I list “mixtapes” under my work experience.

I’m not drinking a banana daiquiri and I get most my life lessons from fortune cookies and whiskey labels but for better or worse here’s my BDandLL debut. Honored to contribute and feel like I just got invited to sit at the cool kids’ table. My name is Mike, and I’m sitting on the floor in my living room, laptop at hand, drinking a Newcastle Cabbie Black Ale with the Our Lady Peace “Live” DVD pumped into the flat screen in the background and two completely different first drafts of a blog piece on music to churn up and steal from. An oat soda, some badass music after a day bleeding for the man and some writing about art to do. Not a bad place to be.

Art. Is not a complete sentence, but that looks right. Art is the reflection of life at a given time in history. It is a Dionysian scream into the world that proclaims, I Exist!!  .. and it kinda hurts sometimes and stuff. The artist overcomes pain to make something beautiful.

Quick (I promise) sociology lesson: Music is part of culture, which is best described as a civilization’s way of life. Along with other, more physical and visual, forms of art, music is bound up with language, law, custom, science, literature, et cetera which makes up what stuffy academics refer to as culture. i like to think of culture as the glue that holds a society together. Lesson over.

As part of culture music is special. As a part of our lives, music is special. No other art form seems to resonate in our souls quite like music does. Case in point, the old cliche: music is the soundtrack of our lives. Maybe that’s not true of everyone, but from my experience for myself and for many that I’ve been surrounded by in life, it holds true. Music is woven into the very fabric of who I am. I mean, who doesn’t have “a jam,” who doesn’t get transported somewhere into their past when a certain song hits their ear drums, and who doesn’t feel like breaking shit when listening to Pantera? I’m not wrong.

When you listen to Pantera, you willingly take punches to the face.

I got hooked on this music drug at an early age and with a couple uncles that were diehard music fans and culture buffs, I got exposed to a wide range of it as well. I believe I was around 10 years old when I bought my bombtastic Sony cfd- 510 boom box with mega bass and detachable speakers (I know, right? See below.) and Green Day’s “Dookie” album on compact disc. The 510 pumped out mixtapes and thanks to my walkman, mowing the lawn and riding the bus were never dull and my life became earmarked by musicians and their art.

When I was still quite young, I remember telling my mother that “Dr. Love” by KISS (I had just bought their Double Platinum album) was my theme song. She asked, “why is that?” to which I didn’t have an answer, still don’t. But I do know I really liked that song. I can hear it my head right now. It takes me back to that moment sitting on the front steps of our deck with the ole’ 510. Just as Nerf Herder takes me to my garage where I sang along with every word and played wiffle bat guitar; to my bedroom where I would sit right next to my stereo, hitting the pause button when I needed so I could transcribe the words of every song on Goo Goo Dolls’ “A Boy Named Goo”; to my high school locker room as Dr. Dre’s “Chronic 2000” became the music of the 1999-2000 Tri-County basketball season. At this moment, Our Lady Peace takes me to the Orange House during the 2nd chapter of my college career, living in that house with my bandmates, we didn’t just listen to music, we lived it, we made it, we it experienced the shit out of it. I could go on and on like this. I won’t.

Music can mean many things to many different people. Some music seems more “serious” than other forms and music critics are always keen to point this out; judging some music as inherently more artistic and more worthy than others. While I certainly have my own thoughts and opinions on music, in the end it really doesn't matter, for all that is required is experience music and to experience life as music plays out the score. Do you listen to “good” music, do you listen to “bad” music? Did you listen to “bad” music that at the time you thought was “good.” Fucking 'A you did, and will continue to do so. I mean if Councilman Brumwell can extol the virtues of Ace of Base, none of us can judge each others’ music taste. Whatever moves you, whatever gets you on the dance floor, whatever singing along at the top of your lungs, whatever make you feel free, feel above the mundane, whatever makes you feel. That's "good" music. Which brings me to the “life lesson” part of this piece that I take from pop culture writer Chuck Klosterman:

“...culture can’t be wrong. That doesn't mean it’s always ‘right,’ nor does it mean you always have to agree with it. But culture is never wrong. People can be wrong, and movements can be wrong. But culture - as a whole - cannot be wrong. Culture is just there.”  - from “IV”

This is a lesson I need enforce upon myself when my wife insists on watching “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” and “The Voice” (which I personally believe guts everything of substance from music), but I digress. Where am I? Where did all the Newcastles go? Oh, right...

To sum, music is awesome and becomes woven into who we are as our life plays out. Life Lesson: don’t be a jerk~face that judges people based on what they listen to (or watch). It will only make you miserable and probably miserable to be around.

So, what songs are the mixtape of your life and when you hear them, where do they take you?

Here’s a few albums from my current rotation:

Music:

“Exile on Mainstreet” Album by The Rolling Stones

“Den of Thieves” Album by The Trews

I highly, highly recommend Led Zeppelin III

Thought to leave with, from Wikipedia:

"Essayist Geoffrey O'Brien has called the personal mix tape "the most widely practiced American art form"

90 Minute TDK's were the BOMB.