A Hand on a Throat

My daughter’s drum teacher is a wonderful young guy.  Way too nice and thoughtful to be the badass drummer for one of Beijing’s hardest hardcore bands.  He comes all the way out to our silly neighborhood to teach her.  She’s in the other room now on an old trap set of ours that was old and compromised ten years ago.  But it doesn’t matter.  If she practices I’ll get her a better set. 

He’s got her on with some song I don’t recognize.  It’s a thunderous anthemic song.  She’s crashing along with it convincingly.  When it’s time for him to leave I ask him what the tune was they were playing along with.  It’s a Bon Jovi song.  In another decade, in another geographic location that would have meant a number of very specific things that would have immediately prejudiced me against this person.  Three decades from when it was written, thirteen thousand miles from New Jersey, who cares?

Before he leaves I invite him into my office.  “Let me play you something.”  He’s in a famous punk band.  They play music that is very familiar.  But from my era I’m not sure if much beyond Black Flag and the Dead Kennedy’s connect the class of ’77 with Nirvana.  What’s the best thing reach for to completely blow him away?  Lyrics will be lost on him.  It needs to be pure ferocious musicianship.  How to chose one song from that thousand-song constellation of that period?  In an era with a lot of A-for-effort drummers, only a few were great.  Earl Hudson was.

 

 

“No.  I’ve never heard of the ‘Bad Brains’.” OK.  That settles it.  I queued up ‘FVK’ from the original Bad Brains Roir cassette and let it sail at high volumed.  It’s sounded as demanding and immediate as always like a hand on a throat.  He took a picture of the album photo, which I figured was pretty high praise.  I will have to be careful not to make this ritual obligatory for him.  I have another 90 songs or so I must play him.

Monday, 4/17/17