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5-10-15-20 "Music of Our Lives" Draft - Round 14 (3 Viewers)

30.S   Doowutchyalike  - Digital Underground

I met Earl when I was 23.  He was a local kid a couple years younger who worked in my department.  We bonded immediately over music and because we were the two coolest guys in the office.  His real name was Edward but he called himself Earl.  I started calling him Sherm for some reason and for the only time in a lifetime of trying to pin nicknames on friends, it stuck.  Everybody called him Sherm and Earl even started calling other people Sherm.  He was a good friend of the future Mrs. Eephus and me and he stood up at our wedding.

A couple years later, Earl started doing some music with a friend of his named Greg.  Greg was a funny dude who knew a lot about music.  The few times he hung out at our place, he made some very interesting selections from my record collection.  Earl had toyed around with a synthesizer for years but didn't have any great musical talent.  Time went on and Earl talked about his music but not really incessantly.  He didn't seem to be treating it anymore seriously than he did anything else; his stage name was Schmoovy Schmoov for God's sake.  His playing was still mostly chords and weird sounds.  But his crew put out a record and to be honest, I had my doubts.  In the late 80s, there weren't as many guys trying to sell rap cassettes on Market Street as there would be later but there still were some.  And every brother made an effort to pitch their music to Mrs. Eephus.  Well, we listened to the record and you can guess the punchline.  The record was Doowutchyalike and I was floored. 

The Underground blew up with Sex Packets.  Earl quit work and joined the circus with them for a while.  We still saw him but not as frequently as before.  Earl wasn't big on babies so our friendship took a hit when we had ours and we ended up on the woman's side of the deal when Earl and his girlfriend split up.   He eventually moved to Atlanta and still running the Schmoovy Schmoov hustle

 
Binky The Doormat said:
25 Yr Old Album: Singles-45s & Under - Squeeze

One of the exceptions was Squeeze.  I fell in love with them when I heard "Tempted" and then started paying more attention to their other stuff.  Yeah, kinda cheating ...a compilation album, but wow, does this hold up.  I loved it then and I love it now.  It is one of our most regularly played CDs still today.  These guys are brilliant.  Check out youtube, though significantly older and weight challenged, Glenn is still in strong musical form.   
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I wore this record out in college. It is one of those I had on vinyl, disc, and cassette.  I don't think compilation albums are cheating.

 
Age 30 song:

(apologies if the formatting comes out odd; I did this write-up on a different computer and emailed it to myself)

In the years between ages 25-30, I had finally started getting on with my life.  I finally cleared my head of my failed engagement/long-distance relationship and was
getting my first taste of working full-time.  As I got closer to 30, however, I also started getting more impatient about being single.  My father was 25 when I was born, so that was always my benchmark for measuring my own life's progress.  By 30, he was already in the field of work he would stay in until he retired, had bought his first (and only) house and was every in the pater familias.  As for me, I was still trying to fall backwards into the right landing spot for work and as single as could be and still living in the same place I had lived in during college. Most of my friends were getting off the ground with their own marriages and/or families, so I was really starting to feel left behind, and just as I felt I was ready to close the door on marriage and/or monogamy for good, I had an experience that shook me to my core...

Two of my last single friends were both older than me, by 2 and 3 years, respectively, and the older of the two had an uncle/cousin he spoke of glowingly as a kind of mentor to him. At the time, this guy was in his mid-40's, so he was definitely a 'confirmed' bachelor.  I finally met him one night, when my buddies and I met up with him at a minor league baseball game near his house.  I consider this friend one of the smartest people I've ever known, not only book-wise but world-wise as well, in that when he turned 30, he had amassed enough money (between having worked for the federal government for about 8 years or so by then, and living with his parents without having to pay rent or buy food) to put down enough on a house that the mortgage was for only 10 years AND it was close enough to where he worked that he could commute via bicycle. I thought that if my friend was this brilliant, his 'mentor' must be even more impressive. The reality was that he was a 45 year-old living like a 12 year-old. He was single and had only himself and his wants to spend his money on, so while his 'I don't give a #####' attitude may have seemed endearing to my two buddies, to me, he just came across as childish, and when we went to hang out at his house after the game, my impression was set in stone. He owned some sort of exotic bird that only knew curse words, and his house was swamped with all kinds of 'stuff' that he had accumulated over the years, but the world-shaking possession he shared with us that night was his collection of GG Allin concert videos (for those of you who know his work, don't worry, I wouldn't dare link any video).  I know I've always leaned to the more prudish side, but also thought myself to be fairly broad-minded at the same time, which made my horror not only at the videos themselves but also seeing my friends enjoying them, that much deeper. I felt I was seeing a glimpse of my own future if I kept on the path I was on, and maybe it set the stage for the 'spiritual re-awakening' I underwent later that year.

I had never been able to not believe that God existed, but I had also never 'felt' a connection, either, other than an "abiding" presence I couldn't shake. At the Christmas after I turned 30, I received a book called "The Trivialization of God".  To this day, I haven't finished it, because I put it down after it led me to a question I had never thought of before: What is the god of your life? Because I could never shake my belief in God, I realized I hadn't been treating God like my God, so I became a born-again Christian.  Having grown up Lutheran, I was familiar with everything, but the idea of having and developing a relationship with God was not a thing I had considered up until then. Ultimately, it did open the door to the life I have now, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be where I am otherwise; I would probably still be single, living off my parents' largesse and what's worst, I probably would be plumbing the depths of internet porn and not posting here. 

