” “Oh,
it’s just Paulie. He’s rocking in his bed.”
After a while, the Peppers couldn’t fuel my rocking needs. I
was just too fast for them. Enter heavy metal in the form of Metallica,
Megadeth, Tool, Faith No More, Nine Inch Nails, Anthrax, and an endless argument
with my father about growing my hair long (which I won, but only in Grade 9,
when the hairmill thing was on its way out).
In Grade 10, I started playing guitar in a band called The
Gravy. Basically, we were a Sonic Youth rip-off. That got me hanging out with a
bunch of shoegazing wimps who played in local bands and liked Cracker, the
Watchmen and other sniveling entries in the indie department. These friendships
almost ruined me. I took my metal cassettes, cracked them open as my sister did
my skull (on purpose), and tied the loose tape to my bike handlebars. I then
pedaled around the bush with Anthrax’s Belly of The Beast streaming behind me,
all that wonderful thrash getting caught on branches and in my spokes.
Oh, towering shame.
For years thereafter, music for the most part failed to excite
me. It wasn’t until I was in college, when I discovered Mr. Bungle and Tub
Ring, that music became interesting again. My best friend, Oliver Jones, had
lost his mind in the metal morass, mining all subgenres, and eventually
settling on black metal as his preferred poison. And I do mean poison. In case
you’re unfamiliar with black metal, all you really need to know is that it
gained notoriety in Norway on a crest of church burnings, cannibalism and
murder.
Oliver’s okay now. He renounced his allegiance to corpse paint,
but not before tainting my own tastes and exposing me to one of my favourite
metal albums of all time: Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s
Altered States of America
. Clocking in at just over 20 minutes,
Altered
States
has 100 songs on it and is
recognized as one of the best digital grindcore albums ever. The beats per
minute make your heart palpitate. It’s like being abused by an angry god built
of soundwaves.
Enjoying music like this can be socially alienating. Imagine:
Everyone’s talking about the new Coldplay, and you turn around and say, “Have
you guys heard Pig Destroyer’s ‘Sheet Metal Girl’? It’s off a concept album
about murdering your ex.” Guess what? You’re a creepy loser.
But so what? There’s a lot to be said for the marginalized. The
fringes are where some of the most interesting, creative and satirical things
take shape, if only because its occupants figure no one’s paying close enough
attention to litigate them — unless, of course, you burn an ancient
church and eat your lead singer’s brain after you discover him dead from a
self-inflicted shotgun blast. But, if you doubt the principle, go buy Fantomas’
Suspended Animation
and tell me you’ve
ever heard anything so simultaneously composed and anarchic. If you need
something more accessible, grab The Melvins’
Nude with Boots
, out in July.
Of course, I like other types of music, too. I’m right into Tom
Waits. I know all the lyrics to Del Shannon’s Little Runaway. And I dig Old
Crow Medicine Show. But if you see me driving by, odds are I’ll be screaming
Mastodon at the top of my lungs.
At the end of the day, there’s room enough for me to rock alone
in my bed. And I’m okay with that.
Really.