This essay was written for Dr. Joe Kraus' Personal Essay class.

“…one of the chief values of living with music lies in its power to give us an orientation in time. In doing so, it gives significance to all those indefinable aspects of experience which nevertheless help us make us what we are. In the swift whirl of time music is a constant, reminding us of what we were and of that toward which we are aspired.”
--Ralph Ellison, Living with Music

Music also started to define who I was. I enjoyed the music of Garbage because they took beats from dance songs, hooks from rock songs, sensual vocals, and made unclassifiable music that appealed to a toss-up demographic. They pushed the bounds of creativity, but remained within the limits of commercial success; pleased the alternative fan, but profited from the consumer. They were a trick record like none other. I found myself wanting that same duality in my life. I wanted to be the popular kid that people wanted to know, but I didn’t want to like new things or act a new way. I found a balance after two and a half years of high school, and rode out the rest with great enjoyment.

In his lifetime (1952-1994), Ralph Ellison found himself torn between the worlds of classical and jazz music, but I found myself traveling a road of alternative music. This road took me more places than I thought it could and it proved to be wider than I had ever expected when I started out. Then again, can we ever expect things in life?

This essay is a collection of albums and songs that have influenced who I am today. With a listen of each album or song I can find myself going back to a point in my life without even thinking about it. Some of these pieces have connections, which are suggested for your reading, but some just end. This is certainly not to say that I ended a part of my life, as a matter of fact, I found that selections that end abruptly hold more than many selections that are connected, so read carefully.

100% Fun Matthew Sweet-
Matthew Sweet was the retrograde that I had found in my high school years. Sweet made me consider that a man with a guitar could be interesting instead of ordinary. In a sea of singer-songwriters trying to make money, Sweet was a guy who made just enough to keep releasing records, but he also had emotion behind what he said. His words rang true. “Sick of Myself,” is the first track to the 100% Fun album. Through well-placed power guitar chords, Sweet explains his love for a girl by singing a chorus that never seems to escape my memory, “I’m sick of myself when I look at you, something is beautiful and true. In a world that’s ugly and a lie it’s hard to even want to try.”
This song latched onto a girl that I had met in the first week of college, the only girl I’d find myself caring for. As easy and hard times brought us together, Sweet still sang to me and 100% Fun was only about 80% fun anyway. Two ballads filled any slow, somber time on the album and one was the stellar finale, “Smog Moon,” which can make any strong person cry in the face of failure: “There’s a lost man/ with a bitter soul/ Only for a moment did life make him whole.” Sweet sang verses of what I feared I would be at the end of school and it sent chills down my spine to think how easily I could find myself down and out. I knew I had made it to King’s College, where I knew no one, but still I wondered where I would be. (see “Fragile”)

“All the Lights Went Out” Marcy Playground
On their sophomore release Marcy Playground dug themselves a hole that everyone expected them to fall into. After their hit “Sex and Candy” people dismissed them as one hit wonders and moved on, while the band kept making music. If memory serves me right, lead man John Wozniak once said in an interview that the band’s second major-label album was an experiment to determine if the band would make more radio songs or stick to album rock. Their label decided, for them, that they would make no music and promptly dropped them. One might think that they painted their own fate with the lyrics, “All the lights went out in heaven.” Since their second album they’ve only had one song appear on a soundtrack and touring took them to small city fairs and bars that one might venture to label “dives.”
I would be willing to support the band if they ever tried to make a comeback, but their efforts seem futile after their one-hit success. It scares me that people can be fans one day and abandon the next. This is a fear that most people probably have, but to illustrate it with Marcy Playground is special to me because in a way, as long as I’m out there, the band will always have a supporter. Marcy Playground can help illustrate my dependence on faith and family in a way, because I know that no matter how many people may leave me in my life, there is always someone left to go back to. And as I wouldn’t expect the band to release a polka record to test my allegiance, I know that family and faith aren’t to be abused. (see “Goodnight Saigon”)

