music.

Recently, in the search of my brain for things to write about, I decided it would be interesting to take a look at my taste in music throughout my life.

As a small child, I don't think you really care what you listen to. If it sounds cool, it's your jam. I listened to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles soundtrack on cassette at least a thousand times while I banged my head into my mattress to the beat. I was a weird little fucker, okay?

You remember this shit?! I DO.

As I got a few years older I started to pay attention to what I was listening to. I was into what my parents listened to which included Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, BB King, Eric Clapton, John Lee Hooker, Rush and many more. I spent hours upon hours upon hours traveling the country with my parents with all these artists being the soundtrack. I could sing along with the entire The Wall album by Pink Floyd. I knew every word to every song.  I can still remember that Rush was the fuel to our weekly early morning drives through Yellowstone National Park when we lived in Montana. 

I moved to Nevada in the fifth grade and spent the rest of my school days there. I remember one time in fifth grade, my friend Rikki had left his walkman with the new 50 Cent, Get Rich or Die Tryin', CD at my house. Now, I had never heard anything like this, much less did I even know who 50 Cent was at the time. I was nervous as I put on the headphones and hit play. After the intro played through, the first 50 Cent song I ever heard came into my earspace. "What Up Gangsta", is still a guilty pleasure of mine to this day.

At the time I had no fucking Clue what Curtis was talking about. But it was new, and scary and I know for damn sure my mother would have looked at me funny if she knew what I was listening to. I made Rikki play that CD every time we hung out or when I spent the night. It was my first venture into a new genre of music.

Regardless of this little taste of new music, I was still reluctant to give up my oldies.

By the time I was leaving Junior High, I was getting into skateboarding. I did what every kid at that age does when they're into skateboarding and that is buy every piece of skate clothing and gear I could get my hands on. I was a little Dickies wearing, skate billboard. I eventually ended up getting my hands on a copy of Girl's "YEAH RIGHT!". At the time I had no idea that this film was revolutionary in skate videos. I just thought it was badass. And this is where I really started to find my own music. I remember when Brian Anderson's part came on, early in the video.

I didn't catch onto it right away, but after watching the video a few more times through, the song sounded better and better. I quickly found out that it was, my now all time favorite band ever in the whole world, Interpol. 

I became obsessed with their first album, Turn on the Bright Lights, and the particular track "Obstacle 1" would forever be my anthem and I can say that it still is to this day. I would skate, walk, ride my bike, do homework, kill time, everything to this one album. It was my first musical discovery that had been totally random. Interpol would put out an album and I would be at Wal-Mart as soon as I could with the money I had scrounged up. I learned every song title, word, everything just as I had with the oldies my parents had shown me when I was younger. No one really knew who this band was at the time and that made it even more special to me. I bought a few t shirts and listened religiously.

As high school began I made friends and started to hang with them more often. We didn't really have any taste in music, we just listened to what ever. I remember a friend of mine, outside my usual group, mentioned the band Atreyu and how loud it was and how the vocals were screams. I was intrigued.

Soon after, our hair got longer and our pants got tighter. Our shirts grew two sizes too small and people started to think we were weird. We didn't really give a shit though. The music was loud, fast and full of energy. It was perfect for feeding our angsty, confused teenage brains. We started listening to more and more. As I Lay Dying was a regular. I never really got into stuff life From First To Last or The Used but as soon as I discovered Job For A Cowboy it was game over.

NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT DUDE WAS SAYING. But goddammit did I like it. I eventually looked up the lyrics and was into what they were saying. This just lead me further down the path.

The music got heavier and heavier.

A group of friends and I finally got the nads to attend a local hardcore show. It was a band called Catherine, which I ended up listening to for a really long time after that. This was also the first time I had ever hardcore danced. I remember standing at the edge of the pit watching everyone. Watching all the badasses who had been listening to this music long before me, rage and throw their bodies around to this music. It was infectious.

There was that weird grindcore phase.

SCOPE THE GOAT. anyway.

To wrap this up, my friend Dustin eventually got me into electronic music. And since about 2010, he's introduced me to a lot of different composers and groups and I've eventually found my own. And nowadays I'm either listening to really stupid rap music, A$AP Ferg and Rocky, Kanye West and Jay Z, and god almighty, even 2 Chainz once and a while or the electronic music I've been listening to for the last 3 years. Is this the music that's going to stick with me? Is this the music I'm going to pass onto my children? 

I don't even want to think about what music is going to be like when I have children. I'll probably think it's bullshit and try to push some Interpol or Kendrick Lamar on them, maybe even The Doors. And they'll probably tell me to suck it, while they hover away on their HOVER NIKES blaring Skrillex the 4th's latest edit of animals banging at the zoo.

I don't know.

blog recycled.

Below is a piece I wrote for my old blog, a day in the life of carl.
I have been pretty overwhelmed with sleeping and eating, so I haven't really had the time to give a shit and write something so I figured I'd recycle this particular entry.

