Andrew Knox HUM 125 – Hip-Hop Theory and Culture September 30Th, 2010
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Andrew Knox HUM 125 – Hip-Hop Theory and Culture September 30th, 2010 Reflection Paper #1: Music Autobiography Music didn't enter my consciousness until late in eighth grade. I was raised thinking that music was just what my parents listened to: the Grateful Dead, the Beatles, Uncle Bonsai. My parents were complete deadheads, from 1984 until about two years after my sister was born, in 1996. They dragged me from womb to carriage to toddler tether to multiple Dead shows along the I-5 corridor from Mount Vernon to Medford. I hated it. It was loud and screechy. The sun threw down malicious rays from high noon. And it smelled like... “incense” everywhere. So, with most of my early childhood memories associated with music being negative, I wholeheartedly avoided music as long as I could. I only took Clarinet in fifth grade because of peer pressure. But I was missing a lot. Most of my friends and classmates were listening to the bands that were popular when we were in seventh grade back when we were in seventh grade, so I would endure ridicule for being “so behind the curve” when I became obsessed with these same songs in tenth grade. “Weird Al” Yankovic was my gateway drug. In seventh grade, when my friends were hatching and maturing their musical tastes, moving away from the white Seattle kid starter kit of Nirvana and Presidents of the United States of America towards more current chart-toppers, like Eminem, System of a Down, Puddle of Mudd and Blink-182, I was becoming relatively certain that Running With Scissors was the best album ever conceived, recorded, mixed, mastered, pressed, shrink-wrapped and sold to a fat, lonely 12-year old protagonist. While free and illegal file sharing merely removed the financial ceiling for many of America's apprentice teenagers in acquiring their favorite artist's discography, Kazaa set me free. One night, while scouring over the newest Kazaa search list for “Artist:Wierd Al,” I found a song titled “Smells Like Nirvana.” I had no idea what it was, and I certainly had no clue what impact it would have on my life. Twenty minutes later, it finished downloading off dial-up, and I turned up my speakers. From the power chords used in license of parody through the kazoo solo and tuba bridge, until the gargling with marbles, descent-into-madness finale, I was hooked. My mind was blown, and I didn't even understand the jokes. I didn't know who Nirvana were, but I knew I had to hear the original version of that song. And soon, my computer's Music library had two whole songs. Like the weird little kid with undiagnosed ADHD that I was, I would often listen to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and its parody on loop for hours on end while using my computer for everything except tomorrow's homework. When I started High School the following fall, I was a castaway. All of my best friends chose Ballard, Nathan Hale or The Center School, whereas I let my mom trick me into Ingraham's International Baccalaureate program. While at the time I missed my old friends terribly, with six years past since, I thank her for positioning me for the life I now live. Initially, I seemed to be one of the brighter students in the lot when it came to in class discussions. But I was scared, trapped in a strange land, forced into association with strange people whose only factor in common with me was the number of rings on their trunks. Things started to turn worse halfway through second quarter of ninth grade, as major assignments became due, and eventually past due. My parents were disappointed, my teachers tried to forget me except for when they needed an example on why you should do your French verb conjugation homework before you get to class, and I was a sad panda. I turned into the quiet kid, my head and neck rescinded back into my shell. As I didn't connect well with my classmates, I connected more with music. I wore an oversized Dark Side of the Moon sweatshirt with the hood up and hair long enough to conceal the headphones feeding me my soul dose of Nirvana, Sublime, System of a Down, Rage Against the Machine, Green Day and Arctic Monkeys and blocking out the drone of trigonometry. I would've probably remained a zombie in a stereo cable cocoon if my history teacher, Mr. Sciarrone, hadn't told me one day to take off my headphones and participate in the ongoing class discussion about Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution. While my other teachers had kind of dismissed me as just another poor student who would have to be demoted to regular high school next year, Sciarrone apparently thought I had something going for me. He encouraged me to go to the after-school writing program that he advised. After a couple Fridays of him asking why I didn't stop by yesterday, I showed up one Thursday. Writing has since become my heart's vocation, my worst enemy, and my psychiatrist. His class was sixth period, last period. After the final bell rang on the last day of Freshman year, I sat on a rock outside of his classroom while the rest of his students rushed off to their Sophomore friend's Camry to be shuttled away to the after-party. Sciarrone, concerned that I was the last kid on campus, came out to check if I had a ride or if I was homeless. We talked for a while before my step-mom wobbled our ancient Corolla hatchback to a halt in front of us and I had to go, “shut up and drive!” before the kids in the Sophomore's slightly newer car saw me. It wasn't until we were only a couple blocks from home did my step-mom finally wrench the details of me and teach's conversation from my sealed lips. He had offered to give me lunchtime guitar lessons next year. He was in a punk band that was starting to tour the country and produce professional records during school breaks. In the end, neither his, nor the music teacher's, nor the community center's guitar lessons were very helpful for me. My fingertips were too big, my fingers were too poorly coordinated and any chord I played sounded more atonal and percussive than any sound I ever intended to put in the air. While I later found a good fit with bass guitar, atonal and percussive was destined to become my niche. I became a drummer during the summer before Junior year. I don't know what I ever did with myself before I could drum my fingertips on the edge of the desk. Me and rhythm have since become one. Halfway through Sophomore year, I started hanging out with a new group of friends, especially Brian. Brian was a very pale, tall and skinny white boy with powerful delusions of blackness. With the sweatshirts he wore, the behavior he displayed, the nickname “DJ Snowman” and his perennial threat to dread up his shoulder-length hair, he forged a reputation as a sterling wannabe Rastafarian. I knew he was a pothead before I knew him, and found out he was as clean as an occasional bummed cigarette for lunch and some beers with his cousin this one time. With Brian, I explored the uncharted territories of Rap. We carved a swath through the catalogs of Wu-Tang Clan (especially Ol' Dirty Bastard and Inspectah Deck), Cypress Hill, N.W.A., Public Enemy, Nas, Busta Rhymes and Geto Boys. I believe I can still recite the first verse of the Wu's “Triumph” from memory. Emboldened by Sciarrone's continued encouragement for my creative side, as well as Wu- Tang's vulgar and violent lyrical allure, I wrote rhymes when taking breaks from writing my screenplay. I downloaded a bunch of pre-made rap instrumentals and recorded my verses over them with the computer's microphone. Since this was before I started learning drums, I had no concept of how important being on beat was. I had recorded around ten or twelve songs with no correlation between the lyrics and the beat before a musical ear more sophisticated than Brian or my parents laughed me all the way out to the parking lot. Brian's friend who was a girl, Dannie, categorically stripped my production's inadequacies bare. Even though it was a terribly disappointing defeat, I didn't give up on Hip Hop. I stopped making it, but I kept listening to it. In Senior year, my girlfriend gave me Blue Scholars and I gave her Jurassic 5. Clare gave me Aesop Rock and Matt gave me Sage Francis, I gave them Digable Planets and Del tha Funkee Homosapien. As I progressed in drums and took up bass, I decided to give making music another chance. I took the Computer Music Production class at Seattle Central with Brian Kirk and learned the ins-and-outs of my current master tool, a virtual synthesizer/sequencer/sampler studio program called Reason. Although my newer pieces are about as well timed as my earlier works, at least I feel like I know what I'm doing. My current favorite musicians are Aesop Rock (abstract metaphorical storytelling rapper) and Clutch (blues-throwback hard rock with conspiracy theorist lyrics). I just realized something I didn't quite grasp when I started writing this paper..