“Ants Marching” Dave Matthews-
“Ants Marching” was a song about the mundanity of everyday life and how people go through the same motions over and over without really questioning why. It was also very poppy, catchy, and easy to mumble-along to. It spoke as a toe-tapping mini-testament to how I felt upon its release in 1994 when I found it on Top 40 radio. Nine years later, “Ants Marching” is still a good song for tapping my toe to, but its meaning is completely lost.
A song about change and going against the grain had become mainstream radio’s bitch and the bane of existence for college students around the world. The norm was deviation from the norm, a paradox that no one really grabbed hold of at the time, including myself. Alternative music lost its alternative identity in the late 90’s and I made it just in time to watch the ending go up in flames. It took me years after “Ants Marching” for me to realize where I wanted to be in music, and likewise where I wanted to be in life.
I couldn’t stand the monotony of everyday high school life. I wanted something to change things up, a variation on the norm—I wanted something bigger than I could find in little old Absegami High School. As a long time listener of radio, I had found that I wasn’t the satisfied little man in “Ants Marching;” I couldn’t listen to the same song over and over without hating it. It got to a point that when I heard a new song I liked, I’d have to turn the radio off. (see Hey! Album)

“Fragile” The Caulfields-
The Caulfields frontman John Faye is a man who thrives on pushing the envelope and still remaining “pop.” In between the pop songs about people he knows and things he’s seen, Faye inserts beautiful songs that express emotion, about alienation, being mixed-race, and more, better than anyone could. One song, “Fragile,” hits heights that no commercial rock band would ever touch, so it was unheard of for a little outfit from Philly. The song is an open letter to God, begging to know why good things can happen to bad people and struggling to flesh out his belief or disbelief in God. For me, the song spoke volumes.
Oftentimes I try to do the right thing no matter how far it might set me back. I don’t intend to do wrong just so I can advance at the expense of myself or another, but those that don’t care seem to make it farther faster. Without giving God a voice, solely in his address to Him, Faye gives God a human face and begs an earthly forgiveness, “And if I can’t believe in you/ It’s not because I don’t/ I’m fragile/ Don’t let me fall alone.” The song gives me chills for so many reasons. It’s clearly blasphemous, but it’s also so human. It’s just one angry man at one angry time begging for help that he can’t seem to find. (see Whatever and Ever Amen)

GodLovesUgly Atmosphere-
Rap found its way deep into my world with the introduction of Atmosphere, a Minneapolis-based hip-hop act, by Michael Gaughan. Atmosphere is composed of one rapper, Slug, and one DJ, Ant, who broke some ground with the underground bastard genre emo-hip-hop. Emo, which is a term used to describe emotionally powerful music (what some might call “whiney”), is usually shrouded in slower rock music, but Atmosphere took the language of Emo music and ushered it into the world of hip-hop. While it may have been done before, few have done it so well that critics put a label on it.
Atmosphere helped connect me with hip-hop in a way that I wasn’t able to before. Instead of people rapping about a thug life that I would never experience, Slug was rapping about relationships, rejection, and other things that were understandable for me and other suburbanites. Atmosphere opened my eyes a little wider to universal emotion. Just because someone is a rapper doesn’t mean that they’re as hard and tough as most pop-rappers; on a general scale this record taught me an old adage that was over-glorified by R.E.M.: “Everybody hurts.” (see Whatever and Ever Amen)

“The Good Life” Weezer-
There has never been a band I can’t stand more than Weezer. The group has a nerdy face in front of a popular sound, so they never seemed genuine. Praised for song writing and catchy cords I found their writing to be amateurish at best and their music undoubtedly catchy. Perhaps the main reason I couldn’t stand Weezer so much was because an old friend of mine, Jason Ricci, loved them to no end. At one time I got along with Jason and for reasons too vast to remember, we don’t get along anymore. Weezer wasn’t the root of my gradual dislike, but it was a source of many disputes during our friendship. I seemed to lose fondness for Jason the more I knew him because of his competitive nature and happiness in ignorance. Jason taught me that there is no reason to keep people that bring you down around.
It took me a good four years to finally get Jason to back off and not compete with me anymore. In hindsight I don’t know why it took so long for his campy jokes, racist remarks, and annoying catch phrases to bother me, but I find the same things bugging me faster than you can imagine in other people. I grew to accept Weezer as an adequate pop-rock band just as I grew to accept Jason; parts were good, but I couldn’t handle dealing with the whole. (see Hooray for Boobies)

