Dear Aspiring Rapper On The Morning Subway

I'm glad you've found your muse. I am! Isn't it an amazing feeling when a piece of music speaks directly to your heart? It touches you so deeply that you can't help but feel that it's a part of you, that the writer knows you, is speaking directly to you, is someone to whom you can relate and share your trials, tribulations, hopes and dreams.

If that person is Ice Cube, bonus points, because come on, that dude is awesome.

I had a good day. Did you?

And much respect if that person inspires you to the point of wanting to emulate them. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, they say, and a significant portion of art is - to be honest - ripping off the artists who came before.

These are all good things, Aspiring Rapper. Here's what I learned during our five minute interaction, and (if I may) a few pointers on technique, form, and subway etiquette.

1). N.W.A.'s "Fuck Tha Police" is your jam. 

I understand that. The entire subway car understands that. Because it's a classic, it addresses the complex race relations endemic in Los Angeles, and it allows those of us who have had any negative interaction with the cops something to feel better when they're done with you. And also because you played it, very loudly, on your iPhone, while declaring that you felt "so tight" hearing that rhyme and that "when [you] got [yourself] a car, [you] was gonna roll up onna cop an' blast this shit an' drive by."

2). Ice Cube is your favorite member of N.W.A.

Either that, or you've only bothered to learn his verse (the first verse) of this song. And not very well, I might add. Let's not beat around the bush - I'm The Man. I'm a 28 year old white male living in Brooklyn. I'm about as street as Jimmy Carter. I'm such a honky that when I walk down Flatbush Avenue people think the Prospect Park geese are migrating. And yet, somehow, were we to enter into a Who Knows More N.W.A. lyrics competition, I am fairly confident of victory. Anyone who has seen me even slightly intoxicated at a party (and they are legion) can attest to this.

3). Your Vitamin Water bottle is not fooling anybody.

If you're gonna drink on the local train to Manhattan at 930 in the morning, own it! Pack a hip flask. Sure, it's more illegal, but "Fuck Tha Police," remember?

4). The Q train is perhaps not your venue of choice.

At least not during the commuter rush. I noticed a generally negative response to your shouts of "A mumble mumble mumble mumpolice state / That have the authority to kill a minority" and "They rather see me in da dee dan me and 'Renzo chillin' in the Benz-o." I might have missed something due to a troublesome Angry Birds level (remember: white boy) but I'd recommend a few more rehearsals in private before you take your act on the road. Or on the rails. Or anywhere.

So carry on, Aspiring Rapper. The road ahead is tough - you need to out-rhyme me and out-charm the homeless panhandler - but keep chasing that dream. Salut.

Song Memory #3

Bat Country
by Avenged Sevenfold, from the album City of Evil

Admittedly, I don't really care for this album, even with the Fear And Loathing reference. The band themselves, though....

I was an early supported of Avenged Sevenfold. There, I said it. I like 'em. My first encounter with this band was at a Symphony X show several years ago. Matt and I drove down to New York for the show - bringing homemade masks with hopes of meeting the band - and after a long wait outside, were ushered in. I think this was at the Nokia theater in Times Square.

There were four bands on the bill - some anonymous opener, Avenged Sevenfold, Symphony X, and Blind Guardian. Serious metalheads are a tough audience to win over, especially those into progressive or symphonic metal who are very set in their ways. I know, I was one of them. We like the blazing guitar solo, the fourteen minute epic song showcasing everyone's musical talent, and singers with tremendous range. Having A7X on the bill (shorter songs, snarlier vocals) could have been a disaster, and by most accounts was not the most successful pairing, but I was intrigued. The musicianship was solid, and the singer swapped back and forth between screaming and a surprisingly clear singing voice without showing any effort. I particularly remember the rendition of Darkness Surrounding, which remains one of my standbys for just plain rocking the fuck out.

Song Memory #2

Roadhouse Blues
by The Doors (live bootleg performed by Pearl Jam)

I played Roadhouse Blues to a crowd of over 30,000 people in 2007. No, it wasn't on a stadium tour; no, I'm not that big in Japan (yet) - this was at the 2007 ING New York City Marathon. According to their website, this is the World's Largest Marathon (killer!), and in 2007 was won by Martin Lel, of Kenya. Most of the hardcore American marathon runners were away, since the trials for the US Olympic Marathon team were to be held the next day.

Anyway, I had been out late at a friend's house in Brooklyn that was fortunately right near our meeting place to set up and perform. I met up with Joe and some friends of his who play the Marathon every year - on keyboards and drums - and we set up, tuned ourselves in the cold (not easy with big ol' steel strings) and started playing as soon as the first "wheelers" came in sight. We led off with Roadhouse Blues, mostly because it's a great tune, easily recognized and fun to improvise on - and were greeted with grins and thumbs up from the passing athletes.

This was a very last-minute band, and as such we hadn't practiced anything - our repertoire was limited to less than a dozen songs - but since the audience was constantly changing, it didn't matter. We played for maybe two hours, even enticing some of the spectators to start dancing. One little boy was a particular fan, and jumped up and down arhythmically each time we came to the chorus.

