- FRIDAY JAM: A rovin’ a rovin’ a rovin’ I’ll go (12/1/23)1
- SATURDAY JAM: You feel the turning of the world, so soft and slow (11/11/23)
- SUNDAY JAM: Hello, Darkness, my old friend (11/5/23)
- FRIDAY JAM: Plowin’ straight ahead, come what may (10/27/23)1
- WEDNESDAY JAM: Some folks say there ain't no bears in Arkansas (10/25/23)1
- FRIDAY JAM: I took a drive today... (10/20/23)
- SATURDAY JAM: Canadian coldfront movin’ in (8/12/23)1
Friday Jam: Say It Ain't So-Weezer
That's right, this blog has not fallen off the face of the Earth. I've just been a little ... well ... busy these last two-and-a-half months.
As I drove across the DePauw campus Friday morning, I saw the familiar sight of freshmen (I refused to use the term "first-years") on campus for orientation. They were in groups walking around campus, while others lugged boxes to their dorm rooms for the coming nine months.
Not even the ongoing construction could mar the happy familiarity of the scene.
And then something else suddenly did ruin the whole thing for me. I was listening to Weezer's "Weezer (1994)" aka "The Blue Album" when I suddenly realized that the sounds coming from my speakers — which still sound fresh to me — were released 25 years ago.
That's about seven years earlier than these new arrivals on campus were even born!
Say it ain't so!
Suddenly I felt like a fossil there on campus, with my rapidly-diminishing head of hair, my conservatively sensible crossover vehicle, my New Balance sneakers and most of all with my old-guy dork rock. (I prefer dork to nerd or geek. I don't know why.)
Then I started doing the math. When I was arriving on campus at Wabash pretty much 20 years ago this week, what would have been an analogous band to have been blaring from the speakers of some 30-something's 1993 Pontiac Bonneville?
If we do the 25-year math and look at debut albums, those choices would be Kiss, Rush and Bad Company.
Let's be honest, if any of those bands came on the radio in 1999, I probably wasn't changing the station. On the other hand, those bands were old. They were classic rock. Rock from my era is good enough to be classic but it's not old enough is it?
IS IT???
Sot that got me playing a little game. It's insightful, but it's certainly not fun.
I thought of my brother, who is 10 years older than me. Music from his teenage years would be 30-35 years old now. So that means that, say, what Motley Crüe is to these teenagers what Elvis Presley — and we're talking early Elvis — was to my brother.
Graduate in the 1970s? Led Zeppelin is to these kids what Duke Ellington was to you.
And if you're one of those Flower Power children of the 1960s, let me first say, thanks for the wonderful tunes. You probably don't want to read much further, but does the name Jelly Roll Morton mean anything to you?
I guess this is all a long way of saying, sure I'm getting older, but look at all the good music we've collected along the way.
And if you happen to be a college student reading this blog, don't worry, your music will make you feel old someday too.
In the meantime, enjoy my favorite Weezer song.
Be good people. Enjoy your weekend. Here's hoping it doesn't take me three months to post the next blog.
- -- Posted by rick and Cammie johnston on Fri, Aug 16, 2019, at 3:12 PM
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