Am I The Only One Still Angry?

“Let me tell you somethin’…. I’ve had enough of Irish-Americans who haven’t been back to their country in twenty or thirty years … and come up to me and talk about the revolution back home. And the glory of the revolution and the glory of dying for the revolution. FUCK the revolution! They don’t talk about the glory of killing for the revolution. What’s the glory of taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where’s the glory in that?”                  

 -Bono during the Sunday Bloody Sunday Rattle and Hum performance. 

I’ve always believed that through great pain comes art. Pain leads to anger and anger leads to a message that requires a medium to be expressed.

I’m 34 years old and as I look at the current state of music... I have to ask – where the hell is the anger? Where the hell is the art? Where the hell is the message?

The medium? Well, corporate America has done a good job of turning that into vanilla ice cream but more on that in a second.

The quote above was spoken in the middle of a song during a U2 live performance around 1988. Ten years later, the band Pearl Jam would appear on MTV’s “Unplugged” and lead singer Eddie Vedder would scribble the words “Pro-Choice” violently on his arms during the song “Porch”.

Anger. Message. 

U2’s Rattle and Hum movie followed the band on their Joshua Tree tour and director Cameron Crowe honored the 20 year anniversary of Pearl Jam’s release of the album Ten with “20”. Both were video diaries mixed with concert footage and were amazingly done. I highly recommend seeing each one several times to get the full impact.

Not surprisingly, both of those bands have been hugely influential on me and it struck me this week as I watched each bands’ Rock-u-mentary: they had SOMETHING to say. 

I came away thinking … What in the HELL is going on right now? What happened to the anger in rock music?

The current problems in this country should bring out the most violent, deep, animalistic anger in those with the microphones in their hands and stages beneath their feet.

Instead….we get Coldplay’s new album release this week.

Now, I like Coldplay, don’t get me wrong, but the image of a giant yellow balloon bouncing around is not going to fire me up to change the world nor is hearing “every tear is a waterfall” going to change the way I think.

I need passion. I need fire.

Who is going to write lyrics like this in the future?  

   “Don't mean to push, but I'm being shoved!

   Ohh, I'm just like you, think we've had enough

   I can't believe a thing they want us to...oh..

   Oh, we all got scars, they should have 'em too

                                          - Pearl Jam “Whipping”

High unemployment, record debt, the Occupy movement, abortions trying to be banned in Mississippi, tuition costs spiking, the Tea Party, the Gulf oil spill, the bank bailout, Gay marriage rights, and on and on and on….

There is so much to be angry about but we have ZERO response from our lyricists and our music artists.  

Where are the bands like Rage Against the Machine, Ministry, Marilyn Manson, (OLD SCHOOL) 311, Metallica, Nirvana, Sound Garden, Alice in Chains, Pantera, Biohazard, or Operation Ivy, bursting onto the rock scene with something to say with a message wrapped in a power cord and double bass?  

I’m sorry but Taylor Swift telling me about me that the thing she does best is “revenge” is not exactly going to get my heart beating.

Am I the only one seeing this? Rock music is the least profitable radio format in the country. Thus, rock music commercially is dying fast. SO WHAT!? I don’t get why the artists are going down with them? The medium is our hands now with power of 4G but it has stalled for some reason. Could twitter be the answer? Maybe. 

Yet, is creativity tied to being able to monetize it? I’m seriously asking because I don’t have the answer to what is happening right now.

Is it because artists aren’t being promoted? Well, I thought the power of the Internet was going to allow us to discover new bands and not have to worry about the record label's agendas anymore. That hasn’t happened or am I missing something?

Are there too many options now? Where are the grassroots artists selling albums out of the back of their cars? If that can't happen anymore, where are the websites with free downloads so bands can be heard? Who are the poets that vomit words that pull back the curtain over your eyes and allow you see things from a different point of view?     

Are we all just a bunch of pussies, living at home in our mother’s basement, waiting for the Genius Bar to call our names so our fixed iPhones can tell us what to do next?

What is this generation standing for…..text messaging?

I found Ani Difranco in a time where my personal anger was beginning to soften and I was willing to look deeper at societal issues. Gay people were unknown to me growing up in Andover, MA and bi-sexual, folk singers sure didn’t exist either.

While the genesis of her rage wasn’t something I related to, the questions she raised about who we are and what we value helped to shape who I am as an adult. I loved her uncompromising, unforgiving fire and willingness to piss people off.  

Where is the next self-publishing, self-motivated, activist artist with a message that has to be heard? I don’t see a counter-culture anymore.  

I can’t be the only one noticing the SERIOUS lack of a social movement in this country right now. Musically, we are so ripe for the next big thing. We had Seattle in 90’s, so I’m biased towards rock, but has Rap music won? Is THAT the only place we can go for socially aware music now?

I refuse to believe that.

Americana music has taken a large step forward in the past 3 years with acts like Mumford and Sons, Avett Brothers, and The Head and The Heart but their message is more timeless. It looks at the bigger picture of love and life and doesn’t get into the dirty stuff. Also, a band like Old Crow Medicine Show would have tough time being taken seriously if they started singing about racial oppression.  

