Welcome to My Imaginarium

Below is an article I was asked to write for a music publication.  The main idea was to document my favorite and most influential albums during my brief 27 year stay here.  

 Feel free to comment back on your favorites! - BB

Throughout my life there have been a handful musical relationships that truly shattered my expectations and understanding of music - while altogether altering my tastes and preferences for good.  These relationships were permanent game-changers so to speak, not like that girl you fell madly, passionately and profoundly in love with for a single weekend in Paulo Alto! We’re talking down-on-bended-knee, refined-piece-of-coal in hand, marriage material type of girls.
Hot and steamy musical first dates are of course very exciting, but quite often only for a very brief period of time.  Any chance for a lasting partnership is likely to be left in the fogged up back seat of your parent’s mini-van, along with all that temporary pleasure, all those easily divulged secrets and a fleeting sense of dignity.  While reflecting back on transactions of this nature, an adverse reaction is usually first to arise.  Introduce burning battery acid to the top of my throat.

I suppose what I’m getting at is, when all there is to gain, to feel, to experience is easily offered up on the surface level of a thing, my attention is hard to keep.  When very little work is required to discover the substance of an interaction and all of our expectations our met and delivered to us on a silver spoon; we as humans have a natural propensity to disengage from said “thing”. No sooner have we completed sucking any significance from our subject, than we are on the hunt for our next victim.  Records like this market themselves as soul mates and end up regrettable one night stands.

On the contrary, there have been a few albums that have left a lasting impact on my life and my overall view of music.  Since engaging with said albums, all new music I experience now shoulders the weight of being scrutinized against the standards and groundwork these albums have set in place.  As opposed to their counterparts, records like this conjure up favorable memories and act as the cornerstones to my musical likes and dislikes.

“Life in General” by MxPx is my first recollection of being head over heals for a record.  For the majority of middle school, most of my skater friends were listening to The Offspring and Green Day, serenading their bedroom mirrors in fake English accents.  Meanwhile, I contemplated what Candy Rain would look and taste like, amidst performing mediocre renditions of radio hits from Boyz II Men and Soul 4 Real.  I remember daydreaming of auditioning for these groups and eventually becoming their newest member - as if there were any tonal gaps that needed filling.  My friends, finally disturbed enough, banded together and bought me Green Day’s “Dookie”, “White Trash, Two Heebs and a Bean” by NOFX, and the aforementioned “Life in General” for my 12th birthday.  “Chick Magnet”, the album’s most well known track, soon became my middle school anthem and provoked the purchase my first bass and bass amp.  

Turning points rarely announce themselves in the moment but in hindsight this certainly was one.  I spiraled into an unquenchable desire for this “new” style of music.  Pennywise, Murphy’s Law, Minor Threat, Operation Ivy, The Circle Jerks, The Suicide Machines, Lagwagon, Slick Shoes, Sick of it All, Civ, and Face to Face were just a few of the albums that soon replaced my catalog of R&B cassettes.  All the while, MxPx’s “Life in General” never lost that special place in my heart.  I traded in my soulful vocal runs and all the Philly steaks I could eat for a pair of Chuck Taylor’s and dreams of one day moving to Bremerton, WA.

A few years of covering punk rock songs in horrible punk rock bands went by and most of this time I carried a profound certainty that I would never stop loving MxPx the way I did.  Then Saves the Day’s “Through Being Cool” happened to me.  I say “happened” because falling in love with this album was never the intention.  To be honest, I acquired“Through Being Cool” via five finger discount and I snagged it only because I couldn’t believe how young the band members on the front cover appeared to be.  I just had to hear this record!  However, having never heard of Saves the Day, I wasn’t about to pay for it.  Oh how I miss the misdirected virility of youth.

At first I hated Saves the Day.  I didn’t get it and I was jealous that this whiny version of Lifetime got to be in record stores, while I was still trying to figure out Rancid bass lines in my parent’s garage.  But slowly and unintentionally, I found myself wanting to give them “one my try”…and then another and another.  Initially my return to this record was due largely in part to the intrigue of such a young looking/sounding band and then the lyrics got to me and finally the overall compositions started to make their mark.  It took some time to grow accustomed to Chris Conley’s style for writing, which required little to no rhyming and Saves the Day’s use of minor keys was a completely foreign sound and concept to my ear.  That said, each new listen was a claw deeper into me.  Faster than you can say “Holly Hox Forget Me Nots” five times fast, I had found a new end all and be all to music.  MxPx soon stood to the side as an abandoned lover and envious onlooker, as the remaining years of high school would be spent making out behind the bleachers youthfully and madly in love with Saves the Day. 

Little did I know that college would soon come and change all of my thoughts and concepts of music.  Freshman year, Radiohead’s “Kid A” grew my mind and my tolerance for experimentation.  She was the academic upperclassman that let loose on the weekends- teaching me the ropes.  

Then there was Death Cab for Cutie’s “Transatlanticism”.  This record was inexplicably able to capture all of the movements my body made and all of the thoughts that ran through my mind as I listened to it.  She would then attach these recorded actions as permanent memories to a sonic landscape.  ”Transatlanticism” is and was my memory glue.  My thought Velcro.  The soundtrack to my 19th year of life.  She, I will never forget - my memories of her are still so vivid and to this day, every time I hear her voice I am suddenly no longer here, but there. 

I imagine “Transatlanticism” moving out of my cramped, back-bay apartment in late 2004 but just as noteworthy, I imagine myself not stopping her.  We both knew Boston was too small for her but mutually sensed this wasn’t the last time we’d be together.  In a strange way I must have felt as though letting her go meant the memories that clung to her would leave as well.  There was a time of silence and the memories remained.