Anyway, while my song choice isn't a 'religious' song, it does mark the end of my quasi-obsession with music, and it was very difficult to choose just one out of several options: by the slimmest of margins, beating out about 5 other songs, I present My Father's Shoes by Level 42, yet another choice from my list of songs to be played at my funeral/wake. It does have a 'prodigal son' theme:

Even now I see him walking home at sundown
He's whistling rock of ages with his lunch box at his side
I still recall the smell of smoke and ashes on his jacket
And that factory dust was on his shoes the afternoon he died

I swore I'd never heed that factory whistle
In a banker's cage I signed a loan against my future sins
All the neighbors shook my hand and wished me well upon my leaving
Though my father was a poor man he owned a wealth of friends

So take these boots that shine like Judas silver
And all these sad reflections on lost untraveled roads
While the rain falls on a field of bones and roses
Give me back my father's shoes and let me walk in those

My stroke was good, the deals fell fast end easy
I hired the sweat of honest men and took the lion's share
My wardrobe filled with shirts of silk and boots of tender leather
And I walked in them the halls of power but found no comfort there

So take these boots that shine like Judas silver
And all these sad reflections on lost untraveled roads
While the rain falls on a field of bones and roses
Give me back my father's shoes and let me walk in those

Lady lay these boots upon the fire
'Cause lady now I swear I'll never wear this pair again
I meant to stand up straight and tall It never was that easy
Now these soles are stained from walking on the dreams of better men

So take these boots that shine like Judas silver
And all these sad reflections on lost untravelled roads
While the rain falls on a field of bones and roses
Give me back my father's shoes and let me walk in those

 
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Eephus said:
Squeeze was supposed to tour the sheds this summer opening for Hall and Oates.  They (Squeeze) were terrific when we saw them last year.  Glenn can still hit the high notes and Chris can still sing an octave lower.
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I mentioned in Tim’s New Wave thread that I was fortunate to see them a month ago before the world fell apart. As you say, Glenn and Chris (and the whole band) sounded great. Hall and Oates not so much.

 
zamboni said:
I mentioned in Tim’s New Wave thread that I was fortunate to see them a month ago before the world fell apart. As you say, Glenn and Chris (and the whole band) sounded great. Hall and Oates not so much.
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Squeeze was just a fun show.  They're old pros who've been at it for a long time but everybody on stage looked like they were having a good time.  That counts for a lot at a concert.

 
zamboni said:
I mentioned in Tim’s New Wave thread that I was fortunate to see them a month ago before the world fell apart. As you say, Glenn and Chris (and the whole band) sounded great. Hall and Oates not so much.
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Daryl still has some excellent turns on his Daryl's House segments ...realizing they can "dress up the sound" but it doesn't sound processed.  

 
Binky The Doormat said:
Daryl still has some excellent turns on his Daryl's House segments ...realizing they can "dress up the sound" but it doesn't sound processed.  
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Yeah, I was surprised how much his voice was shot on stage because he typically sounds decent at Daryl’s House. Could have been the venue/acoustics, but obviously and understandably he doesn’t have nearly the range he used to. Their long time sax player Charlie DeChant was terrific as always.

 
Charlie Steiner said:
Age 30 song:

(apologies if the formatting comes out odd; I did this write-up on a different computer and emailed it to myself)

In the years between ages 25-30, I had finally started getting on with my life.  I finally cleared my head of my failed engagement/long-distance relationship and was
getting my first taste of working full-time.  As I got closer to 30, however, I also started getting more impatient about being single.  My father was 25 when I was born, so that was always my benchmark for measuring my own life's progress.  By 30, he was already in the field of work he would stay in until he retired, had bought his first (and only) house and was every in the pater familias.  As for me, I was still trying to fall backwards into the right landing spot for work and as single as could be and still living in the same place I had lived in during college. Most of my friends were getting off the ground with their own marriages and/or families, so I was really starting to feel left behind, and just as I felt I was ready to close the door on marriage and/or monogamy for good, I had an experience that shook me to my core...

Two of my last single friends were both older than me, by 2 and 3 years, respectively, and the older of the two had an uncle/cousin he spoke of glowingly as a kind of mentor to him. At the time, this guy was in his mid-40's, so he was definitely a 'confirmed' bachelor.  I finally met him one night, when my buddies and I met up with him at a minor league baseball game near his house.  I consider this friend one of the smartest people I've ever known, not only book-wise but world-wise as well, in that when he turned 30, he had amassed enough money (between having worked for the federal government for about 8 years or so by then, and living with his parents without having to pay rent or buy food) to put down enough on a house that the mortgage was for only 10 years AND it was close enough to where he worked that he could commute via bicycle. I thought that if my friend was this brilliant, his 'mentor' must be even more impressive. The reality was that he was a 45 year-old living like a 12 year-old. He was single and had only himself and his wants to spend his money on, so while his 'I don't give a #####' attitude may have seemed endearing to my two buddies, to me, he just came across as childish, and when we went to hang out at his house after the game, my impression was set in stone. He owned some sort of exotic bird that only knew curse words, and his house was swamped with all kinds of 'stuff' that he had accumulated over the years, but the world-shaking possession he shared with us that night was his collection of GG Allin concert videos (for those of you who know his work, don't worry, I wouldn't dare link any video).  I know I've always leaned to the more prudish side, but also thought myself to be fairly broad-minded at the same time, which made my horror not only at the videos themselves but also seeing my friends enjoying them, that much deeper. I felt I was seeing a glimpse of my own future if I kept on the path I was on, and maybe it set the stage for the 'spiritual re-awakening' I underwent later that year.

I had never been able to not believe that God existed, but I had also never 'felt' a connection, either, other than an "abiding" presence I couldn't shake. At the Christmas after I turned 30, I received a book called "The Trivialization of God".  To this day, I haven't finished it, because I put it down after it led me to a question I had never thought of before: What is the god of your life? Because I could never shake my belief in God, I realized I hadn't been treating God like my God, so I became a born-again Christian.  Having grown up Lutheran, I was familiar with everything, but the idea of having and developing a relationship with God was not a thing I had considered up until then. Ultimately, it did open the door to the life I have now, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be where I am otherwise; I would probably still be single, living off my parents' largesse and what's worst, I probably would be plumbing the depths of internet porn and not posting here. 

Anyway, while my song choice isn't a 'religious' song, it does mark the end of my quasi-obsession with music, and it was very difficult to choose just one out of several options: by the slimmest of margins, beating out about 5 other songs, I present My Father's Shoes by Level 42, yet another choice from my list of songs to be played at my funeral/wake. It does have a 'prodigal son' theme:

Even now I see him walking home at sundown
He's whistling rock of ages with his lunch box at his side
I still recall the smell of smoke and ashes on his jacket
And that factory dust was on his shoes the afternoon he died

I swore I'd never heed that factory whistle
In a banker's cage I signed a loan against my future sins
All the neighbors shook my hand and wished me well upon my leaving
Though my father was a poor man he owned a wealth of friends

So take these boots that shine like Judas silver
And all these sad reflections on lost untraveled roads
While the rain falls on a field of bones and roses
Give me back my father's shoes and let me walk in those

My stroke was good, the deals fell fast end easy
I hired the sweat of honest men and took the lion's share
My wardrobe filled with shirts of silk and boots of tender leather
And I walked in them the halls of power but found no comfort there

So take these boots that shine like Judas silver
And all these sad reflections on lost untraveled roads
While the rain falls on a field of bones and roses
Give me back my father's shoes and let me walk in those

Lady lay these boots upon the fire
'Cause lady now I swear I'll never wear this pair again
I meant to stand up straight and tall It never was that easy
Now these soles are stained from walking on the dreams of better men

So take these boots that shine like Judas silver
And all these sad reflections on lost untravelled roads
While the rain falls on a field of bones and roses
Give me back my father's shoes and let me walk in those
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I hear you, my brother, but didnt your father walk his path so his children could walk their own? Dont matter when or how a person learns how to best use their life, dont matter how impressive it is. Live, love, laugh, leave it better than you found it. You a good dood, CS - stand up straight & tall right ####### NOW.

 
wikkidpissah said:
I hear you, my brother, but didnt your father walk his path so his children could walk their own? Dont matter when or how a person learns how to best use their life, dont matter how impressive it is. Live, love, laugh, leave it better than you found it. You a good dood, CS - stand up straight & tall right ####### NOW.
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You are absolutely right re: my father. As for the line in the song, I've been over that feeling since my 40's, I just bolded them to highlight the part of the song that meant the most to me back in the day.

 
zamboni said:
25 album

Pink Floyd - Animals

No real story. Got hooked on them in college and spent the next handful of years listening to anything and everything they put out. At the time,  listened to this one the most, and still do (<—duh).
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Damn, forgot about you and your avatar.  That was going to be my 40year old pick.   Not sure there is another album I've listened to in the last 5-6 years as much as that one.  

 
Age 30 song 

“Born at the Right Time” Paul Simon 

Simon resurrected his career with Graceland, mostly recorded with South African musicians. But I always believe that his next album, Rhythm of the Saints, recorded with the same people was actually stronger. This song in particular was magical for me. 

 
Round 11.xx - Age 30 Year-Old Song - My Father, My King - Mogwai

Often songs are perfect for moments in your life, something many of the songs listed here probably are or were. This one was perfect for me.

The impetus? 

From Wiki, a taste: "The song is based on the melody from Avinu Malkeinu, a Jewish prayer recited on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and certain fast days, the melody of which had been taught to the band by producer Arthur Baker. Although the band's song is an instrumental, the hymn's translation ("Inscribe us for blessing in thy book of life") is included in the liner notes to the record."

Being thirty, having moved my supposedly cool ### home from D.C. because things got way less cool and way more out-of-control than I had anticipated or wanted, a hymn-based song without lyrics asking for blessing was perfect for me. I was certainly in need of some grace. Lest I sermonize, attempts at true sobriety would only come a decade later. So this song sits, seventeen plus minutes, building from moment to moment, seemingly peaking and then dropping back down into silence before its final explosion. Engineered by Steve Albini, it sat alone as a release -- it was an accompaniment to Mogwai's Rock Action (!) era, one that had seen Mogwai take leaps from their loud/soft dynamic into more traditional instrumental-based songs, some even with filtered lyrics! But this is it (nobody's gonna listen, dude) in all its glory. It closed out the best show I've ever seen, Mogwai at Pearl Street, Northampton, MA. So loud that I heard it for days. I saw them in New York nights and years later, often, but that show was them at their most savage. It was springtime like it is now, cold like it is now, and they came off the plane from Scotland stomping mad about visas and the like, IIRC in interviews, and it shone through in the listening experience.

More in the spoiler:

The experience?

From wiki: "The song is based on two separate melodies from Avinu Malkeinu. It begins with a single guitar slowly playing the first melodic phrase, shortly afterwards joined by a second playing a similar counter-melody. A drumbeat enters at 1:30, and a third guitar at 2:15, which plays a counter-melody. The guitars slowly get louder until at 4:00 a harsh distorted guitar starts up, followed by a second at 4:35. The loud guitars start to drown out the other instruments until at 5:45, the noise subsides with one of the distorted guitars picking up the melody. This guitar ceases at 6:18, leaving a single "quiet" guitar, and the bass and drums too cease until there is only a faint trace of the melody on the single guitar.

At around the 8 minute mark, the guitar shifts to the second of the melodies. In a similar manner to the first part of the song, a second guitar joins the first, and eventually the distorted guitars join (at around 10:35) until the melody cannot be heard. The heavy guitars then play a number of different riffs whilst the song slowly becomes louder, until the drums drop out and the melodies cease at around the 17 minute mark. The rest of the song is composed of fragments of guitar noise and feedback which abruptly cuts out at the end'

The critics? Or, why is this song important to anybody? 

Wiki again: "Michael Clarke, writing in Drowned in Sound, said that "their live set highlight has been a mysterious, unreleased carnival of noise mainly used as the closing track ... Mogwai literally brought the house down and blew anyone, within distance to hear, away each time they played the instrumental haunting track". Giving the song a score of 10/10, his closing sentence was "20 minutes. No vocals. Sometimes words just can’t describe or do justice to music this good"

Christopher F. Schiel, writing for Pitchfork commented on the band's assertion that the song should be considered alongside the Rock Action album, saying "this demonstration of might and dynamic is exactly what that album lacked" and "unlike Rock Action, this recording doesn't just push the envelope; it shoves". AllMusic commented that the song "retains the experimental, arty flair Mogwai is identified with" and noted the "nicely noisy production job from a man accustomed to such things, Steve Albini" There were dissenting voices, however, notably from PopMatters, who dismissed Albini's recording as sounding "like a glorified soundboard tape. It is utterly lacking in imagination and depth" and summarising the song as "a hackneyed and melodramatic concept piece"

My final thoughts:

So there you have it. The good and the bad of being thirty and serious. Frankly, it wasn't so much the seriousness of it as that it was one of the few things that had depth at the time and wasn't afraid to wear that depth earnestly and openly. Albini's work on CD can be criticized by those more in-the-know than me, but he got it right on vinyl. As I spin my copy now, I can hear it much better than the copy I had on CD (I had also wondered how Albini messed the sound up that badly from what I'd heard live) even if the rig is somewhat digital.
 
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age 30 album

The White Stripes - The White Stripes

oooh, so ... this is "new" music, eh?  what a way to ring out that #### decade - heard buzz from the indie cognoscenti at my daily haunt, the Raven Club on 13th and A, that this was bubbling up.  

i usually paired off right prior to closing, or puked my guts up trying ... one Saturday/Sunday i passed out at my usual table, and was left alone 'til i shot up like rigor freakin' mortis had taken hold. 

they were closed - door was locked, and cleaning was taking place ... lights were way up, and i noticed the DJ flipping thru platters - i half heartedly asked for One Chord Wonders as that was my showstopping "get psyched" tune du jour.  

"nahhh", he bellowed out, "we play THIS after hours, waving that stark red n' white cover in my general direction. 

"lemme see", and he handed it over as he was dumping an ashtray - this Piranha tune that was blaring sounded like nothing else out there - this swampy, mucky, filthy slide and Bam-Bam like drumming - reminded me of some Zep, but was trudging along like more traditional blues ... so it was a melding of styles here, styles that were not exactly my preference ... too ####in' slow!

but it really wasn't - it was infectious - a slow burn that shifted and shook and slapped me six ways silly to Sunday, literally. 

"but this is the last track, why start there?"  apparently i missed the rest of the tunes whilst face down. 

"cue it up again?" - SURE!

holy #### ... i lit a Camel and stretched out as Jimmy Explored all my attention span - it was a primal rocker, culled from that same minimalist cloth as Piranha ... Jimmy bled into Suzy Lee and the head nodding and smoke billows were kinda in synch now - i was actually digging the blues - huh? yeah, it kept on like this 'til they threw me out.

first order of biz was snagging this as soon as i got up later that afternoon ... 

gorgeous cover of one of my favorite Dylan tunes off my favorite Dylan album - WHAT!?

