For the last week the weather has been pretty awesome. Stuck in the low 70’s without a cloud in the sky. I’ve taken advantage of this beautiful weather and exercised one of my personal rituals of driving fast and rocking out Who’s Next with the windows rolled down.
Some of my earliest childhood memories involve the Who. The biggest influence on me was the video footage compiled in the film “The Kids Are Alright” of which my father had a Betamax copy of, and it was enough to get me hooked on the colorful antics of the band’s intense live shows. In no time I was imitating Pete Townshend; sliding across the stage on my knees (er.. living room floor), doing the Chuck Berry-scoot, windmilling on my toy guitar and asking my mom if it was ok if I smashed it (she said no). I also recall twirling a toy microphone tied to a string (a la Roger Daltrey) and air drumming like a Keith Moon-posessed octopus in front of some bongos we kept in the house. Ironically, John Entwistle was the only member I never imitated, but the seed was planted, and before I was even in Kindergarten, the Who was my favorite band ever.
Despite the fact that Townshend has allowed nearly every one of his compositions on this album to appear in commercials and bad forensic investigation police dramas, I still hear this record with the ears of a child. This is one of the best rock albums of all time, and no advertising goon will take that away from me. Ever.
Who’s Next, while it stands on it’s own as a classic rock album, connects me to a childhood I, sometimes, can barely even remember:
After my parents divorced, the Who was one of the things that my mom and I held on to from our life as Marchucks. We’ve blasted Who’s Next in every car we’ve owned. It’s not a regularly scheduled ritual, but it usually corresponds with weather nice enough to comfortably roll all of the windows down in. My mom makes a joke on occasion that The Who is the other good thing that came out of her first marriag I assume I am the first good thing.
In 1997, when I graduated high school I attempted to contact my biological father to invite him to the graduation ceremony. I sent him a picture and a letter telling him I was going to Berklee College of Music. I got a nice letter back from someone who was not, but written on behalf of, my father and I was asked if I still listened to The Who.The exact wording escapes me, but the implication was made that I wouldn’t have been allowed to listen to them or something, which is ridiculous.
Without going in too deep on the details of my parents’ divorce, I will just say that certain people on my father’s side of the family had him believing that I was being brainwashed by my mother and forced to believe that he was an awful person. This was not the case, not in the least, she never said a bad word about the guy. Furthermore, I don’t think my mom knows how to brainwash people. If she did, she wouldn’t know how to keep it a secret, she’d talk about it all of the time. The bottom line is that my father is an alcoholic and I do not believe that it makes him a bad person, but that was the reason I chose to live with my mother and not him. I was young, but old enough to see that his world was not a world I would be happy in. I have known many addicts in my life now and some of them have been great people who struggle with a personal weakness, I think he may be one of these people.
The hardest part of reading that letter, though, was not that he didn’t write it. At the time it may have been the hardest part, but over time it has been tough on me to realize that his sense of self-worth must be pulverized. That he could look at a picture of me with my bass in my hands, a smile on my face, and a note saying how excited I was to attended Berklee; and for him to not piece together his role in that goal took the wind out of my sails. A few times a year, when I am up late at night and half-asleep I get the urge to write him another letter and attempt to reconnect again, but I don’t do it. I’m not sure why I don’t do it. But I don’t. I know some day that I will regret my inaction.
Sometime in 1998 I was attending my first lesson with Whit Browne at Berklee College of Music. I picked Whit as my teacher after an incredibly embarrassing placement audition. Whit was actually one of the professors that auditioned me, and I won’t say I was totally horrible, I just didn’t know what was expected of me. They said, “let’s play a blues” and I played a blues shuffle (a la Freddie King), when what they meant was “play a ‘jazz blues’ ” (a la Oscar Peterson). I fell flat on my face and took the first great shot to my ego of the many that I would receive at Berklee.