Cleaning Out The Closet, Literally

At best, many of the younger readers here have never had the opportunity to ever own, what is now considered, a piece of iconic history, something we used to call a “boom box” or a “ghetto blaster” back in the day. And, if you are wondering, the picture above is just such a relic from my younger years, this is what our “portable music device” looked like. Many, like this one, could be plugged into a wall outlet or have the ten (10) D size battery option. But, we could take our music, carried separately, to play anywhere we pleased. But, enough about my very vague history lesson, that’s not what this post is actually about, it is partly about how we personally like to hear, listen, and feel the energy our music choices.

So, anyway, y’all may have read that I’m unemployed once again, boo hoo me, so I decided to go out to my shop and “piddle about” for a while, listen to my heavy metal music loudly through my ear buds plugged into my cell phone. Its not an uncommon site to see me, yes even at my age, having my music playing directly into my head, cooking off brain cells left and right, for the pure enjoyment of it. As a bonus, it blocks out the “noise” of the world around me. My wife calls my music my “security blanket”, I call it bliss. Let’s just say I have enough digital music on my devices (two devices) that if played straight through, 24 hours a day, I wouldn’t hear the same song twice or repeat for around 27 months (that’s just shy of 20,000 hours of music). Now, add in that I have over 100 eight-track tapes, over 300 vinyl albums, 200 plus cassette tapes, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 450 plus audio CDs. And yes, I have ” old school ” devices from back in the days to listen to it all. Anyway, I was looking for an old wood chisel set buried somewhere in the shop storage closet to clean up some detail work on a old mantel piece I rescued from this last place I worked for the two weeks. It was a beautiful piece of hand tooled wood that was replaced with a more modern piece of polished marble. Anyway, I saved this 7′ behemoth from the dumpster, knowing I could bring it back to its original 40’s glory.

As I dig, I move shit from here to there and there to someplace else when I find the antique wooden box (circa early 50’s) that had been passed down from father to son a few times over the years, sitting on a shelf under something covered in an old sheet. Lifting the sheet revealed my old boom box. I quickly became sidetracked, yanked the sheet off, and took the old friend out to the work bench. When I plugged her in all the lights came on and everything, I don’t think it has had power put to it since ’99, so I was impressed. I noticed a cassette tape in the in one of the spaces, pressed play, and out of the speakers came, very clear I might add, the voice of Ronnie James Dio, singing “Don’t talk to strangers”. I was transported back in time, to another era, to the day I bought this cassette, upgrading for mobility, to have another format besides the vinyl, that could be played on the go. Do you remember going into music stores just to browse? The musty dusty smell of a place where every generation was welcome and had a place? I sure do, very fond memories indeed. There was certain satisfaction, an anticipation if you will, of walking out of the music store, not being able to wait to get into your room, close your door, and slowly open your new music. And then, then the feeling when you pushed play for the very first time, a virgin tape no longer, hearing the pre-song static, and then, only then, would the sweet music of your choice start leaking out of the speakers, I call this moment one’s musical listening climax, because now you can lay back and just listen. Too dramatic?

Needless to say, the ear buds were out for the rest of the day, as I listened to Dio many times, front and back, never skipping a song, it was a bliss amidst the chaos for me, I was consumed with it, I even caught myself smiling a time or three remembering the past. Funny how music works that way, funny how music can change one’s mood almost instantly, and funny how when life blows or life glows, I turn to my friend, I turn to music. A few of y’all will understand me and the rest of y’all are still scratching your heads. Read the caption in the picture below, if you understand it then you know what I have always known. And, thanks to Rexi, I borrowed it from her Facebook wall, I thought it would really bring my point home.

KISS “Monster” Album Review

I have never made it a secret to anyone, on-line or in real life, that I am a diehard KISS fan. Hell, I even spent a fair amount of cash a few years ago just so I could “be” Gene Simmons. I know, I sound like such a wet little girl. I can accept that. I have seen KISS live over the years at least a dozen times, I never passed it up if I could afford it. I have many things signed by all the band members. I have had the opportunity to actually meet Gene Simmons twice in my life, both times in Las Vegas Nevada at different times. Anyway, I enjoy their music and I will always be a support of the band known as KISS. But, we are not here to discuss my secret love affair with the band, I wanted to share my personal thoughts on their latest album, Monster. Everyone will probably not agree with everything I say and all I will tell you is we are all entitled to our own opinion, and this will be mine. I remind everyone I have zero musical background and zero credentials to review or judge a band’s music. Unless you take into consideration that I am a metal fan until I die, always have been and always will be. No, I do not consider KISS to be a metal band, that’s not what I’m saying, I’m just saying I have some kind of hard rock or metal in my ears most of my awake hours so I know what I like and what I think sucks the dingle berries out of a dead rhino’s ass. KISS Monster is not one of the one’s that suck, quite the opposite in my opinion. It may not be their greatest work they have ever performed, but in the top 3 KISS albums in my book. By the way, the artwork above was found on the good ‘ol world wide web and the photo below was taken by me for the specific purpose of this post and one other. The picture below is of my copy of the KISS Monster cd, yes I said cd.

In my opinion there are two kinds of music fans as far as the band KISS goes. People either love KISS or they hate KISS, there aren’t many in-between-ers out there. Sooner or later KISS will be calling it quits leaving us with waste cases like Cyrus and Biebler to carry the torch in the next generation of music. At which point, if those two are the only thing going I might take my own life because there will be nothing to look forward to each day any longer. Everybody in the music industry does one of 4 things to end the careers of band members. First, they were a “one hit wonder” and faded away as fast as they came on the scene. Second, the band breaks up and heads their separate ways. Third, everyone needs to retire at one point or another. And fourth, this one seems to be a biggy in the rock industry, which is an untimely death. My hope for KISS is that one day they just retire. Not all bands can go on forever and that’s great, they had a fantastic run. In my opinion, KISS is one of the most recognizable bands on the planet, known across the genders, known across generations, and known across the races. Not too damn many bands can say they are that “known” world-wide now can they. I can name a few, but the list is short. Anyway, if you already own this cd or downloaded the album somewhere you already know how good it is. For the rest of y’all, you now know what to do. I know, this wasn’t much of a review but it gave me a chance to write about KISS and that is always worth it to me.