Saint Jimmy  :wub:

played the whole album front to back and back to front for hours ... tinges of punk and blues and metal and country - and they all mingled so naturally together in Jack's sandbox- remarkable and visionary and as D.I.Y. sounding as anything ever recorded.  and just 2 musicians, basically? with this Jack cat as the Svengali of this brave new frontier? who the #### is this guy?!?

this was the first time in years that i purchased a current release - i'm a dinosaur, i stick with what moves me, and what i love ... but this here was going in a direction i was very excited about - i love Jack.  always did, always will.  

 
Age 30 song Happy Birthday, Mr. President - God Street Wine

Around the same time I was getting into the Grateful Dead, I was also introduced to the God Street Wine through my college buddy Jeb. Jeb grew up and went to High School with two of the band members. The first time I saw them play was around '88 at the 712 Club in Harlem, NY and was hooked. We all grew up with this band seeing them at small venues like Nightengale, McGovern's Pub, the Wetlands Preserve and even at CBGBs (although they didn't really fit in there). Along the way we interacted with other NYC jam bands like Blues Traveler, Spin Doctors, G Love and the Special Sauce, Ominous Seapods and Rusted Root. It was a pretty glorious scene. These guys never rose to the level of some of the other bands they shared stages with but slowly plugged away and at their height managed to grab the third headliner spot of one of the H.O.R.D.E. Tours playing ahead of only the Black Crowes and Blues Traveler. Around 1995 they got signed to Mercury Records and finally started getting some radio airplay and their second release for Mercury (self-titled) got pushed to the point where I saw an endcap display in Virgin Records Store in Times Square. This song was on that album released in 1997 (I was 28/29) - and while it's their most professional sounding/clean record, it didn't capture the essense of the band - although it was still a very good record. Their still plugging away, now more for the love of the game, and I've seen them in the last five years at City Winery and the Grammercy Theater in NYC - they still have it.

 
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Age 30 Album - OK Computer - Radiohead

This album has been mentioned in this thread a few times, and a song from it was already drafted so I was going to try and go with something else. I couldn't do it for two reasons: 1) there just wasn't a ton of great music from 1997-2000, and; 2) this record is just that important for me. In my late 20s I was still living in the Hudson County area and was still bar hopping and partying in Hoboken and NYC. Many times we'd pregame at my friend Glenn's apartment in Hoboken and listen to music while drinking and smoking. My one friend Al tried to force this record on us, but being musical dinosaurs we'd push back and put on Neil Young, Clapton or the Stones. Al would persist and eventually it clicked for me. This record was brilliant. I bought the CD and played it on my Disc Man all the time on my commute to NYC and when home. I would get my other dinosaur friends to listen to it by telling them they sounded like Pink Floyd and even years later people would thank me for pushing it on them. It remains one of my top 10 favorite albums.

Paranoid Android

 
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My age 25 album I've talked about many times before. I saw this played live in full about two weeks before Scott Hutchison died. I'm a lyrics guy and I just love the way he put difficult, very real struggles he was facing into words:
broken relationships - “I am armed with the past, and the will, and a brick… I might not want you back, but I want to kill him 

meaningless sex - “It takes more than ####### someone to keep yourself warm” 

drinking through the pain - I’m working on erasing you / Just don’t have the proper tools / I get hammered, forget that you exist / There’s no way I’m forgetting this

suicide - "Fully clothed, I’ll float away... Down the Forth, into the sea"

That last one of course was prophetic which adds some weight to listening to this album these days but the songs it self was actually uplifiting (ending with "I'll save suicide for another year" and I think that played a big part into why I fell so in love with this album.

The topics and lyrics were real and at times dark but there was always a ray of sunlight (and a singalong chorus) and the words were sung in an uplifting way, set to anthemic indie rock that made me feel happy.

Age 25 Album - Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight

 
Age 30 album:

Even before my 'scared straight' moment the Summer before I turned 30, I was moving into a more 'reserved' mindset for lack of a better term, and as such, my tastes were moving further out of synch with top 40 music; the closest I got were Seal and Harry Connick Jr., and I was practically clinging to my 'staple' bands The Smithereens and Level 42.  Compared to what a lot of you folks here have been posting, my choices seem downright boring by comparison, but that's what I liked. Also, I was going through a tough time financially as well, so purchasing new music wasn't a priority.  One of the other artists that I got a lot of mileage out of was Jude Cole.  I enjoyed his first hit "Baby It's Tonight" from '90, and he had another hit, "World's Apart" on his next album, Start the Car, but it was the track right in the middle that I liked the most, Right There Now, a wistful look back but with an eye on moving forward.  Here's the chorus:

Rise above the darkness
Sail above the clouds
Faith keep me from falling
And I swear I won't look down
Oh, I'm right there now

 
simey said:
30 year old album - 1996.  I had moved back to NC by this time. I was in a Peaches Records and Tapes store, and Being There was playing in the store. I instantly liked it, and bought the disc that day. I've enjoyed listening to Wilco's musical journey since.

Being There - Wilco - Song Sample - Far, Far Away
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Being There and OK Computer are my only Top 10 Albums that were released post 1980 - that's how good I think they are.