Roll, baby, roll.

Soundtracking

Lately, I have been thinking about how I interpret music.


Now, I am pretty secure in stating that I am, without doubt, a Music Person. From my very first LP (Big Bird Sings!), through fascination with dad's new CD player (Ray Lynch's No Blue Thing), my very first boom box (with Dookie and Vitalogy, both of which were confiscated after the lyrics fell under maternal scrutiny), to the first time I hooked up an iPod to my new car stereo (the bass on Clint Eastwood felt like it was lifting the '98 Camry off the ground) and assembled a library of almost ten thousand mp3s; from the first recorder I was obligated to buy in 1992 to the Warwick bass guitar I couldn't help buying in 2007; from the first shaky rendition of Hot Cross Buns to writing and recording original music with bands, the creation and absorption of music has been the single greatest defining factor in my life.

I wrote this last year:

I once read a personal profile of an anonymous person on an anonymous website. I don't remember it verbatim, but the gist was:

Everyone is interested in music.
Those who say they aren't are lying.
Those who aren't don't exist.

Which is true, at least in my observation. Ask anyone if they like music. They'll say yes, and then begin listing genres, composers, singers, bass players, albums. Tastes vary, of course, but the idea behind it, rhythmically arranged notes expressing ideas, remains the same in all genres and cultures. Scarcely any aspect of human endeavour allows for the same amount of freedom within a set of boundaries with the result that the boundaries expand outwards exponentially, always have always will as music by its nature cannot remain static and no language can possibly be as universal; written records can tell us what the past looked, spoke, smelt, and died like

and as a devotee of military history these are the AllImportantQuestions; reading accounts of the by now famous Easy Company 506th PIR 101st Airborne being struck in particular by how one poor sap, younger then than I am now, can recall how he was one of the lucky few to see Glen Miller in concert, how he started with Moonlight Serenade and followed with In The Mood, how he remembers this better than the names or personalities of some of the men who died beside him

or as a devotee of family history, especially as it relates to the military, a letter written by the Eagle at my age, from the deck of his transport bound for Kwajalein, a leader of men and all of them nervously brave; Eagle and Ted and Harry and Fireball on the deck, night after night, listening to a Marine who couldn't bear to leave his accordion behind, and the Agony Quartette singing Dear Old Girl, I Wonder What’s Become Of Sally, “old college songs and lullabies” as the ship took them to fight, and days later the Quartette became a Duet as Harry was wounded and Ted was killed, then ending abruptly on Saipan as Fireball was wounded and Eagle killed

but not how they felt when they heard that certain arrangement of pitch and rhythm that got the blood flowing to dance, to love, to kill

another friend, fresh out of active service in the Marines mentions listening to Lamb of God on headphones while preparing for a patrol; sitting in the gunner's turret of your Humvee, solid weight of a fiftycal within arm's reach, your life behind you and before you at least for now, and in your ears the adrenaline encouragement - Now You've Got Something To Die For

With this in mind, I am going to try and add an entry per day (or so, we'll see how long that resolution lasts) by putting my music list on random and writing down what I associate most with that song. Could be interesting.

Today's Song, Chosen At Random, Is:
Going To Your Funeral, Part 1
by eels, from the album Electro-Shock Blues

I haven't got any memories associated with this song in particular, so let's talk about the album. I found out about eels during the summer of 2003, while working at the SPAC box office. If I'm not mistaken, my boss Mollie mentioned the song "Last Stop: This Town" during one of our lengthy bull sessions on a slow summer day while waiting for OAPs to buy tickets for the ballet. I was fresh from my first year of college, feeling very worldly (I had a beard! I had smoked weed! I went to a psychiatrist!), and was always looking for new bands to present to friends. Electro-Shock Blues became one of my favorite albums of the summer, despite not really being a summer album - it's a downer, but a really pretty downer, written by singer E in response to his mother's death by cancer, and his sister's suicide. If anyone had the right to feel sorry for themselves, I felt, it was this guy - now the only living member of his family - but despite the exterior of sadness, it's an album about coming to terms with life and how to cope with the inevitable problems and tragedies that we will all face. The last track, "P.S. You Rock My World" was my particular favorite, with the last lines providing some of the most valuable advice I could have received during one of the more emotionally unstable times of my life:

Laying in bed tonight I was thinking
And listening to all the dogs
And the sirens and the shots
And how a careful man tries
To dodge the bullets
While a happy man takes a walk

And maybe it is time to live

Time to live, indeed, and it was glorious listening to this song while driving home on a warm summer night, down Route 50 from Saratoga to Rexford. There was always a backing sound of humming tires and singing cicaidas, mixed with the sweet smell of flowering trees and cut grass, the comforting smell of the car's interior, and the forbidden smell of the Camel Reds that I hid from my mother. I took a lot of photographs that summer, dealt with the side effects of anti-depressants, and for the first time looked forward to the end of summer when I could return to college.

no sleep 'til...

