WSPC SESSION NOTES FOR AUGUST 2015: SUMMERS OF YESTERDAY

FROM THE DJ's STUDIO DESK:

We all know how the season of the year can affect a person's mood but do the seasons ever affect the music that you listen to?

Maybe it just has to do with living life and now having built up an arsenal of music that is tied to memories, but for me, the seasons do tend to affect the music I choose to listen to. Right now, and being so surprised with August's seemingly rapid arrival, which of course signals the impending conclusion to the summer season, the start of the new school year and the onset of autumn (my favorite season), I find myself in a more reflective state of mind.

Last year, in the July 2014 section of this blogsite, I wrote extensively about some of the music I found myself draw to during some of the summer months of my adolescence. At this time, I would like to share a few more summertime music memories. I'm reaching back even further, dear readers and listeners, and it feels s wonderful to me to still be able to access these times so easily and at will Like the mighty Questlove has expressed, and I keep repeating upon this site, "When you live your life through records, the record are a record of your life."  

It's amazing how music can essentially be used as a form of time travel as certain songs, albums and artists have the uncanny ability to instantly take me back to a specific period of my life, mentally and even emotionally. At this time, I just wanted to share with you a few memories from summers past and all involving the music of Paul McCartney.

There are many albums by Paul McCartney (with and without Wings), for instance, that I first heard during the summer months as a child and also during my Middle School years.

 

"McCartney II" (released May 22, 1980), which my Dad purchased for me, was the first cassette I owned and the one that inaugurated my very first boom box, an object which still works and my Mom has since appropriated for herself. That album, where McCartney performed solo, playing every instrument himself, was a more homemade effort than his sparkling studio releases, giving me a peek into the window of his musical world when he is just kind of making music on a whim. I listened to "McCartney II" so constantly and yet was often confused by the sheer oddity of the songs themselves. For tracks like "Coming Up" and the gorgeously fragile "One Of These Days," there were two synthesizer driven instrumentals, the bluesy "On The Way," two keyboard tone poems in the ballads "Waterfalls" and "Summer's Day Song" (itself a track that begins ominously with the line "Someone's sleeping through a bad dream...") and then, there was "Bogey Music." Huh?

The strangeness did not deter me however, because this was Paul, of course. I would follow him anywhere. "Tug Of War" (released April 26, 1982), also purchased for me by my Dad, inaugurated my very first Walkman and I marveled at the fullness of sound that emerged from those small headphones. I remember one day when, for whatever reason, my Dad got it into his head that we should try playing tennis together. Not an easy feat when wearing Walkman headphones. But anyhow, every time I hear those opening drum beats to "Take It Away," I instantly gather a vision of my Dad, tennis racquet in hand, bouncing a ball and walking towards me. Our tennis excursions didn't' last much longer than that day but this memory is forever.

 

"Red Rose Speedway" (released April 30, 1973), "Band On The Run" (released December 5, 1973), and "Back To The Egg" (released May 24, 1979), were albums I purchased myself and all of which during the summer months.

"Red Rose Speedway" was maybe the first album that I bought without my parents being present with me, therefore making it my first real journey into the world and culture of record stores, and also, just how one was to actually ask for help in order to find music. In those days, the cassettes were all behind the cashier counter so you had to ask the clerk to search for the title and artist. So, I remember asking the clerk for "Red Rose Speedway," which of course he could not find because I never had the good sense to tell him who the artist was. Eventually it clicked in my mind that I hadn't said "Paul McCartney and Wings" first so when I did, the frustrated glare I received in return was truly a lesson learned and a mistake I never made again.

That album plus "Band On The Run" were albums I found myself listening to on that very same boom box during languid, seemingly endless summer days at my Grandparents' home, listening and dreaming away, hearing how McCartney away from The Beatles was familiar and yet, extremely different. The songs from McCartney's excursions with Wings and/or solo selections didn't always connect as instantly as the music of The Beatles and I was often left scratching my head as to whatever he happened to be going on about. These albums showed me how Paul McCartney clearly was not The Beatles all by himself.

"Back To The Egg," the final Wings release, was another very strange album but for some reason, I took to it immediately. From the opening funk instrumental of "Reception," which then segues into the high charged rocker "Getting Closer" (a song where McCartney sends romantic pleas to someone he refers to as "my salamander"and informs us to "better beware of snipers" -huh?), an accelerated punk rock ("Spin It On"), a soul slow jam ("Arrow Through Me"), two suites ("After The Ball/Million Miles" and "Winter Rose"/"Love Awake"), a mournful radio drama ("The Broadcast") a closing soft shoe ballad ("Baby's Request") plus even more, this album was a complete hodge podge that kept me guessing and enraptured from beginning to end.

On that very same boom box that cassette played over and again during the summer months when I was maybe 11 or 12 years old. My Mom, who was determined to ensure that my three month vacation away from school was not a three month vacation away from education itself, made me endure daily Math exercises in workbooks she purchased. She indulged my music habits but she would often instruct me to get straight to those workbooks once my cassette concluded. With the striking, unorthodox nature of "Back To The Egg," I really felt that if I covertly rewound the tape and re-listened to sections, I could possibly fool my Mom and trick her into thinking the album wasn't finished yet, thus prolonging the delay of my Math studies. And of course, my Mom was much savvier than I ever gave her credit for. She COULD NOT be fooled for anything and of course, it was straight to the workbooks with the music swimming through my brain, calling me to return to it as soon as I was finished with my work to my Mom's formidable satisfaction.

Those are just a few memories from the musical summers of my past. What are some of yours? I'd love to hear about the records of your lives? Phone lines are open...

...And with whatever you find the seasons directing your ears towards, remember to always...

...PLAY LOUD!!!!!