Music of Memories

Eric Anderson Narrative, Identity, and Genetics in the Africana World

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Vampire Weekend – Walcott

           I never became as devout of a Vampire Weekend fan as many of my friends did. A few of my friends had already seen them twice when they announced that they were coming back to Milwaukee in June of 2014. I wanted to see them, but didn’t want to pay 50 dollars for a ticket when there were so many other concerts I wanted to go to that summer. Vampire Weekend was playing at a stage near the lakefront and there’s a man-made island just across a lagoon where they recently opened a state park. Some friends biked with me to the lakefront. We sat on the island and listened to the concert across the water for free. I couldn’t make out the words most of the time, but it was one of my favorite concerts of the summer. I was happy and reassured that I had good people around me. These were people who I wanted to influence my identity.

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Tom Waits – Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards

           This three CD compilation is the most that I’ve ever spent on recorded music. Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards came out in 2006. I wasn’t going to spend nearly 40 dollars on a box set for myself, but I knew that if I got it for my dad as a birthday present I would be able to listen to it and burn my own copies of the CDs. So I did. For a few years I would list Tom Waits as my favorite artist, although he was very different from most of the other music that I listened to. I still listen to him a lot today.

           Freshman year of high school one of the assignments in my American Authors class involved curating a mix CD and writing about who you would want to hear each song. I had to choose ten songs, and choose people or groups to hear each one. The people could be in my own life, fictional, or historical. I decided to put two of the songs from this album onto the CD. I don’t remember what the first one was, but the second was “Road to Peace.” This song deals with the Isreali-Palestinian conflict. Waits tells a pair of stories humanizing those on both sides of the conflict. I credit this song with inspiring me to research the history of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Over the years I’ve learned a lot through listening to music, but I’ve also learned a lot doing research because of what I heard in music. “Road to Peace” was not the first time I did this, but represents it well.

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Tom Waits - Mule Variations

           Until I saw the album cover for Mule Variations, I thought that Tom Waits was black. I was so surprised to see a white man, given the singing voice on this album. While all the music I now listen to is digital or on vinyl, I still know where this CD is. It’s in a shoebox among other shoeboxes in my closet at my dad’s house. These boxes are filled with physical representations of memories that I have collected as I grew up, and they aren’t organized in any particular way. My dad played this CD a lot while I was growing up, and after I got my own set of sound system for 10 dollars at a garage sale, I would play it too. There isn’t one specific memory associated with it, but I associate it with my dad is a similar way to how I associate Stevie Wonder and my mother. It helped to show me how different all of the songs on a CD could be. Waits has love songs, songs about death, and whatever “What’s He Building in There” could be considered.

           I chose to post “Come on Up to the House” to represent Mule Variations, but there isn’t really a song on the album that’s able to accurately represent the whole thing. This is the last song on the album, and one of Waits’ most beautiful.

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Datarock – Red

           This is another album associated with a particular car ride. I had my iPod hooked up through the tape deck of our red minivan and made the conscious choice to play this album. I knew that I would be associating this day with these songs, and that I would later find meaning in them that I hadn’t before. I knew I needed to listen to something upbeat. The drive between Milwaukee and Oconomowoc was nearly an hour. I was alone, and quickly flipping through thoughts. I didn’t get another call from my dad or grandma during the entire drive to the hospital, so I figured the news wouldn’t be good when I got there. I was feeling regret that I hadn’t spent more time with my grandfather, I was in denial that this was actually happening, I was worrying about my dad and my grandma, and I was hopeful that everything would somehow turn out alright. I used the music as a distraction. I wanted to slow my mind down, and tried to focus on the lyrics of the songs instead of my own thoughts. It didn’t work. My mind continued to wander everywhere for the rest of the drive. I haven’t listened to these songs much in the years following my grandpa’s death. While these songs themselves did not have a strong impact upon my identity, the short time of life where I listened to them did. Since this time I have also tried to be careful to not associate songs that I like with certain experiences and memories out of fear that I might ruin them and not want to hear them again.

           None of the individual songs on this album stand out as particularly representative of this day. There’s a song called “Fear of Death,” but it didn’t stand out to me that day, and it doesn’t now. The song I chose is “New Days Dawn.”

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Memories

Many memories are defined by a lack as music and sound as others are defined by music. Many serious moments in my mind are defined by the silence following a statement. There is often an absence of sound or music. I would likely remember these moments differently had there been music in the background. Songs have the power to distort or enhance memory, just as particular smells and tastes can.

