MEMORY AND MUSIC TIME TRAVEL

If you’re human you undoubtedly know about the fallibility of memory, how even our most-assured recollections can be put into question or proven entirely false upon further examination.  It’s reassuring then to discover that at least in some cases, my first-hand memory is spot on and confirmable. For someone who loves music and has a penchant for nostalgia (guilty as charged) the miracle of technology allows me to listen back to concerts I attended long ago. And it turns out that at least some of my memory is intact.

I recall that on October 9, 1982, during Rush’s opening song “Spirit of Radio,” vocalist Geddy Lee sang “One likes to believe in the freedom of baseball,” substituting for the word ”music” in honor of the Milwaukee Brewers victory over the Angels in game four of the ALCS earlier that afternoon. I remember it. And now I can validate it, because the entire concert is available on YouTube. When the crowd screams, my fourteen-year-old self is there, unaware that forty years later he’ll be able to access his own applause. Remarkable.

Once I discovered this defining show from my youth, I turned to other concerts from long ago, and it turns out that there are at least seven shows that I attended from 1982-1986 available for streaming. (note: I find that YouTube regularly scrubs live recordings from its vault, and the Genesis concert link is already defunct. Bummer! A new Google search can often lead to an operational link):

Rush, October 9, 1982 (https://youtu.be/xgIhhNabk10)
Genesis, November 10, 1983 (link no longer working)
Yes, March 10, 1984 (https://archive.org/details/Yes_90125_1984-03-10-AnotherTownAndOneMoreShow-Milwaukee)
Bruce Springsteen, July 12, 1984 (https://www.guitars101.com/threads/bruce-springsteen-alpine-valley-music-theater-east-troy-wi-july-12-1984.678215/)
Elton John, September 9, 1984 (https://youtu.be/G51mCqcd_r0)
Tom Petty, June 23, 1985 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNviPMup2wA)
Rush, March 24, 1986 (https://youtu.be/M4kyxrp4N1E)

Before YouTube deleted the recording, I was able to confirm that during the Genesis show in 1983, Mike Rutherford had to sit out a good chunk of the song “That’s All” because of technical difficulties, and that the singer Phil Collins encouraged the audience to plug their ears and repeat the phrase, “Masturbation will not make me deaf.”

For the Yes concert in 1984, I distinctly recall Tony Rabin accidentally adding harmony vocals to a verse of the song “Hearts” (the “Many moons cascade one river…” section) quickly dropping out when realizing his mistake, and he and bassist Chris Squire cracking up as a result. I’m listening to the concert now, and…there it is! The blunder!

The guy who posted the Elton John concert calls it, “Elton John, Stoned in Alpine Valley” and includes this description: “Although there are some contenders for this, I still consider this Elton’s most drug-fueled show.” And now I can listen to his drug-fueled performance as if Elton’s sobriety is still a decade on the horizon. (It’s also fun to think that this was supposed to be his “final American tour.” The dude’s most recent farewell tour has been going on for over four years!)

I also appreciate that my memory of setlists is sometimes more accurate than what I can find on websites that archive such things. For Supertramp’s 1983 concert from Alpine Valley, Wisconsin, I reviewed the entry on setlist.fm and immediately knew it wasn’t correct because I remembered the band performing “Waiting So Long” and “Child of Vision.” Sure enough, I just checked the notes I wrote after the show, and both of these tunes were played. Unfortunately, I can’t find any recordings on-line of the Wisconsin show or any other shows with a similar setlist. The Internet has its limitations.

But not as many limitations as memory itself. Hell, I attended a Jimmy Buffett concert with my future wife and brother-in-law in 1993, and until one of them mentioned it to me a few years ago I had no recollection of even having been there! Worse, I’ll have a discussion with a friend today and forget the contents by the day’s end. A few weeks ago I was trying to recall the name of the actress “Carey Mulligan” and it eluded me. This morning I spoke to my mom, a nurse of over four decades, and she had trouble accessing the word “autoimmune.”

I’m looking forward to the day when physicians are able to employ a defrag of our internal hard drives, allowing us to access memories accurately and quickly like Jeopardy champions. But until then, most of us will have to muddle on through life knowing that while a portion of our recollections have some truth to them, many fall in a gray area somewhere between truth and fiction.

How gray?

Say it with me Fletch fans.

Charcoal.

