Nova Ahead 18
On Sundays we’ve been getting together in my parents’ driveway, the whole family standing around riffing, laughing, and catching up while the kids run around the yard. Some weeks, I walk with my dad through the woods to Emerson Pond to look for the bald eagle, marveling at the activity of what we think are bobcats, their tracks criss-crossing the trail. A couple of weeks ago, while trying to follow the trail of a fox (all of these track identifications are guesses by the way, but it feels good to be like, “yep that looks like a fox!), I went through the ice. My brother was with us this time, and we were all kind of shocked; it was and had been very cold for weeks - there were tire tracks out there for goodness sakes. I was lucky in that I only went up to my thighs, but the water felt like it was burning through my clothes and once I crawled back up onto sturdy ice and snow, I realized I would need to get to some warmth as quickly as possible. I made a panicked run through the woods, acutely aware of the hot and prickly sensation of my soaked legs and feet, constantly checking in that I could feel them. By the time I got back to the house, I started to feel a little embarrassed about my sloppy forest sprint (it was not pretty); I put a mask on and went into my folks’ house, where my mom and gram got me some towels and dry clothes. It was the first time I had really been in there for a year, and having them fuss over me was extremely comforting. Typing this all out really got me thinking about comfort, reinforcement, and what we’re all doing to survive this drought of normalcy. As with most things, it’s all relative; some people are constantly dealing with trauma and loneliness so the pandemic hasn’t really given them something new to manage, but rather, exacerbated what was already happening. I like being around my family because they have known me forever and there is such a wealth of background material, shared history, and running jokes that sometimes only need an eyebrow lift to be referenced. Even though I haven’t gotten to hug any of them in a year, having beers in the driveway and remembering together is a great source of comfort, which I think is maybe the opposite of trauma. In the same way that a kept narrative can be held and perpetuated by other people, so too can records contain multitudinous lifetimes stacked high, building invisible dimensions, where our memories can be close to one another even if we cannot. So with the pins and needles gone from my toes, and a decent driveway buzz, here are a few floors in the towering harddrive of my musical memory.
Cat Stevens - Greatest Hits This one is probably the first lp I ever put on a turntable. My folks had gotten some insane ‘80s Mirantz soundsystem with those gigantic speakers that are pieces of furniture on their own. There were so many buttons and doors held by springloaded magnets, I loved to just sit with it and touch everything, which now, having a kid myself, I realize that must have been a source of great anxiety to my young parents with their new stereo. Still, on a weekend morning, with “Wild World” coming out of the speakers while birds flit around the backyard, there is a wave of calm that washes over me.
Anita Baker - Rapture I know every word of this album just from driving back and forth to Dracut, in the backseat of a Blazer, a Volvo, and a Mercury Tracer, among I’m sure many other family cars. There’s an MF Doom song that uses a piano break from this, and when I heard it for the first time I wondered why I loved it so much right off the bat. We could all be arguing, kids bickering, or even with moody teenage vibes on eleven, and if this went in, by the end of “Sweet Love”, we were all singing.
The Beatles - Abbey Road I knew this album front to back before I knew anything about the Beatles. It’s how I learned to sing, sitting shotgun with my mom, who if you didn’t know, has got an amazing voice. I would try out harmonies, mumble along to the lyrics until I learned them, and commit every drum fill and dynamic turn to memory. It’s a lens that I still view anything I make through, a bizarre feat of bringing worlds of songs together into a cohesive and singular recording. From there I dug into everything they made and was genuinely surprised at the consistency in their artistry and creativity. I know this is a softball, telling you about the friggin Beatles, but it’s kind of an unavoidable one for me.
Louis Armstrong - Town Hall Concert I picked this up in a discount tape bin at Caldor or something; the cassette was actually called Sugar, I think, and I’m pretty sure my entrypoint was “What a Wonderful World”, likely from obsessively watching a vhs copy of Good Morning Vietnam. I’d later get more Louis Armstrong tapes and could not get over the fact that he and Bing Crosby were always smoking weed together and making these recordings. The song I had been after for years was from this first tape, a recording of Armstrong, Sid Catlett, Earl Hines, Jack Teagarden, and a guy named Peanuts Hucko: “St. James Infirmary” with Teagarden on the lead vocal. I have still not been able to find the exact tape that I had then, but had mentioned it to Mark Monkton, a legitimate wealth of musical and cultural information, and after a few months, I was at his barn and he pulled this gem out of the stacks for me. When I dropped the needle on it, I got flung back to my bedroom, sitting on the floor and reading through every credit and note.
I’m thankful for the trip down memory lane, and for holding onto my feet. I’m also looking forward to Tyler Allgood joining us for the livestream this Friday. When I met him he was supernaturally good at skateboarding, and possessing that kind of facility with regard to such a complex set of movements, it did not surprise me to learn that he had grown into such a formidable songwriter. So join us on this Friday, and throughout March and April as we livestream into the warmer weather; maybe we can get him to 360 flip off the stage.