Richard Marx Is Punk as F**K

I realize the title might elicit some extreme reactions, but before you completely dismiss me, hear my tale.

In the 90s, I was heavily steeped in the goth and industrial culture, crowd surfing and moshing to bands like Nine Inch Nails, Ministry and the like. In the 00s, I embraced post punk and indie sounds. But my musical evolution had a clear and distinct beginning: pop rock.

For a good chunk of the 80s I was an avid fan of Huey Lewis and the News, Bryan Adams, The Cars, Tom Petty, etc. In fact, up until 1988, I'd only been to three live shows and they were all to see Huey Lewis.

In August of '88 I was just out of high school and planning on going into the military. I was a naive little nugget and the world seemed like a very big place that I was about to be thrown out into, head first. I'd also really been enjoying Richard Marx's first self-titled album. Its first big single, "Don't Mean Nothin'" was on regular rotation in my car's cassette player, the volume cranked to the maximum my little Datsun B210 could take.  If you need a refresher, here it is:

Anyway, once I heard Mr. Marx was coming to the Ventura County Fair, I was in like Flynn. I lived in Ventura at that time and it was rare to have artists that I was interested in come up our way. I bought a pair of tickets, hoping to take a girl that I liked, but after getting the 'I like you as a friend' speech, I asked my friend Rob to go with me.

I'd been to a few fairs and I expected it to be an open, standing room only kind of situation. What we were greeted with was something that was closer to a roving evangelical revival tent; neatly arranged folding chairs with letters and numbers stenciled precisely on the back, a rope barricade separating the front row from the stage by a good twenty feet. There were would be no unruly behavior at this show, by god.

I hadn't noticed the pre-ordained seating notations on our tickets up until that point, so we took our seats near the far back on the left side, a distinctly deflated slant to our posture. We were still close enough to catch a glimpse of RM's stylishly feathered hair, but certainly not close enough to distinguish any actual expressions on his face.

He and his band came out on stage to a sold out and well-seated, well-behaved crowd. There was enthusiastic applause and a few people stood and cheered. They quickly seated themselves again when they realized that this wasn't going to be that kind of show.

Or so we thought.

Mr. Marx stepped up to the microphone with classic rock star enthusiasm. But the words that came out of his mouth were like nothing I expected and to this day, remains one of the most rock and roll things I've ever been witness to. He said something to the effect of (and I'm pretty sure I remember this almost word for word), "Hey! Good to be here. When I came out for sound check and I saw all the seating, I spoke to the management and said that I usually do the kind of show where people are on their feet and dancing. They said something about safety and regulations. But you know what? They're not up here with a microphone. I am. And I say, there's a whole lot of you and only a few guys down in front of me here. I bet that if you all get up and move forward and come through that rope, they'll get out of the way."

The security at the front of the stage did a double take. The crowd stood and cheered and moved forward like a human wave. The security got out of the way. The chairs were discarded, tipped over and forgotten. The rope was pulled down. The crowd pressed right up against that stage for the next hour to sing along to their favorite songs and rock and roll lived on for another day.

I haven't listened to Richard Marx in years. Really, decades. A few years ago, I came across his Twitter and I clicked 'follow'. I couldn't tell you why. Maybe it was a sense of nostalgia, maybe it was that I was curious to see what someone like him would tweet about. He seemed smart, funny, self-aware. He seemed like a good guy. Life moved on.

Where this story ends is today. As I write this, I just got home from making an unplanned stop at a fast food restaurant. There were extenuating circumstances and I had to eat in the dining area. I'm sitting there having my chicken sandwich and through the PA I hear a voice. I didn't think about it, not for one second. There was no questioning. I just immediately knew, "That's Richard Marx." I didn't recognize the song, so I brought out my smart phone and called up Shazam. The song was "Nothing Left Behind Us," from his 2008 album, Paid Vacation.

I'm not here to tell you that I thought, "Oh my god, I love this. What have I been missing all of these years?", because that's not what went through my mind. My musical tastes have moved on in the years since that show and I'll probably not go back. 

But I smiled. I felt good. Because his voice somehow tapped into some deep part of my brain, my 18 year old psyche that was still there. It wasn't conscious at all, I was just automatically transported back to that great memory of getting out of my seat and saying, "Yeah, screw these seats!"

I'm glad Mr. Marx is still making music, still doing what he loves. And I'm glad that 18 year old me is still in there.

www.connoralexander.com

My Favorite 100 Songs (1-25)

I'm 45 and it's New Years, so time for lists, right? I thought I'd throw out a list of my favorite songs of all time. At first I thought it would be daunting. How do you categorize, quantify, sort and sift all of the amazing music out there and come up with just 100?

Well, here it is. I shot from the hip. There's no rhyme or reason. Some of these are perfect to dance to, others are nostalgic. Some are new, some are old. Some are obscure, others infamous. I don't care. I just went with it. These are songs that always make me smile, always make me sing along, always raise my pulse, make my feet move. There are plenty of other songs that could have made this list too, but they didn't. Don't read too much into it.

Also, these 100 songs are in NO ORDER whatsoever.

This is #1-25
The link straight to the YouTube playlist:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq7S3twOMsu1k-BCBnZowKTspopFak05g

In case any of those are dead or you don't have time to listen/watch, here's the list:

1 Rebel Rebel - David Bowie
2 Glory Hallelujah - Frank Turner
3 So Whatcha Want - Beastie Boys
4 Evil Woman - Electric Light Orchestra
5 Beautiful Ones - Suede
6 Crazy Little Thing Called Love - Queen
7 English Summer Rain - Placebo
8 Instant Karma - John Lennon
9 Ode To Joy (9th Symphony) - Beethoven
10 Everybody - Madonna
11 Head On - Jesus and Mary Chain
12 It's No Good - Depeche Mode
13 The Chain - Fleetwood Mac
14 Ghost Inside - Broken Bells
15 Don't Change - INXS
16 Ok...This is the Pops! - Tones On Tail
17 Clark Gable - Postal Service
18 You Got Lucky - Tom Petty
19 6 Underground - Sneaker Pimps
20 Must Be The Moon - !!!
21 I Didn't Mean To Turn You On - Robert Palmer
22 Controversy - Prince
23 Easy Lover - Phil Collins and Phillip Bailey
24 Wish - Nine Inch Nails
25 Heads Will Roll - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Even if none of these are to your tastes, it certainly gives you some insight into my brain.

#26-50 Tomorrow.

"The State Of My Modern Music" or "Technology, Bitches!"

I began DJing in 1998. By 2004 I'd amassed a pretty sizable music collection, most of it in CDs, but plenty of vinyl and mp3s too. Katrina wiped that clean except for the mp3s.

I slowly began collecting tunes again through various channels, but buying CDs and vinyl was quickly becoming bulky and too expensive. I was moving toward digital.

When I lost my job last year and decided to move in with Jen, I got rid of my old desktop. I saved numerous large playlists to Spotify and decided in the spirit of trimming my possessions a bit, that I'd go even mp3 free and try to subsist entirely through Spotify. But Spotify doesn't have everything and once I started considering DJing again, I saw the flaw in that plan.

So, a few months and a lot of research later, I have this stuff MASTERED. My music collection isn't just back, it's dynamic, accurate, accessible and so 21st century that it should glow Tron blue. It is full on bad ass. This is how I did it: