The "Influential Records" Game Addenda, Part 1

A “game” has been making the rounds of Facebook for at least a year now, maybe two: post ten separate albums that made an impact on you and nominate a different person to play each day that you post. I know a ton of musicians and music obsessed people, and I call many of them my friends. I have to admit that it has stung a little every time I watched a friend post ten consecutive days and not nominate me. I mean, yes I am something of a misanthrope, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t like individuals. In fact, I love you, dear reader (probably).

All that hurt is vanquished now! My good friend and kickass punk rock bass player Lucky Santiago has invited me at last to participate!

Since it is going to be hard for me to narrow down the major influences in a life spent creating and changing, I figured I would alleviate my usual tendency to overthink and put up some records here that, while not making the cut, definitely left an impression of some sort or another.

I’ll start with the Monkees. Being the oldest kid of a Baptist preacher, I had no older siblings to steer me toward good music (or any music, for that matter). So it was inevitable that I would learn about Pop Culture from the TV. And there were The Monkees. I ws eleven, and a fan immediately, and by the time I had scraped together enough allowance to buy a record by them, More Of The Monkees came out, so it was my first LP. I only remember the three hits from the record: “Mary Mary”, “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone”, and “I’m A Believer”. But The Monkees changed everything - I went from playing “army” with my friends to playing “musician”! Then came the Beatles cartoon, and I saw my future opening before me! And strangely, right from the start, I was more “album oriented” than singles collector. I never really owned any singles, even during the punk period.

I had a friend around that time who had an older brother, and one afternoon we snuck into the brother’s room and put on some of the records in his collection. I remember looking at a white record sleeve with a yellow banana on it that had been peeled to reveal a pink banana inside, but we were too freaked out by that to even put it on. But we did put on a record that folded out to reveal a large band photo inside: a black man with wild hair flanked on either side by white guys with equally freaky hair. Are You Experienced by Jimi Hendrix Experience might actually make it into the top ten, if for no other reason than the fact that listening to “Purple Haze” that day completely blew my mind and changed forever how I heard music. The Monkees wouldn’t do after that.

The Beatles certainly had an impact on me, but I don’t think I could squeeze them into a top ten since I never really aspired to produce their style of music myself; they always felt somehow removed from my reality, sequestered in their fabulous wealth and indulgent studio world. I first heard of The Beatles the same way I had heard of The Monkees: TV. I watched their cartoon series, and remember the stir that John Lennon’s “we’re more popular than Jesus Christ” caused. The first record of theirs that I had was a cassette tape of Sgt Pepper’s that I bought second hand from the older brother of a friend. My family had just moved back to Ft Worth after living in a suburb of Atlanta for four years, and I was in 7th grade. But the record of theirs that comes closest to getting into the top ten list is Abbey Road. I remember expecting to get it for Christmas one year, and then my little sister going out and buying the single “Something”/”Come Together”! I don’t know why, but that pissed me off, probably because she had a way of rubbing it in my face. But once I had the record, I studied it. I used to live for that moment when “I Want You/She’s So Heavy” suddenly stopped at the end of side one, and I’ve covered “Come Together” in my bands and learned from it’s inventive wordplay.

I got my first record player through the Capitol Records Club, and started experimenting with records. USA Union by John Mayall didn’t really do anything for me since it was recorded without drums, and Steve Miller Band Number Five was sorta hit-and-miss, although it did have “Good Morning”, “Going To Mexico”, “Jackson-Kent Blues”, and “Industrial Military Complex Hex”, all of which I still listen to. But the two bands I really got into through the club were Grand Funk Railroad and The James Gang.

I loved Grand Funk Live and Closer To Home. The latter LP got me into my first counterculture trouble with my dad. The cover featured a high contrast black-and-white photo montage of their three faces totem pole style, but their eyes were in color, which made them look bloodshot. That, plus the hokey “revolutionary” jargon in the liner notes on the back cover from their manager Terry Knight, and my dad called me in to talk while he held the record, pointing to it, and asked “are you doing drugs?”

I got over my Grand Funk thing as they started to become a pop song machine. Actually, it was a little before that; on the LP Survival, the only good songs were the two covers of contemporary songs.

The James Gang, however, ruled. There was something to be said for hard rock that a kid could aspire to play, and at the same time look up to. Rides Again is still a favorite. I hadn’t had a copy in years but right after I moved back to Austin in 2004 and bought a half-stack tube amp, I got a copy and discovered that I could still play it like I had been practicing daily on it for weeks! Yeah, that probably means it is fairly simple, but the songs are great, and the tone on the electric tunes is HEAVY. The slide solo during “The Bomber” medley is the sound of pot smoking! And when I bought that CD all those years later, I realized that the echo on the song “Asshtonpark” had greatly influenced my guitar playing in Miracle Room without even knowing it!

The James Gang was my first rock concert. I was psyched; Live In Concert had just been released and I had my hopes up. The opening band was a trio of long hairs called Bang; I didn’t know any of their songs, but I liked the persistence of their sludginess. Imagine my dismay, however, when The James Gang came out on stage and weren’t the band I was expecting. First, there were four of them, and I knew TJG as a trio. I thought that maybe they had just added a vocalist to allow Joe Walsh to play more guitar, but no, that wasn’t Joe Walsh playing at all. And they weren’t doing ANY songs that I recognized. It turned out that Joe Walsh had left the band, but this was before Tommy Bolin had joined too, so it was not memorable. Except for the fact that I had been to my first rock concert, where the seating at Will Rogers’ Auditorium was “festival style” (meaning no seats), and I had smelled marijuana for the first time and passed my first joint, though not toking (yet).