[Slowhand] Hitching a Ride to the Past

[Almighty Geetarz]

I've always wondered why so many people's musical tastes seem "stuck" (for lack of a better term) in a particular era or time in their life - usually in the formative years, while other people's interests seem to grow and diversify as they grow older.
 
For instance, consider this: take EC fans who are "stuck" on Cream - a good chunk of them will tend to be of a certain age.  Blind Faith? A little younger.  D&D? Here again.  Etc. etc. This certainly doesn't apply to all fans but there is an interesting correlation.  There's an old saying "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" and there are obviously some flaws in making that a global pronouncement, but then again so many people seem to have their tastes in music, movies, arts, literature, etc. formed at a certain point in their life and then stop growing.  This article may be of interest:
 
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Article Published: Sunday, August 01, 2004 Hitching a ride to the past 

By Ricardo Baca 
Denver Post Pop Music Critic 

Glenn Asakawa and Jim Carr	


Listening to live music this summer through ear canals au courant - August 2004 - is a telling experience.

While Prince, Eric Clapton, Public Enemy, David Bowie and other artists made music that holds up in a timeless fashion, Van Halen's "Jump" now officially qualifies as flinchably bad guitar-pop. Madonna's "Lucky Star" sounds tired, with its youthful posturing and point-and-pluck keyboard work. And Boyz II Men's "Motownphilly" sounds like an airtight time capsule that could use a little fresh air.

But these tracks once were important building blocks in rock, pop and hip-hop, respectively - not to mention crucial mile markers for a generation of listeners.

There is a reason - both emotional and scientific - that Van Halen and Boyz II Men still make money touring even though they no longer make relevant music.

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And that's because they provided the soundtrack to first kisses, high school renegade parties and wild college throw-downs - and they allow their fans to relive every guilty moment with crystal-clear recollection.

In fact, scientists say our brains might be hard-wired to do that.

"Those songs are the only true forms of time travel that we have," said Shawn Stockman, a member of Boyz II Men, one of the top-selling R&B groups of all time. "When you hear 'End of the Road' or 'On Bended Knee,' you know where you were, who you were dating, what you were doing or who you were trying to break up with when those first came out."

And there's nothing like seeing a band live to remind you of those moments. The musicians and the touring industry know this. Just look at this week's schedule.

Van Halen plays the Pepsi Center tonight. Boyz II Men and En Vogue will represent at the Jammin' 92.5 Block Party at Coors Amphitheatre on Tuesday. Chicago, and Earth, Wind and Fire hit the Universal Lending Pavilion on Friday. And Randy Bachman (without the Turner Overdrive) and Gary Puckett (sans the Union Gap) will play Saturday's Kool Koncert at Coors Amphitheater.

Coming later in the summer: Yes, Heart, Deep Purple and, the epitome of music that can only be described as cheap nostalgia-porn, Olivia Newton-

John (who isn't really all that cheap, with a $41-$61 price tag on her Sept. 2 show at the Universal Lending Pavilion).

"Music serves as a temporal and historical signpost," said Murray Forman, a music historian and communications professor at Northeastern University. "Music is all about affect at some level - how we feel about the emotional connection, not just about a song, but the way that song integrated into our life at a certain moment."

Music is like a drug at these concerts - especially when it's something like Van Halen, whose concert tonight is sure to resemble a circus in some way. The visceral draw for a fan is a sense of euphoria underscored by memory. It's about the first time you heard Earth, Wind and Fire's "September" or about how hearing Bachman-Turner Overdrive's "Takin' Care of Business" could remind you simultaneously of the giddy summer of '74 and those inane Office Depot commercials.

"There's a real, neuroscientific reason that this connection is made between the music and the memory," said psychologist Pam Brill, a consultant, coach and author of the new book "The Winner's Way." "Last summer I was writing my book and finishing it up, so a vacation was not in the cards. But together with my four daughters and some other friends I saw Springsteen seven times, I saw Van Morrison, The Eagles, Jackson Browne, and these were tours down memory lane.

"And whether it was the FleetCenter in Boston or the stadium in New York, no matter where we were, everybody was reliving their own memories in their own thought balloons."

Brill is referencing the research done by Lawrence Cahill, an assistant professor of neurobiology and behavior at the University of California at Irvine. The research suggests that when experiences are clocked in the brain under surges of adrenaline rooted in trauma, they get marked in a unique kind of way, Brill said. Her theory is that the adrenaline doesn't have to be traumatic to leave a permanent impression on the brain - it can be on the happy side.

"You can look at positive memories of you driving down the highway with your top down and the radio blasting or you can look at your first kiss, and those are adrenaline-

packed experiences," Brill said. "And the music is going to be something that is a stimulus that instigates that recollection. Rather than traumatic and horrific, some of these experiences are absolutely fabulous.

"Maybe a good strategy for those times when you're down is getting out the vinyl from when you were that old and enjoying those trips down memory lane," she said. "That could be almost as good as a two-

week vacation."

This happens with all music, be it "Angie" or "Who Let the Dogs Out." But the difference between the two is simple. The Stones' "Angie" is a part of our cultural fabric with or without people's memories and emotional context because it's a timeless classic. But the Baha Men's awful anthem exists only because of that tequila-laden trip to Cabo in the summer of 2000. (And it's hard to not blame someone for hitting a Baha Men concert, because who wouldn't want to revisit a summer on Mexico's western coast.)

"Music articulates the things that we cannot easily say for ourselves," pop singer Annie Lennox told The Denver Post last week. "Great artists can do that for you. Bob Marley, everything that ever came out from Motown, Joni Mitchell - they are visionaries who have created a sound and a statement and a personal observation about the human condition in a very special way that has touched everybody.

"That's why we play music at funerals and weddings and other things of import. It identifies with feelings of alienation, of observation about injustice, of the romantic years, of depression, of struggle."

Music makes its largest impression during the early years, and those Van Halen-esque preferences are carried with you throughout life.

"Certain artists represent certain generations, and we were one of the ones that represented the high school kids of the '90s," said Boyz II Men's Stockman. "We were in high school around the same time our albums were out, and high school is a very profound moment in your life. You're trying to find yourself and figure yourself out, and certain songs lend themselves to becoming the soundtrack of those years."

Stockman says Los Angeles Lakers player Karl Malone once told him his daughter was nicknamed "Roadie" because she was conceived with the group's "End of the Road" on repeat as Malone and his wife were in Barcelona for the 1992 Olympics, where Malone was playing basketball for the gold-medal-winning U.S. team.

Malone was 29 at the time, but the point is made.

"It's so cool to know that you were interwoven into a person's personal life," Stockman said, "and you can't get any more personal than conceiving a child."

Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca at denverpost.com .


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