Where Is My Mind?

Growing up, I have to say, my friends thought I had a pretty diverse, fairly cool, music collection. I gave most all credit to my four older siblings: They introduced me to the widely diverse tunes of The Grateful Dead, Kenny Loggins, and Alison Moyet. I was waaaay ahead of the crowd my age when I went to see Crowded House in concert with my older sister. My brothers found a huge box of old 45's one night, brought them home, we taped them all and considered ourselves connisours of an early Bill Cosby, singing. And then, of course, because my brother had spent his hard earned paper route money on a sound system that could tape to tape and record the radio, I was privy to anything that could be culled from the radio-show-du-jour "Dr. Demento" on KROQ. Pretty cool stuff, I have to admit, lo these many years later. And this feeling of being a musicologist of sorts of the far out and interesting and unusual came to a screeching halt when I met RK. I had most everything on cassette tape with an impressive collection of about 35 cd's. And not only did this not come across as cool and attractive...I think RK might have even felt burdened by having to actually introduce me to the world of music. A huge world I'd been missing and that he'd been grooving in since he was a teenager. We were only three years apart in age, but we were light years apart in the world of cool. Turns out, I didn't actually live in it.

So, it was with a begrudging thanks that I listened to him when he told me to play an entire Beastie Boys album with ears wide open and then later listen to The Beta Band, and even try out A Tribe Called Quest. But the band he really encouraged the appreciation of was The Pixies. And thank god he did. One song really, really stuck in my head: the music, the lyrics, the sort of mantra it seems to expound. It's never left my mind. I've now seen them in concert and I am converted.

I'm also a really, really big fan of choirs (I think that's from my old days....)

the Blue Ribbon Glee Club is Chicago’s (first?, only?) finest punk rock choir!