Rock-tober 02, 2016

Back in college, I struck up a conversation with a random guy while I was waiting for Andrea on campus. When he found out I was Filipino, he mentioned he'd spent time in the Philippines while he was in the military. He abruptly held up his hand to pause the conversation. "So, being Filipino, you probably have a Hispanic last name."

 "Nope. I doubt you'll find a lot of Capuyans south of the border."

"Huh. Well, you're Catholic, right?"

"Nope. Raised Protestant."

"Well...do you at least come from a very large family?"

"Nope. Only child."

"Man, you're an ethnic impossibility."

I've observed that another hallmark of Filipinos is their innate ability to sing. A karaoke machine is a staple in just about every Filipino home, but not at Casa Capuyan. While most of my relatives sound great in front of a mic, I'd have trouble carrying a tune in a bucket. Apparently when talent was being handed out, they were standing in the "golden voice" line while I was picking up extra portions of "can fold fitted sheets" and "be particularly annoyed by pictures hung crookedly".

One native son of "The Pearl of the Orient" who acquits himself admirably in the vocal department is Arnel Pineda. After Steve Perry separated from Journey, the band went in search of a new frontman, eventually getting a bead on this guy from Manila. Admittedly, it's not the first place you'd think of finding new pipes for Journey's repertoire, but fans embraced the newcomer with sold out show after show. The first album in the Journey - Pineda collaboration, Revelation, was released in June 2008. It went platinum in less than a year and a half.

Meanwhile, Pineda brings a new energy to the classics. Check him out rocking a hometown crowd.

But I wonder if he can fold fitted sheets...

Rock-tober 01, 2016

Music lost some giants in 2016.

The swath cut through the icons of my youth was horrible, and as a fan, the loss was hard. I can't imagine what it's like from the other side of the microphone. Being in a rock and roll band isn't a regular 9 to 5 office gig. You're in close proximity and close quarters 24/7. You eat, sleep, work, and play together. Your fellow band mates become your greatest antagonists and your staunchest defenders. They become your family. So how do you continue to move forward when you lose your source of momentum? Countless bands implode after losing a key member, particularly their lead singer. This was the challenge faced by AC/DC back in 1980.

In February of that year, after a night of heavy drinking while working on the genesis of a new album, Bon Scott climbed into the back of a friend's vehicle to sleep off the bender. He never regained consciousness. True to his hard charging mystique, his demise was recorded as "death by misadventure" and attributed to acute alcohol poisoning.

In the midst of this tragedy, the group seriously considered disbanding. However, Scott's parents convinced the surviving members that their son would have absolutely wanted them to continue. Invigorated by this mandate, the remaining members sought out someone who could vocalize Scott's vision. In Brian Johnson, they found an immediate chemistry with his personality and his love of the music. And, of course, that voice - that distinctive voice that could stand toe to toe with Angus's screaming riffs. Re-energized and reconstituted, the band was now on a mission to pay tribute to their former lead singer. The result was Back in Black. Everything from the title, to the black cover, to the lyrics of the title track was a tribute to Scott. Record execs balked at the presentation, perhaps thinking it too morbid, but the band would not be swayed.

Released less than 6 months after Scott's death, Back in Black became the band's magnum opus, going to #4 on the American Billboard 200 and eventually certified 22x platinum. It's currently the 2nd best selling album in the world.

AC/DC took a tragic death and forged from it one of the the seminal works in the annals of rock and roll. This is a magnificent achievement. It also delivers a forceful and resounding F.U. to the Grim Reaper.

Welcome to Rock-tober, y'all.

Rock on.

Rock-tober 31, 2015

Many, many times during this month Andrea peeked in on me while I was trying to crank out an entry and asked, "How's it going?" Often my response was a shake of the head. I read somewhere that Charles Schulz would sometimes stare forlornly at the four blank panels of his daily Peanuts comic strip for hours waiting for creativity to strike. I think I've glimpsed that struggle.

