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Health & Fitness

Listen to the Music

Sometimes the music reminds us of a magical memory, a loved one, or sometimes the music just helps us keep on keeping on ...

(Dedicated to the Deadbeats….for still keeping the Music Flag flying)

How many times does a song come on the radio and you’re instantly reminded of a particular memory? You hear a particular song that perhaps you haven’t heard in many years and suddenly your brain flashes back to a particular place, an exact time in your life and eventually who you were with when the music was playing.

Judging by some of the recent YouTube video clips posted by friends on Facebook, I don’t think I’m in the minority here!

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Well, that’s exactly what happened when I tuned in to WMMR’s annual promotional Back to School A-Z radio format last week. For those of us in the minority, who still listen to this medium called “radio” this time each year, MMR reminds us that they once played solo Phil Collins songs, one-hit wonders like "The Warrior" and long-formatted songs from 70s progressive rock bands such as Yes and Genesis. 

I heard Listen like "Thieves," "Listen to Her Heart" and "Listen to the Music" played in consecutive order. The INXS song was on one of the many cassette tapes that lived in my car during the four years spent living in North Jersey in the 80s, commuting back and forth to South Jersey for weekend family events. The Tom Petty song was off his second album. His third album, Damn the Torpedoes, which came out the year I graduated Cherokee High School, would ultimately make him world-famous. Finally, the Doobie Brothers song was from the band I saw with my high school buds at my very first concert one year later. Marie Mazzochette joined me that night. I seem to recall that we almost ran out of gas in her Chevy Vega in North Philly after that awesome performance at the Mann. We were young and in love ...

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Speaking of the Cherokee “5,” we would all gather one year later at JFK Stadium in Sept. 1981 to see the Rolling Stones kick off their North American Tour in support of their then new album Tattoo You. Whew, that was 30 years ago! I remember we brought hoagies and Alabama Slammers (yes, it was legal) inside the venue.

George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers (I was attending the University of Delaware at the time) opened. Journey (huge rock stars then) came on next. They had some technical problems and only played a short set. Later in the afternoon, the Stones took the stage! It would be the only time I would see The Glimmer Twins live. I was one of more than 100,000 in attendance that day. They opened with "Under My Thumb." We roared in appreciation. I was 19 years old.

Do you remember when you would turn on the radio hoping to hear a particular song being played just for you? Hoping to hear a song to pump you up or mellow you out, as you headed into the unknown night with your best friends by your side? Or maybe you were tuning in to hear the MMR “world premier” of the new Police album—before you could buy it at your favorite record store.

This was long ago, before focus groups existed that told you which songs were liked by the masses, songs you should also like and eventually purchase. Before radio song “playlists” were programmed by computers. Before songs were used to promote and sell products for Madison Avenue, by people who had no idea who the band was, what songs were in the band’s back catalog and what the individual members of the band even looked like!

"Love Train" by the O’Jays was a personal favorite of mine, listening in on my tiny AM radio. The soul song was one of the cornerstones of the “Philly Sound” crafted by legendary local record producers Huff and Gamble. To me, it never had anything to do with a billion dollar brewery empire located in Colorado. "Just What I Needed" followed "My Best Friend’s Girl" (natural double-shot) off the Cars' first album. It was a staple in my tape deck as me and my high school buds cruised around South Jersey in our first beater cars, the ink barely dry on our driver’s licenses.

It will never be about some Big Box Store selling me electronic toys and gadgets.  This song was about my youth, dammit!

Sciaky and Tearson, Debbi and Helen spun these songs and others. This music was new back then. Our local DJs would play these songs and talk passionately about the music and the bands they were discovering. They were our friends, although we never met them. 

Actually, many years later I did have the distinct privilege of meeting and interviewing Debbi Calton for my Rock Online website, circa 2002. And I might add, she was just as cool as I thought she would be! My Almost Famous moment, for sure.

Years later, whenever I hear a song from Pink Floyd’s The Wall, I am immediately transported back to my senior year of high school, nervous and anxious about going away to college in the fall of 1979. Hearing any song from Springsteen’s Born in the USA album will always take me back to my brief time “living in the swamps of (North) Jersey” in Budd Lake after I graduated college in 1984. I will never understand why I’m wired in this manner. Maybe I’m not supposed to know “why” these moments happen to me and just enjoy the musical flashbacks from my cerebral jukebox when they occur. I’m cool with that!

Occasionally, a song will be playing on the radio in the middle of my workday and I find myself (without even realizing it) instantly texting Marie or Lauren as the first musical notes register in my brain. It’s like some subtle nudge from the musical universe, forcing me to stop what I'm doing at that exact moment and let my wife and daughter know that I’m thinking of them, that I remember a particular shared experience between us when the music was playing. 

Our generation moved from 45s (singles) to LPs (albums). Then there were 8-tracks, which turned into cassette tapes (my favorite) as we became a more mobile population rockin’ out late at night with our best friends cruising around in our automobiles. Soon CDs and computer song libraries followed. Apple, Inc. created this thing called an iPod and suddenly my collection of over 250 albums and cassette tapes fit on this device roughly the size of a credit card. Internet radio stations like Sirius/XM popped on the airwaves and suddenly we started to “download” our favorite songs instead of buying albums at our favorite record stores in the mall. Video (had definitely) killed the Radio Star! We tuned in, turned on and moved forward!

From the sidelines, I watched my daughter progress from Britney Spears to Backstreet Boys to Hillary Duff to Jimmy Buffett to Tom Petty to Lil Wayne (parental cringe here) to The Starting Line to ...  

In the interim, my teenage kid made me mixtapes (actually CDs) that included songs from her fave bands with monikers such as Snow Patrol, Switchfoot, The Fray, Jack Johnson, Good Charlotte and Rise Against. However, she still found time to occasionally raid my CD cabinet searching for my Tom Petty, Queen, Beatles and Springsteen discs. Together we went to Nickelback, John Mayer and Dashboard Confessional shows. Over the last couple years, I took her to see some of my musical heroes: McCartney, Petty, U2, Springsteen and the Beach Boys, among others. Shows and times shared with Lauren that I will never forget! 

After hundreds of concerts and thousands of hours listening to rock and roll on the FM dial, where we go musically from here, I have no idea! So long as I continue to, as my friend Monica says, quoting Grace, ”Feed My Head.”

So, excuse me for one second as I turn up this song. Man, I love this tune!

Oh, oh, listen to the music ... Oh, oh, listen to the music ... All the time ...

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