 
30yo Album - Peter Gabriel Plays Live, Peter Gabriel

My favorite album of all time and, as the years have gone on, that becomes less & less close. I need this record. It tunes me. The power, the brilliance, the groove, the urgency, the elevation of humanness.

And to think - its constituent parts are all songs from the four rather forgettable, plinkety-plink prog hangover albums of Gabriel's early post-Genesis career, I happened to see Genesis' first American show cold, dragged by friends (one of whom had a drug spill in the car, which made us late) and it was all these long songs with too many notes but great build and this dang fool with a reverse mohawk - a racing stripe shaved down the middle of his head - runs around wearing capes & pyramids & daisies and pretending to be an old man pushing a lawnmower and none of it made any sense. For some reason, though, i bought a couple of their albums and that was a whole nuther thing - there was a level they were trying to find. Music with a cinematic feel. Genesis proceeded to get it very right once, with Selling England, and very wrong once, with Lamb Lies Down, before Gabriel split and left a genre - what i call either 'story' or 'adventure' music - unexplored to this day. Neither a great fan nor a great avoider of what Genesis has done since.

Then the plinkety-plink albums, a gem or two in each but, the band on the last one (the great Tony Levin, Jerry Marotta and, especially, guitarist David Rhodes) looked at all the Gabriel material to rehearse for tour and found a groove in which all these disparate numbers could live together, more or less making a movie of Gabriel's inner workings. The effort tuned Gabriel as an artist as it does me as a listener, and he's never looked back.

 
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After thinking about my DI bands right now and how I got there, this album instantly stood out.  I had the albums before this, but while having great songs on them, they didn't really hit me as a whole album-wise, especially the album before this with it's weird interludes.  Just not something I would put on in the car and listen to.  As I posted in the last draft when I took something of their's, I can never get enough of listening to Danny's drums.  For my $, the best drummer of my lifetime.  This album blew me away, and is still in constant rotation in the car.   I listened to The Grudge on my bank run this morning and still get chills when that last bit hits around the 8min mark.  The trio of songs of Parabola/Ticks and Leeches/Lateralus is amazing as well.  

25 year old Album:  Tool - Lateralus

The Grudge

Ticks and Leeches

 
Dr. Octopus said:
Age 30 Album - OK Computer - Radiohead

This album has been mentioned in this thread a few times, and a song from it was already drafted so I was going to try and go with something else. I couldn't do it for two reasons: 1) there just wasn't a ton of great music from 1997-2000, and; 2) this record is just that important for me. In my late 20s I was still living in the Hudson County area and was still bar hopping and partying in Hoboken and NYC. Many times we'd pregame at my friend Glenn's apartment in Hoboken and listen to music while drinking and smoking. My one friend Al tried to force this record on us, but being musical dinosaurs we'd push back and put on Neil Young, Clapton or the Stones. Al would persist and eventually it clicked for me. This record was brilliant. I bought the CD and played it on my Disc Man all the time on my commute to NYC and when home. I would get my other dinosaur friends to listen to it by telling them they sounded like Pink Floyd and even years later people would thank me for pushing it on them. It remains one of my top 10 favorite albums.

Paranoid Android
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Overrated.  ;)

 
Northern Voice said:
My age 25 album I've talked about many times before. I saw this played live in full about two weeks before Scott Hutchison died. I'm a lyrics guy and I just love the way he put difficult, very real struggles he was facing into words:
broken relationships - “I am armed with the past, and the will, and a brick… I might not want you back, but I want to kill him 

meaningless sex - “It takes more than ####### someone to keep yourself warm” 

drinking through the pain - I’m working on erasing you / Just don’t have the proper tools / I get hammered, forget that you exist / There’s no way I’m forgetting this

suicide - "Fully clothed, I’ll float away... Down the Forth, into the sea"

That last one of course was prophetic which adds some weight to listening to this album these days but the songs it self was actually uplifiting (ending with "I'll save suicide for another year" and I think that played a big part into why I fell so in love with this album.

The topics and lyrics were real and at times dark but there was always a ray of sunlight (and a singalong chorus) and the words were sung in an uplifting way, set to anthemic indie rock that made me feel happy.

Age 25 Album - Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight
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Love, love this album. Since it was released one year after I turned 40 I would’ve had to take it as my 45 year old album so it wasn’t going to work for this draft. Thinking about another of theirs though. 

 
Well here we are, my FBGs music era, and this is one of the first suggestions I remember getting here that turned out to be a great one.  I'm gonna say it was Marco and maybe Ahrn was pimping it too, anyway I don't think I even downloaded it, I picked up the CD at the Sound Garden in Baltimore and it blew me away, just the sheer fury of the whole piece.  This is punk rock all grown up, silly but sophisticated.  Love the drums 

30yo.album mclusky - mclusky do dallas

 
Age 30 Album: Family Groove - Neville Brothers

In 1992, I had no internet (you probably didn't, either). And commercial FM had tightened up so much that it nigh on impossible to find new music outside of the ultra-conservative mainstream. Then two things happened: 1) I started wandering down to left side of the radio dial, and 2) record stores started putting in listening kiosks that had lots of stuff you wouldn't hear on your normal FM station.