Music Geek-Out Moments

Goodness gracious, it’s been a heck of a long time since my last entry.  The longest in fact since I started this nonsense over a decade ago.  I keep mentally writing the beginnings of blogs, but for reasons that probably have something to do with the exhaustion of living through a pandemic and an election simultaneously, I haven’t been able to pull the trigger.  That ends today.  I’ve got a bunch of things to write about, but since it’s been a while I’ve decided to ease back in with a bit of music-nerd nostalgia.

If you’re really into music you can probably identify a few times in your life when you connected with a fellow music lover on a visceral or intellectual level.  You met someone who “gets you” or “gets it.”  In my museum of recollection, I could probably find dozens of worthy events to exhibit, but allow me to share just two with you today.  They’re nothing earth-shattering, but they’ve stayed with me all these years and I get a kick out of them.

Alpine Valley Music Center parking lot (i.e., a big grass field), East Troy, Wisconsin, probably in 1989 or thereabouts. 

I walked with my friends from the field packed with cars where people had spent the previous hour tailgating to the gate entrance to see Elvis Costello or Rush or Billy Joel.  (Or maybe Jimmy Buffet?  I didn’t have many Alpine Valley concerts left in me – my last time there was in 1991.)  For some reason I was explaining to my friend that although I was excited to see whomever we were there to see, that I would love, just LOVE, to see Yes on stage and have them announce, “Ladies and gentlemen, ’The Gates of Delirium.’”  Well, you would  have thought I’d just announced that Jon Anderson himself was walking behind me, because some nutjob (as in, fellow music-nerd nutjob) in cutoff jeans and a t-shirt turned toward me and shouted “Oh my God!  Yes!”  He ran toward me and literally – I’m not making this up – knelt down in front of me and prostrated himself in mock adulation.  “I bow to the altar of Yes.”  When he righted himself, his right knee was badly bloodied – he’d knelt down on broken glass!  A little remnant from someone’s tailgating a little too hard with glass bottles.  The bloodied fan looked down to examine his knee and said, “Ah well, Yes is worth it.”  We spent the next five minutes or so avoiding going to our seats and instead exchanging our thoughts on Yes, who at the time were either on hiatus or completely defunct.  I shared my opinion of the non-Jon Anderson album Drama, and we both agreed that it was good but that it shouldn’t have been called Yes.  (I’ve since changed my mind about that.  I believe that not only is it Yes, but it’s among the band’s best six albums).  We wished each other a good evening, but I’m sure we also wished that we were seeing a different band, like being stuck on a date when the woman you really want is on the dance floor with another guy. 

Fortunately, I got to see Yes five more times after this interaction, and they played “Gates of Delirium” at two of those concerts.  They even brought out “Machine Messiah” and “Tempus Fugit” from Drama on one of those tours.  I imagine that my bloody-kneed Yes friend was at some of these shows front and center.

A gas station in western Wisconsin off of Highway 94, en route from Milwaukee to Minneapolis, probably in 1992 or 1993. 

Minnesota may border Wisconsin, but going back and forth between Milwaukee, where my family lived, and the University of Minnesota, where I was in grad school, was getting mighty old.   I found that I’d regularly have to pull over at a rest stop north of Wisconsin Dells and take a 20-minute snooze just to stay awake.  It didn’t help that I couldn’t make it all the way on one tank of gas in my Toyota Tercel, so more time was wasted having to fill up along the journey.  On one such stop, I filled up my tank and walked in to pay the cashier (automated pumps weren’t a thing yet, or at least not at this station), a young guy with dark, long curly hair and a black t-shirt.  While I was waiting for the transaction to be completed, I noticed a song playing on the radio playing next to him, and the music bounced around in my brain for a bit, jump-starting old synapses in need of a good lube job.  I titled my head, nonplussed, certain that I was about to make a fool of myself, but I tentatively proceeded.  “That isn’t…is that Michael Schenker?”  The cashier froze, looked at me in eye with no emotion whatsoever, and then in one fluid motion, opened the till, took out a bill and slapped it down on the counter in front of me, as if he were jubilantly showing his winning straight-flush over an opponent’s full house.  “That, my friend, deserves a dollar!”

I’d gotten it right.  I wasn’t a fan of Michael Schenker.  I wasn’t even aware of him, really, but I remembered a song that had gotten a bit of radio play on WQFM back in 1981, and since my older brother had purchased it (the vinyl record is now in my possession), the album cover and name were somehow stamped on my brain.  Why I was able to remember this, and not, say, the name of a woman seconds after introducing herself to me, was a question better left to that great DJ up in the sky.

But damn, I was proud of that one.

