Father’s Day, The Summer Solstice, Long Road Trips, and Dad Rock

Waking up after the shortest night of the year (give or take a few minutes), in my mail this morning, I received a link to this article: I'm not a Dad, but I Rock Like One, brilliantly written by Lindsay Zoladz.  (With a name like that, she's gotta be good.)

You should read the article; it heads out in a very specific direction, and will leave dads, moms and kids all chuckling to themselves.  There’s also a nice photo of the group mentioned in the article.

When Junior still lived with us, and we occasionally went on long road trips together, we agreed to compromise about what music we would listen to in the car.  We were very adult about this (though on the first instance when we did this, she may have been as young as 15 or 16).

In the end, I think I realized that her music was much more appropriate for the road than mine, though I got to bring along a tape (this was back in the tape days) of the Beatles’ Rock 'n' Roll Music, which was supplemented on subsequent occasions (there I go again, using Dad vocabulary) by Beatles rock songs which were left out of their Rock 'n' Roll compendium albums, which she liked fairly well.  If we had had access to Steely Dan, we would probably have played that, too.

On at least four instances, we undertook road trips that lasted four days, because we went from Pennsylvania to Arizona, a distance of some 2500 miles, to visit relatives out there.  Taking the car beat shelling out for two or three air tickets, because of course, once we got there, we had transport for getting around in Cactusland.

All that traveling to Arizona seems to have had an unexpected side-effect, because today Junior lives in Arizona, a possibility that did not hit me at the time of the road trips, but which seems obvious in retrospect: any kid brought up shoveling piles of snow during the eighties in Pennsylvania can be expected to make a break for it at the first opportunity, and head out to the Southwest.  I thought it would be only reasonable to ask her what she thought of those road trips, and the music we played in the car, and to warn her that whatever she may say could be used as evidence against her on a Blog-post.  But by the time she wakes up (over there) and reads her messages, it will be around noon (over here)--this being a Sunday--and I don’t know whether my inspiration would last that long!  It’s only 9:00 a.m. at the moment, and dementia is working its inexorable way into my circuitry.  What was I saying?

I don’t know the details of what Sister Lindsay said in her article--I will go back and read it carefully, but it was the general premise of it that caught my attention--but in our case, I was easily influenced at least as much by Junior’s choice of music as she was influenced by mine.  She had been under the impression that I was paying attention to the music emanating from her bedroom.  Actually, it was on the road trips that I listened to her music.

I liked most of it.  There was one notable exception: The Dave Matthews Band.  I just did not like that sound, especially the characteristic bass saxophone (did I get that right?  Perhaps it was a baritone sax?) sound.  I know lots of my friends on Facebook like Dave Matthews, and that he is a wonderful human being and musician, but the music . . . count me out.

But there were a number of artistes whom I have come to love, that she introduced to me, sometimes artists that she was being introduced to by her classmates, because of course I didn’t allow her to blow her cash on music.  She had to get bootleg tapes from her class buddies--who had remarkably good taste in music, as it happens.  (Or she may have had remarkably good taste in class buddies!  Oops; maybe I should take that out.)

OK, I’m going to check my messages to see if she has responded; if she hasn’t, I’m just going to forge ahead, and insert her thoughts as an appendix, or intersperse them throughout the blog-post where they can’t do any real damage.

She hasn’t.  I’ll leave this paragraph open to report what my contributions to Junior’s musical tastes might have been.  Until she comes online: it would probably contain a lot of classical music, and then Beatles, Peter Paul and Mary (insert your own punctuation), The Seekers (what?  You’ve never heard of them?) and The Hollies (what? etc.)

Her influence on my musical tastes are likely to have been initially unexpected by her: The Cranberries; Frank Zappa; Green Day; Ani Di Franco; The Bangles.  She quickly learned that I could not stand things like New Kids On the Block, and desisted.  (Maybe she hated them too.)

Comedy collections were big with us; Dr. Demento was a favorite, and so was They Might Be Giants.  (They were.)  I went on to be a bigger fan of Dr. Demento than she ever was; I think she thinks to herself: “If only I had known what I was doing ...”

Luckily for her, I wasn’t by any means listening only to the Dad’s Rock genre that most Dad’s are accused of listening to--at least on long road trips.  We negotiated--at least later on, when Mom had moved to Arizona--on what we would listen to.  Eventually, I think I might have even played P. D. Q. Bach.  At one time, our car had better speakers than our house!

Anyway, a happy Fathers’ Day to everyone!

I think we’re approaching a new era--or perhaps it’s the same old era, but cleaned up a little--where in many homes, the roles of mothers and fathers are approaching a certain symmetry.  In the light of the fact that many parents try so hard, and seem to be succeeding so well, in how they parent their offspring, it is puzzling how unprepared some young folk are to living in the real world.  On the other hand, it is startling to discover, with Dr. Benjamin Spock (What? ...), that there are many more spoiling parents than there are spoiled children.

Arch

Well, Junior responded about an hour ago, and she had written an entire article, which it seems a waste not to quote in its entirety, so here it is.

What can I say? I loved sharing the radio with you, Dad! I'm not sure if this is only in retrospect, but I'm pretty sure I loved it in real-time as well.

I was raised listening to your Dad-music, which seems like perfectly wonderful me-music now: The Beatles, The Hollies (two of my favorite bands to date), Peter Paul and Mary, Kenny Rogers, Harry Belafonte, Billy Joel, Pete Seeger, Simon & Garfunkel, Joan Baez, Carly Simon, The Bee Gees (was that you or Mom?), Carole King, Don Williams, and maybe even Olivia Newton-John? These were a solid foundation for musical growth!

But they were the fundamentals . . . from there I obviously started branching out into my goofy interests and my mainstream interests and my downright, "Where did you pick this music up from?" interests. I had some pretty fascinating friends with a wide catalog of music and being the only kid with a credit card (a story for an entirely different blog post), I was the one that everyone went to to buy Columbia House and BMG albums for them. So I was exposed to music that they really, really wanted for themselves as well.

You were always so enthusiastic to hear what music I had stumbled upon and with enough listens you could find a reason to appreciate even some of the music that was nearly outside your scope of understanding. Of course, this was by design because going on road trips makes you a captive audience if you don't want to have headphones on! Some of the music was innately appreciated: They Might Be Giants and most things from the Dr. Demento compilations, especially Tom Lehrer.

Some of my music was easy for you to appreciate because you developed crushes on the female-led bands, but I think you agree that the musicality of some of them was solid, like The Breeders, The Cranberries, The Pretenders, The Eurythmics, The Bangles, The Go-Go's, etc.

And you grew to tolerate some of the 90's rock that I listened to on repeat, like Soundgarden, Tool, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Sunny Day Real Estate, Jane's Addiction, and The Beastie Boys though you may have tuned them out more.

I think those road trips forced us to really listen to each other's musical preferences and learn from one another. I know that listening to you break down the musical framework of those musician's songs really taught me how to pick and choose what I like from music I even listen to for the first time today. It's what makes me incorporate tidbits of musical morsels into my own music writing. I love road trips with DAD.

BTW, Happy Father's Day!! I love you!

This is me, Arch: some of the names she mentions are ones which do not ring any bells to this day, e.g. Stone Temple Pilots, etc.  Even Nirvana I only know because I heard the songs blasting from dorm windows as I walked through campus where I (tried to) teach.  She has to be nice, because it is Fathers' Day, after all!!!

A happy Fathers' Day to all of you, male or female, and may you enjoy lots of musical road trips when conditions are more conducive!!

Arch