Riding the Waves, One Summer at a Time

The warm weather earlier this week reminded me a many a warm summer night back in the midwest, many years ago when I was in many ways a different person than who I am now. I wasn't a very happy teenager, not really in touch with my feelings for the most part. I worked summers in a Drive-In Movie theatre (remember those), and spent a great deal of time avoiding making any plans for the future and just hoping to get through day by day. Music was in many ways the most important thing in my world, it was what made me happier than anything. I really was moved by the New Wave, which seemed to be happening everywhere but in Kansas. There were artists like Lene Lovich, Thomas Dolby, the Tourists, Magazine, all of whom gave me a feeling I had never felt before. Pearl Harbour and the Explosions, Holly and the Italians, post-punk bands like the Clash, the Talking Heads, the list goes on and on. I was shellshocked and numb a great deal of the time, and pretty directionless, but when I listened to these bands, I felt alive. If there was one band that really made me feel awake and alive, it had to be Blondie, who were very deservingly inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall oi Fame this year. New Wave and it's acts weren't really recognized for thier contribution at the time, especially in the midwest, where REO Speedwagon type bands dominated the culture, it was considered a passing fad, or whatever. As the retro 80's stations have taken off in the last few years, it delights me that most of the music played is new wave or new wave influenced pop, much of which was never given airplay on the radio at the time, while I haven't heard an REO Speedwagon song in years. Quentin Crisp said in The Naked Civil Servant that "In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast. Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis".

So it is, I think, with the music and culture of what was then called "the New Wave", and in many ways, so it has been and is with my life. THANK GOD! ( or Jesus, Buddha, Mary, Kwan Yin, Morgan La Fey, Elvis, Rama-lama-ding-dong, pick one)


If there was one group that moved me deeply, and one icon that truly made me feel hopeful and alive, the group was Blondie, and the icon was the lead singer, the incomparable Deborah Harry

Beautiful and timeless, she opened the door for many people, with style, a certain grace all her own, and a great sense of humour...
Blondie didn't get much respect from the rock-n-roll press at the time (Heart of Glass was a DISCO song, oooh, tres uncool...)but they've definitely withstood the test of time. And two summers ago I was privileged enough to see them live- and better than ever. There is a warmth in her stage presence that few can match, and a sense of fun that we all could use more of these days.

So, here's to warm summer evenings, good music, good friends, and the awareness that time is on the side of the outcasts, the freaks, geeks and those who just don't feel connected to the world they find themselves in, and yet still have the ability to see beyond it to what can be. It takes a little time to realize it, but those of us who have been there know, you are much better better off. Thoreau said it best when he stated " Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them". The world is still full of songs, and thanks to the lessons I learned from the influence of all those who speak their own truth, so am I. Thanks for the inspiration...