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Genetics

           While my genetic identity is interesting, and I learned about aspects of my genetic identity through this class, I do not identify myself strongly through my genetics or the history of my family. I’ve built my identity and self around things that affect me in more direct ways. Some of my own experiences deal with learning about my family’s history, but I have rarely felt the need to learn more. Neither of my parents have expressed much of an interest in teaching me, and I feel that they don’t define themselves strongly through their family history or genetics either. Even if music does not directly connect to my genetic identity, there is an indirect connection. My parents met one another for the first time at a music festival. They met at Summerfest while they were both students at the University of Milwaukee. They weren’t seeing a specific show at the time, but it was still music that brought them together. So in an indirect way, if it weren’t for the way that music brings people together, I wouldn’t exist today. Despite this meeting, my parents have very different musical tastes. I can still clearly see how my tastes have been shaped by both of them, both in what I listen to and how I consume the music.

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Kanye West – New Slaves

           Yeezus leaked the same day that Kanye was bringing the promotional projections associated with his album release to Milwaukee. Other cities had already had the music video projected the week before, so I was hoping there would be something more to this event. I had planned to attend the screening with one of my friends and his siblings. I started downloading the album minutes after it leaked, but I was almost late to Forrest’s house because so many people were trying to download it at the same time. My first time listening to the first half of Yeezus was driving to the east side to meet up with Forrest. I had thrown my bike in the back of the van, and when I got to the East side I biked with Forrest and his family to the 3rd ward for the first screening of the night. The crowd was electric. I was surprised to see so many people I knew there, but not surprised that it took so long for the event to begin. Standing in a tiny park in Milwaukee’s downtown Milwaukee. I really appreciated how many people I knew at the event. The people had arrived in separate groups, but most of them I knew through high school. I was proud to have the group of friends that I did.

           This experience was a part of the freedom that I experienced this summer. Even throughout high school my parents hadn’t tried to keep me on much of leash. Even after my junior year I could fill up my backpack, bike the 10 miles to work on the lakefront, bike around the east side after work, go to a friend’s house for dinner, sleep over at another friend’s place, go back to work in the morning, and come back home the next night. This summer represented another kind of freedom, because my now ex-girlfriend had stayed in California. I had more time to explore my city and reconnect with people I hadn’t seen as much during the previous summer. Yeezus would come to become one of the albums which would define the freedom of these summers.

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Toro y Moi – So Many Details

           Toro y Moi is one of the artists I’ve most listened to over the last five years. Chaz Bundick started out as a Chillwave artist in South Carolina, but every one of his albums has been a bit different. His music fits nearly any setting, so I don’t have many memories associated with any of his albums as a whole. I don’t know when I first heard this song, but I remember playing it through laptop speakers the night I left Stanford for the last time. I was packing up to leave California after breaking up with my girlfriend of nearly four years. She was lying in bed while I packed, and I had to put on music to distract myself. I set her Macbook on a a chair, went to a YouTube, and put on someone’s playlist of Toro y Moi, Bonobo, and James Blake. The tinny laptop speakers were the only sound in the dorm room. “So Many Details” was the second song on the playlist. I focused on the lyrics in an attempt to stop from starting a conversation I only knew could be painful. This probably wasn’t the best decision, considering they dealt with a complicated breakup. I still listen to this song and this whole album, but this song is a bit different. Many of the songs I’m writing about deal with transitions, but “So Many Details” is associated with a particularly painful one. After leaving California I had to begin to reevaluate what had been a large and significant part of my identity for several years.

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Run-D.M.C. – King of Rock

           Once again, this song is associated with local radio. During middle school I went through a phase where I listened to a considerable amount of heavy metal. Laura “King of Rock” had a Wednesday night radio show on WMSE. She would always begin her 9 o’clock show with Run-D.M.C.’s “King of Rock.” This song was completely different from every other song she played. Although she played almost entirely metal, between sets she would play 80s and 90s hip-hop. De La Soul, MC Lyte, and Run DMC provided a sharp contrast to the often angry guitar driven music that was the main focus of her sets. My mom definitely did not approve of this music, much less listening to it right before I was supposed to be going to bed. I didn’t see my choice to listen to metal as an act of rebellion. I slowly grew out of this phase as I entered high school, but for a few years I heard this song more Wednesday nights than not. I’ve never listened to much Run-D.M.C. outside of this song and “Christmas in Hollis.” The group is not something that I would normally choose to listen to, I made the active decision to listen to this particular song week after week.

