Quantifying the Unquantifiable… Or, in less twatty terms, ranking my early influences according to a different set of criteria.
I promise, that at some point, these posts will be less like
playoff wins by Kansas City sports teams:
incredible to experience but so few and far between. I intend to make this more like a
Volvo, perhaps not quite as flashy each go round, but if you live long enough
you can watch the odometer swing back to zeroes… Well, maybe that didn’t quite
fit but you get the gist. Then
again, given that my Packers (yes, I am an owner so I can call them “my”
Packers without having to cut this short to head to my head-shrinking
appointment to talk about my stalking and possessive behavior) play the
Washington Injuns (insert equally offensive, racist name here) tomorrow, I may
be in an entirely different mindstate for the next month or so and, therefore,
unable to write through the pain of admitting Kirk Cousins somehow defeated
Aaron Rodgers in a playoff game. It’s
bad enough that, in some sick twist of fate, Kirk is actually favored to
win. I know a certain #12 does not
like that, Mr. Cousins. Mr.
Rodgers is most certainly a lot more pissed off about this than I am, and I
already ripped a sink out of the wall or started a one man riot and flipped a
car (a smart car, but still, it counts) or whatever other Hollywood-type
display you prefer for outwardly showing anger. Enough rambling, onto the good stuff! (editors note: The Packers won, of course, so
hopefully everyone who was dumb enough to bet on Kirk Cousins, yes Kirk
Cousins, in a playoff game against Aaron Rodgers is on permanent time-out)
Last evening, I was enjoying the warm glow that subtly and
gently washes over one who has enjoyed a fine glass of bourbon or two, when, as
is often the case, I started to think back on my younger days and how I came to
be where/who/what I am today. The
obvious place to start, the place where one of those runway people who direct
the planes with the big glowsticks would point to, is music. I was sifting through my mind-grapes,
and I began to look at the term “Musical Influences” in a different way. Now, normally I would pass over the
thought of the question and just give my normal Springsteen, Petty, William
Joel, Dylan, etc. but on this night, and perhaps due to the warmness of the
glow I was enjoying, I started digging much deeper than that. Yes, those musical giants are, without
a doubt, the ones who shaped much of the way that I perceive, ingest and “outgest”(neither my brain, perhaps as
a result of last nights “glow,”
nor Merriam-Webster can provide an antonym for “ingest” which seems
really fucking weird to me. As a
result, I’m sticking with “outgest”) music. But, when thinking in terms of a more measureable impact,
I’m drawn to an entirely separate group of bands and albums that 16 and 17 year
old Brad Wik(as he was known back then) used to forge the steel frame of what
would eventually become to be known, and lovingly referred to, as My Life.
There were no specific criteria to compose the forthcoming
list, but I was trying to apply an overarching cause and effect-type theory to
achieve the, sort of scientific but not really scientific at all,
results. For example, 16 year old
Brad Wik loved Stevie Ray Vaughan a lot, and I mean a lot, but the very first band
I ever played in played no SRV, was not a blues band by any means and
therefore, SRV had little to no tangible effect on my life thereafter. However, our band did play “Corduroy”
by Pearl Jam, thus making Pearl Jam much more “influential” in regards to this
exercise. SRV was one of my main
motivations for picking up the guitar, but had I not participated in my
high-school era band, I likely wouldn’t have pursued the insane notion of music
as a career (which, in retrospect, was probably a terrible decision, but
somehow even 28 year old Bradley still believes fully he can become successful
as a musician; however flawed his thinking may be). That being said, my high-school era band (“Third Production”
I believe it was called) carries the most weight for this, and subsequently, I
believe, for my life. I guess that
makes Jake my equivalent of the escape pod with R2D2 and C3PO inside that
begets Star Wars. I owe him a very
large “thank you” which I will never fully be able to express with words alone…
Without further ado, here are the results (in no particular
order, though I’ve numbered them for some ridiculous reason):
- Modest Mouse – The Lonesome Crowded West
After all the years I spent
listening to Springsteen, Dylan, Neil Young, William Joel and Meatloaf (why
not?), I would have never fathomed that a record like this would change my
life. “Trailer Trash” straight up
blew my mind. I had never heard
anything like that before and was wholly unprepared for what that song would do
to me. It became a staple in band
rehearsals after libations had flowed…
- Radiohead – OK Computer
I can’t imagine anyone growing up in the same general
era as me wouldn’t have this on a top five list. Then again, there are a lot of things that I can’t
imagine. Like how many times Jake
would play this on his acoustic guitar and we would drunkenly sing/yell-a-long
to this, full of the spirit of youth; and Fleischmann’s…
- Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Weld
(Live)
At first glance, this might seem
like the outlier on this list. I
know, it wasn’t supposed to inlcude the “pillar” type artists but I’ll never
forget playing “Fuckin Up” at our first ever, and acoustic, by the way, show
and badly “fuckin up” one of the changes, to which, Jake replied “Well, I guess
that’s why they call it that.”
- Pearl Jam – (any of their Live Bootlegs
but mostly the 11/6/2000 Seattle show and the 10/22/2000 Las Vegas show)
I can’t underestimate the
importance of Pearl Jam to 16 and 17 year old Brad Wik. I almost left off Neil Young because
the two songs we covered were also songs Pearl Jam covered: “Fuckin Up” and “Rockin’ in the Free
World.” After finding out that
Vedder, like most of us, was also a huge fan of The Who and Neil Young, my
classic rock and alternative rock worlds aligned; and I was subsequently
blinded by the eclipse, never to recover…
- R.E.M. – Automatic for the People
Not only does this album contain
my favorite R.E.M. song, “Nightswimming,” but is, in my opinion, their
strongest front to back offering.
Coming off of Out of Time, they somehow took their game to another
level. Also, amazingly, I’ve since
had the pleasure of working with the one and only Mr. Ed Brooks (who mixed this
incredible album). He mastered
both “Burn What You Can, Bury the Rest…” and my new album, yet to be released. He is such an amazing person with some
fantastic stories. Sidenote: I am, once again, listening to
“Nightswimming” and crying gently.
There are only maybe a dozen songs that can do that to me: “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley, “Fade
Into You” by Mazzy Star, “Bold as Love” by Jimi, “The Trapeze Swinger” by Iron
& Wine, “Gold Miner” by the Fraidies, “At a Medium Pace” by Adam Sandler
come to mind, though that last one is for different reasons…
- Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
There are so many things in this
record that shaped my vision of what could be possible in music. This record was noisy and chaotic,
sweet and simple, rockin’ and reckless, tight and dry(taking this one off,
someone else make an inappropriate joke for once); it was so many different things
that I never imagined could coexist.
The vision Jake and I worked towards was heavily filtered through this
album.
- Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning
Glory?
Every motherfucking song from
“Hello” to “Champagne Supernova” is certifiably a goddamn hit. Everything about this album is so
fucking cool. The Gallagher’s had
swagger for days, and a uni-brow bigger than mine, no easy feat. Of course, we also covered “Wonderwall”
coming up (who hasn’t? The easiest
way to get chicks to notice our band was to play a song they actually liked and
knew. Unsurprisingly, no chick
ever complimented me for knowing all the words to “Visions of Johanna”or
“Desolation Row”) and every band I’ve played in since has covered at least one
song by Oasis, and it’s usually from this album.
So, there you go, fuckers…