However, it's October 31st. Another 31 days and 31 songs are in the books and another Rock-tober draws to a close. Looking back at the month's playlist, I'm serenely satisfied.

Anne, a friend of Andrea's, said her fourth graders caught her listening to the opening riffs of AC/DC from the first day of Rock-tober. Those kids may not have known who AC/DC was, but she immediately earned tons of street cred in their eyes. I hope stories like Anne's aren't isolated and that I've sparked a memory, brought a smile to your face, or at least entertained you with tunes from my music collection.

For the third year, closing honors are bestowed on Lynryd Skynyrd. The final selection this year sums up the wistfulness and nostalgic yearning that I've found is a predictable side effect of Rock-tober - for simpler times, old friends, or old stomping grounds.

Despite being born and raised in Alabama, Andrea's one condition of marriage was that we not live in Alabama. Over the years I've tossed out southern cities for possible relocations. Atlanta and Savannah made the cut, but much to my chagrin, Long Beach did not. I'll keep working on it, but at least for the foreseeable future, home is the Old Line State of Maryland.

Thanks for your time, folks, and I'll see you on the flip side.

Rock-tober 30, 2015

I used to be a member of a sail club back in the 90's. The club guru was this grizzled mountain of a man who dispensed some of the most profound Zen wisdom I'd ever heard. He once told us about the time he was accosted at the dock by a power boater.

"You sailboat guys just don't get it. I can cast off from the dock, gun it, and get to the Solomons and back before you even enter the channel." The sailing guru just shook his head. "No, son. You don't get it. Once we leave the dock, we're already there."

Indoctrination into the sail club required several days of lecture on rules of the road, water safety, and the mechanics of sailing. It also required several weekends of qualifying sails on the water. On one of these outings, the skies were overcast and the water was a little squirrely, but we decided to go for it. After an hour or so of basic maneuvering and handling drills, the wind picked up. A lot.

I had the helm when we were hit with a howling gust. Several things happened in very short order. All lines went taut, the sail popped explosively as it filled with wind, our speed dramatically increased, and the entire boat started to heel, or lean over. Our instructor yelled for me to keep a hold of the main sheet and hold our course steady. He then grabbed my sail partner and dove for the upwind side of the boat. We were on a very hard lean and just a whisker away from capsizing. Our instructor throwing his and my partner's weight to the windward rail gave us just enough ballast to stay upright. We sailed through that and several more squalls before making it safely back to the dock.

Later, at a debrief, the sail guru said, "You know, if that happens again, you can let go of the main sheet and the boat will stabilize itself."
"Yes, sir."
"But if you do that, you won't be taking the boat and yourself to the edge of your 'design limits'."
"No, sir."
"Finding yourself on the edge like that will tell you two things. It'll tell you where the edge is, and probably more importantly, it will tell you if you like being there."

I'm pondering the second half of his statement like Caine in Kung Fu. The sudden acceleration, the deck shifting beneath me, the howl of the wind, and the blasting sea spray all combined to make a very pucker worthy moment.

He saw what I was debating mentally and he said, "It's easy to figure out. Were you smiling?"

"Yes, sir."

Rock-tober 29, 2015

Sometime in the very early 70's, Dad bought a car off a Naval officer who was being transferred overseas. The car was a yellow, 1970 model year Mustang coupe with a 302 small block. I couldn't have been more than a year or two old, and I definitely didn't realize how closely that car would be intertwined in my life.

For the longest time it was our only vehicle, and it served faithfully whether it was getting groceries at the base commissary or hauling household goods to a new duty station across the country. It wasn't all work, though. I have all the family albums, and as I look through the photos of vacations, picnics, or just going fishing with Dad, you'd see the Mustang in the background.

Before Dad taught me how to drive in that car, he taught me how to work on it. I spent countless hours under the hood with him holding a flashlight and handing him the tools he asked for. Under his tutelage, and with a well worn Chilton's manual as a reference, I learned how to change everything from the fluids to the spark plugs, replace the brakes, set the timing, and pack the bearings. Looking back, these weren't just car repairs. They were a series of life lessons in self confidence, independence, and self reliance. Dad was the teacher, and the Mustang was the classroom.