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Ghostpoet – Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam

           Ghostpoet is a UK musician and rapper, and in my life his debut album represents a time of transition and new beginnings. I listened to Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam a lot when I first got to Notre Dame. My roommate freshman year definitely didn’t appreciate my taste in music. Talking about music had been a large part of my life in high school, but at Notre Dame I found that many people I became friends with didn’t care about music much or had very different tastes. This album was one of several that represented a change in my identity. My freshman year the music I liked was usually something I listened to through headphones. An important aspect of my personality became more introverted. The self that I presented to others was different from what I had presented myself as back in Milwaukee. The change in how I consumed music was only one facet of this. Notre Dame was a much more homogenous place than I was used to, and I changed myself in an attempt fit in better. Many people here had shared experiences that I could not relate to. I began to emphasize parts of myself that did help me relate to the people I was meeting, while other parts of my personality became more of a part of my personal and internal self. It was not until I became more comfortable around people who had become closer friends that these aspects began to reemerge. Ghostpoet released his third album this year. While I have listened to it through headphones, I’ve also played it through the speakers in my living room. I don’t feel as much of a need to portray myself differently around the people I’ve remained or become close to.

           The song I chose to represent the album is “Us Against Whatever.” It’s one of my favorite songs off of Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam, and deals with confronting adversity.

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Stevie Wonder – Songs in the Key of Life

           On November 13th, 2014 at 6:44 PM, I wrote on my blog that nobody sees: “Listening to Stevie Wonder through a record player reminds me of my mom in a way much better than most.” To be succinct, I’ve had a complicated relationship with my mom for the last seven or eight years. After my parents split up, our relationship became much more adult, with me trying to take care of her as her life began to unravel. In the years since she has pushed away nearly everyone close to her, struggled with addiction, and been moving in and out of prison. My mom still considers Stevie Wonder to be one of her favorite artists, and has seen him in concert several times. His music reminds me of a much happier version of our relationship. Stevie Wonder isn’t the only artist representative of these broad feelings of childhood nostalgia. Minnie Riperton’s Angel Lady represents a similar time period. There was some sort of compilation CD of Motown artists from the early 70s that would often be playing when I got home from school. My sister is 4 years younger than me. She didn’t know this positive version of my mother that I did for as large as a fraction of her life, and I don’t think songs such as these evoke the same memories in her. I still use songs such as “Isn’t She Lovely” to remind myself of a different version of my mother that I hope to see again. I miss these days, but I’m careful not to reflect on them too much.

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Jimi Hendrix – Axis:  Bold As Love

           I have two memories associated with this album. One is a broad set of memories, while the other is very specific. The album is broadly associated with sitting in my room reading Stephen King novels. I probably read at least 4 of his novels while listening to Jimi Hendrix. Are You Experienced?, Band of Gypsies, First Rays of the New Rising, and Electric Ladyland are also associated with this period of my life. The specific memory associated with this album was formed on Christmas Day during my freshman year of high school. My older cousin had given me a flash drive full of his favorite music on Christmas Eve. I barely listened to most of it, but I was excited to own 5 Hendrix albums without having to tie up my phone line for hours attempting to illegally download them. I had recently bought an iPod, and added this album to it to listen to on the way to my great uncle’s house the next day. I can clearly remember sitting in the back seat of the van, driving through the dark and snow, and listening to “Spanish Castle Magic.” This album, in a roundabout way serves as a bridge between memories associated with the two sides of my family. My cousin on my dad’s side had given me the music, but I was listening to it on the way to visit my mom’s uncle. I have many other memories associated with my uncle’s Christmas party, but this night nothing particularly eventful happened. I think that my memory of this car ride is so strong because it so strongly contrasts a car ride leaving my uncle’s house several Christmases later. The memories of his Christmas party being somewhat soiled did not change my memories associated with this album.

           The song I chose from this album is “Castles Made of Sand,” simply because it was one of the songs that I listened to the most. The song describes the fragility of life, but the lyrics don’t have much to do with this memory or the formation of my own identity.

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Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On

           A lot of backstory needs to be explained in order to explain my memories associated with this song. I grew up listening almost exclusively to local radio. My dad was always listening, and it was a habit I quickly adapted. The Milwaukee School of Engineering has a radio station associated with it that broadcasts a very diverse range of music. Thursday nights are reggae, and Sunday mornings are big band music, but Saturday afternoon brings a very charismatic duo to the airwaves. WMSE has a program known as the “Saturday Afternoon Boogie Bang and Mil-town Thang”. It’s hosted by Barry “The Boogieman” Johnson and Dr. Craig McNeal. The show is the oldest and longest running hip-hop and R&B program in Milwaukee, and they’re still on the air every Saturday spinning primarily old school hip-hop and R&B. One of the show’s segments is “What’s Going On.” During the show’s three hour block the segment comes on twice and always begins with Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.” The intro to the song is then looped and the DJs talk about what’s going on in Milwaukee. They talk about upcoming concerts, church festivals, events at local businesses, and other events in Milwaukee and the Milwaukee’s black community. Listeners are welcomed to call in if they know of a “positive, inspirational event” in the upcoming week, and the DJs will highlight it. This show is where I first remember hearing “What’s Going On.” While I’ve now heard the song in many more contexts, I will probably always associate “What’s happening brother” and the opening seconds of this song with Saturday afternoons. The song is most closely associated with a particular kind of Saturday. This show was often the soundtrack to the Saturday afternoons of my childhood, but most strongly with car rides. I strongly associate the intro of this song with the smell of mud and grass, and sitting in the back seat of a car with shin guards sitting on the floor. Throughout elementary school I had soccer games on Saturday mornings or afternoons. If the game was at 11, 12 or 1, then “The Saturday Afternoon Boogie Bang” would be the soundtrack to my ride home. The drive from Vincent High School on the North Side back to the West Side was less than 20 minutes, but due to the time the games ended I would always hear “What’s Going On” while I was eating my granola bar or apple on the way home. I’m glad that I have such positive memories associated with the song.