“Goodnight Saigon” Billy Joel-
My sister would listen to Billy Joel all the time on her Greatest Hits Volume I & II tape and I acquired the taste for great songwriting and an everlasting love for the sound of a piano. In 1999 I went to my first concert which featured Billy Joel promoting nothing in particular, but touring to satisfy his diverse crowd of fans. These memories are great, but Billy Joel ended up giving me a lot more than a few good times when I was faced with a project in eighth grade about the Vietnam War. I had to interview a person who was alive during the war, whether it was a student who protested, a person who dodged the service, or more preferably for Mrs. Avery, a first-hand vet.
My father was a Vietnam veteran, but he never talked about the things he saw or did in the war. He was always very closed to sharing things because his feeling were so strong about what went on, and many of the images in his mind were more vivid than he cared to think about. My mom encouraged me to ask for his help with the project anyway and he agreed to do it. I was surprised and felt really close to my dad during my interview—this wasn’t a baseball game or building a bird house, this was me and my dad talking about some serious things that he hoped I’d never have to see.
When you think of the traditional father figure you think about the big strong tough guy, but my dad showed me how much he had inside and that he was more than a hard rock—he was human. When I compiled the information for a PowerPoint presentation I used Billy Joel’s “Goodnight Saigon” for a background song. It captured a lot of how my dad seemed at the time of war and it went along with the topic. The presentation, and the song alone, gives me chills and reminds me how my dad is human. While some might see the hard rock as a good symbol, I appreciate the human any day.

Hello Nasty Beastie Boys-
The Beastie Boys may be best known for crossing genres and making it okay for snotty, punk, white kids to like rap music. Their return to the game in 1998 was well-accepted and I even picked up the CD to have my first full-length exposure to hip-hop music. I feared that having this CD would make people pigeonhole me into a rap fan, but I wasn’t so sure if I was one just yet. So I listened to the record when mom wasn’t home or when my friends weren’t around, even though it was quite the popular disc at the time. It took college to further expose me to more diversity in hip-hop and for me to know for sure that I liked it.
The “rap world” is traditionally full of street life, murder, drugs, and gang violence, but I found that hip-hop could serve as a gentler umbrella for acts like the Beastie Boys who would rap about partying, being the best, and just having fun. Eventually it was okay for me to like hip-hop and I didn’t have to change my clothes or wear any chains—I started to mature as a music fan. (see Godlovesugly)

Hey! Album Marvelous 3-
Led by Butch Walker, this band joined the ranks of hundred of bands from my lifetime whose CDs I would own proudly, then hide for a period in time. There was something about these bands (Everclear, Tonic, Collective Soul, Eve 6, and Blink 182, to name a few) that made me feel contempt for them. They had a few tight rock songs that would make me buy a CD, but the rest of the album would fall flat after a few listens… a few dozen listens that is. I wouldn’t be so mad that I spent money for the album, but they were so popular and everyone loved them. Listening to these CDs didn’t help anyone at all; I didn’t expose new people to these artists or help them reach an echelon they deserved. I was another sale on a record chart.
Now these albums stand as lessons in finding high-quality music, though not to imply that they aren’t high quality groups. All bands like Marvelous 3 have a great ability that cannot be overlooked, and that is to make satisfactory music that is accessible to a broad base of people. It’s not right to condemn them for attaining the rock n’ roll dream instead of the artists’ dream, I just have more respect for the latter. It seems truer. (see 100% Fun)

Hooray for Boobies The Bloodhound Gang-
There are very few albums that I purchase on the exact day they’re released, but Hooray for Boobies is one of them. It’s a crude and rough celebration of middle-school humor and it’s so tight in lyrics and production that it could be called a masterpiece in some circles. I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying “masterpiece” or not, but to this day it remains a fun album for me to listen to. I bought this album with Mike Shannon one day, before we could drive. We convinced our parents to take us and, for the obvious cover innuendos, I had to purchase another CD to hold over the top of it to get the album past the folks.
The Bloodhound Gang reminds me of Mike a little, not because he has a crude foul-mouth, but more because of his “who cares what they think” persona. Hooray for Boobies only had one profitable single in America, “The Bad Touch,” which contained the catchy chorus, “You and me baby ain't nuthin' but mammals/So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.” Some found the song annoying, but I enjoyed it; likewise, some found Mike annoying, but I enjoyed him. Mike was (and remains) a funny guy, and while some didn’t appreciate his sense of humor, which didn’t coincide with the Bloodhound Gang’s humor, he relished in those who enjoyed it. Mike had no time for those who didn’t want him around, with a comment here and there he would separate from a problem or thrive on the conflict. Likewise, “The Bad Touch” made its name for being catchy, but secured more attention for being so racy in video form. The band didn’t seem to mind the controversy; in fact they rose to more fame on account of it.
I admired the roll-off-the-back-ness of Mike. I never adopted the characteristic, but classic rock always tells us “You can’t always get what you want.” Mike and I are now in colleges that are a couple hours apart, but whenever we get together we can always slip back into a great friendship easily. There aren’t many people that you can have a relationship like that with; ideas, tastes, opinions, and people change, but a real friendship goes deeper than those things and anyone will tell you how valuable that can be. I anticipate the next Bloodhound Gang release and the next time I might get to see Mike.