I knew who the Nevilles were long before 1992, but this album is the first of theirs I heard in my new listening reality. In a bunch of ways, they are THE American musical family.

This one kicks off with a funky, rocking cover of Steve Miller's "Fly Like An Eagle". 

 
25 yo album...

there are two distinct periods for this year for me- an almost 3month road trip around the country with my gb stefan in '92, and the start of grad school in '93. 

jeebus- this road trip was epic, with most of it spent in the south west just checking out whatever looked interesting. some highlights included us getting pulled over in watts after seeing the watts towers- with the 2 aviator glazed CHiPs characters telling us we were lucky not to have been shot at with our pale skin and NY plates- there was threats of violence due to the Rodney King trial, which was underway (contrary to news reports of LA and the police being "surprised" by the subsequent rioting). during the stop- done with guns drawn btw, they tore apart his car searching... and with us pushed face forward, hands up against a fence, they showed back up with a ziplock bag full of money and black film canister full of white powder. "whats this..." dipping pinky into canister for a taste... both of us in tandem "WHITE GYPSUM SAND!!!!" we had visited white sands national park in NM and I had filled up that canister as a memento. the ziplock bag was for buying and selling drugs. kidding. we each put money into the bag daily or weekly for shared expenses like gas and motels. funniest part of the story- to me- was that their parting words were to get the hell out of there, and btw- your friend is a terrible driver.

I think we put ~20k miles on his saab, still with tape-deck, no cd. we both had a bunch of mixed tapes that we went through surprisingly quickly. ended up stopping in Utah somewhere and bought a few new tapes at some big box store- our friend christina had started dating some guy in a band (bass) so we got that one (pearl jam ten), bboys check ya head, pixies doolittle, and massive attack blue lines. the latter was our designated morning driving music... often for hours wihtout a word said, and often played on repeat... watching this amazing country of ours drift by our windows. that's my 1b.

Architecture grad school is insane. I'd go for 72 hours at a time without sleep... probably too regularly. disintegrated my relationship with my ex (I didn't help), but formed close bonds with my studio-mates who were usually right there with me. I bought a pair of bose self-powered speakers that I kept in the studio for late, late nights when I couldn't take the headphones any more and the people who stayed would all rock out. like on the road trip with massive attack, I had my pre-dawn into dawn sunrise cd. like david sylvian, seen as pretentious claptrap by a lot of people but I didnt' care (they weren't the folk pulling all nighters). I was a big United Future Organization fan from their eponymous first release that year, and it's the second that came out later that year that was my night sky bruising into light music. acid-jazz/loungey/trip-hop by a couple japanese dudes and a brazilian. they ####### sampled kerouac saying a poem into a song. also hooked up with my dreamy crush eugenie after their "live" show where they just spun records. didn't realize they were just djs and not musicians. also didn't realize I had a shot with eugenie until she whispered into my ear mid-set- take me home... now. 

no sound is too taboo- united future organization.

don/dawn song/sawng- tears of gratitude

eta: upbeat song from same album went on all my mixtapes that year... doopsylalolic

 
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30.A   Eric Dolphy  -  Eric Dolphy

By age 30, I had begun the slow inexorable decline to being the geezer I've become.  We were a young married couple in 1990 and our social circle began to wane in inverse proportion to our domesticity.  We went to a lot fewer shows, preferring instead to spend a few nights a week drinking and swapping tales at our local pub Donington Park on 19th and Folsom. 

In the late 80s, the music industry set out to kill vinyl and replace it with CDs.  I've always hated the shiny, overpackaged little discs.  The problem was that fewer and fewer new releases were coming out on vinyl.  Promo copies which were the semi-legal lifeblood of the used record business were mostly on CD by 1990.   I didn't buy a CD player until Christmas 1994 but other less disciplined collectors than myself were selling off their vinyl and replacing them with CDs.  So I zagged when others zigged and my weekly record buying excursions shifted toward digging through crates full of Jazz LPs. 

There was no Internet in those days so I just traced lines from records I'd enjoyed.  For example, if I liked Wynton Kelly's playing with Miles Davis, I'd seek out other records that Kelly played on. There was a lot of cross pollination in post-Bop Jazz so it was a good way to discover new artists.  Eric Dolphy became one of my favorites--I came to him at the convergence of lines drawn from Mingus and Coltrane.  The first Dolphy record I bought was this self-titled compilation on the Prestige label that collected his first two albums as a leader.  Outward Bound is a relatively straightforward quintet date with Freddie Hubbard and Jaki Byard.  Out There is a more interesting record placing Dolphy's alto, flute and bass clarinet in front of a unique rhythm section of drums, bass and cello.  Dolphy was an incredible musician; he plays his instruments like a hummingbird flitting around a garden.  His transitions constantly surprise and amaze but always make sense in retrospect.

 
A lot happened in my life between ages 25 and 30. I somehow emerged without any VD, lost one job, left several others, became a full time personal trainer, migrated back to part time, met my now wife, had our first son, became a home owner, got married, (in that order), had our second son, then finally settled into my career role 2 days before my 30th birthday. I'm not sure how I can articulate any of the events during this time period without needing a tl;dr so I'm just going to skip to the end of it. There was lots of music I can draw to during this period and I will single one batch of it out for my age 30 album, but one song in particular sticks out above the rest.