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Bob Marley & The Wailers – Crazy Baldhead

           “Crazy Baldhead” is clearly a political song, but when I first heard it I only liked it because of its catchy chorus. The first time I heard “Crazy Baldhead” was live at Summerfest. Summerfest is one of the biggest music festivals in the world and takes place each summer along Milwaukee’s lakefront. I’ve been going for as long as I can remember, but this was the first time I had ever stayed this late. I was with my parents and sister. She was only 5 or 6 years old, and not used to staying out this late. In retrospect I’m surprised that she was there. We had come to the festival to see KOJO. One of my best friend’s dads played bass and sang in the band. Guy emigrated from Jamaica and helped found one of the first reggae bands in the Midwest. The band started at 8 and played a mix of originals and covers. Most of the covers were Marley songs, but being in elementary school, I only recognized a few of them. “Crazy Baldhead” is the song I remember from that night. I didn’t know it was a Bob Marley song until I later heard it on the radio. This song seemed to go on a lot longer than the other songs. In my mind they went through the chorus at least 4 times, but in reality they probably didn’t.  I don’t understand why I liked the song so much, but it was stuck in my head long after the concert had ended. I just know that I was happy. KOJO’s set started before the sun had set, but it was completely dark by the time they played this song. My sister was falling asleep and my parents wanted to leave. I didn’t. I was too busy falling further in love with music. I’m thankful that my parents allowed me to stay at a music festival until nearly 10 o’clock when I was only 10 or 11 years old. The band gave much more energy to “Crazy Baldhead” than Marley’s recorded version does, and I sang along without having the slightest idea what the lyrics meant. When I heard Marley’s version on the radio a few years later I remember being so excited. WMSE (the local, alternative, commercial free radio station) played reggae every Thursday night. I had been listening for the “crazy bald head song” and hope that the DJs would announce who was singing it. I was so excited when I finally heard it. It wasn’t until I revisited the song that I realized it was political. The song is about black power and reclaiming land stolen by oppressors. So even though I have such a strong memory of this song, the version I heard then is disconnected from what I hear now. I can no longer disconnect politics from the music, but “Crazy Baldhead” still reminds me of childhood innocence. I can enjoy both versions of the song.

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The Project

My original project was going to chronicle my family’s relationship to the city of Milwaukee. While what I learned during my research was interesting I didn’t feel connected to the work. I was learning about people who I had no personal connection to. I was able to write about my family moving to Milwaukee, my grandparents moving to the suburbs, and my parents return to the city. I loved learning more about the transformation of different neighborhoods. However, I did not feel personally connected to these narratives. I wanted to write about something dealing with a more personal aspect of my identity. During the first days of this class we we’re asked to pick a single song that defined who we were. I found this nearly impossible, but chose LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends.” As the semester continued, classroom discussions would always return to music. We discussed our personal connections to music, the political implications of music, and the connections between music and other forms of expression. I decided that I want to further explore my own connection to music and music’s connection to my own memories. I wrote a long list of the songs and albums that defined the formation of my own identity and the memories that went along with this formation. From this list I chose the songs most applicable to this class, and began to write.

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Introduction

Music is a very important part of my life. It occupies multiple roles as a part of my identity. This blog contains a series of short narratives describing how certain musicians, songs, and albums are linked to my identity and memories. A song or a song from the album will accompany each post. The first blog posts will deal with artists from the African diaspora who helped to define parts of my life. Later posts will deal with artists from outside of the Africana world. Some posts will deal with the formation of my identity, while others will help to describe how I define myself today. Most posts deal only with my own experiences, but in some posts information comes from talking to parents and friends. Many of the entries will also deal with the some of the artists that we listened to and discussed in class.