My parents are not big popular music people so we had little musical
carry over from their generation. What my mom was into when she was
in high school was some hard and dark rock like Iron Maiden and Black
Sabbath. That was not really my cup of tea and I got into ABBA, Cindy
Lauper, Madonna, Depeche Mode and Bon Jovi because my sister and the
aunt who lived with us were into that. The first tape I bought myself
was Robert Palmer because I loved the song “Simply Irresistible”.
When I got into junior high Rob came and lived with us and turned me
onto AC/DC, Guns'n'Roses, and Metallica. After that I got into grunge
like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. I also started to like some darker
industrial stuff like Nine Inch Nails which was the first CD I ever
bought. By my senior year a friend of mine had opened my ear holes up
to the soulful folk styling of Bob Dylan and I bought the greatest
hits CD and was hooked. It is a fact of life that if you like Bob
Dylan you will find that you are in a world where most people know
little of him except fro songs of his that were covered by mainstream
artists and on the other hand super fans who have every single song
that was ever recorded by Dylan in the last 50 years. There is very
little middle ground. By the time I was doing the announcements I was
listening exclusively to Pink Floyd, Ween, Led Zeppelin, and Bob
Dylan not a play list that was huge on the top forty at the time. I
would try and get some of my favorite music on the air and it was not
going over well. Most people were telling me it sucked or would give
it the tepid 'its okay'. I was frustrated that the plebeians couldn't
hear the talent I heard and because country music was the mainstay at
our school I decided to make a little joke about it that I stole from
from Bob Newhart:
“I
don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do.
And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put
down'.”
I did not give him credit and there were lots of hillbillies who didn't
get the joke because they were hillbillies. I was asked for two days
what that was supposed to mean and I would not explain it any
further. I would just riff on the joke by keeping my answers obtuse
and esoteric and have myself a little private joke at their expense.
I stopped playing songs I liked for the announcement intros and
outros but I still stand by my belief that the opening riff of
'Kashmir' is one of the best lead ins possible in the best of all
possible worlds. Lay your earballs on this sweet lick and then look
into your soul and tell me with a strait face that the part of you
that likes other people and believes the world is a good place didn't
get just get a little bigger and a little sunnier.
