My Old Man

This began as a reply to my last post and then it got too long so I decided to make it its own post.

My parents are no spring chickens, my dad will be 70 this November and yet a lot of my favorite bands were introduced to me by my dad. The Smiths, They Might Be Giants, Bob Dylan, The Cure, Billy Bragg, The Pogues, New Order, R.E.M., Paul Simon, Tom Petty, The Beatles, Tori Amos, Brendan Benson, Boomtown Rats, Bad Religion, U2, The Who, Bruce Springsteen, Dan Bern, Fairport Convention, and the list goes on and on with music my dad has played for me. They bought me my first CD when I was 7, it was Howard Jones, Cross That Line, I am not sure they were fans themselves but they let us watch a lot of MTV (back when the ‘M’ stood for music and not moronic) and I loved ‘Everlasting Love’. I also remember him recording Paul Simon’s ‘African Concert’ and watching it together over and over. ‘Graceland’ is my all time favorite, sorry I can’t think of anything that beats it, record.

He owned record stores in what he refers to as his 'first life' but means first marriage. He and my mom opened a record store a couple of times but they could never make it work for one reason or another, but we always had a huge collection to listen to. They had about 11,000 LPs and an archaic record player in a room full of Springsteen, REO Speedwagon, and Roger Daltrey posters. We stayed up late quite a few nights before the inevitable split listening to some of Rock’s greatest. They were never fans of The Beach Boys though; I had to hear them from my neighbor.

My dad took me to see my first concert, Tom Petty, for my 12th birthday and he took me to see a lot of other bands when I was a teenager including but not limited to Nine Inch Nails, David Bowie, They Might Be Giants, Paul Simon, Smashing Pumpkins and more but I have honestly forgotten a great number of shows we saw.

My dad was also a huge fan of the mix tape and my sister and I were always recording over them to make silly tapes of ourselves goofing off. After destroying a great many of these tapes and being asked several times to stop our silly mix tape shenanigans (and after having blank tapes purchased for our personal use) my dad one day just lost it. He told us to stop recording them and I quote because I will never forget it, he screamed “You’re killing my God d**m friends, STOP killing my God d**m friends”. We got the point and because we were afraid we would be convicted of some sort of tape slaughtering we never recorded over another tape ever again. I think they made CD-R’s for my dad’s sake.

My dad still listens to a lot of music, he is a fan of The Shins, Teagan and Sara, The Dresdon Dolls, The Decemberists, The Moldy Peaches (sorry I can’t share the love with you dad) and a lot of older stuff. He still shares some music with me occasionally but it happens less and less.

Anyways, these are for you Dad. Thanks for sharing your love and interest in music.

But I hope you all enjoy.



Is it weird that I think Bob Geldof is slightly attractive? Does that make me lose cool points? Does that leave me at a negative number?



You can purchase this concert online probably. I know you can purchase 'Graceland' online. I am not saying that you should think about it, I am saying that you should.



I could probably just keep on going and going but you guys probably want me to stop.

-june