Years later, college was behind me, I was married, and I was working at an actual job. Things were golden when I got a call from Mom. Andrea was actually the one who answered, and when she passed me the phone, she had tears in her eyes. I knew instinctively we'd lost Dad.

At his funeral, I delivered his eulogy. It basically consisted of me telling stories about Mom, Dad, me, and the Mustang. Kim Reinike, our long time neighbor was there. I explained how much Dad loved that car, and I told those present that I would be driving the Mustang as the procession's lead vehicle instead of riding in the back of some rented Cadillac. Kim smiled and nodded approvingly.

Currently the Mustang is sitting in our driveway, and she needs some work. Actually, she needs a lot of work, and I'll eventually get to it. But it will be a very odd feeling working on her alone. Meanwhile, word traveled through the "car guy grapevine" about this worn down '70 Mustang sitting idle in this guy's driveway. As a result, I've had more offers than I care to count to sell her.

Honestly, my first inclination is anger, and I want to tell them to go fuck themselves. But I stop and tell myself to breathe. They. Don't. Know. They don't know this car's history. They don't know the miles of asphalt and life that we've seen in that rearview mirror, that its past is my past, and that it's one of my few physical, tenuous links to Dad. So I smile, shake my head, and say, "Sorry, friend, she's not for sale."

Rock-tober 28, 2015

I don't remember much of what happened in 1974. After all, I was all of 4 years old. I know we were living in base housing in Annapolis, MD. I know Dad was in school after he left the fleet and transferred to the SeaBees, and I know Mom was working as a nurse at the local hospital. I know my world revolved around playing outside, going fishing with Dad, and watching Speed Racer and Ultraman on TV.

That was the extent of my world. I was clueless about pretty much everything else. I didn't know we were still mired in the horrors of Vietnam, that an American Presidency hung in the balance as the Watergate storm rolled in, or that the ongoing oil embargo was sounding the death knell for the age of big block engines (at least for a while).

Neither did I know about some English band across the Pond dropping their debut, self titled album, Bad Company. Like everything else outside my world of fishing, play, and TV, appreciation for these events would have to wait until I was much older.

I don't remember when I heard my first Bad Company song or when I bought my first Bad Company album or tape. I do know they're now a regular staple on any Classic Rock playlist I build. I also know that their self-titled single, "Bad Company", off that first album is my favorite of theirs.

Rock-tober 27, 2015

I took a music appreciation class back at South Alabama during the winter of '88. As I understood the class from the catalog, you listened to classical music, attended concerts, and wrote about them. Pfft. This should have been an easy "A".

It got a little more complicated. At least our instructor turned out to be pretty hip. "I'm Dr. Wermouth, pronounced the same as the spirit." The good doctor regaled us with stories of music department get togethers. He explained that if you looked at an album, you'd see changes in the density of the grooves and that these changes were dependant on the passage of music. Louder, softer, faster, or slower passages affected groove density. A favorite parlor game was to cover up the record label and, based on the number of tracks and the lay of the grooves, his colleagues would have to name the composer, the piece, and the movement. Holy crap.

For our final he stood at the front of the class with several turntables loaded with records. He'd start each player in turn and drop the needle at random points. Naming the composer, piece, and movement was then on us. Still not nearly as bad as those departmental shindigs.

The classroom lectures also got pretty animated. Bo Derek's Bolero was released a few years before, and this prompted the discussion of Maurice Ravel's 1928 composition, "Bolero", and how it had been used in Derek's previous film, 10, as a backdrop to a lovemaking scene. Before you get any ideas, be advised that depending on the particular arrangement, Ravel's "Bolero" can easily approach 20 minutes.

As an alternative, I offer Foghat's 1975 release, "Slow Ride". The album version is just over 8 minutes. There's also the released single version that doesn't exceed 4 minutes. Just sayin'.