had to cry today

i love the way music connects us, instantly and without warning, to moments in the past. last night i jumped into my car and ran a few errands while listening to my new blind faith cd. of course it isn’t really new, since blind faith made only one album, in 1969. family friends gave it to me that christmas, and i played it to death. a couple of weeks ago i found it on cd for $5, and since i hadn’t heard it in years, i bought it. not surprising that it sounded completely familiar, as if i’d just played it the day before. towards the end of the first track, the music sort of melts into a freaked-out stew of sound, all warped and spacey. its a quintessential 60’s moment meant, no doubt, to replicate some kind of psychedelic acid trip. and like an acid trip from long ago, i experienced a flashback, though of a more unexpected kind.

i was a little too young to get caught up in beatlemania, but i was certainly aware of it. a few years later when the monkees appeared, i was entranced. like a lot of kids, i wished i could be a famous rock star, chased by screaming throngs and worshipped by rapt listeners. there was none of that singing into a hairbrush in front of the mirror, though – nothing so pedestrian for me. i cajoled my brother and various cousins into forming musical groups. we would clear out our entire basement, hang up my op-art posters as a backdrop, and create a stage where we could mime along with our (my) favorite records. no inanimate object was safe from being put into service as a musical instrument, and we dug out our most rock-star worthy clothes and raided my mothers jewelry box for ‘love beads’. how our very old stereo managed to survive without blown speakers i’ll never know. eventually it all became so fantastic we simply had to put on a show for someone – in this case, our parents. not my first choice, but they were the only available audience. so what if they didn’t appreciate the music like we did? i was bound and determined to turn them into screaming fans and enlighten them to the power and majesty of rock and roll. my cousins would come out from denver and stay for several days, most of which were spent in the basement, plotting and rehearsing our big concert, with me cracking the whip. i took it all deadly seriously, and there were quite a few arguments when they mutinied and insisted we add some ‘funny’ songs that were performed like comedy skits. much to my complete annoyance, these were the numbers our parents laughed at and responded to. why they weren’t equally amazed and impressed by their children miming to a jimi hendrix song, i’ll never know.

i have fond memories of those times, and think of them once in a while. but when i popped in the blind faith cd last night, i had completely forgotten we’d performed that first song in one of our concerts. when the wierd, psychedelic freak-out came along, i vividly pictured us pantomiming through it, and then i looked at my cd player and noticed the song is almost 8 minutes long. in horror and panic, i thought “oh my god, we (i) made our parents sit through this whole thing just because i thought the last 15 seconds were SO cool?” i was mortified. i mean, it was almost 40 years ago and i still felt embarrassed. i briefly considered sending apologetic notes to everyone involved, or maybe hitting the gas and running my car into a tree. i know that all parents have to endure enjoy and foster the creative things their kids come up with, but these concerts went on for an hour or more, all of us earnestly waving around our brooms and decorated 2×4 guitars while our parents pretended to be interested. looking back, i am incredibly touched and grateful that they put up with us. i also hope they’ve completely forgotten about it.

i love the way music connects us, instantly and without warning, to moments in the past. but as a former 14 year old pushy impresario, proud artiste, wanna-be rock star, this was what i’d have to call a bad trip.