Music Your Parents Won’t Like Michael Gaughan The Radical Rock and Roller-
Introduced to me by my second roommate, Michael Gaughan is the man who penned the infectiously sing-able “Armpit Vagina.” The song isn’t very funny for the thinking man’s humor, but it pleased my roommate more than any song could. On my birthday Pat, the roommate, bought me a collection of short stories and poems by John Lennon. Lennon wasn’t huge to me, I recognize his place in music history, but his tendency to political activism never really appealed to me. Regardless, it was the thought that counted from Pat and I appreciated the gift, even though I have yet to crack the binding. In return, around Pat’s birthday, I decided to locate the CD from Michael Gaughan and buy it for him.
The CD was impossible to find and it took me all the way to the source of Michael Gaughan himself, who had since quit the rock scene, became an elementary school art teacher, and practiced freestyle rap in open competitions in Minneapolis. He had only one box of CDs left and he had to call his sister to find out where they were. It was really cool for me to talk to a musician first hand and find out what happens after the fun of a teenage rock mini-career was over. I ended up buying two CDs from him for fifteen bucks; it was a great investment for the story and meeting a new guy in the entertainment industry.
Gaughan was a cool story, but an even cooler model for a fun-loving teenager who went off and had fun for himself and his friends. Rude, raunchy, and sometimes funny, Gaughan gave me an idea of how I wish I spent my teen years, but with that in the past, I wanted to have fun now and pick up my old Yamaha keyboard and see if I could learn how to play. I didn’t. (see Hooray for Boobies)

My Aim is True Elvis Costello-
The debut release from Elvis Costello came in 1978, five years before my birth, but its timelessness is what makes it such a masterpiece. Instead of the common sparkle and fade of many rock stars, Costello kept up his blue-collar songwriting for years. His albums kept a steady force of great music for a generation of people who could support a punk ethos, but didn’t like the loud music. His rebellious lyrical content paired with classic, stripped down rock and roll, made for an album that grabbed me upon first listen. I could finally take time to listen to the punk-rock ideas without getting a headache or growing bored with songs sounding the same.
Costello captured, for me, growing up and maintaining an individual identity. The album’s musical tones go from rock n’ roll to honky-tonk to reggae to slow lounge rock; Costello showed an embrace of difference and eclecticism. The album couldn’t be compared to anything else out at the time because it was punk in content and musically unclassifiable, but so damn catchy. In a sort of way, upon listening to My Aim is True, I could say, “I’m Elvis Costello.” His love of difference and commitment to revolutionary ideas was shared by me; his low-key method was something I wished to master. Costello represents a skeleton of what I would love to be, from his first work to the last. While he faded from the mainstream for a greater part of the nineties, only to return in collaboration with crooner Burt Bacharach, himself, Costello did keep one constant: his aim was true, to himself.
The title My Aim is True is taken from one song on the record, “Allison,” about a reunion with a former love, but when taken out of context the words can mean so much more. I’ve found myself falling back on the words in times of trouble or when I need to weigh my options on a big decision. It reminds me that I have to stay true to myself and those around me. I would love to have a career like Costello: work hard and make money (release great records, tour relentlessly, and repeat), then later retire (peruse his own musical interests) and be content. (see “Where Would I Be?”)

“Rotten World Blues” eels-
Mark Oliver Everett is the man behind the eels and whether it’s cruel or not, he is a man I can listen to at any moment in order to make myself feel better. Everett (AKA “E”) discovered his father and sister dead on separate occasions, then dealt with the slow death of his mother from cancer. Through all of this pain and agony E remains able to produce some booming pop music that can make the listener dance, and also question the seriousness of the subject matter. “This rotten world’s gonna’ chew you up/ Swallow you whole and then spit you back out/ The sooner you recognize this simple fact/ Then this rotten world gives you what you lack,” sings E on this particular b-side for the album Souljacker.
E has been mumbling through my ears for about six or seven years and he never gets old. No matter what E sings about, he always seems to find a perspective that is unpopular, but makes it attractive with pop music. Hard times can get me down, but the eels can help me handle things better. When life seems too rough to go on there’s “Dog’s Life,” where E doesn’t say suicide’s the answer, like some would when life gets hard, he sings, quite simply, “I’ll take a dog’s life… cause I don’t care for this one.” When lonely times come there’s “Lone Wolf,” to encourage success on one’s own terms despite setbacks. And in times of joy there’s the powerful Louis Armstrong cover, “Feeling Good.” I’ve never nodded in agreement so much in listening to another songwriter and I could listen to anything E touches and know I will love it.

