365-66: kiss me with your mouth

(sometimes these photos don’t line up here right, you can click it to go the original size at flickr)

Day 66 of 365: a year in songs and photos

Song: Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy, Kiss Me

Ah, the 80’s. This song pretty much defines the early part of that decade for me.

When the 80’s started I was 17 and getting ready to graduate high school. By the time the 80’s were over I was married and eight months pregnant. The years in between those were some of the best of my life. Years filled with slacking, partying, clubbing, smoking, drinking, video game playing, road tripping, partying, slacking, drinking, slacking….you get the picture. It was the early part of the decade – say from high school graduation until I was about 24 – that formed the bulk of what we will refer to as Those Years.

I went through phases, musically. Angry and depressed (Black Flag’s Damaged), just depressed (anything by Joy Division) just angry (Husker Du, New Day Rising), apathetic (REM, Reckoning), drunk (Judas Priest, Maiden, Dio), stoned (this is where the old Pink Floyd came out) and…….happy. Happy music meant new wave music.

No matter what went on in the 80’s, no matter how much I remember or how much I want to forget or what people insist of reminding me of, the one thing that will flash in my head every time someone says "1980’s" will be new wave music, especially this song. The soundtrack to a very misspent youth, listened to on WLIR FM.

We hung out a club called Spit. Danced the night away, fueled by alcohol and synthesizer beats. I can tell you, from memory, that when at Spit! I was mostly likely wearing a black/cobalt blue miniskirt with some kind of shiny, pleather belt, torn, black stockings, a punk rock band t-shirt, nearly ripped to shreds and spiked up hair and some kind of stomping boots. I didn’t know whether I wanted to be punk or new wave. I just knew that there was something about this music that grabbed me and made me move. It wasn’t all happy music; a lot of it was pretty dark and disturbing. But the general feel of the music, the synthesized melodies, the way it made you bounce your head and your feet….it made me feel good to be alive. Standing in the middle of the club, the ground shaking, the beats pounding, the shots of 151 rum making their way through my system, everyone waving their hands in the air like they just didn’t care – it was a place I wanted to stay for as long as possible. We closed that club down every night it was open. First to come, last to leave. Hundreds of people swarming in and out the whole night (there was usually a long wait to get in), and we never left the floor except to pee and get drinks and maybe harass the DJ into playing that Kiss Me again.

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365-66: kiss me with your mouth

(sometimes these photos don’t line up here right, you can click it to go the original size at flickr)

Day 66 of 365: a year in songs and photos

Song: Stephen "Tin Tin" Duffy, Kiss Me

Ah, the 80’s. This song pretty much defines the early part of that decade for me.

When the 80’s started I was 17 and getting ready to graduate high school. By the time the 80’s were over I was married and eight months pregnant. The years in between those were some of the best of my life. Years filled with slacking, partying, clubbing, smoking, drinking, video game playing, road tripping, partying, slacking, drinking, slacking….you get the picture. It was the early part of the decade – say from high school graduation until I was about 24 – that formed the bulk of what we will refer to as Those Years.

I went through phases, musically. Angry and depressed (Black Flag’s Damaged), just depressed (anything by Joy Division) just angry (Husker Du, New Day Rising), apathetic (REM, Reckoning), drunk (Judas Priest, Maiden, Dio), stoned (this is where the old Pink Floyd came out) and…….happy. Happy music meant new wave music.

No matter what went on in the 80’s, no matter how much I remember or how much I want to forget or what people insist of reminding me of, the one thing that will flash in my head every time someone says "1980’s" will be new wave music, especially this song. The soundtrack to a very misspent youth, listened to on WLIR FM.

We hung out a club called Spit. Danced the night away, fueled by alcohol and synthesizer beats. I can tell you, from memory, that when at Spit! I was mostly likely wearing a black/cobalt blue miniskirt with some kind of shiny, pleather belt, torn, black stockings, a punk rock band t-shirt, nearly ripped to shreds and spiked up hair and some kind of stomping boots. I didn’t know whether I wanted to be punk or new wave. I just knew that there was something about this music that grabbed me and made me move. It wasn’t all happy music; a lot of it was pretty dark and disturbing. But the general feel of the music, the synthesized melodies, the way it made you bounce your head and your feet….it made me feel good to be alive. Standing in the middle of the club, the ground shaking, the beats pounding, the shots of 151 rum making their way through my system, everyone waving their hands in the air like they just didn’t care – it was a place I wanted to stay for as long as possible. We closed that club down every night it was open. First to come, last to leave. Hundreds of people swarming in and out the whole night (there was usually a long wait to get in), and we never left the floor except to pee and get drinks and maybe harass the DJ into playing that Kiss Me again.

