Musical Pilgrimage - 33 songs that shaped my life (good or bad)

I have come to grips with the fact that I am really terrible with the concept of time that’s passed. I don’t remember what year things happened…. Or even what age I was when they happened. I just have rough ideas, which are usually way off.

But one thing I do remember is what music I was listening to at the times I remember most.

So I decided to put together this mix (and when I say mix, I mean MIX) of songs that defined different specific times in my life.

A sort of musical pilgrimage, if you will.

Some of the songs and/or artists were amazing, some are ehhhh, some I never listened to again, and some are just down right embarrassing to admit.

This is me…. Through time…..Doing my best to remember.

Songs 1-4

Growing up my Mom and Dad had very different tastes in music. (Still do.)

My dad was strictly into country music and my mom was into glam rock, mainly David Bowie.

I distinctly remember Marty Robbins (1) and Johnny Cash (2) playing in my dad’s truck.

I also remember listening to David Bowie (3&4) in my mom’s big blue suburban. Any time me and my brothers would bug her while driving…. The volume would get jacked WAY UP.

Once I learned to love David Bowie…. I would annoy her on purpose so she would turn it up higher.

Song 5

My grandmother LOVED Elvis. Once she even took me to see an Elvis impersonator at the Jersey Shore. He came out on stage (looking nothing like Elvis), sang a bunch of the famous tunes, threw my grandmom a silk neckerchief, and waddled off stage.

I also distinctly remember going to John Robert’s house and singing “Hounddog”(5) on his karaoke machine. I knew none of the words at the time…. But quickly learned everyone.

Song 6

I remember my Aunt Josie bought my older brother Jim some cassettes for his birthday. Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer (6). Strangely they still had the big plastic security casing on them. Looking back…. I now understand why that was.

Song 7-8

It was during elementary school that I saw Kevin Costner in Robin Hood. I loved the movie and watched it 3 times a week when we got it on VHS. A big part of that movie that was undeniable was Bryan Adams “Everything I Do” (7) I knew every word and when it came time for the talent show…. I made the brilliant decision to lip sing it in front of the whole school and their families. My mom dyed a denim jacket black, spiked my hair, and send me up there. With only one front tooth and the inability to stop smiling, I faked my way through the whole song (extended solo and all).

But something much more important happened right before I went on stage.

Some older kids (one of which I think I was somehow related to) did a performance to Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (8) They wore leather jackets and long wigs and just head banged the whole time. It was the first time I heard Nirvana…. And I loved it.

Song 9-10

I don’t know where he got it, but my brother got a copy of Snoop Doggy Dog’s “Doggystyle” when it came out and we used to listen to the interludes and laugh our asses off. One in particular (9) (followed by a song) always stuck with me and reminded me of my brother.

Song 11

Once at a yard sale, I found a copy of Beastie Boys “Ill Communication” and bought it because the image of the giant plane crashing into a wall really spoke to me. I brought it home and played it over and over again. Because I shared a room with my little brother, he also started to really like it. When he started playing “Girls” (11) over and over again, I knew I had to smash it. So I did. Into million of pieces…. A decision that I quickly regretted.

Song 12

I kissed my first girl. Her name was Elenore. Elenore Fennerty. She was older than me and I was feeling like a real big man. (Even though I had to ask her whether or not I should take out my retainer beforehand)

I had a birthday soon thereafter, which I celebrated by bringing everyone to the theatre to see “Ace Ventura Pet Detective”. (Well I guess my mom brought everyone)

Elenore came and gave me a copy of Tribe Called Quest “Midnight Marauders” (12). I had no idea who Tribe Called Quest was NOR did I know what a cd was! I hadn’t even heard of the things yet. Needless to say, the cd got ruined when I tried to play it on my record player. Elenore also left a chocolate ice cream cone under the seat in my mom’s car, which she found 2 days later. She was pissed.

Song 13

For Christmas one year, my grandmother (Nanny Thorp) took me to the mall and told me I could pick out any gift I wanted. I ran to Sam Goody and grabbed 2Pac’s Makaveli (13). My grandmother wasn’t very happy about the artwork on the cover but bought it for me anyway. She died suddenly the day after Christmas I think.

Song 14

I became friends with Brit and he invited me over to his house for a party in his basement. His “band” was going to play and some kids from school were coming. I went over there and watched them cover 2 songs over and over again (cant remember which they were…. But they were the only songs they knew) and flirted with my first real girlfriend. Brit put on Incubus “Science” (14) and played it on repeat for most of the night. Eventually that album got played for a few years. The party ended for me when Brit’s parents caught me making out with Liz under the staircase.

Song 15-16

The more and more I hung out with Brit, the more and more metal we listened to. Something was happening in music. Mainstream rock and roll wasn’t cutting it anymore. Kurt Cobain was dead, Pearl Jam sucked, and everything else was just blah. We started to get turned on to this Nu-Metal thing that was happening. We listened to loads of Korn, Deftones (15), and Tool. Later it branched out to bands like Coal Chamber, Sevendust, and Snapcase. The phase stuck around for a while before another change happened….. Refused (16). Joe Markle used to play it in his Honda Civic with his obnoxiously loud system and I’d ride in the back going deaf but loving the shit out of it. The album was called “The Shape of Punk to Come”. And that’s just what was happening.

