There Comes A Time...

There comes a time in a man's life where you notice that you are, definitively, your father's son. That moment happened for me today.

See, for the longest time, I loathed country music. I hated it the way some people hate bee stings. Admittedly, my dad liked crap country music, like Randy Travis (especially that Pickin Up Bones song or whatever that was). So as a child, I rebelled by listening to 1980s rap music, which for me, included Vanilla Ice, Young MC, and C & C Music Factory (gonna make you sweat til you bleed....damn right Freedom Williams). Oh, and there was two Paula Abdul casettes in my pile of music as well. I aged, moved on to rock music, like Warrant. Then eventually, got my act together, and joined the flannel wearers and dug deep into alternative rock music / punk music. That was my thing for a long time. Oh, and I need to clarify, I don't mean real punk like the New York Dolls or that hardcore H2O shit, but digestible punk, like Green Day, and then onto emo like Alkaline Trio & Hey Mercedes (I still like those two groups though)

I stumbled down a rabbit hole somehow, found myself listening to a Fugazi record and liking it. The next day I'm buying a Yo La Tengo CD and asking the independent music store owner how to get my feet wet with Tom Waits (by the way, he reccommended Swordfishtrombone & Rain Dogs, which are great places to start, but I say sample from the full catalogue, get Closing Time, Swordfishtrombone, and Mule Variations). So now I'm bumping along my path of noise rock, look-at-me-I'm-so-hip music tastes, then of all fucking people, a squarehead from St. Peter with an accent a lip-hair south of the Iron Range, who we call Nostradamustache round these parts, introduces me to Mississippi John Hurt, and I can't get enough. Next thing, he's burning me Charlie Parr CD's, and he's fucking incredible. I'm seeking out Americana music, it's going into my thesis, I'm having a great musically informed time...finally. I've come along so far from the dark days of C&C Music Factory and Technotronic (yes, I pumped up the jam in my day).

So, right before Nostradamustache bolts for easternly pastures to pursue his PhD at Kent State (as I write this, he is probably in Wisconsin with his VW chock full of books and his Guild guitar) I have him burn me a stack of music from his computer. All of it twangy, good heartfelt music that just makes you sad and dance and sip whiskey on porch. So I'm eating this up.

On one of the CD's he made, there is a song by the Old Crow Medicine Show called "Wagon Wheel." It's a wonderful song (check the YouTube video at the end of this post and try not to bob your head along, it's nigh impossible). So I've listened to that, oh, 10 times already. I got it bad for this song, the way teenage girls love (and luv) their boyfriends. And each time I hear it, I want to buy a banjo and move to Austin, Texas just to learn to pick and play this song (and hopefully other songs as well...because if my life motto is anything is that if Steve Martin can do it, so can I [he's a world class banjo player if you didn't know...he won a grammy...seriously]).

So, I play this song in the car for Emily, and it dawns on me that I had heard this song once before on the World Cafe, NPR's fine new music show. So, I say, "Right, I know this song. That reminds me..."

Here comes the moment.

..."I want to get that Dwight Yokam song I heard on the World Cafe. It was pretty damn good."

Holy fuck, Dwight Yokam? Really? Never would have guessed it. Nevermind his ugly last name, his goofy looks, his dramatic turns in Sling Blade and Panic Room. That guy was one of the Grade A shitdealers of country music. Randy Travis was bad, but at least he wasn't a Dwight Yokam type crooner. I might as well snuggle up to some sweet Travis Tritt or Highway 101, or Vince Gill (though I have to admit, his wife, Amy Grant, and her song Baby Baby, is like a vestigial tail on my music taste).

If you sat me down with the 12 year old version of me, and I said, "Dude, in 15 years, you're going to like Dwight Yokam" I'm pretty sure the 12 year old version of me would have...well, shit, I don't know what I would have done honestly, I was a pussy, so it's not like I would have got all mad or freaked out. I might've been able to muster a "Yeah, right." But that would be the extent of it.

And you know, I'm okay with sharing my dad's taste in music. I'm adult enough now, finally, to say that "Yeah, I want a Dwight Yoakam song. Maybe I'll get a Patsy Cline song too." I've taken my ears through some strange times. Electronica? I own three CDs from the Prodigy that doesn't have Firestarter on it. Insane Clown Posse? Guilty: Three discs owned and listened to.

It's nice to get around the horn and back to where's it's all began for me musically speaking. It feels like coming home almost, if that makes any sense. Now, I just have to put the breaks on my cyclical music journey and hang out here in this country fried air noted with banjos, harmonicas, the blues and the twang, because I sure as hell don't want to ride down the C&C Music Factory lane again. No how, no way.

VIVA EL MUSTACHE!

Behold: Old Crow Medicine Show and their video for Wagon Wheel, which as far as videos go is okay...they got girls in bikini tops dancing kind of funny, so that's cool I think. Not too sure...I'm too busy liking the song to give a shit about the video. So maybe close your eyes and listen while this thing rolls on.