Michael Jackson "thriller"

I was ten years old when "thriller" was released.  This album was everywhere.  Seriously, you could not be alive in public and not be bombarded with this record. It doesnt hurt that it is a true masterpiece of pop music.  There are albums that come along and seem to change everything that comes after it ("Nevermind", "The Chronic", "OK Computer")  but this record created a template that pop music still uses today.  We were listening to the new Bruno Mars album at the tattoo shop and i kept thinking: "here is more #michaeljackson worship 35 years later".  I loved (and still love) this album.  I know all the crap that tarnishes Jackson's legacy but it really can't touch (sorry) this CD.   My sister, who is a year younger, and i had chores around the house.  We used to have to wash and dry dishes after dinner. It seemed we always played this cassette on a boom box in the kitchen.  The two of us often fought. We fought about who would wash versus dry, we fought about who got to use the "good rake" to clean the yard, we fought about who was breathing who's air.  We didnt fight over what tape to play.  She had a Michael Jackson doll that i used to stage in inappropriate positions with her Barbie doll when she wasn't around.  We used to practice moon walking on our linoleum floor. We would split a pair of gloves so we each only donned one.  My sons love pop music right now.   They are really into contemporary singles.  I try and play some of my snobby stuff or nostalgic stuff i wish they would like and they act like no music is playing at all.  When "thriller" gets played it's a Menter Family Dance Party. It doesn't sound dated.  It is still an engaging and body moving work of art.  That's powerful stuff.

Summoned "lunarterial"

I meet a ton of people through my career as a tattoo artist.  Most of them i like and a few of them i get to be friends with.  I wear my interests on my sleeve (usually quite literally) so when i find common ground it makes my world a little bigger.  The kindness i encounter is actually pretty staggering and i try to pay the kindness forward often.  Recently a guy i tattooed and i had discovered a shared interest in music,  specifically melancholic blackened post-metal.  We share discoveries and rant and rave about our favorite stuff.  More recently we began to discuss inner city home ownership.  It always makes the times he comes in a pleasure: cool conversations and he likes to get skull tattoos.  He and his better half recently ventured to Philadelphia for a music festival. He returned to the shop woth a couple of CDs he purchased there that he thought i would like.  As you may have guessed i really like CDs so i was thrilled to receive the gifts.  One of the discs he gave me is this #summoned album "lunarterial".  It is a deep blackened pit of of atonal death doom.  Howled vicious vocals over a din so evil it sounds inhuman.  He hit it out of the park, i love this CD!  It's funny that something so caustic sounding can make me feel so warm and fuzzy.

Astrud Gilberto "beach samba"

The wife and i are enjoying a kid free weekend.   All three rug rats are at my mom's house in the country for the weekend.  Last night we drank too much at a few of our old haunts in the city.  We slept in and meandered off for indian food for lunch and run a bunch of errands at a leisurely pace without the constant kinetic energy of three young boys wearing us down.  We bathed the dog and are enjoying a warm day with the windows open in the house.  It's a great day for this record.  I discovered #astrudgilberto in my twenties through the album she did with stan getz and their awesome version of "girl from impanema".  I've always found her echo drenched vocals soothing and love this album on lazy warm days.  I once declares this CD the "summer album of the season" to a friend and peer.  He argued that the statement didnt make any sense and i obtusely defended my remark.  I thought it was just more playful banter but later found out he was really upset at me.  It strikes me as really funny and ironic that this warm samba album incited such animosity.  Ok, so as i wrote that i realised that the album didn't incite any animosity; my obscene love of debate did.  But that wouldn't make this memoir about a compact disc as clever.  Ill just go ahead and remind people that this is still my summer album of the season.

Smart Went Crazy "con art"

When this #smartwentcrazy disc came out i was in a very directionless point in my life.  I had a job i liked but didnt pay well at a silk-screen print shop. My first band was breaking up and i was still reeling from the heartbreak of being dumped ny my girlfriend.  I was twenty-five years old and had felt like i had blown all my chances at being the best version of myself.  I was wired to be that romantically tragic.  This CD floated into my life at precisely the right moment to be my favorite album for months on end.  It is smart indie rock with some post-punk angst wrapped up in a urban-chic melancholy that i could not resist.  To this day, twenty years after it's release, i have not found a band that has so aptly used a cello in rock music.  While laying on my bed in my cold west side apartment i remember pondering the cello and remember my brief encounter with the instrument in elementary school. In fifth grade I wanted to learn an instrument so when a sign up sheet appeared in my music classroom i looked at the available instruments and signed up for bass.  Gene Simmons played bass guitar and i figured there was a connection to the two instruments.  When it came time to be assigned instruments i was too late to get a bass but the music instructor assured me i would enjoy cello and had shown me the two instruments and it looked like a smaller version of the bass.  I was able to take the instrument home and start my lessons.  I remember it being frustrating because while i loved the vibration and tone of the instrument i was impatient with my ability to make anything that sounded like music to me.  And none of the music i loved at that age had a cello in it and i couldn't see how this instrument would ever translate to what i wanted to be a part of.  In a fit of frustration i remember snapping the bow and having to return the instrument and abandoning the lessons.  It is one of the biggest regrets of my life.  So i laid on my bed listening to this great rock album with powerful and beautiful cello incorporation and wished i could time machine myself a copy so that my impatient little self could have connected the universal dots of music.