But who will be next to sing lyrics like:

 “Who stuff the banks

  Who staff the party ranks

  More for Gore or the son of a drug lord

  None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord

  Lights out guerilla Radio

  Turn that shit up" 

                        – Rage Against The Machine

On the day the nation’s largest radio company, Clear Channel, fired hundreds of on-air talent in order to automate their stations with computers and to standardize their playlists, I’m afraid I sound like our fathers and uncles who pulled out records of Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, The Clash, The Rolling Stones, Credence Clearwater and said “back in my day, music meant something.”

Well, back in my day – music SAID something.

Today, it’s all about American Idol wanna-be artists rehashing songs and asking for the country to “vote” for them to stay on the island of fame for one more week.

Nobody is willing to ask the tough questions or stand up for something real anymore. Nobody has the balls to say what is really happening around them…. all we want is the same cookie-cutter bullshit. 

Who isn't afraid to say something unpopular? 

    they caught the last poor man on a poor man's vacation

    they cuffed him and they confiscated his stuff

    and they dragged his black ass down to the station

   and said "ok the streets are safe now”.

   all your pretty white children can come out to see spot run

   and they came out of their houses and they looked around

   but they didn't see no one.

   and my country tis of thee

   to take swings at each other on talk show tv

   why don't you just go ahead and turn off the sun

   'cause we'll never live long enough to

   undo everything they've done to you

   undo everything they've done to you”

                                                     -Ani Difranco

I know she isn't ... but who is next? 

I ask you - What the F is going on?!!

     

GEEK OUT FOR PJ!

I know I said I'd write more on here and I've obviously choked on that claim but for the moment...just enjoy the VIBRANT excitement that I have for this movie trailer and soon-to-be released Cameron Crowe doc on Pearl Jam.

PJ, as I called them in High School, was first discovered by me in Homeroom of my freshman year. A blonde, pretty girl was singing "Alive" under her breathe with headphones on. I asked her "who was that?" she was listening to. She put the headphones on my head. Magic I tell ya for a angry teenager who needed someone to explain that being pissed at your parents was O.K.

I was just 14 years old. Shit, I'm old huh? 20 years ago this all started. I'm 34 now.

But at that time, I was just learning about the power of music and becoming a nut for its ability to move me. I wanted to know everything about every new band on the scene and wanted to hear all types of music for myself to experience it and to be first to find the band everyone would be talking about in three months. U2 was the band of middle school for me but then grunge took over. Soon I would be wearing flannel shirts tied around my waste and Doc Martin shoes on my feet. Bands like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Stone Temple Pilots, SoundGarden, and Mudhoney would follow ... but Pearl Jam was special.

"Alive" was the first song I heard from Eddie Vedder and it shook me, changed me. I don't have vivid memories about a lot things in my life prior to becoming an adult ... but I will always remember where I was when I first heard Pearl Jam.

Hours and hours of music listening followed, including my senior year quote in my yearbook. PJ was my high school band and I owe PJ a lot ... the music helped me get through some tough times and was an outlet for my emotion. I would blast songs like "Indifferent" and "Black" when I was sad and "Rearview Mirror" when I knew I wanted to leave Mass.

"State of Love and Trust" is still my favorite song by them ... after all these years. "Ten" and "Animal" are amazing records. I joined the "Ten Club" for almost a decade and belonging got me amazing seats in Hartford for my first PJ show in the late 90's. I still have the ticket stub.

I can not wait to see this movie. This movie will help me see what I missed over all those years when I was in college and not able to go to shows as much as I would have liked . I wasn't old enough to really enjoy seeing PJ when they were at their best ... the club years. By the time I was 21, Pearl Jam had already changed dramatically. Later on, I would promise myself to never miss a band when they were at their most pure.

I've been pretty lucky to see some amazing acts but I never saw Pearl Jam with 1000 people in the crowd. This movie will show what it was like and I can't freakin' wait!


Pearl Jam Twenty from Pearl Jam on Vimeo.

Sorry ...

I've really slacked with my blog posting. I apologize. I've got some time coming up this weekend so I'll get something up for sure soon. Thanks for checking it out!

STANLEY CUP CHAMPS

39 Long Years are HISTORY!! 

For Boston, for Boston, 
we sing our proud refrain 
for Boston, for Boston 
'tis wisdom's earthly fane
for here are all one 
and our hearts are true 
and the towers on the heights 
reach the heavens own blue.
for Boston, for Boston 
'til the echoes ring again

For Boston, for Boston 
thy glory is our own
for Boston, for Boston 
'tis here that truth is known
and ever with a right 
shall our heirs be found 
'til time shall be no more 
and thy work is crowned
for Boston, for Boston 
thy glory is our own
                 - Dropkick Murphys 

A Full Circle Graduation

AHS 1995 grad book

“The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.” – Oscar Wilde

My brother Colin graduated from Andover High School on Monday. This blog has always been a place where I have discussed my life, my thoughts, and my feelings on a variety of issues. While some are made uncomfortable by the frankness of my words on here … I don’t know how to be any other person but me.