So there you are.  Two geek-out moments.  I hope there are many, many more, but of course these types of interactions that make life richer aren’t possible in 2020.  Here’s hoping in 2021.  In the meantime, I’m going to get cracking at writing another blog entry.  Stay well out there!

So long, Tom Petty

My earliest memory of Tom Petty is watching the Heartbreakers perform “Change of Heart” on Saturday Night Live in 1983. The anger of this song spoke to me. Even as a 15 year-old, I sensed that the ladies didn’t exactly dig me, and a lyric that said – in essence – “Screw you, I’ll be fine without you” felt might satisfying to a brooding teenager, not to mention that as an aspiring keyboardist I dug the sounds of Benmont Tench, always tasteful, never overplaying.

Two years later, while washing dishes at Seigo’s Japanese Steakhouse in Brookfield, Wisconsin, a strange song with a sitar, synth drums, and the inimitable twang of Tom Petty came on the radio, as the band had switched gears with “Don’t Come Around Here No More.” A few months later my buddy Jim and I attended his show at Alpine Valley (with Til Tuesday opening) and yes, the Southern Accents tour featured a horn section and a huge Confederate Flag that seem incomprehensible and tasteless in hindsight, but for an ignorant 17 year-old the power of the show hit home. “Hey, hey, hey. I was born a rebel.” Fuck, yeah. I left the concert feeling empowered and emboldened…and then I got my first speeding ticket from the Wisconsin’s finest on the way home and learned that I was anything but.

Flash forward two years, and Petty was back at Alpine Valley (I believe with the BoDeans opening, my buddy Kurt in attendance with me), and the satisfying vitriol was back with my favorite Petty song of all time – “Jammin’ Me.” Yeah, man. “Give ‘em all someplace to go.” Few words were more satisfying to my young-adult self. 

I didn’t see Petty perform again until 2003 at the intimate setting of the Vic Theatre in Chicago. Petty had aged and mellowed somewhat and I had aged and mellowed somewhat, now a father of three. Allow me illustrate by sharing my two most vivid memories of that show:

1)      Petty saying something like, “This one’s for those who are no longer with us,” before playing “Handle With Care.” By then, Roy Orbison and George Harrison were gone, and just a few months earlier bassist Howie Epstein had died as well. It was a somber moment.

2)     Me wishing to God that the encore would end because my feet were killing me after standing for about four hours on a concrete floor.

Yep, the vitriol was gone, and now all I wanted was some Advil and a good night’s sleep.

I’d lost track of most of Petty’s releases over the past few decades. I paid modest attention to Wildflowers and never got back on the bus, but there’s no denying the fact that the Heartbreakers fed the soul of my youth.

So long, Tom. Rest in peace.

And to music fans everywhere: brace yourselves. Petty, Bowie, Prince, Emerson, Lake, Michael...these are only the beginning. It’s going to be a rough, rough ride.

Alpine Valley Concert Memories

It happens to all venues eventually, I know, but this time it kind of hits home: for the first time since its 1977 inception, Alpine Valley won’t host any concerts this summer, and it may be in jeopardy of closing permanently. Tucked in rolling hills of southern Wisconsin, Alpine Valley is a spectacular site for a large concert, but it’s miles from nowhere and has fallen victim to the likes of Wrigley Field and Soldier Field, two Chicago venues that are hosting more concerts than in the past.

Nonetheless, Alpine Valley remains an integral part of my memory’s concert vault. It's the venue where I experienced the inimitable thrill of witnessing not just a show, but an Event, larger than life and at times life-affirming. I attended eleven shows during those hot, summer nights of my youth:

1983 Supertramp
1984 Bruce Springsteen
1984 Rod Stewart
1984 Elton John
1985 Tom Petty with Til Tuesday
1987 Tom Petty with Del Fuegos and Georgia Satellites
1989 Elvis Costello with Cowboy Junkies, Violent Femmes and Edie Brickel and New Bohemians
1990 Rush
1990 Billy Joel
1990 Jimmy Buffett
1991 Elvis Costello with BoDeans

If I could go back on see one of these shows again, it would be the first: Supertramp’s Famous Last Words show from 1983, the last tour with Rodger Hodgson. I may have enjoyed Springsteen and Stewart and Petty and the rest, but I lived for Supertramp. They spoke directly to me and my brooding teenager sensibilities. Hodgson sang about living a meaningful life in a world that didn’t understand you, and regardless of what Rick Davies sang about, he did so with cynicism and anger. I identified with both. I memorized their lyrics, labored over their piano patterns, and studied their albums' liner notes and intricate cover art. At their Alpine Valley concert, the opening segment on the movie screen of a tightrope walker about to fall to his doom as Bob Seibenberg attacked his kick drum prior to the opening of "Crazy" was the perfect introduction to my amphitheater concert-going experience.