I had the chance to get in my car, drive ninety miles, meet you on your doorstep and sweep you off your feet.

I didn't. I said "see you later" instead of "see you soon."

Three and a half years later, I still have not seen you...

...and it still sometimes keeps me up at night.

Fisher's Hill: Reserve

The sinking feeling was back. No matter how many times he heard the echoing report of a far off rifle fired in anger, his nerves always seemed to collect in a glowing, pulsating ball located just behind his navel. It glowed brighter with every shot, sent a tingling jolt up his spine and out to his extremities, a single impulse reaching the brain that registered what the sound meant. The single impulse touched off thousands of other impressions, some fleeting, some burned into his mind: the colonel he had helped to carry off the field at Antietam, screamingly gutshot and not to live out the day, his fine coat dripping dignified red, his moustache matted with spittle and blood that was bubbling from the corners of his mouth, the fiery commanding eyes now imploring help me, boy, help me, I am afraid, I have not known this awful certainty - young George running to help the grizzled man on the side of the mountain at McDowell, head snapping back and dropping to the ground; how he had dropped his musket and ran for the boy, the bluecoats holding their fire while he struggled to lift the prostrate form onto his shoulders (a soldier? but he can't be over twelve years old) - Sean stumbling and falling on the first day of the fiasco at Gettysburg, picking himself up with a high-pitched laugh and blessedly free of blood, though he displayed the spot where the spent ball had hit him long after the bruise had faded.

Another shot, followed by a doublebang from the pickets on his side of the valley. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and rummaged in his haversack for his pipe.

From their vantage point near the crest of the hill, they could see faint wisps of smoke rising from the picket line.

His matches were damp and he broke three of them before giving up, carefully knocking the unused tobacco back into its pouch and tying it shut. He would have given anything for a light, but his squad was perpetually short on matches and fires this close to the line were forbidden. Theo and Greg produced some cheese, which they sliced into small pieces and passed around; one of the other men shared his crackers. He felt isolated, separated from his usual mess. Jess, always looking for a fight, had gone forward into the picket line; Sean had vanished as well, presumably detached on a sharpshooting detail. He did not know these other men, did not feel comfortable with them, and still the incessant picket fire drove small spikes into his skull.

The squad turned at the sound of hoofbeats. A group of cavalrymen, disparately armed, was moving up to the line with a casual arrogance, looking down at the infantry with ill-disguised contempt. The infantry returned the looks with interest.

"Whoever seeeeeeeen a dead calvryman?"
"Picket post four, ten o'clock an' heeeere's yer mule!"
"Flicker flicker!"

The cavalry refused to rise to the bait. They dispersed into groups of four; three dismounted, handed their reigns to the fourth, and loped off towards the sound of the firing with the unsteady, swaying gait of men who are more accustomed to riding than walking. The men disappeared into the tall grass, and soon the sounds of shotguns and carbines replaced those of rifles. The horses rolled their eyes and jerked away from the sound of the guns, one whickered nervously.

Fisher's Hill: Reveille

He could fly.

He hadn't tried hard enough, hadn't wanted to badly enough before; days of watching the birds and daydreaming couldn't grant him the lightness he needed to hover above the trees looking down at his sleeping friends, couldn't grant him the nerve to ascend higher and higher until they were just specks, faint outlines on a great patchwork cloth spread beneath him until it disappeared into mist on the horizon. His nature nearly bested him, nearly sent him crashing back to earth. He was a quiet, unassuming, sensible man, not often given to flights of fancy, a voice of calm reason to his friends. Yet here he was, surprised and delighted in the lower atmosphere. Tentatively, he moved his arms and legs, tried to make sense of the experience before realizing there was no sense in being able to fly, and in that moment he was free.

Something tapped his foot.

He looked down; nothing below him for at least fifty feet. Treetops, faint curls of smoke, the distance of knowing the impossible could happen-

"Private."

Hell-

"Git up. Come on. You all got five minutes."

Everything vanished. He was in purgatory. The world was a gray, hazy, pounding denial immediately behind his eyes.

Another voice.

"Shit, come on boy. We gonna get chewed good if we miss roll call."

He surrendered, opened his eyes and was earthbound. Sergeant Myers was moving down the line of prostrate forms, giving each protruding foot a kick and a sharp warning. Beside him, Sean was wincing in the morning sunlight, and Jess had his arms crossed resolutely over his eyes.

Sean was the first to move.

"Alright, guess he ain't fucking around this morning. Le's go."

Resignedly, the three men threw off their blankets and unwrapped their long, heavy rifles from their groundcloths. Long experience had taught them that sleeping with their weapons was preferable to leaving them stacked; the discomfort was balanced by keeping the weapons free from rust, and by this September only one of them had a bayonet anyway.

Myers was calling in the distance.

"First company - fall in! Canteens and haversacks! Drop yer packs, boys, we're not going far."

The cartridge box slung over one shoulder, belt fastened, haversack and canteen hanging under his left arm, short jacket half-buttoned, rifle in hand and cap on head, he trailed after his friends as they made their bleary, hungry way into line.