And being me means being honest. So …

In 1992, my mother informed me that I was going to have a second brother as her and my stepfather were expecting their first child.

I was 15 years old.

My brother Ben and I were the offspring of my mother's first marriage which ended when I was 11 years old. I never thought that 23 years later, my family would look like it does today. Hell, I didn't think I would live in Iowa, Nebraska, Alabama or Virginia either but don't try to predict how your life will go. You'll just end up completely wrong. 

Tomorrow in Andover, my "modern family" will celebrate the high school graduation of Colin from AHS, a school that my mom, dad, stepdad, and brother Ben all graduated from at one time or another. I have an 18-year-old brother, a 15-year-old brother, and an 11-year-old sister to go along with my 31-year-old brother.

I am 34 years old and I’m going to guess that you aren’t closer in age to your mother than your sister. Today in fact, my mother informed me that my little sister played at a friend's whose house is the one my father's parents lived in for the better part of 40 years. I spent my first year of life in that house. 

It really has all come full circle for me.    

In May of 1999, I graduated college and left three months later for Virginia in search of a career, a journey, and myself. My stepfather, in order to comfort my crying mother as I drove off in my U-Haul, said to my mother “He’ll be back in 6 months.”

I did not move home to New England until March of 2011.

My yearbook photo

During those years of being gone, I dated a various number of women, even living with two of them but I was never was 100% committed to spending the rest of my life with any of them. However, I returned home a much different person than I left as you could imagine. The South and Midwest made me into a man. 

As I sit here now in Massachusetts, I do have to wonder however, what impact my brothers had on me while I was a high school student and how it shaped eventually who I am today.  

Two years after the news of Colin, my mother, now 36 years old, stopped me as I was walking into my house after soccer practice one day. “I have something I need to tell you”, she said to me on our front porch step. “You are going to be a brother again.”

My response as I blew past her: “Whatever.” I refused to discuss the news for several days, injuring my mother for several months.

I was 17 years old.

It didn’t matter to me that I was about the same age as my mother was when she gave birth to me, I was furious that she was going to pregnant again and was going to be pregnant at my high school graduation.

Four years later at my college graduation from UMass, my mother would be pregnant again with my sister Maggie. I was 21 years old and by that time, numb to the uncomfortable looks parents would give to my family after seeing a pregnant woman celebrate the graduation of her oldest son.  

So, as I sat in the Tsongas Arena in Lowell this past Monday evening, watching the class of 2011 receive their diplomas, I began to think about how different my life was back then compared to my brother’s right now. I pulled out my old high school yearbook and began to reminisce about the child I once was and how I used to handle myself. The memories weren’t always easy to re-live but things happen in your life for a reason and the lessons you learn always help you later on in life. 

As I thought about how I've changed, I'm proud that I’ve always been an open person. I know that scares a lot of people, especially in my professional life, but I will never again be ashamed of who I am or what I came from.

I’m different. So what? I’m home now and had to leave to understand the importance of that.  

I kept journals for all the years I was gone and there are pages full of my wanting to return home to New England. While I knew the transition would not be easy, I’m very thankful to be here now and to be a part of my family again. Professionally, this is where I want to be and have a long-term future here, something I never saw at any of my four stops along the way. Sure, I love Omaha will always love Omaha (I still work in Omaha really) but I wasn’t going to raise a family in Omaha and didn’t want to drag another girl around the country with me after doing so after college. It wasn’t fair.

But I was only 24 then and the mistakes I made were much different than the mistakes my father made at that age while he was married to my mother.   

Watching Colin graduate from Andover High School was pretty special for me, something I would have surely missed if I hadn’t moved back. I have never been married and have never seriously thought about having a child of my own but Colin was the first human I got to see from diapers to diploma.

The teen-angst he went through (and is still going through) was so familiar to me and I related so much to that uncomfortable-in-your-own-skin suffering of a teenager. It really is wild to watch someone raised by your mother appear so similar to you in so many ways, yet be so different as well.

Tomorrow, we celebrate Colin’s achievement and send him off to Merrimack College where he will be a starting pitcher for their baseball team next fall. He earned a scholarship that is worth over $80,000.

The journey for him is just beginning while mine is starting another chapter. I’m just really glad I’m around to be a part of celebrating the good news. Sometimes, it feels like I never left. Other times, it feels like I missed too much. 

As the oldest of my mother's 5 children however, I'm proud of my family and proud of who we all are today. My mom raised two adults so far. I'm in radio working for two stations in New England. My brother owns and operates his own organic farm in western Mass with his wife Liz and their two kids. Tomorrow, number 3 sets off to find out who he wants to become. 

Seems like a long time from when I was 15 and my mother told me that I was going to be brother for the second time. 

Don't we all love to "Remember When"? From 1995...