Turn the Radio Off Reel Big Fish-
Reel Big Fish is a band who glorified the ideal of selling out. The band specialized in ska, a nice little flavor that incorporated horns with lighter toned punk music. The group had a hit with a song called, “Sell Out,” which made a strong stamp on their careers, for it would be years before ska fans would let the group back into the fan-frenzy ska underground. I became a ska fan for a few months following the example of my friend Paul Abbamondi.
Paul wasn’t the coolest kid, but what I envied about him was his security in himself. I was never so secure and time would reveal that he wasn’t either, but under the guise of a ska fan he was comfortable and full of knowledge. Reel Big Fish would lose Paul as a fan in due time, but they would hold a strong grip on me. They sing songs to this day about social rejection and hard times with the brightest horns and sweetest harmonies.
The mask of joyous sounds covers a face of nerds and rejects who have found themselves in highs and lows at home and abroad, but it took them (and me) acceptance of who they were to have fun. (see Music Your Parents Won’t Like)

Whatever and Ever Amen Ben Folds Five-
This is the breakthrough album of a Chapel Hill, North Carolina, trio that made their name on not using a guitar. This record was an early purchase in my music career, probably with money from mom directly, and it got more spins in my CD player than you could count. At the age of fourteen many of the songs on the album didn’t hold as much meaning as they could, but my ear thrived more on the delightful peppy tracks than the meaningful narratives.
Serving as an emotional roller coaster, the album went from fun highs to somber lows at least four times in twelve tracks. This would result in major usage of the skip-button depending upon what mood I would be in, but that characteristic of the album seems to serve more purpose today as an emotional tease that doesn’t let you stay in one place for more that a track or two.
Track twelve ended the tease with the most emotional song, “Evaporated,” “A song about loss,” according to Ben Folds. I felt that song hit me in my sophomore year of high school when two girls that I knew died, one from illness and one from an accident. The deaths of these two girls with promising futures made me wonder what my purpose was. I had survived cancer at the age of ten, and what had I done since? I felt a stagnant confusion about my meaning in the world, like I was here for no reason, as the song goes, “Blind man on a canyon's edge of a panoramic scene/ or maybe I'm a kite that's flying high and random/ dangling a string.”
I never got any answers to the questions I came up with during this time, but maybe we’re not supposed to know answers to big questions like that. Since acquiring the rest of the Ben Folds Five catalog, Whatever and Ever Amen has become my least favorite of the group’s work, but that’s like saying the ugliest $100-bill, the value is still there. (see “Rotten World Blues”)

“Where Would I Be?” Cake-
This is a sad little twangy tune at the end of an album from a San Francisco band that could have redefined the very face of alternative music for me. Rarely does a band come along that you just can’t describe the sound of. Cake has so many influences and styles that anyone would just be too lazy or ignorant to recount them all; I love them to this day.
What makes Cake so amazing to me is that they manage to put at least three years of work into each of their albums. This was always refreshing to me because I found a band whose work-ethic matched mine; maybe for a year they weren’t inspired, but they’d take off on those last two and never press a release until it was perfect. The band itself can take me all the way back to eighth grade into today. With only a few releases over that time, they get plenty of action in my CD player at any given time.
I had never been so amazed by a sound when I heard “The Distance,” in eighth grade; the lead singer was singing, or was he rapping? And the music was far from rap music, but that drum and bass—that doesn’t go with a guitar—and is that a horn? Cake is the most exciting music I may ever know and they epitomize what I hope to be in my life. As their albums come out they never cease to amaze me, but not everyone knows who they are. Many discount them as a rock wonder, scoring a few hits here and there, but they are what I’d love to be. I would want people to anticipate my work no matter how long it takes, I always wish to perfect what I do, and I want a degree of success that won’t make me miss out on a fun life. (see Music Your Parents Won’t Like)