Sepultura "roots"

Last night my family was engaged in a vicious round of the pop-o-matic board game "Trouble".  My wife plays a bloodthirsty style and was unflinching in sending our sons back to the start of the game.  She turned her relentless win-at-all-costs attention towards me and i started singing the chorus to "cut-throat" from this #sepultura album.  My middle son started joining me in throaty unison and i pulled the song up on my phone so he could hear the real deal.  He and i were the only ones enjoying the playback.  It made me realise that i am constantly scoring the soundtrack to my life.  My obsession with music has led me to a vast catalog to choose from and its rare that I'm in any situation and do not have an apt song playing in my head.  I'm not saying I'm as good as Wes Anderson or either of the "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies but it is a soundtrack that rarely stops.  When i was younger i used to hum and sing to my drawings (still do).  If i were drawing an army tank i would rattle "taps" or belt out the theme song from "First Blood".  I don't  know if it was because i spent a great deal of time watching cable TV and absorbed awesome soundtracks ("Conan the Barbarian" score still gets my blood boiling) as a kid or if music is just that deeply engrained in my genetic code.  Either way,  when you see me be assured i have a song in my head for the situation.  It also reminds me that i have clogged my recall memory with songs.  I can't remember algebraic proofs.  I cannot recall which type of motor oil my car uses.  I can't even tell you how many cups of water it takes to make a pack of ramen noodles.  Rest assured i can sing along to the english lyrics on this record and phonetically mimic the other languages while scatting guitar riffs and drum breaks.  I'm doing it while typing this.

Jawbox "jawbox"

In 1996 I caught #jawbox live at the Showplace Theater in Buffalo.  They were touring for what would ultimately be their last album.  We didn't know it at the time.  That show changed my life as a musician.  Up to that point I had been playing in a punk band and didn't really pay attention to gear. I played a hand me down bass on the biggest practice amp I could afford (a fender bxr100 amp if you're taking notes.  I couldn't tell you what make that cream bass guitar was)  I parked myself in front of the bass player's rig (which is still my custom) and the band launched into their set.  I remember really loving the set but was absolutely enthralled by Kim Coleta's bass tone. So punchy, so big.  It was the sound I wanted to make.  She played a fender jazz bass through an ampeg 8x10 cabinet and some sort of ampeg bass head I don't remember.  I left this show on a mission.  I wasn't making much money at the print shop where I was working but I bought a used ampeg svt pro head and shortly after I bought a floor model ampeg 4x10 cabinet.  I've always coveted the 8x10 cab but never had any reasonable way to lug around what amounted to a small refrigerator.  The guitar took a little longer.  With a tax return and a month of Ramen noodles I was able to purchase an american fender jazz bass guitar.  The whole process took me a couple of years.  When I had all these components I used to walk up to the band rehearsal space for the indie rock band I was in at the time and sit Indian style in front of the rig and just run the only scale I knew.  I let that sound wash over me.  It was my most prized possession in my life up to that point.
I don't know if it was that live bass sound or what but this "s/t" CD remains my favorite of their canon.  It flies in the face of what is generally regarded as their best album.  That's not my problem. The songs on here are dark and obtuse. Time changes and texture.  It's a heart wringing muscle flex of D.C. post-hardcore done with artistic flair.  I come back to this CD often.

Descendents "milo goes to college"

In 1989 I bought #descendents "milo goes to college" because a friend of mine told me it had the drummer from Black Flag.  I remember being bummed that this album wasn't as ferocious as "damaged" but I listened to this alot at the pizzeria I worked at. It's catchy proto - pop punk won over the cute blonde at work so it won me over too.  On one occasion I was skateboarding through Como Park on my way to meet my friends.  I was listening to this on my Walkman cassette player when a Camaro swerved towards me on the park road. I naturally yelled obscenities at them and flipped them the bird. The car screeched to a halt and did a burn out u-turn back towards me.  I kicked my skateboard into my hand and stepped onto the grass next to the road.  The car loudly screeched to a stop just a few feet from me and I remember the smell of but rubber from all of their muscle car heroics.  I saw there were two dudes in the car as it stopped and as the passenger door opened towards me in a fit of blind anger and self-defence I rushed the car and swung my skateboard at my would-be assailant.  It struck him broad side in his melon and he crumpled back into the car seat and the Camaro peeled off.  I stood there basking in pride of staving off bullies when a family at a nearby picnic table yelled after me that I was an "animal".  That still stings to this day. The errant assessment that labeled me an "animal" .  I skated my ass off to my friend's house fearing the return of the bitchin' Camaro (I swear I'm not making this shit up) with reinforcements.  My buddie's were frenzied up at my tale of skateboard swordplay and we all skated en masse to the park looking for a fight.  The car never came back.  The passenger of the car was later identified due to the large grip tape brush burn on his forehead and it was a summer of conflict between our two groups culminating in another fist fight at a C.Y.O. dance (which I lost).  You'd think this linked memory would make this disc something that would agitate me, but my clearest memory of the event was the smell of cut grass in the park and the rumble of its rough pavement under my skateboard wheels.  It makes this a summer standard for me.