Shut Up & Listen…

Hip Hop, High School Bullies, & Guns N Roses…..

Part II

Let’s just jump right in..

Why not?

Music and new faces continued to influence me outside of my family.

The advent of rap and Hip Hop culture suddenly became pervasive in my then, young world.

I'm around 10 or 11 years of age and was just influenced as any other child around that time.

The hip hop/rap subculture was one that seemed predominately a youth driven phenomenon.

One that I identified with in age and experience even though I was smack dab in the middle of Indiana and not the renaissance culture ofNew York.

It took me by the music first, then later by the lyrical content from the different MCs.

I was heavily influenced by the movies Breakin & Beat Street

If this time period of my life were a movie, the song “Jam On It” by 80s electro/early hip hop group, Newcleus, would serve as the sonic backdrop.

It’s 1983 and I'm in 3rd grade.(The second time around..)

And in need of a cardboard surface to accommodate the backspins and windmills for me and my friends…

In my case, this meant “borrowing” my mother’s sewing cutting board and riding my Huffy with it flapping in the wind behind me.

A black kid from the Midwest was now entrenched in the fascination of Hip Hop in the 80s.

I made sure my grades were on point, so I had the needed ammunition to ask my Mom for that grey Dunlop suit, and those hard shell Adidas, with fat shoe strings of course…

I had to look good.

The style and music were intertwined.

I knew that intuitively from a very young age.

It was kind of intergenerational shared experience in that a lot of songs chosen for samples came from my Mom,(George Clinton) and even my Grandma’s(James Brown) generations, respectively.

A couple pairs of white Adidas shell toes with fat, neon orange laces.

A pair of grey parachute pants.

The ones with the six zippered pockets.

Even though I was “dead center’ in the Midwest, geographically speaking, the music and culture were as real to me as anyone residing in the big city.

New friends, neighbors, and even the so-called school bully would soon expose me to new music in both junior high and high school

They all had something to say.

The difference between myself and others..?

I shut up and listened

No agendas. No perceived expectations.

Music was the medium.

I was there to listen.

The Neighbors & The Local Demo Tape

It’s Summer 1987 and my neighbor that lived across the street, David, turned me on to a cassette that included a local artist some of his friends knew personally.

David was a couple of years older than me, so it made sense that he traveled in a different circles.

I craved other circles back then, as all teens do.

Now, my motivation for being in their living room wasn't music at all...

It was Dave’s sister Sally and her friends.

I was a curiously shy boy of 13 or 14 years of age.

I was clueless.

My sphere of interests had already begun expanding beyond Saturday morning cartoons, Nintendo, and basketball.

Yep……girls became a thing.

I was clueless, but interested..

Shit, we all were at that age looking back on it..

Dave walked over to the cassette deck unit, press the eject release and inserted what looked to be a grey cassette with a taped label on either side..

The sound was Lo-Fi.

It had that crunchy, tape din squeal coming through the living room speakers.

Thinking back on it, it was the first demo tape I ever listened to.

The drumstick count off began right into a guitar wail that seem to pulse and pan from speaker to speaker…

Right into a bluesy guitar line and then after about four simultaneous kick drum/snare strikes…

Then it all crescendoed into that now familiar guitar/bass riff.

The riff that anyone breathing or within good earshot of a radio or “MTV” in the late 80s early 90s would come to be familiar with.

Dave let the demo tape play, and I perched down in his father’s Lazyboy closest to a speaker.

I was there.

You know that place where involuntary focus takes over and all that matters is satisfying an itching curiosity?

Right there….

Dave could've been pulling grenade pins on the couch, whilst Sally and Jen do gymnastic back walk-overs in the living room.

I didn’t care.

I was hooked instantly.

At that moment, “Guns n Roses” became a band that mattered to me

They seem to arise from the ashes of the worn out “hair band” scene, and if I’m being honest with myself, that I wasn’t really into.

Even to a younger me, it felt like a fad much like that of friend-ship beads on your shoes….

Here and gone…

I'm not here to badmouth any of those bands, though.

I enjoy the shit out of Poison and Motley Crue even now.

That music,like all great music, represented a moment in time.

What I loved the most about the hair band era was watching everyone else react to these bands.

Just like the Hip Hop wave, I experienced years earlier, there was a culture during the hair band/hair metal that was deliberate and celebrated via fashion.

Girls seem to enjoy those bands, singing and carrying-on in their stone-washed Guess jeans.

Even my guy friends, who were regular viewers of MTV’s “Head Bangers Ball,” rocked out with jean jacket band patches.

Gun n Roses was an experience as much as it was a band.

They were unique, and the art seemed to mirror the band’s reality.

According to an article written on the band’s emergence,

Senior Editor AC Speed from “Rawmusic.com” had this to offer in February 2020:

“MTV vowed to never play GNR’s first video ‘Welcome To The Jungle.’

That same article goes on to say:

“After the video aired at 1 AM Los Angeles time on a Sunday night, so many people called into MTV to request it again, their switchboard literally could not handle the number of calls, it overloaded and burst into flames, MTV was temporarily out of action.”

(Rawmusic.com,AC Speed accessed 2/16)

Appetite for Destruction evoked the danger that rock had been missing.

I was lucky enough to see them young.

The fans at their shows were just as much part of the show as Axl’s slithering howl.

