Battle of the Bands
As many of you know, there’s an ongoing battle in my house of who is the better band-U2 or Def Leppard. This situation will never be resolved, but as I was listening to my Jango station, I started thinking about why I like the music I do, and the moments that took bands out of my life for good.
The first band I remember liking was Guns n Roses. I was 14. There was something wonderful about that red-headed badass, and for a while, I thought I could be him. I wore the flannel tied around my waist. I belted out “Welcome to the Jungle”. I longed for high top sneakers that said Axl. I actually remember nicknaming my reform-school “badass” boyfriend Axl, even though he didn’t look anything like him. I remember when he broke up with me, I would listen to “Don’t Cry” and “November Rain” over and over again. I’m surprised that I still like Guns n Roses as much as I do, but some things are just hard to give up.
Other bands haven’t been so hard. I’ve suffered through periods of Heavy Metal & Country Music. I’ve been suckered into Kenny G and Snow. During my junior year, I was on a Jazz kick, when my boyfriend at the time insisted on playing his saxophone on the phone for hours. He was good, but I’m glad he wasn’t an Opera singer. I can no longer listen to Alice in Chains or Skid Row’s “Quicksand Jesus”, thanks to some particularly painful times. I remember at one point, my anthem was Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train”, trying to escape all of this nonsense.
At some point in time during this madness, I acquired Achtung Baby. I don’t remember how, but for some reason I think it has something to do with a box of tapes that I found in the woods next to my house. U2 was mixed in with the Wayne’s World Soundtrack and Arrested Development. Achtung had come out in 1991, and it was 1992, the most miserable year of my life.
I remember falling in love with every song on the album. I remember the cover, the videos. I remember going to get the CD when the tape was eaten by my overworked radio. I remember having that CD for a long time. I remember holding the wedge-sized chip when he broke the CD. Soon after that, I remember disappearing, and all of the tapes & CD’s I had being stolen from me.
After I recovered from the insanity, I spent some time in Germany where I fell in love with German punk bands. Not very popular among the 16-year-old American set at the time. I listened to other things here and there, but didn’t feel passionately about any music. Fast forward to 1997, and the class that changed my life.
The story of how I got into the class is an entirely different entry, but here I was coming out of the 5 worst years of my life…of anyone’s life, and it was like nothing I had ever seen. The professor was crazy, but the good kind of crazy…the kind of crazy that drives you to do and think more than you ever have in your life. The class was Irish Literature, and every day he would play a different piece of Irish music. One day he played “Sunday, Bloody Sunday.” I had never heard of the Troubles or cared about the political importance of music. I really didn’t care about anything at that point except my own bullshit. Something changed in this class though…and I became passionate about reading and writing and everything that had to do with Irishness and Literature. It was good to feel something again.
I blurred in and out over the next few years, but another relationship brought me back to music. I bought my first guitar and learned ( and since forgot) how to play “All I Want Is You”. When things dissolved, all I had was a guitar, two chords a and a renewed passion for a band that would never take a backseat again.
I think if you really are a fan of something, a die-hard fan, there has to be some kind of story. Maybe you were having a shitty day back in 1981 and heard “Don’t Stop Believing”. Or maybe you got high and did the whole Wizard of Oz/Dark Side of the Moon trick. I don’t know. That’s why I get so defensive when people make fun of me for liking U2 as much as I do. If you’re a huge fan of anything, you know exactly when you became a fan and you will suffer through bad seasons, bad games and bad albums because the story means so much more.
Running to Stand Still 