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Song 78: The fighter still remains
“The Boxer” by Simon & Garfunkel Marty E: Between all of the 70s Heavy Metal and Shock Rock, someone happened to slip a copy of Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits into my collection during this period of time, and I loved it just as much as I did the rest of them. I can’t exactly…
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Song 77: Demented Davy Crockett hitchhiking on Highway 2
[photo from contributor] “Caught In a Dream” by Alice Cooper Marty E: I don’t know who it was who gave me Alice Cooper’s Love It to Death album, but it sure was a weird album, I think, for anyone to hear – especially a little kid. I mean, “Ballad of Dwight Fry” and “Black Juju”…
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Song 76: Hard rock for the children
[Photo provided by contributor] “Black Diamond” by KISS Marty E: One day, when I was, again, around 4-years-old, I was digging through my brother Dave’s drawer in my parents’ basement, and came across a picture of KISS in a magazine and was instantly and permanently fascinated. That was to be a very consequential day, in…
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Song 75: Crashing in bathtubs
“Norwegian Wood” by The Beatles Marty E: What was great about being a little kid and being given the gift of music was that I often didn’t understand what a song was “about” and didn’t have the presence of mind to even care. I had few biases or prejudices about anything, so music was a…
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Assignment 16: Songs I have loved since I was four
Name: Marty E Location: New York Relationship to music: My relationship with music…. I would say it is a mutually abusive relationship. It gave me my life and ruined my life. It justifies drug and alcohol use. The money is shit but the fringe benefits are fucking amazing. We are bordering on divorce. Industry: Musician,…
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Song 74: First Concert
[Robert Simpson, Limited Store Window Montreal 1936] “First… and then” by Handsome Boy Modeling School I didn’t go to concerts until I was in college. Across from my room was a triple room with three guys. One was a nice enough guy (now a doctor), a Frenchman (still one of my best friends), and a…
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Song 73: First Album I Took From My Sister’s Music Collection That I Secretly Really Loved
“Eternal Flame” the Bangles Phong: The funny thing about being the younger sibling is that particular age where you don’t really have your own stuff besides like toys, but your older sister had many fancy things. (I never did get a pager.) And thus eventually you would rationalize that as long as she wasn’t in…
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Song 72: First Song Downloaded Off Napster
“Interstate Love Song” by Stone Temple Pilots Phong: I love thinking about Napster in retrospect because I was completely unaware that I was in an era of digital upheaval. In some ways, I was a model participant: finding Napster, getting a CD burner, making custom labels off a stolen version of Photoshop. (You could argue…
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Song 71: First Purchased Compact Disc
“I Will Buy You a Brand New Life” by Everclear Phong: When walking down aisles of CDs and cassette tapes, there’s that distinct and wonderful pang of recognizing an artist from off the radio. If they were really popular, you could even recognize a few songs off the track list. But usually it was just…
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Song 70: First Music Video
“Take on Me” by A-ha Phong: If I would have built a time machine when I was a kid for an older me to find, it would have contained Lego bricks, the book “The Stinky Cheese Man,” and the music video for A-ha’s “Take on Me.” The blending of pencil rendered animation and live-action shots…