This is a great
topic: first album. Cassette, CD, 45…
I wrote a lot
for this, dividing my firsts up into multiple categories that involved the traditional
first purchase, but extended to some stranger places: my mom’s record
collection; the first record store I ever went to (Viva Kemp Mill
Records!); my earliest memories of
flipping though records in the Kmart and being a little scared of the KISS,
Ozzy and Sabbath stuff; all the way to the pawn shop that was right next to the
comic shop I used to frequent every day after middle school, where I bought a
then almost 10 year old copy of AC/DC’s Back in Black, for a quarter…the first tape I bought, my first 45... I thought I remembered more specifically, but it's hard to put a finger on the actual first of whatever category I actually money down on. I do remember some purchases: the vinyl pressing of USA for Africa, which was...whatever, in retrospect, but did have a blistering live version of Springsteen doing Jimmy Cliff's "Trapped", which to this day gives me the shivers when I hear it.
I realized, though, my musical
memory is endless, each recollection better than the one before, so many
stories that spring up from hearing even a two second scrap of a tune. Music,
for those who love it, resides in what the soul must be. And the knowledge that
one possesses of their musical past and how it has built towards their
ever-living, always sound-tracked present, has to reside somewhere deep in the
physiology, someplace close to the DNA, the stuff that makes us who we are.
After
considering the many, many options I could qualify for “first”, I decided to go
with this: My friend’s older brother’s LP collection.
David S. was a
fourth grade rock god to me. He knew more about the Stones and the Beatles than
anyone I knew. Which is to say, he was the first one to tell me about those two
bands, and therefore was the ultimate authority. All his facts and tidbits and
knowledge, especially of lyrical content and album cover art must have to come
to him from a much older, very educated older brother (I remember thinking his parents were his
grandparents when I met them—grey and old; David was a ‘mistake’ baby).
He came over to
my house for a playmate (though we didn’t call it that back then) and we spent
much of the afternoon pouring over the covers of the stack of albums he brought
and listening to the music. Tattoo You
was really fascinating to me, with the tribal images of Mick and Keith looking
like Maori warriors. Beggars Banquet
was somehow a little scary looking, a place I shouldn’t be; Sticky Fingers was titillating dirty
because we could pull on the zipper in the pants. Some Girls was fun in a more innocent way: the die-cut, movable
features was a lot like the pop-up books I still liked at that age. He also had
a copy the Beatle’s Yesterday and Today with the infamous butcher scene, though it
must have been a reprint. Sgt. Pepper’s
was what really grabbed me, and we poured over that famous cover scene for what
seemed like hours. Abbey Road was
awesome, too, due to the fact that he explained the legend that Paul was dead
and this was representative of his funeral and that each Beatle was a member of
the funeral party. Mind you, all of this intense scrutiny of the art work and
the head-spinning tales David was telling me—the stories beyond the songs—was
done to a soundtrack of what could arguably be considered the greatest rock
music ever recorded. Like so many, The Beatles and the Stones hold exalted
status for me in the pantheon of rock, and regardless of how far afield I
stray, sometimes for good, often for worse (I went to see Quiet Riot in the 8th
grade, Bon Jovi and Cinderella in 9th), I always go back to the
Beatles and Stones. It doesn’t make me unique; it just means I have a pure rock
pedigree, good genes, if you will.
We eventually got around to
the White Album and then, because I
wasn’t really as singularly obsessed with music as David, I took us out to play
war in the construction site nearby and David eventually, incensed and bored,
stalked off and went back to my house. My mother had to take him home. It was a
great day, one that sparked my musical journey, despite David not wanting to be
my friend anymore (he was really offended at the joy I took rolling around in
the dirt, shooting a fake machine gun and running myself through freshly hung
drywall in effort to emulate fabulous special effects like in the movies). A
great day, but one that in retrospect shows me that perhaps even at that age, I
was already lacking any kind of particular, obsessive focus that if I had may
have led me down a very different path in life. David might have become a rock
star for all I know—he had the singularity of mind to do what it took to make
great music. He had the pedigree; he knew the legends and the stories and the
myths; he knew what the songs were about, especially the dirty ones, even if we
didn’t really know what was going on—Jagger’s penchant for “make sweet love” as
a lyric, while ubiquitous, didn’t mean much to me then, other than I knew I
should giggle when I heard it. He had the moves and the ability to mimic,
especially Mick Jagger. Have you ever seen a 4th grader strut and
prance and mime the vocals of Mick Jagger? No? You should—it’s a lot less
creepy and whole lot more entertaining than those little kids who always seem
to be part of any Elvis Presley impersonation festival.
What is amazing,
though, is how certain sounds, and in this case, album sleeves, certain images,
especially the visual and aural beauty of rock music, can work to blow open
your understanding or perception of the world around you. Up until then, I’d
been grooving to things like the AM radio, or stuff that my dad would sing
around the house. I had a few soundtracks to movies I loved (Star Wars, The
Muppets), but otherwise, like a typical nine-year-old kid, my musical
sensibility was scattered at best, influenced by what was accessible to me. I
didn’t have that ever-important older sibling to act as my musical sage, guru
and guide. So, I made do with what was available to me and, given the passion
music stirred in me, I worked pretty hard at finding sounds after that fateful
day when David S. brought over all those records. It’s been a good journey, one
that gets better the longer it goes on. In terms of the metaphorical quest,
this is one that needs no end, as the longer the way, the greater and more
abundant the rewards.
