Autobiographies, John Cusack and Butt-less Chaps

One of my all-time-favorite movie scenes is from the John Cusack film, High Fidelity. Cusack plays Rob Gordon, a 30-something owner of a second-hand record store who is in the throws of a soul melting pre-midlife crisis. Rob has just been dumped by his latest long-time girlfriend and is sitting on the floor of his apartment self-medicating by rearranging his huge collection of vinyl records. One of his employees stops by and is speechless to discover that Rob is cataloging his records…autobiographically.

Rob:
“I can tell you how I got from Deep Purple to Howlin’ Wolf in just 25 moves…and if I want to find the song Landslide by Fleetwood Mac, I have to remember the ‘I bought it for someone in the fall of 1983’ pile, ‘but didn’t give it to them for personal reasons.’”

Dick:
“That sounds….”

Rob:
“Comforting.”

Dick:
“Yes.”


Cusack and I are about the same age and his films have always felt like a better-looking rendering of my own life. In his younger years, he had an empathic ability to articulate the dorky teen caste system that made or destroyed everyone’s high school experience and sense of self for the next 20+ years. He was/is the poet laureate of the Members Only age bracket. There was, however, something about this scene in particular that has stuck with me over the years.

Ours was the last “album” generation. Not that people don’t buy albums anymore, but that was our only option (I did have a few 45s that I could put on my turn table using that plastic donut, but those didn’t really count). We occupied the unique wrinkle in time in which people purchased vinyl, dabbled in 8 tracks, rocked the cassette and saw the introduction of the indestructible compact disc. There were no web sites, TRL, Pandora, Limewire and the closest thing to iTunes was a jukebox.

Albums were it.

Every time I got a new record it felt significant. I’d ceremoniously lie on the floor to remove the wrapper, drop the needle and lose myself in analog crackle. You see, albums weren’t just the delivery system for new music, they were 10 to 12 song vinyl rabbit holes you could run into and lose yourself in every twist of album art, turn of lyric sheets and free-fall of guitar solos.

Records were a big deal. They were events. Every time a great one landed it left an indelible divot on your developmental time line. It marked the spot. It was a sonic and emotional reference point for all that was going on in your life at that time. And that’s why Rob Gordon could tell you the 25 moves that took him to get from Deep Purple to Howlin’ Wolf.

I totally get Rob Gordon. I get the who, what and where of a music catalog. I get the autobiographical record collection.

My fist concert was Van Halen. They were on tour to promote their record Diver Down. I was so excited that I got to go to a real life rock and roll show, I actually studied for the concert. I spent hours in my bedroom with their albums consuming Eddie Van Halen’s guitar licks, imitating Diamond Dave’s high pitched wail and memorizing lyrics.

The night of the show David Lee Roth took the stage wearing nothing but a pair of buttless-leather-chaps with a horsetail hanging over the crack of his bare ass. He was slurring drunk and climbed on top of a massive stack of speakers while thousands of outstretched Bic lighters lit the ceiling of the Jacksonville Memorial Coliseum.

It was 1982, I was 13 years old and now every time I hear Where Have All The Good Times Gone or Pretty Woman, a small trap door opens in the recesses of my brain and the smell of sweaty bodies, hair spray and adolescents wafts out. I can tell you who I was with that night, what I was wearing and the name of the girl I was dating. Van Halen’s albums are forever a porthole back to that exact moment in my life.

The same thing happens when I listen to records by Crosby, Still and Nash (and sometimes Y), James Taylor, Jane’s Addiction, Psychedelic Furs, Emmy Lou Harris, U2, Adam and the Ants, The Grateful Dead, Tom Petty, The Cure, The Fix, John Cougar, Zeppelin, The Police, R.E.M…get the point?

I realize that writing this I risk sounding like one of those old dudes with a clip on ponytail that can’t move beyond the fact that Van Halen didn’t break up when David Lee Roth left the band (Ok, I still have an issue with that one). But this isn’t a rant about the golden days, it’s about the place music and the larger event of music occupies in our lives.

It would be silly to say that the album doesn’t exist any more. It does. I and just about everyone I know has put out a few over the last several years. But I would say that it is getting harder and harder to feel consumed by the “Event” of music. Music has become super-saturated and its personalities smeared too thin across pop culture. They are still making pop-icons, but it’s harder for something to make a hard landing, leave that mark and become a totem for a generation. Great music and great musical events don’t happen because of the status quo, they happen despite it.

And that’s why I believe Brite Revolution is so important.

Brite realizes that the need for the event hasn’t changed, but the way people interact with music and musicians has. The desire to engage deeply in the culture of music is alive and well, but it is harder and harder to find a puddle deep enough to wade in.

We need a real musical event. The kind that connects the artists with the fans and with other artists. The kind that frees musicians to create. The kind that pushes musicians to make new music and fans to anticipate its release on a regular basis. The kind that give’s the next wave of Rob Gordon’s a chance.

Brite Revolution is a place where artists are free to make the kind of music they want without going into debt. It gives them a place to circle the wagons with other like-minded musicians to create a musical event like no other. It is a place where musicians invite fans into their stories and allow them to see music being created from the front row. And allows them to give back in the process.

Everyone wants to experience the event of music. And while nothing will ever replace butt-less chaps, I think we have come up with the next best thing.

(This blog also appears on www.briteentertainment.com. Be sure to check out Billy's new music on www.briterevolution.com)