Age 30 song: Kenny Chesney, There Goes My Life

All he could think about was I'm to young for this
Got my whole life ahead
Hell I'm just a kid myself
How'm I gonna raise one

All he could see were his dreams going up in smoke
So much for ditching this town and hanging out on the coast
Oh well, those plans are long gone

And he said
There goes my life
There goes my future, my everything
Might as well kiss it all good-bye
There goes my life

A couple years of up all night and a few thousand diapers later
That mistake he thought he made covers up the refrigerator
Oh yeah, he loves that little girl.

Momma's waiting to tuck her in
As she stumbles up those stairs
She smiles back at him dragging that teddy bear
Sleep tight, blue eyes and bouncing curls

:cry:

 
JZilla said:
Well here we are, my FBGs music era, and this is one of the first suggestions I remember getting here that turned out to be a great one.  I'm gonna say it was Marco and maybe Ahrn was pimping it too, anyway I don't think I even downloaded it, I picked up the CD at the Sound Garden in Baltimore and it blew me away, just the sheer fury of the whole piece.  This is punk rock all grown up, silly but sophisticated.  Love the drums 

30yo.album mclusky - mclusky do dallas
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Damn, you're 5 years younger than me. You were the only one I was worried might take this one.  First snipe of this draft for me.

Actually have a couple other 2002 albums I had narrowed this down to so that helps me.  This was definitely a top album of the decade for me and remains one of my favorites.  Bummed I never got to see them play live but I did see FotL last year...pretty great themselves.

 
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JZilla said:
Well here we are, my FBGs music era, and this is one of the first suggestions I remember getting here that turned out to be a great one.  I'm gonna say it was Marco and maybe Ahrn was pimping it too, anyway I don't think I even downloaded it, I picked up the CD at the Sound Garden in Baltimore and it blew me away, just the sheer fury of the whole piece.  This is punk rock all grown up, silly but sophisticated.  Love the drums 

30yo.album mclusky - mclusky do dallas
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this stressed me out immediately  :lmao:

I can see why you like though.  

 
Age 30 album:  Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West

Heart Cooks Brain

Teeth Like God's Shoeshine

Bankrupt on Selling

This was my most played album of my 30th year and I play it frequently still.  They are hit and miss in concert, depending on Isaac Brock's state of mind, but when they're (he's) on it's a fantastic event.  Especially with the earlier albums.  Their first 3 albums are all favorites but this is the best of them.  Not a huge fan of their last couple but happy to see them have success.  There was a time there that Brock was a top pick in the "celebrity" death pools.  He seems to have gotten himself right and that's great news for people who like great news.

 
MAC_32 said:
A lot happened in my life between ages 25 and 30. I somehow emerged without any VD, lost one job, left several others, became a full time personal trainer, migrated back to part time, met my now wife, had our first son, became a home owner, got married, (in that order), had our second son, then finally settled into my career role 2 days before my 30th birthday. I'm not sure how I can articulate any of the events during this time period without needing a tl;dr so I'm just going to skip to the end of it. There was lots of music I can draw to during this period and I will single one batch of it out for my age 30 album, but one song in particular sticks out above the rest.

Age 30 song: Kenny Chesney, There Goes My Life
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I definitely have a soft spot for Kenny Chesney. Even after I was out of my country phase, most of my friends still listened to it, so most of my college pre-drinking times before the bar were set to Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson and Tim McGraw.

 
30 Yr Old Album: Natural States - David Lanz & Paul Speer (Narada Collection)

Well, this isn't one of the more exciting picks for me, but it was a significant turn in my musical tastes.  I was still listening to current music and my older 70s stuff, but this new age stuff was something I likely would have never considered before. 

From 25 - 30 was another huge change.  I had gotten married about a half year before turning 30.  I had been living in a one room studio apartment and living the bachelor life for the last 5 years.  We had a new house, both us were working a lot of hours at the same company,  and I was finishing off the downstairs and basement of the new house (it was a typical tri-level, 6 steps up and 6 steps down ...but also had 6 steps down from the that for a half basement).  To save money when it was built (not fancy - Ryan Home), we got both the downstairs and basement completely unfinished - like cement floor, block, open ceiling and plumbing stub-ins.   I started with zero tools and no experience.  It was a lot hard work and hours - and it was stressful. 

I enjoyed a drink or two at the end of the long day and I always called it my "animal music" ...like what you would play to get some wild animal at the zoo to calm down.  🙂

We ended up getting quite a few of the Narada stuff - but found that we gravitated more to the ones that featured these two guys the most.  

It's been over 30 years and we really haven't gotten back into them the last 20 years or so ...think it's time to start back again.  Thanks NV!  I would have never pulled these back out again.  

 
Age 30 album

The Airbourne Toxic Event- Self Titled

I cant remember where I heard of these guys. At 30, I was already married with a kid so I wasnt hopping around in clubs. But I bought the album and didnt stop listening to it for a while. I have their follow up as well which I remember liking but dont have anything else by them. They are coming out with a new album in a month or so. Definitely plan on checking it out. 

 
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