Bienvenido a California, Part 3

So if you haven't gotten the idea yet from the previous posts, studying languages in the military back in the 80s was more like being in college than like being in the military hehe. Maybe like being in college, but with a grumpy grandparent living close enough to constantly butt their head in and see what you were up to. :) We were supposed to be spending our free time studying our lessons...and certainly we did spend time doing that, but after 6 hours of language there's only so much more you can take before you head explodes...so we ended up spending a lot of time hanging out in the barracks, doing other things too. For me one of the big things was the music. A few popular bands had managed to get by my never-listen-to-the-radio thing, like Devo, and the Police, but for the most part if it wasn't Classical, I hadn't heard it. And while we were hanging around doing things in the barracks, introducing new music to each other became a big popular past-time. Typically someone would get cassete tape of something they liked, and put it on the tape player, and we'd listen to the whole side while chatting, or playing some game, or something like that. I can't begin to list all of the music we heard over an entire year like this, but here are some of the most memorable bands, with tracks by them that I could find on YouTube.

Rob was the Progressive Rock guy. He was always bringing in tapes of Yes, King Crimson, and other things from the late 60s up through the mid 70s. I loved this stuff, primarily because of the high quality of the musicians playing the music, how unusual it all sounded compared to "pop" music, and how the lyrics were usually somewhat intellectual, compared to the insipid lyrics of most pop songs.



Neal was the New Wave guy. He was always playing Oingo Boingo, the Cars, Frank Zappa, and stuff like that. High energy fun music. At first I didn't much care for any of it, but it grew on me, and I'm still a big Boingo fan today.



Robin introduced us all to the beautiful voice of Annie Lennox in the Eurythmics. We had all heard the song Sweet Dreams, since it was being played non-stop on the new MTV and on the radio, but most of their other songs weren't played here in the US...at least I never heard them if they were. (Here Comes the Rain was though). And thus began my life-long aural love affair with Annie hehe. A few years later, the Eurythmics would become WAY more popular here, and then you heard them all the time. But back then, it was new.



Some random guy in the barracks discovered the B-52s. We heard it coming out of his room one day, and someone knocked on his door and asked what he was listening to. He then brought his tape player out into the hallway, and we all started dancing to Rock Lobster! At the time we weren't sure if it was a new band, or if it was something weird and wonderful from the 1950's hehe. They have a lot of other quirky, great songs if you like this one.



Pat had questionable taste in music, liking mostly pop stuff...but he did introduce us to the Violent Femmes, whose first album was just terrific. Their later stuff I didn't care for though.



Cathy unfortunately was beyond redemption. She liked John Mellencamp...ewwww! :)



I was of course the Classical guy, and no one wanted to hear my music hehe...though I did push some Chopin Polonaises down their unwilling throats.

As I said earlier, Monterey stores closed early in the evening, with the exception of the record store. So we often ended up in there when we wanted to get out of the barracks and do something. Since we were always looking for new music to listen to, and we were all always perpetually broke, we came upon a genius plan; we would each buy one record, and then pass it around for the others to listen to.

I got the album Stateless by Lene Lovich. (song here is from another album)



Neal got O, Superman by Laurie Anderson (song here is from another album)



John got Nun Sex Monk Rock by Nina Hagen (song here is from another album)



Interestingly, both Nina Hagen and Laurie Anderson were classically trained musicians before they started their careers doing their unique mixtures of classicism and modernism...Nina trained in Opera, and Laurie studied classical violin. In an interview Laurie mentioned how she gave up classical violin for the same reason I gave up classical piano...she couldn't see the point of all of that rote memorization of dead composer's songs!

I owe all of these folks...well except Cathy hehe...for introducing me to so much wonderful music, and expanding my musical horizons.