digging in the crates…

lately i have been going back into my brain to find the music i used to listen to when life was…easier.  back in high school, kids i knew had a sort of tacit contest to see who could get into the most obscure (read: percieved-to-be-cool) music, and find the t-shirt to show it off.  i know it’s stupid, and i think we all did back then too, but still; it was a formative thing for me becoming me.  or being me then.  or whatever.  what follows is a short list of albums that i’ve recently begun listening to again, followed by a short explanation, and a track for your enjoyment.  note: i listen to weird shit.

7th Grade: PUNK RAWK YO!

.read the newspapers.

i first heard bad religion on the radio.  it might have been rob bertrand on RSU; or it might have been that i walked into a record store and saw the crossbuster logo, and my budding (since ended) atheism attracted me to them:

because i loved bad religion, i met kids who would go on to be some of my best friends.  the names don’t matter, what matters is that this music brought us all together, we’d sing along in the car, go see them at waterloo (with blink 182! in the 90s! when they were good!) i recently started listening to my two favorite bad religion records, stranger than fiction and the gray race.

8th grade, EMO!

i can’t cross her from my memory…

there was an entire year when i listened to pretty much nothing but ALL and the descendents.  they shaped the way i thought about relationships, coffee, punk rock, and personal potential.  i know it’s silly looking back now, but there was this theory of ALL

From Wikipedia, of all places:

With the release of All, the Descendents introduced to the world the driving concept behind their career’s work, from which the album derives its title, the philosophy of ALL. The song ALL was actually written at the time of the philosophy’s conception around 1980, in the midst of the song-writing fury that produced a number of the tunes from the “Fat” EP, including “I Like Food.” Stevenson co-wrote these songs with best friend/fishing buddy/Descendents “Fifth Member,” Pat McQuiston. The two came up with the concept while working a late night on the water, and fishing and coffee (Enjoy’s “Kids” and Everything Sucks’s “Coffee Mug”) remained themes for Descendents songs and spiritual aids in the quest for ALL, which they define quite conventionally as “the total extent.” The idea of ALL as a concept beyond this conventional definition is one of endless self improvement. “The total extent” is an all-encompassing greatness, the pursuit of which is endless and impossible, but which is also the source of all real happiness. Thus, “No, All!,” speaks to the fruits of this “endless quest,” and “happiness is the pursuit of ALL” is the viable credo which is often lost in the midst of the Descendents’ slightly more conventional dual-motif of off-beat humor and girls.

This was another step for me in forming my personal philosophy devoid of religion.  i had recently been bar-mitzvah-ed and quit the temple shortly after (like ya do).  there’s this old joke…

a priest, a rabbi, and an imam are struggling with a huge rat problem.  the vermin had taken over jerusalem, and nary a sage nor scholar had a clue as to how to deal with the problem.  so the three religious leaders get together to discuss strategy.  the priest says “i rounded up all the rats i could find, took them 50 miles out in the desert and left them, in the morning, they were all back”.  the imam says, “yes i still have a rat problem as well, i rounded up all the rats i could find, took them 100 miles out in the desert and left them, in the morning, they were all back”  the rabbi says “my friends, i have actually solved the rat problem!”  shocked, the priest and the imam ask “HOW in God’s good name did you manage that rabbi?”  rabbi says “i rounded up all the rats i could find, brought them to the temple, bar-mitzvahed them, and never saw them again”

10 people will get that joke, 2 will laugh at it.  i think it’s fucking hysterical.

this is already a long entry, and i like splitting up themes among several other entries, so the rest of high school will come next time.  along with SHAI HULUD, and the explanation of the NOUNxMOSH.