Both the band and the girls in the audience were adorned in similar wardrobe:

AquaNet and sweat.

Rouged out red lips and smudged mascara.

They had the attitude that upset the status quo, reminiscent of the early 70s when Black Sabbath.

A late night stroll down on Sunset Strip circa 1986.

Their sound was what happens when Jack Daniels, and a screaming voice that never needed today’s bogus “Auto-Tune” to remain pitch-perfect.

To that point in my youthful existence, I had no clear definition of “Rock” meant to me.

All that changed after Dave hit the play button.

Out of that moment from my junior high years arose a musical curiosity that kept me wanting to be exposed to ‘more’.

The value of my friends and the music we shared was nothing more than a continuation of my family did for me, musically speaking

It was then where I realized everyone else outside of Mom, Grandma, and my Uncle Greg had something to say, and more important, something to offer.

Music was that fire we gathered around for warmth.

I wanted a seat at that table then as I do now.

My highschool days would soon allow me that proverbial seat at table, over and over again.

Exhaustion, Emily & Lenny

It’s now 1991, and I’m a sophomore sitting in high school Anatomy & Physiology.

The teacher, Mr. Hunt, was passionate, yet his monotone delivery wore on me like a droning lullaby.

Emily Crose, who sat on my left, was the only other sophomore in a class of full juniors and seniors.

Emily was and is nature’s combination of falling blonde curls, bright, soulful eyes, a killer sense of humor and authenticity.

I liked Emily for a couple of reasons.

That class was my second to last class of the day, not too long after lunch.

That year, they gave me access to the school’s brand new auxillary gym & track.

I would have my Mom drop me off around 5am to so I could run and shoot baskets before school started.

As you might guess, I’d start feeling the residual exhaustion at the end of the school day.

By the time I sat down to listen to Mr. Hunt wax poetic about physiology and anatomy, my textbook was about to double as a pillow.

Try as I may to stay awake, I’d consistently doze off.

That's where Emily came in.

She would poke or prod me awake before the instructor would either notice my eyelids closed or hear the nasal wheeze coming out of the head on my desk.

Emily was inherently stylish.

She wore something different every day

Same cool witty Emily though, no matter what her clothes ensemble..

She could talk music.

Not just “I saw the band’s cd at Musicland” but she had a genuine interest in the artists she talked about.

She had an older brother in college who turned her on to newer artists.

One day, and handed me a copy of "Let Love Rule" by Lenny Kravitz to borrow.

You ever heard of Lenny Kravitz?”

Me: “No…what’s it like?.

Emily: “Here, take it home and bring it back after the long weekend…”

Me: “Absolutely..thanks Emily”

I’m instantly alert and beaming.

And not for Mr. Hunt’s lecture on “Homeostasis and Causality”

I’m ready to get this cd home for a listen

Game changer....

Mr. Leonard Albert Kravitz.

His sound encompassed so many elements of the artists I grew up listening to at the house.

Joni Mitchell style deep folk lyrical storytelling of “Rosemary”

The hard-charging funk of “Freedom Train”, and the soulful keyboard/guitar driven “I Build This Garden For Us”

Some songs gave me that same feeling I used to get when I was in Grandma’s kitchen with the radio playing.

Other songs on the album were outright discoveries…

Discoveries of best kind though.

The ones that you form a lifetime bond with

It’s no surprise that I still currently own a great deal of his work.

Because of what Emily shared with me, a musical bond was created.

I remain an admirer of Lenny Kravitz’s work, be it music, architecture or otherwise.

And what of Emily?

She is still Emily, beautiful, witty, & soulful…

Though I haven't spoken to her in sometime.

I bet she still listens to the good stuff…

The School Bully

It's now my junior year 1991, and an infamous character arose from the halls of Jefferson High.

His reputation for “kicking ass” was one that preceded him, especially amongst us underclassmen.

He had short jheri curl and stood around 6 foot with a slim build.

I think it's safe to say that if you’re reading this, you too had that “so-called bully” during your school days

Funny thing is...this was the first and only conversation I ever had with John Barbee wasn't based in altercation, to the contrary, it was about 2 new bands I wasn't familiar with yet.

He let me borrow both bands’ CD’s , and I made sure that I avoided getting my ass kicked by returning those CD’s to John promptly.

Without him, The Red Hot Chili Pepper’s "Blood Sugar Sex Magic" & Pearl Jam’s " Ten" may have never crossed my path.

I fell in love with both bands, purchased a great deal of work by both bands over the years.

But this wasn’t really about the band.

It was deeper than the music.

It was two young African American kids fawning over what some would perceive as two white rock bands.

Much like my early discovery of Prince and his punk/funk sound, both bands provided that Strange Change I needed musically

More of the same never changed anything as far as I’m concerned, musically and otherwise.

This situation with John was a tremendous deal for me. It confirmed what I had always felt about music and still do:

Music isn’t a “black or white” or a “this or that category” thing”

It’s a human thing.

You either feel it,or you don't

Categories are convenient for marketing and transactional tools, and that's about it.

And for that, I’m forever thankful

Bonded by music

The music of the artist mentioned here, as well as others, serve as that’s always made sense to me.

The same way smells trigger memory

Those years were fomative.

The impact of relationship and music became solidified