"Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" Otis Redding-Various

At times life can be better than a movie, as someone who writes, if I was to write the following scene I would throw it straight in the trash and laugh at the amount of cheese involved.  But everyone has those times, when life is perfect or far from perfect when you feel as though the camera is on you.  This morning I got off of work here in Kabul and went downstairs to the gym.  I worked out already but there is a room off of the gym that has a big screen and when hockey is on I sit on an old metal chair with my feet up on the pool table and watch the games.  Tonight it was the first game of the Stanley Cup.  During the dreadful military commercials I pick up my iPad and sort through a collection of pictures that I have amassed over the years.  Shots I either took, involve me or just love, I have about five thousand to the ever growing collection.

I was scrolling through them and came across a black and white shot taken about four years ago.  It is of me, nomex jacket, sunglasses with messed up hair and a smirk standing in front of my jet that I just signed to be left in the desert for all eternity as part of AMARC.  It was one of my last flights in the hoove and within a second of flicking my finger across the screen a song came on.  

A song that we actually all know, that baseline waltzing through my mind which is a part of my favorite scene in any movie of all time.  Tom Cruise in a crisp white T shirt, Charlie laying on a couch outside in the San Diego sun, him talking about his old man.  Cowboy boots are visible, white wine and a young man's lament of never really knowing his father nor what happened to him.  As somewhat laughable as the movie itself can be I'll stack that scene up against all others.

And who would not want to be either one of them?  Two people about to fall in love, that part when things are new and playful, when you worry about the date as you walk away from it, going over everything you said to ensure you didn't mess it up..."The stink of it was, he screwed up, no way, my old man was a great fighter pilot".   Just as that epic bridge is playing in the background.  

Life takes you a lot of places, when I first saw that movie at nine years old in the theatre I thought two things, planes were cool and how nervous would I be to kiss a girl on a big screen like that.  Years later I ended up in flight school before I even really thought about it,  there were old school Top Gun Tomcat guys, not the fags there now and they were everything I thought they would be, doing pops on cars on the highway coming off a low level, shit hot breaks at the numbers.  BFM in the hot Pensacola sun would fade until I found myself in San Diego a few hundred feet off the beach in my home listening to the surf, thin and tan; young and alive.  

I never thought they would be but those days are over and on a daily basis I try to get back to that weight and mindset.  At times I win and do.  But tonight watching a game I played with hopes of being there one day only to come so damn close, close enough to know a decent amount who did, looking at a picture from the second chapter of my life that has closed I felt no regret nor want to go back, I'm just happy I fucking did it, did it right and laid it all on the line and happy now looking at the first few pages of a new chapter which I am sure will not read as I plan it to.  I'll find myself somewhere, just like in Bruins camp, just like in Flight school without realizing it.  Life is funny like that, life is great like that.

"All of My Love" Led Zeppelin-In Through the Out Door

I remember listening to Howard Stern one morning, he was using “Ramble On” as bumper music all day
for some reason, between the lesbians, anal porn stars and Hank the Drunk Plant’s vocals blasted out from 92.3 FM in NY. Howard made the statement, something to the effect of “This is the tune you are rocking to with your chick in the front right seat with the windows down in a muscle car, both sets of long hair flowing in the breeze.” And he was right, that stereotype of Led’s music conjures up a similar vision in most people’s minds I would imagine.

For me I was entranced by Led Zeppelin my late Sophomore and full Junior year of High School. I was hanging out with the Senior boys, drinking Molson XXX in the woods or the basement of a buddy’s house, bundling up to burn splifs behind the hedges outside so the neighbors wouldn’t see. I would then be driven home in a Jeep CJ7 with the top off in mid northeast winter trying to sober up and clear out the eyes. Like everyone’s high school stories, they get better with age and feel a hell of a lot more innocent than they did at the time.

A few months ago I was in a studio in North Hollywood listening to some 21 year old from The Berkeley School of Music lay down some tracks with a group of people who know a whole hell of a lot more about music , music composition and editing than I could ever imagine. The studio is big and open, has a fantastic feel, handles all types of music; while we were listening to heavier rock in the next room was a mom-ish looking forty year old writing pop tracks for 17 year olds to molest each other on the dance floor to.

The main man in the studio has been around and in music for some time, including a stint back in the day baking tapes for a major studio. The process itself was fascinating which is about the only details I  remember. But after chatting up the Berkeley boy he brought up that he has original tracks from Zeppelin’s studio days, right here now in his studio.

He broke them out and we listened to song tracks separately, back then 20 tracks was a lot of music to cram into a song using seemingly archaic methods to generate sound. It reminds me of instagram and the fad of trying to make pictures appear 70s style. The same holds true with music today, what people forget is that in the 70s those people were trying to make the most precise and advanced music and photography around, they just didn’t have the ability to match what we have now.

All of which is academic. Because when it comes down to it, music and especially Zeppelin is for exactly what we did on the ride home from the studio. Put it on and blast it. In that ride back I remembered why I dug them back in the day. Reeking of sex, defiance and pure coolness they were everything I or anyone wanted to be when we were sixteen.

“All of My Love” is somewhat of a departure from heavy Zeppelin. It has always been a favorite of mine. Not a lot of people know that it is one of the two songs Jimmy Page had no hand in writing, the only song they ever made to have a classical guitar in and most importantly the fact that it was written by Robert Plant for his son who died during their ’77 tour.

More importantly not a lot of people know about a hot August day when driving down 95 in my Porsche with the Targa top off this song came on the radio. With my hair flapping in the breeze and the mechanical nature of the ’69 engine clanging at 6000 PRMs as I watched the tach behind a pair of very dark Vuarnets. Driving south to see a chick, tan with all of the encompassed for a night at the shore, money in my pocket produced by the worries of a job that I left up north hours ago I was utterly confident that my 16 year old self pulled up next to me while driving and remarked to his friends “That guy looks like he pulls a ton of chicks” while it may or not be true, when said by a 16 year old it is about the best compliment imaginable.