The rebound relationships that followed “Transatlanticism’s”  departure stood in stark contrast to the incumbent.  She was beautiful, with a straight and narrow history.  The new girls, Cave In’s “Jupiter” and Refused’s “The Shape of Punk to Come” had checkered pasts.  They both shared a similar neurotic quality about them, that for some reason drew me closer.  Not to mention, after such an emotionally intensive relationship and break-up, these “wild flings” turned out to be just what the doctor ordered.

Cave In’s “Jupiter” was a local girl who had recently redefined her image from an angst-ridden crazy broad, to a forward-thinking woman.  “Jupiter” was able and willing to show me things I had never even considered possible before.  She was my cougar.  However, “Jupiter” came with some serious baggage.  A good amount of my friends had previously dated her and a worn-in reputation for being a bit of a psycho was well distributed amongst my inner social circle.  
Thankfully, I snagged “Jupiter” in the prime of her life and her transformation appeared to be genuine (at least until her 2005 mid-life crisis entitled, “Perfect Pitch Black”).  “Jupiter”taught me how things should sound, how songs should be constructed and recorded.  “Jupiter” developed my palette for guitar, bass and drum tones.  She taught me how delay, reverb, bass synth and pitch-shifting pedals could be used and should be used.  To her I owe a lot of my musical sensibilities and am still thankful for the lessons I learned in my time I spent with her.

Around this same time “The Shape of Punk to Come” by Refused was slowing working her way into my life.  She was a foreign exchange student from Sweden, whom most of the other girls that were vying for my attention looked up to.  Everything she did was just so cool.  So innovative.  She was wild but systematic in her chaos.  She was fun but undeniably stood for something true and commendable.  Most importantly, “The Shape of Punk to Come” challenged me and each and every assumption I brought into our relationship.  This girl chewed me up and spat me out, but in doing so made me much more suited to enjoy my next relationship and molded me into the musical partner I am today.

At first I ignored her.  There was nothing particularly eye catching about the way she moved or dressed or sounded.  As a matter of fact, I had heard her name for years but never paid much attention to anything she did or said.  However, unaware as I may have been, somewhere inside me a change was taking place.  All of my previous musical romances were preparing me for this one girl…

Pedro the Lion’s “Control” is without question my musical soul mate.  She was like no other girl I had ever courted, although it took quite some time for me to understand her allure and a fair amount of serendipity to intersect our life’s at the moments they did.  “Control”  was the plain dressed girl that never considered wearing makeup and put no effort into stealing my attention with outward acts of “prettying” herself up.  At times I wondered, “Wouldn’t you love to be on the cover of a magazine?  Healthy skin, perfect teeth.  Designed to hide what lies beneath.”  but she never had to.  There was nothing to hide.  

“Control” floated high and isolated above her predecessors, natural in her confidence and her beauty- thankfully, patient enough to wait for me to come to this realization as well.  As time wore on and I matured, different elements of her composition began to endear themselves to me. She always spoke with an honesty I envied.  She never struggled with addressing the hard to ask questions and topics that I so often scurried away from, saying things like,”I could never divorce you but it’s good to have options.”  or,“Ultra-violet rays are washing over all the boys and girls - As their moms lay tanning by the pool - Oh, look, their dad’s arriving home - And all the children hug his neck unaware of their inheritance - All of the experts say you ought to start them young -That way they’ll naturally love the taste of corporate cum.”   

This album challenged me conceptually, mentally and spiritually, all the while making me work harder than any other to understand the meaning of musical love. 
However, “Control’s” confidence is still the most influential element in my infatuation.  She never tried too hard or bothered herself with auto-tune; the fake nails and fancy hair of our musical generation, slick and fancy production tricks; the makeup used to cover up a song’s natural blemishes, or overdubbing more tracks than she could naturally produce; the musical equivalent of a push-up bra.  Within her musical simplicity, a lyrical and melodic complexity thrives and so does my affinity for this album.  

Now, six years removed from our first date, “Control” has never done me wrong.  She has never wavered from what she stood for and the continued challenge to truly comprehend her essence has allowed me to realize true musical euphoria and joy.  

In conclusion, as a prepubescent middle-schooler, the output of a musical relationship was quantified less on true meaning and more on how it made me feel about how I felt, about other’s feelings about me.  The music I loved at an early age was my image.  It was my attempt at directing an outward perception inward and about feeling confident in the results I was achieving.  To skinny it down, I listened to music that made me feel better about myself.  To this day, this is still the case, just with a different set of means to arrive at the same end result.  This is the end goal of most things we do in life anyways, isn’t it?; to feel better.

I suppose as I got older, there were just different elements within a musical relationship that began to take precedence.  I became less preoccupied with what my favorite music said about me and more focused on how it truly made me feel, outside of any external variables or influence.  Just me and my music.

A common trait that binds all of these “favorite” records together, is all of them were difficult  for me to like at first, nevermind love!  They each took some time and some work.  In some ways, I think my primal instinct and joy for hunting down my prey was rewarded in these musical endeavors.  All of the other records, I at one point or another thought I loved, ended up like humans playing dead for a bear and who wants to partake in anything that easy?  There’s just so little satisfaction to be derived from such an easy kill.  Furthermore, what has set “Control” apart from even this upper echelon of musical relationships and positioned it as my all time favorite album, is a set of external circumstances that have further distinguished her contrast at an exponentially faster rate than the rest;  
As production gets shinier, as perfection becomes the norm and the natural imperfections of music get sifted out more and more everyday, Pedro the Lion’s “Control” stands farther and farther apart from the mass-produced, run of the mill garbage the music industry crams down our throats.  In other words, she gets more and more human everyday and as I mature, I am finding it harder to love anything or anyone who is not.   

Brendan Brown