Live Music

So many moments spent at concerts in parks in venues around Salt Lake City but it all started at the Beastie Boys Hello Nasty Tour 1998 with Mike Krepelka at the Oakland Coliseum. The Beasties had become the soundtrack to my senior year and trips down to Cowell's to surf in the Blue Mercury Sable covered in surf stickers. Ill Communication mostly. But Hello Nasty had blown up off the single "Intergalactic" and that year I discovered they were so much more than the party band who's singles "Girls" and "Fight for Your Right" ironically played at all the church dances. (One's in the know loved pointing out "my mom threw away my best porno mag" from the latter.) They played instruments! I learned their Some Old Bullshit record was them as a punk band BEFORE Licensed to Ill and since that record they'd explored all kinds of styles. It was eye and ear opening, their show was excellent stadium concept of a stage that rotated as they performed. They had a ton of instrumental tracks that my cousin wised me too when he shared with me The In Sound From the Way Out.  I also found out in the next years, some of the best hip hop was from musicians that just happened to be good at rap as well. Lyrical gymnastics were just one of the many avenues musical expression. Lots of budsmoke on the air, lots of rowdy moshers in the pit but just good vibes taking in their expansive catalogue. One of their anthems was Mike and I's favorite, Biz Vs. the Nuge "The Beastie BOYSSSSS OH YEAH THEY'RE COMIN OHHHHH" Through this I learned juice crew legend Biz Markie had been their dj for a time. Learned so much from a show and discussing the in person musicians. Correction of misheard lyrics, the way they performed the songs you'd only ever heard from your CD player or through your boombox from Live 105. Just your favorite songs put in context of the creators and performers of the song. 

Last night Christi and I walked downtown to Open Streets SLC where they have a lit up cube with different DJs and supported a killer disco/house dj Typefunk I'd met over last summer. Djing in person is always a different experience with creating music on the fly always an impressive sight. Mostly I just hadn't seen Myke, a dj that I learned played all the boogie and funk I love from the late 70s to early 80s and we chopped it up about different styles of music like gogo and house and ga ga ga JB roller disco out of Chicago and how concerts are selling out with people SO READY to get back to live shows! (They're headed to Khruangbin at Red Rocks in September and they barely got the tickets and they weren't cheap). But the experience as a musician of watching good musicians is invaluable. I went to my first show inside a building since the pandemic on Thursday and it was super loud (note: buy earplugs) but I soaked it up. A musician friend Wren's project Selfmyth played a set and it was great to see his keyboardist Joey play and recognize what he was doing with pedals and modulation on his Casio. (I've been practicing on a lesser model but still has the pitch bend.) Observing technique and noting equipment, comparing all this to watching a Hard Day's Night with Christi (her first time) just good to take in music and notice styles and just vibe with your friends. Music is everything but it really is community to me. I noticed how much I missed enjoying it with others over the pandemic this last year. I could make mixes from my own collections and share them but to listen and interact at the same time fills me up in a different way.