Song 17

I saw this new kid walking around school with his pants hanging halfway down his ass and on the back pocket of his tattered jeans was a patch with a stick man throwing a swastika in a trashcan. That was Justin Freund. Brit started hanging out with him a bit before I did. He turned us on to Rancid, Less Than Jake, and most importantly, a little Philly band that was just starting out…. Kid Dynamite. (17)

They became our whole lives. They were on our stereos all the time. That’s also around the time that I got my first video camera. Somehow I convinced them to do a sit-down interview with me and also let me come and tape all of their shows. That was the start of my filmmaking days (even though I couldn’t see it then)

Song 18

Most of my friends at the time were in a band called Forefront, They were heavy, lots of screaming, and Brit even played a 7 string Ibanez. Once the punk thing started happening…. Forefront was detirorating and Brit and Justin started Snot Rope Hope (18)

To counter that, Brit, Steve and I started The Gravebobbaz, a seriously alcohol induced bastard son of The Bloodhound Gang. It didn’t last long.

Song 19 - 20

When I graduated high school I moved into my first apartment, a small house behind a family friends

house. I was working at a flower warehouse at the time and Chuck was really into making the hip hop

thing a serious lifestyle. I went along with it when he, Petro, and I formed Inphidelicrew. Some of our

songs were surprisingly good but the image that went along with it didn’t last long for me. I listened to

tons of Nas (19), Jadakiss, JayZ, and as many “diss” tracks and freestyle raps as I could. When I called it

quits, Chuck carried on…. And still raps to this day. Long live C Teezy (20).

Song 21 – 22

I reverted back to classic rock and roll…. The stuff that I heard in the background as I grew up but never paid much attention to it. The Beatles (21), The Stones, and Zeppelin (22) became my everything.

Song 23 – 24

The first time I went to California, Brit, Freund and I flew to LA and backpacked the better part of Southern California. We hit Santa Monica, Redondo Beach, Hollywood, and all the other spots we saw in the movies. I had a Discman with me and remember very distinctly listening to White Stripes “De Stilj” (23) and The Strokes “Is This It” (24) over and over again.

Song 25

When I came back, I moved out of my apartment and into Brit’s basement, where I would stay for quite some time. We got more heavily into music than ever. Digging through crates of records and listening to every record we could get our hands on. At one point, we went on an incredible trip to Tennessee to check out Graceland. Elvis was on the radio (25) when we pulled into Memphis. We visited Sun Studios, Graceland, and even stayed in Heartbreak Hotel. The trip lasted forever. We left Tennessee and hit up New Orleans, Florida, Virginia, and all the way up to Rhode Island. Lots of great memories on that trip.

Song 26-29

I met a girl and moved to Philly. In the first few weeks of knowing each other, we had successfully gotten drunk everyday. When we went to the bar, the first thing that always got played was Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” (26). We were wild kids. I started listening to loads of old punk again…. But nothing stuck with me more than The Stooges (27). That’s when Brit, Rhett, Markle, and I formed The Taxidermists (28)…. The most self-destructive band of all time. Brit and Markle also started up Buy Star Bombs (29) around the same time. While The Taxidermists imploded, Buy Star Bombs thrived and continue to play together.

Song 30

I moved to Brooklyn and made some mistakes but also made some really good choices along the way. That time is forever marked with Minus The Bear (30). “Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse” was with me through the ups and downs. Marked really great things and really shit things at the same time. Will always be one of my favorite tunes.

Song 31

I just started filmmaking in school and the first assignment was to make a short film. Anything we wanted. At the time, I was really into this book called “Go Now” by Richard Hell (31). I read it 3 times while living with Brit and continued to re-read it for years to come. I decided to make my first film an adaptation of the first chapter of his book. I made the film and at the same time got hired to do all the red carpet interviews for Tribeca Film Festival. The day that I had to interview Tom Cruise, I also found out that Richard was doing a reading at Bowery Poetry Club. I rushed away from the Cruise interview and made it to the club just as Richard arrived. Fearfully, I handed him a copy of the film with my email address and asked him to watch it and let me know what he thought. I expected him to throw it away and laugh at how bad it was….. Instead I got an email from him less than 12 hours later telling me he loved it and wanted to make a film together. We started hanging out and shooting a film together. To this day, it’s still kinda surreal. Richard Hell was my most consistent friend during my early NY days.

Song 32

Christian directed a film called The Duel, which I shot, and Matt Kirk produced. It turned out to be a really good little film. It got accepted into a few festivals and we traveled around with it. The best being, Secret City Film Festival in Tennessee. We won best short film, drank more whiskey than Jim Beam himself, visited the Wild Turkey distillery, went to a sleazy strip club, and white water rafted. The anthem for that trip was The Black Lips “Veni Vidi Veci” (32).

Song 33

Last year I got really attached to Doha and was really fretting returning to the states. I fell in love and thought that leaving meant I was never coming back. The Avett Brothers sang it perfectly for the time. (33)

Needless to say, I came back and I am happier than ever.

Sooooo……

This highlights SOME of the major events associated with music in my life. There are loads more but these just jumped out for me when I started writing.

I don’t know that anyone will even really read this all the way through but if you did, I hope you enjoyed it a little.

To download the accompanying mix, click here:

http://rcpt.yousendit.com/954924815/79d6a86e2e92fb9ade32142e059b0a05