Music and its Emotional Punch

Havana's Selfie during the Stooges' Set

   Only later in life do we realize it: the music we consumed in our teen years is embedded in us disproportionately to all subsequent music consumed. Songs that otherwise might not deserve to linger in our heads for decades, are there; and lodged behind those songs are all those unconscious emotional memories, waiting to be triggered.

   Those short years of teenage discovery may be our life’s most adventurous and imaginative and creative years.

   At this time in my own life I was writing songs and in its broadest definition, I was 'singing' in a band. I was intently diving into the world and attempting to clumsily clarify everthing I learned and document it into lyrics.  I was searching for meaning and depth.

   Through friends, through music magazines, through live music, I discovered my own unbridled art. At my local pub, it was exceptional if you were NOT in a band. Some friends were writing fanzines, some painting, some managing bands. The 70s British punk revolution with its banner of equality had boldly declared that anyone could play an instrument. Music would no longer belong to the elite music experts. Corporate music, stadium music was to be overthrown by three chords, maybe even three bar chords. Music could change the world. And it did. And it didn’t.

   Thirty years later I find myself driving on Interstate 680 to San Jose, California. The booming music inside my vehicle is from my own teen years. Sitting next to me on the bench seat of my construction truck is my own pre-teen, Havana. This was the Saturday before she turned 10. For her birthday-weekend we are going to her first bonafide-live-music-gig.

   Musically, both Havana and Ilyana, have their own tastes. Left to themselves, they will always dial the radio to the nearest hip-hop station. Second to that, for them, is everything from Abba all the way to Queens of the Stone Age.

   On this hot autumn afternoon's drive we are blasting the music and taking turns pausing it to discuss some issue that comes into our head, song-related or otherwise. In between were the pleasant silences of anticipation as we got closer and closer to the gig. The truck’s cheap speakers are pounding Iggy and the Stooges, the mother of all punk bands,  as they mockingly yell about life being No Fun.

  I discovered the Stooges in 1976. They were already historical music Legends, despite them going out in flames only some two years earlier. I played their records over and over and over on my big brother’s state of the art stereo.  I’d lie down on his bedroom floor and imagine videos that I would make that would go to each song. Video-tape was in its infancy and given my economic background, access to such media was ruled out.

   As we exited the freeway, we found a parking space and stepped out of the truck. We both made two tall stretches, smiled at one another, and looked over to the fenced off park where the Stooges would come on stage. We checked that we each had our ear protection, and me and my four-foot buddy strolled into the park festival. As the warm up band played, Havana got herself a Stooges shirt, we ate some food truck savories and found a place to stand where Havana could see the stage.

   The sun began to descend behind the city’s skyline and the band came on. The decibels pounded at us. Iggy walked on bare-chested and the rest was jaw dropping for us both.

   For Havana’s actual birthday I later framed a picture of her at the gig, along with the tickets and a picture she took of Iggy Pop. It was a memorable 10^th birthday for her and one of the best days of my own life.

   We left the gig before it was over. Havana had just got completely exhausted. On the way out we looped the park with windows down, to catch one more song.

  On the way home Havana asked me to put more Stooges on. We listened in silence. The sun was gone. The traffic was moving swiftly. The bumpy, tightness of the music filled the truck cab. The  moment was embedded in the two of us.