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365-46: got my kiss records out

Day 46 of 365: a year in songs and photos

Song: Cheap Trick, Surrender

This ornament came with the son’s Kiss Army membership, which he got when he was about 7. He abandoned his Kiss fandom about two years later when he started playing guitar and came to the conclusion that Kiss sucks.

I was 16 before I reached that conclusion. Yea, I was in the Kiss Army, too. My first real rock and roll concert was Kiss at Nassau Coliseum circa 1974.

Anyone remember Kiss Saves Santa?

(Kiss Saves Santa doesn’t really exist. It was just a part of a Family Guy episode)

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300 bands, 300 songs (161-166)

161. Kiss – I Was Made For Loving You
The first band I saw live. The first band whose fan club I joined. The first band whose posters made my mother wonder where she had gone wrong. I was absolutely, rabidly crazy about them. And then the novelty wore off. Quickly. Even a dumb kid like me realized after a bit that the band was more marketing genius than musical genius. Style over substance and all that. By the time “Beth” was released, I had already torn down my posters and ripped up my Kiss Army card. I picked this song – Kiss’s ode to Dance Fever – because when it came out I was able to point and laugh at my friends who were still Kiss fans and make fun of them for liking a DISCO band.

162. King Missile – Martin Scorcese
The band known for its detachable penis has a wonderful repetoire of songs that go beyond losing one’s dick. For instance, there is this tune, which is a sweet, wonderful ode to a great director.

If I ever meet him I’m gonna grab his fuckin’ neck and just shake him
And say thank you thank you for makin’ such excellent fuckin’ movies
Then I’d twist his nose all the way the fuck around
And then rip off one of his ears and throw it
Like a like a like a fuckin’ frisbee
I wanna chew his fuckin’ lips off and grab his head and suck out one of his
eyes and chew on it and spit it out in his face
And say thank you thank you for all of your fuckin’ film

It doesn’t get much sweeter than that.

163. Ray Charles – Georgia On My Mind
Every couple has “their” song. This is my parents’. Whenever it comes on, no matter where we are, my parents will stop what they are doing and slow dance to it. Every time I hear this song I’m reminded of the wonderful marriage my parents have. And man, I just love his voice. This is one of those rare songs that’s so good, it gives me goosebumps.

164. The Dwarves – Let’s Fuck
I can’t even count all the ways in which this song is offensive. But hell, almost every Dwarves song is. It’s what they do. There’s something so disturbingly fun about these guys – like I almost feel guilty for liking them (really, the early stuff). There’s a satanic satisfaction about enjoying their music, the same kind of feeling I got when I palmed my communion wafer as a kid and fed it to the dog when I got home.

165. Oingo Boingo – Forbidden Zone
Way back in 1980, I was sitting in a little movie theater called the Mini Cinema – the same place you could find me every weekend watching things like Rocky Horror or The Song Remains The Same or It Came From Outer Space in 3D. A cult movie house that ran shows until about 4am. A place where the seats were permanently fixated with the stench of pot. My home away from home. Anyhow, one night we were at a midnight showing of the Grateful Dead movie when they threw us a curve and decided to show us a new flick first. The Forbidden Zone. This movie was so bizarre and surreal, that we decided to see it again the next night just to make sure that the mind altering drugs we had partaken of did not skew our viewing of the film. No siree, they did not. Seeing the movie straight was as fucked up as seeing it high. This was my first Danny Elfman experience and I chose the title track for the experience of this movie and everything Oingo Boingo did that came after it.

Opening sequence to the movie:

165. Frank Sinatra – Summer Wind
I grew up with Frank, so to speak. My father and grandfather thought he walked on water (though my grandfather definitely worshiped Jimmy Roselli more), so I pretty much had most of his catalog memorized. It wasn’t one of those things where parents force some crappy music upon their children; I really enjoyed listening to Sinatra. I still do. Apparently, I wasn’t the only kid raised on Sinatra, because we used to close the local dive bar down with this song every Friday night and every single person in the place, from 18 year old punks to 50 year old bikers, stopped what they were doing at 4am and we all belted this out together.

166. Sepultura – Ratamahatta
There is no Sepultura without Max Cavalera. Let’s just get that out of the way. This song is so much fun to sing because you have no idea what the hell you are saying, but you are saying it with conviction. Fubanga! Maloca! Bocada!

FAQ here
list of suggested bands/artists not covered yet.
List of songs completed so far here
Link to all 300 bands, 300 songs posts

Please note that the list of suggested artists (formerly called UPCOMING) is just that – suggestions. I will not be doing them all, as some of them just don’t have a song that I can call a favorite. So keep on keeping on with the suggestions.

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