Part I: How I found Salvation at a K-Mart.

Music has always been my internal monologue. Like a soundtrack to some well-worn film reel, it shapes and defines moments of awkward adolescence. It reminds me of things I should have never said, and more so of words I should have spoken. Music brings back the best and worst memories of my life, and I can usually tell you where or when I first heard a song. Case in point: “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Taco Bell Drive- Thru. September 1991. I also have a habit of making relative time and age comparisons, by how old a person was when a certain album came out. Hm. My wife was only four when “Purple Rain” dropped. Yikes.

Music also evokes memories of growing up in my little shag carpeted room in the 70’s and early ’80. There, in a peach crate, lived my eclectic collective of albums yet to be fully discovered and properly appreciated until years later. They lived next to a well worn, white plastic hard-cased Fisher Price record player, paired with a black Radio Shack push-button tape recorder and cigar-sized microphone. These meager components served as my soundsystem for the first ten or so years of my life. My method of dubbing a record onto cassette involved complete silence and a steady hand. Careful needle drops and record-button synchronizing. And hoping Mom wouldn’t come in and tell me to turn it down, effectively ruining the recording with her voice coming in after a killer guitar solo. Thanks Mom...

Growing up, you had music as an escape. The latest pop buzz served as common ground and a differentiation. As a sheltered white kid in a small, seemingly idyllic Ohio town (in reality, a pit stop for blue collar mentality, nestled between two far greater urban existences - where we all cursed our fate and upbringing to not have dropped us) what else was there to do? You listened to the radio, or bummed music from your buddy. We didn't have much choice...either the one am station or the one fm station that didn’t play easy-listening funeral dirge music. And you discussed the merits of said music with your friends. You played 45's, and bought 3 for $3 at Camelot or Musicland. (The first two were easy to pick. It was that third, final one that I always took forever to choose - it HAD to count, as if I might one day will it to my only son.) Maybe you took a bike ride to K-Mart with your lawn mowing money and gazed longingly at the racks of black circles. And you always made sure to carefully balance your choices in the name of self respect and majority rule, conforming to what might "play" during your class’ afternoon music free-time. But wanting to look cool at the same time. I mean, girls were starting to take notice. And they were starting to look less like tomboys. You didn’t want to be caught without the jams.