I really like this story though, it still makes me laugh.

Just a Youngin'

Do you ever think back to when you were a little kid? And realize what you had done so long ago?
I personally remember being about the most well behaved child that could have ever lived. But I also remember one time, when I wasn't the kindest young man.

I want to say I was around five, or six when this particular story happened. I was living in a small copper mining town in Michigan at the time. And my best friend in the whole world at the time was a kid by the name of Robert. My mother used to drop me off at his house for the day sometimes, and I remember when that happened I had a blast. I mean, this kid had a Super Nintendo! That was a large step up from my NES. Robert also lived by a paved alley where we would always take our action figures, and our bikes, and we could spend hours at a time out there. Robert also had a neighbor kid that lived just down the alley. This kid was very strange, not just because of the fact that his parents bought him girl's toys, but that he gladly played with these toys. I remember one day, Robert and I were playing with our G.I. Joes in the alley, and this kid, let's call him Jimmy, came over to where we were and started showing off some fairy princess toy his parents had just gotten him. It was some thing you put on a rip cord, and when you pulled it, it would fly up into the air and slowly find it's way back down to the ground, any girl my age probably knows exactly what I am talking about. Anyway, after a few minutes of this kid talking, Robert and I knew exactly what we were going to do. We were going to take this kid's fairy princess bullshit, and make his day miserable. Needless to say, we used our little kid art form of deception, and fed Jimmy some line like, "oh wow dude, that's pretty cool, do you mind if we try it?" He was hesitant at first, but eventually gave in and handed it over. Big mistake, Jimbo. We proceeded to tell him that we were going to keep it, and that if he tried to take it back, we were going to smash it with a hammer. Jimmy was in shock, not only that, he was on the brink of tears. Robert and I told him we were kidding, and pretended like we were going to give the toy back, yet more use of our little kid deception. As Robert went to hand it to him, he passed it to me at the last second and I took it and hid it by a shed in the alley while Robert distracted Jimmy. When I came back, I told him Jimmy that I had done the unthinkable, and smashed it with a hammer. Jimmy burst into tears and ran back to his house. Robert and I had a good laugh about the whole situation, and went back to playing with our action figures. About fifteen minutes later Jimmy was back, this time with his mother. She told us that we needed to give Jimmy's toy back, and if we had, in fact smashed it with a hammer, we were going to be in big trouble. I went to the spot I had hidden the toy and reluctantly gave it back to the little shit. We told him we were sorry (all lies, every word of our "sincere apologies"). Jimmy stalked back to his house with his mother giving us a scowl the entire time.
Despite this minor set back in our otherwise awesome day, Robert and I went back to being little kids. We found a can of WD-40 and a lighter and started spraying it on spots of the alley where the birds had shit from the powerlines overhead. This was an amazing time for us young kids. After a good twenty minutes of this incredible passtime, guess who came back? You guessed it, Jimmy, fairy princess flier firmly clutched in his hand. He proceeded to ask what we were doing, and we answered with some smart ass comment like, "what's it look like dummy?". Jimmy was as amazed as we were. Jimmy must not have been a very bright kid, because he asked what the white spots we setting on fire were. Robert and I both realized that this was our chance to get him back for getting us in trouble with his mother earlier. Robert told him that it was ice cream, and I backed it up by saying we had been eating ice cream and that it had melted and dripped onto the pavement, earlier before he came out. We assured him it was still good, and that he should probably lick it off the pavement, because we didn't have anymore in Roberts freezer. Jimmy was apprehensive at first, and told us that we needed to prove that it was really ice cream by licking it first. We somehow performed Oscar winning performances, taking turns putting our faces down by the sun-baked bird shit, and pretending to touch our tongues to it, because Jimmy was all in after seeing us do it, and proceeded to lean over and actually lick the spot of bird deuce on the pavement. What in the fuck was this kid thinking? We had just been spraying WD-40 on the exact spot and putting fire to it. Robert and I started laughing hysterically, and spilled the beans to Jimmy that he had just licked dry bird shit. Once again he burst into tears and ran home. Robert and I continued to laugh, and decided that we should probably head inside before he came back with his mom this time.
That was the last time I would ever see Jimmy, the kid my childhood friend and I had tricked into licking a dry spot of bird shit in the alley where we used to play.

I recently remembered this little tidbit from my past and decided to write about it. I don't know why, or how I remembered it. It's all very faint to me, and almost seems like a dream. But it really makes me think, why would I have done that to someone? I mean, they say "boys will be boys", but I think that takes it a bit far. But then again, I was just five, or six years old, and there were no repercussions for what we did, but does that really make up for it? I now wonder about how Jimmy turned out. Did this event have some sort of impact on his life? Or would it just be a cliff note in his childhood, that he doesn't remember?

Whichever one it was, I will never know.