"If Not For You" Bob Dylan-New Morning

By being here in Afghanistan you miss a lot of things and I hope this doesn't offend people I left behind but one of the things I left behind that draws much sadness in my heart was Dylanfest.  Yes that is right a concert at one of my favorite venues of all time, the Bowery Ballroom.  It doesn't say little for the people I left behind but rather just what an amazing experience it is to walk down those stairs into the bar waiting to go back up to the stage and hear some truly great music.

The funny thing is I didn't even know about it until a friend I met though a very good friend told me about it.  Bon Vivant of NYC, attorney, agent to actors and actress, the only man I have seen drive everywhere in NY, including going out at night, one night in particular when opening a beer in his old 5 series he rear ended a brand new M3 way past midnight (and yes, the guy had personalized plates) and talked his way out of it.  A man who runs 24/7 and still finds a way to be successful, a man who is probably the closest I've seen in person to Jack Keuroic's Dean Moriarty.  Honestly.

And that night, before we rammed that M3 we were driving around Manhattan with my scared ex in the back seat BLASTING Van Morrison screaming down sixth avenue.  I've met a few people in my life that feel the way I do about music but very few who have connected to the music I like in that very same way.  And a casual remark about Dylan led to my introduction of Dylanfest.

Held on Bob's birthday down in the Bowery it is an event that draws a lot of small names that should be big, or would have been if rock and roll was still #1 on the charts.  Lots of hipster bands and names I barely knew would crowd the stage and the vibes.......man the vibes were amazing.  

One year they opened with this song.  A song that I always bypassed while listening to his albums.  And that was the best part of the show.  It wasn't the intimate venue, the people or listening to Norah Jones sing backup with no one even mentioning her name or that she was there.  The great thing was Dylan has been heard so many times, been proclaimed the best by so many that eventually you stop listening, it becomes boring.  BUT that night with all these new, young faces singing their hearts out to Bob's tunes, it all makes you fall in love with Dylan again.  

About a seven months later I was at the Union Club outside the humidor smoking a cig and drinking whiskey and who should show up but my version of Dean himself.  We caught up, talked about that night I missed this or missed that (he was also a good luck charm, it seemed as every night I had planned to go out with him I would grab a drink somewhere and meet someone, obviously to push him aside which he always understood).  Out there on the balcony overlooking 69th street I told him how Dylanfest made me rediscover Dylan and fall in love all over again to which we locked eyes and he over joyously agreed.  Again, right on point.  

We stayed out that night until five after getting locked out on the balcony and having to break a window to get back in only to come in and get a full two hour tour of the club and its history by a very old but nice member and then off to Bar and Books on 73rd until the sun came up.  A great night, but not even close to Dylanfest.  

"Would You Lay With Me" David Allan Coe-David Allan Coe Live-If That Ain't County

The first time I heard David Allan Coe was my freshman year of college.  Striking that I had never heard of him before since a lot of my music at the time was the Outlaw Country genre, but nonetheless I hadn't.  There was this kid across the hall, Tim.  Tim was a New Hampshire hippie who smelled bad, had Sideshow Bob nappy hair, wore ripped clothes and huffed Glade on a constant basis.  The entire hallway, every room was robbed of Glade so Tim could get his fix.  

I am pretty sure he never went to class, I know this because I never did and always saw him.  He liked the Dead, I liked the Dead, he lived across the hall....and of course he was always in my room.  But the first time I ever heard David Allan Coe was the day after he fixed his tape deck up so he could sing karaoke and on that day he faced the speakers out into the quad so everyone could hear him croon while baked on vanilla Glade.  

"Trying like the Devil to find the Lord, working like a nigger for my room and board....

.....coal burning stove no natural gas, if that ain't country I'll kiss you ass." 

Lyrics, yea offensive to people I guess but I must say that there was something in that song (which if you take the time to listen to will find it is a fantastically written song) that made me want to hear more.  I hiked upstairs and asked him for the album, his dirty hands with pieces of stems and resin handed it to me.  On the cover was this man with a bandanna, tatts all over his hands and a rhinestone white leather jack.  "For The Record David Allan Coe".

I memorized that entire album in about two night before I gave it back, at the time there being no iTunes and the nearest music store was miles away, I was sans car.  Eventually the whole floor caught on, even our black RA and the one other black dude on campus (this was a New England Liberal Arts College) would belt out lines when we were drinking on Thursday, Friday,...well many nights.  Which was a polarizing event, it made me realize that good music transcends a lot of things, even some redneck mouthing words that would get a man killed in most urban areas and here I was singing them with a black guy.

There are too many stories about DAC to recall for this post.  That spring when three roommates came back home to Jersey with me to see the Coe man and ended up passed out: In my hallway outside my parents room, on the toilet and in the kitchen.  My house being a small three bedroom abode in which we never closed our bedroom doors.  DAC at a rodeo in Virginia, at the Flora-Bama in Pensacola....I have seen him too many times to recall and like the man himself, all colorful events.  

However I chose this song, though this version is only just over a minute long, because it is only his voice and what a powerful voice it is.  It breaks through the stereotypes of the man, the implied racism of a past age, the murder charge and prison time, the totally off color album he put out with songs such as "Itty Bitty Titties" ...compared to this voice the rest is just, well, conversation.  

It is beautiful and pure, it is the exact opposite of the image he portrays and, I think, is one of the reasons why those with more of a household name (Willie, Waylon, Johnny, Kris) call him a friend and a great musician.