Sunday, March 29, 2009

27 reasons why I like music

Trying to explain what you love about a perfect song or gig or melody can be an exercise in futility, but I'm all about the futile, so here are 26 moments in time where music rocked my world.

* Seeing my best mates get up on stage and get their rock 'n' roll on.

* Listening to Pink Floyd on the headphones for first time and freaking out over the stereo chuckle in Shine On. It made me think somebody was coming up behind me.

* Watching music videos late at night after I got home from the pub and spinning out over Bic Runga, Queens of the Stone Age and the Prodigy.

* Hearing Let It Be drift over the rooftops and into the garage where I had passed out, right before I met Captain Marvel.

* The first time I brought the album of a band I knew nothing about, except for the one video I'd seen. It was D-A-D and the album was No Fuel Left For The Pilgrims, and it was fucking awesome.

* Pogoing around my bedroom to U2 when there was nobody in the house.

* Waiting up late on a Friday night while exhausted from a full week of work, just to see what was coming up on Radio with Pictures.

* Reading England's Dreaming and Lipstick Traces in the same month as I saw the No Fun episode of Dancing in the Streets. Now they'll bury me a punk.

* Trying to decide between Def Leppard's Hysteria and Iron Maiden's Seventh Son of A Seventh Son in the Dunedin Deka store in 1988. I chose the Leppard because they gave me a free badge, but the Maiden wasn't far away.

* Dodgy dancing to the Pulp Fiction soundtrack on a rock at the end of my world.

* Pashing a girl I had a crush on for years while Pale Blue Eyes was playing in the background.

* Seeing Lindon Puffin power through Queen's Somebody To Love in a small bar in Picton. He was playing to about a dozen people, but in his head he was playing to thousands.

* Seeing Iggy and the Stooges a couple of years ago, and realising they still had it.

* The moment Shayne Carter's guitar sparked the acid in my head on New Years Eve, 1995. I had to go because it got a bit much, but that last note is still reverberating through my head.

* The blasting call to arms that is John William's main Star wars theme, and the way it would get my seven year old heart racing.

* Hearing Alice Cooper sing Only Women Bleed on my car stereo during a routine drive between Timaru and Christchurch, and fucking losing it over the song.

* Every time I crack open a free CD off the cover of a music magazine, and the hope that lies within.

* The first three times I saw Shihad live.

* Going to a school disco and dancing badly to Billy Idol and MC Hammer

* Walking into a New York bar and hearing the Pogues sing Sally MacLennane.

* Rocking out to Faith No More's Angel Dust when I should have been pouring hot fat into little pottles.

* Bombing around the big city to The Streets during a journalism school field trip.

* The first cassette tape I ever owned, (Sergeant Peppers); the first record I ever owned, (Queen's Greatest Hits); and the first CD I ever owned, (Pulp's Different Class).

* Getting stoned in the morning sun to Portishead, just before the turn of the century.

* Listening to a massive amount of kiwi music on a coach taking us all around Europe (although the Scribe got a bit much...)

* Watching Neil Young float through Cortez The Killer earlier this year at the Big Day Out.

* Hearing the girl I love sing along to God Only Knows, the day before I asked her to marry me.

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