The biggest show for me by far was Springsteen’s 1984 performance, the first of two nights. (The second night can be streamed on youtube, but I sure do wish the first show was available.) Bruce was just about to hit his peek, “Dancing in the Dark” was on just about every frequency along the radio dial, his voice was forceful and confident as opposed to the twang he’s adopted over the past couple of years, and when the first booming note of “Born in the USA” kicked off the show, the rumbling cacophony of 25,000 fans filled my gut with a palpable thrill. I’m not sure I’ve equaled that level of excitement at any concert I’ve attended since.

That same summer, Elton John toured his last decent album (IMO), Breaking Hearts, and sped through a cocaine-induced set that I enjoyed at the time, but in hindsight was probably really mediocre. I’ve listened to recordings of that tour, and they suffer from the constant drone of a synthesizer mimicking strings and other sounds from the studio recordings. They also suffer because Elton was a performer who was tired of performing, so much so that this was supposed to be his final tour. Har har. On a brighter note, I may have witnessed the last Elton John tour during which he was able to belt out the high notes in all their falsetto glory. Elton likes the way his voice sounds now compared to his younger years, but to me, give me Elton pre-1985. Among the purest and most flexible voices I’ve ever heard, and hearing him sing "One More Arrow" was worth the price of admission.

Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck may have started off the Camouflage tour together, but by the time Steward came to East Troy, Beck had had enough and was likely happily sipping a martini in England without his pain-in-the-ass colleague. A terrific replacement was recruited, and at the Alpine Valley show an audience member proudly displayed a home-made sign that read, “Jeff who?” In front of my brother and me was a gorgeous blonde who was taking photos of the show and who promised to send us some prints. She never did.

It was on my return trip from Tom Petty’s Southern Accents show in 1985 – a tour that sported a regrettable giant Confederate flag as a stage backdrop, and an almost equally regrettable horn section – that I received an East Troy welcome in the form of a speeding ticket, as I was going a whopping 67mph in a 55mph section of highway (it’s now 65). I wasn’t the only one. It was Wisconsin's favorite way to thank visitors for spending money at the local venue. My buddy Jim did his best to support my case with the officer, but a ticket was issued before the cop even put his car in drive.

That same day a fellow fan in the parking lot heard me ruminating over my wish for a classic Yes reunion by mentioning their epic track, “Gates of Delirium,” and he yelled “YES,” kneeled down on the ground in front of me and echoed my feelings, after which we spent five minutes discussing all the great songs we’d like to hear a reunited band perform. The shirtless man had cut his knee on a piece of broken glass when reacting to my plea, and said, “It was worth it.  We’re like Yes blood-brothers.” 

Lou Reed was to open up for Elvis Costello in 1989, but he cancelled and was replaced by The Violent Femmes, though the Cowboy Junkies paid tribute with their rendition of “Sweet Jane.” It was also during this show that my buddy Todd looked to his friends from England as Elvis sang a spectacularly subtle performance for such a large venue of “Tramp the Dirt Down,” during which he spouted the venomous lyrics:

When England was the whore of the world, Margaret was her madam

During the Jimmy Buffet show in 1990, the old folks yelled at my gaggle of college pukes to sit the hell down. At the Billy Joel show that same year, he bragged about getting to sleep with Christie Brinkley. And you know what? Even decades after their divorce, he’s still entitled to brag about that one!

Just two weeks later, Stevie Ray Vaughan and four others died in a helicopter accident as it was leaving the venue.

Elvis capped off my Alpine Valley experience in 1991, promoting an album that had no business at such a large venue, and the driving riff of “Pump it Up” was the last sound I’d ever hear in the lush, green hills of East Troy, Wisconsin. There are concerts I probably should have gone to since then (Radiohead comes to mind) but life gets complicated, bands become repetitious, and now if I really need to see a concert at a big venue, Miller Park and Wrigley Field are a-callin’. Live Nation claims they will book shows for at Alpine Valley in 2018, but I have a hunch we may have seen the last concert at East Troy. 

And I have to wonder, how the heck are Wisconsin's finest going to reach their ticket quota absent concerts at Alpine Valley?