Karma Police

In the 80’s and up to the early 90’s, I really did have my finger on the button when it came to current music, what was new, hot, up and coming… I was bugging radio dj’s (easier to do in a town of 6,000 when they shop at the store where you work) for copies of promo’s, and spend a huge % of my income on albums, cassettes, 45’s, and then CD’s… It was fun.. and my friends were equally as enthusiastic… the calls with “You got to hear this Then…. Reality crept in, with the weight of Student Loans and a Mc-Job income… and I just stopped… I can even remember the last batch of CD’s I bought at the time… Queensryche, Ozzy Ozbourne, Mr. Big, and the Wayne’s World Soundtrack…. From then on instead of 2 or 10 cd’s a week… it was more like 2 or 4 a year… I simply tuned out…

There’s a lot of reasons, some may be practical, but in truth, paying attention to music was, for me at least, a sad slightly pathetic jab in the guts for a guy who turned away from his passion in toward “stability” and other materialistic pursuits. In hindsight, yeah… forget it.. Hindsights a kick in the nutz… But not to blow my own horn, but I did have “moxy” and some decent ideas… so who knows what could have happened…
As a side note (gee, I do get side tracked a lot don’t I?) there was a local singer back home wanted to do a “tape” My dad and I had one of the only 2 functional recording studios on the west coast at the time… (Barry Coleman from the Isleauxmort Boys had the other) So we helped him out… It was all Accordian Instrumentals, and to save time, and keep it simple, I sequenced the drums…. But I FOUGHT to put a twist on it… I thought that everyone and their dog has heard the newfie beat… But what if we modernized it….. Played traditional tunes, but rocked them up with a Rock beat, and flavor, and maybe even “Distortion” guitar…etc… Well, I lost the Distortion lead fight… and for the most part, I lost the drum fight to.. (artist gets what the artist wants… I was just the studio tech) but I did sneak in a funky beat on the end of one tune… the accordion was recorded to a click track.. and I substituted the drum track later… anyway… I thought it was pretty cool at the time, and still holds up… and that if a band could do that, maybe they’d have something… bear in mind, this was a few years BEFORE, Ashley MacIsaac, Natalie McMaster, and Great Big Sea entered the areana… so maybe I could have had a point…. Guess I’ll never know…. But oh well…

Anyway… back to my intital thought… I tuned out.. and really haven’t tuned back in.. I’ve passively spend the last 17 years with my ears and mind essentially closed to new ideas, with the exception of some rediscovery some of my old fav’s and some I was too young or naïve at the time to appreciate.. older Classics like Sugarloaf, Allman Bros, Albert Collins, Roy Orbison and more.. Occassionally something new will catch my attention, like the SupperStack guys… or John Mayher, but for the most part.. I’ve really been oblivious to the new Music revolution… Bands like Soundgarden, Radiohead, Matchbox 20 and Pearl Jam, I’ve truthfully only come to learn about and appreciate recently… So theres 17 years of tunes I’m now trying to catch up on, so I can get back in the groove of tuning in to whats new… and as much as its actually slightly embarrassing to not have been a part of the Eddy Vedder or Rob Thomas following, just as an example, over the last few years.. it is cool to re-discover them now.. and delve deeper into their catalogue, undistracted and undirected by pop-culture, advertising, and hype….

Am I getting too old to catch a new wave? Maybe.. Change doesn’t come as easy any more… I’m still lagging in my acceptance of Rap and Hip Hop.. I mean I like some of the classics… Run DMC, Sir Mixalot, etc.. but much of the genre is lost on me.. But I’m coming around… I previously crediting the movie “Hustle and Flow” to opening my eyes and mind to the Hip Hop scene, and previously, my membership in an R&B band called the SoundDawgs, where we covered some Beyonce , Usher, and Musique SoulChild helped too…. But I still Love my Pink Floyd, Eagles, Van Halen (not to be confused with Van Hagar) and the classic rockabilly tunes I cut my teeth on when I first started jamming…..

Hey… Maybe theres room for a Hip/Hop newfie rap??? Hmm maybe… but someone else will have to tackle that idea… I’ll stick to the familier for now……

In the meantime, It is a lot of fun catching up… take Radiohead for example… I’ve heard Karma Police a dozen times on the radio and thought… “what a great tune, what a great “hook” (“this is what you get, when you mess with us”) and just recently put 2 and 2 together and realize who the band was…. Sometimes this stuff, for me at least, is like being a kid in a candy store….. Funny how that works!

Incidently, “Funny How that works” was a potential Band Name that a former band mate, Mark Radford, came up with years ago…. I think its kind of catchy.. if not for a band… maybe a song or and album???