faster than the blog

Jim's post over on the main page inspired this. It was a comment and then it went long. I'm avoiding dealing with a senile Resource Advisor this morning. I just know turning in my official travel card is gonna hurt.

No matter how you cut it, the 70s was a weird decade for music. I was mostly weary of 60s music by the time I reached high school in '75. I have an older sister who listened to each new 45 over and over and over again. There was a while there that if I heard "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" or "Brown Sugar" I'd literally puke a little, right up to the back of my throat.

I didn't find anything all that cool about rock songs done to blues riffs. I'd put up Robert Plant and The Strange Sensation's "Mighty Rearranger" against anything Zep ever did. I appreciate Zepplin more today than back then mostly because of the Beavis and Butthead crowd that blared it in the parking lot during lunch.

I'd throw up "The Cars" as the best album "of that era" just as soon as I would "Who's Next" or "IV" or "Armed Forces" or "Breakfast in America" or "Pure Pop for Now People" or "2112" or(Sigh, I know I'll take crap for it...) "Greetings from Asbury Park." Foreigner's okay, but I remember their live show sucking large when then played the International Amphitheater. Too stoned to play is no excuse.

For my crowd, anything that wasn't disco was considered better than what was on the radio. We'd listen to some wanna be local hero in an old army jacket that smelled like cat pee and wearing Lennon glasses play "Sandman" by America over and over again before we'd listen to one song off Saturday Night Fever. Okay, maybe my sister would drag me out on the dance floor when we were out with our parents to do The Hustle with her, but that's where my disco babiness ended...unless Regina asked me to dance at a school dance, 'cuz I was all about Regina...but that's another long story that I may or may not tell.

Like I said, the 70s were weird. Looking back on that time from 30 years out doesn't really work. I'm not that kid anymore and trying to listen to the music without the reference of everything else that was going on can truly cramp your brain. I learned a long time ago that some of my "all time favorites" just didn't sound like much sober.

-Timmer