MUSIC THAT CHANGED MY LIFE: Van Halen

(I’m going to do one of these every week for a different artist or song.)

It’s difficult to describe my complicated and beautiful history with this rockin’ band that can make you wanna party but can also give you the chills.

Back in middle school, when I thought I knew music but listened to mostly the Rick Dees show and pop radio, I was always able to pigeonhole artists I had barely heard. Pink Floyd’s music was spacey and dragged on with moaning vocals. U2 was just that signature annoying guitar chime. And Van Halen made loud noise for the class-cutting dropouts. I had heard “Jump” on the radio and vaguely knew it was them, but it was just another one of those songs before my time that I heard on the radio and didn’t connect with.

I can’t remember what triggered the transformation, but I know sometime in sophomore year, as I was getting more into guitar, I was struck by the big synth chords, and that badass solo, of “Jump”. Like it was with all new things at first, I hesitantly tiptoed in, worried that people might see me and laugh. I downloaded “Jump” off of filesharing and buried it as the last track on a CD-R mix before I went down to University of North Carolina at Wilmington for a writing camp that summer.

At some point, we were driving through this small town in Virginia, or Ohio, or one of those states. Not the kind of small town where homophobic redneck youth drive fast cars and old white Republicans have picnics. No, no. It was the kind of small town where kids walked to the ice cream stand and the town square fountain hadn’t been closed for liability. It was a bright day and I put “Jump” on in my headphones. Thoughts raced through my head. The small town reminded me of “Back to the Future”; I thought of Marty McFly trying to make it as a rocker in an iconic small town. The small towns where there are so many ways you could have fun, where kids like me make bold plans to change their world and get the girl. After listening, I was ready for anything. When I went to UNCW the next summer, I had a CD-R devoted solely to Van Halen.

I would listen to a Van Halen song extensively around a certain time, and hear it in my head when the music stopped and I got back to reality. Those times will always be associated with certain tracks. Ironically enough, this slacker band was my motivator for “the most academically difficult” junior year. Even though I was the antithesis of a Van Halen fan, being trapped in a ludicrous academic workload with no fast car or hot girl, their music connected with me—those guitar acrobatics, the rumble of the bass, the speeding-ticket-fast drums, the shouted singalongs— and motivated me to get through whatever.

The most memorable anecdote probably comes from November of that famous junior year. Band O Rama, the annual event where high school marching bands play with the WMU Bronco Band, was a Saturday morning, but I missed it because I had to take the SAT. At an elementary-school-reunion bonfire that night, I heard what I had missed: a Van Halen themed show, complete with a performance of Eruption on guitar by WMU’s tuba professor. Missing a show of my favorite music for academic hoop-jumping—what a metaphor.

Yet there was hope. I had my guitar there at the bonfire, and me and my friend Haskell were jamming. He felt the urge to hear Eruption. We walked to his car; he opened the door and found the disc and put it in the stereo. He invited me to sit in the passenger seat; I declined. My obsessive compulsiveness knew that when he drove the car back towards the front of the house, my over prying mom would have arrived to pick me up, and since that was the time when she didn’t like me cruising around with people, there was a high potential for a shit storm I didn’t really want. Rather than decide to just take a stand and explain myself, I avoided the potential all together. So there I was, leaning on the door of the car, on a brisk but windless night with it almost ready to rain, separated in my own world, yet united with Haskell in the pursuit of guitar rapture as “Eruption” played.

What a representation of my naïve, teetotaling, freaked-out high school self. Isolated, scared, and tentative, for no one’s fault but my own, but still able to connect with my friends and feed my soul thanks to God’s gift of rock. I ain’t the worst that you’ve seen. Might as well jump.

Peace and God bless,
Nick Fed

Brand new blog...

Well, this is it. I am going to start a brand new blog. Why would I do this, when I already have a Xanga I never use, and a Facebook where I post rants that only ONU peeps, if anyone at all, will enjoy? I really do love to write, and I've been getting lots of "heavy" ideas lately, and I want a way to convey them....plus, I want a more consistent and actual blog...something "professional" which I will fill with profanity, drinking stories, and unedited rants.

This is one of those spur of the moment ideas, like forming a Kevin Federline cover band or telling an out-of-league girl that she's sexy, that a person will probably be embarassed about later. But I am commited. I am dedicated. I will use this blog. Here are the rules...oh wait, I don't really dig rules, so here are three foundations.

1.) I will write on all kinds of topics for all kinds of audiences. Some posts might be boring or stupid, others might be mindblowing. I will discuss the sacred and profane, the funny and sad, the heavy and the mundane....

2.)...but most of all, I will express myself and will try my damndest to create something you'll want to read.

3.) Comments are much appreciated. If you took the time to read, I appreciate you and want to hear from you! Anyone from anywhere can comment a Blogspot blog (why I chose this site!), so please leave some kind of comment. It can be anything. Whether it's "good point", "right on", the more likely "what the hell are you talking about?", or even the highly unlikely "I'm sex-starved and you're really hot".

Welcome aboard, dear readers.

Peace and God bless,
Nick Fed