My Appendix N: Music

Awhile back I was part of a thread on Twitter centered around "Our" Appendix N, the list of works that inspired us to built us to what we are. It was an interesting idea. I answered a few of my own, but thought it necessary to expand it to a series of posts on the subject.

I wanted to try this to frame where my inspiration came from when it comes to writing, not necessarily my entire range of tastes of different mediums. This should be an interesting experiment if I can narrow it down.

Before we begin, I should explain what "Appendix N" is.

For those who kept up with my Pulp Revolution post, Appendix N is the list of books Gary Gygax read which inspired him to construct Dungeons and Dragons from the aesthetic to the rules to the general set up to every trope you know today. In other words, Appendix N covers these foundational works that made a game that changed everything.

Because I am not talking about a game with very obvious and blatant influence, but about writing inspiration, there are few mediums to shuffle through. The first I want to talk about is traditionally my least popular topic on the blog, music. It's a hard medium to discuss so I also just want to get it out of the way first before getting into the obvious stuff.

Without further ado, here is the list.

Stray Cats/Brian Setzer

There were a lot of records (yes, records) around where I grew up, much of which is Boomer trash I no longer listen to. However, one record my mom had that I dug into as a kid was called Built For Speed by the rockabilly revival outfit known as the Stray Cats. The album was back to front incredible and I didn't know until later that it was a compilation of their first two albums that were, at the time, UK exclusive. When I started collecting CDs I found import copies of those two albums which still remain two of my most listened. Their follow-up album Rant N Rave with the Stray Cats was just as good, but the band soon broke up and despite many reunions and one-off comeback albums they never reached the height of those first three.

But those were enough. To this day they remain three of my favorite albums, and they remain the favorites for just about every rockabilly fan alive today.

The Stray Cats and their lead singer/songwriter, Brian Setzer, have a unique place in how I see entertainment. Their image, outdated at their peak in the 80s, of tough guys that could croon and their focus on songs meant to evoke an era forgotten by everyone else has given their music a strange time capsule feel. If you handed a Stray Cats album and a Carl Perkins album to a Zoomer they would have no idea they came out 30 years apart from each other. They saw a time when pop music could be anything, and didn't have to be watered down and degenerate to be wild and palatable at the same time.

But they were also surprisingly reviled back at the time. They were called things like "reheated Gene Vincent" by self-important music critics who didn't know what playing in older abandoned styles actually meant. They were booed when opening for the Rolling Stones. They were called pretenders and trend-hoppers. Boomers, who from my experience hate 50s rock more than any other generation, detested them. But 40 years removed from their formation, they have been playing together and had longer careers than anyone who first played the genre when it began.

Just a few days ago they released their 8th album and first after 26 years appropriately called "40" and are one of the few rockabilly bands around playing it straight instead of farcing it up with goofy posing and empty style.

Outside of the Stray Cats, which is a band few outside younger Gen X and older Gen Y have appreciation for, Brian Setzer did something different in the 90s. He helped revive Big Band Swing and made it a phenomenon before the great purge of 1998 cut that short. If you were alive in the 90s you probably heard the Brian Setzer Orchestra at least once.

At this stage in my life the band opened up new pathways for me. His third Big Band album, The Dirty Boogie, came out around a time when my life as a teenager had begun and was already sinking. In this album he went all out and threw in the kitchen sink including injecting in some of his rockabilly style into it. That's right, this is the first time I had really noticed genre mixing and how natural it was.

You notice it especially on his cover of his first hit Rock This Town where the two styles merge effortlessly to create a sound that strikes a chord with someone like me even harder.

But after that Setzer didn't stop. All the way through the '00s and into the '10s, a pretty terrible decade overall, he would do anything. From a solo rockabilly album to a blues record to kitchen sink album called 13 where he did just about everything, to trilogy set of celebrating 50s rock n roll, he made it clear to me that what a lot of what artists called walls weren't anything of the sort.

Consider that this was the 00s and think back and what rock actually was at that time. Did you cringe? That's natural. But at the time Brian Setzer was injecting pure color into the sepia-tinged slop of the industry.

It's quite interesting how he puts music first and never gets into political slap-fights like many artists today. He kept it about entertainment first. Heck, his one political song was on the first Stray Cats album and it isn't one you would hear playing on the radio today. Not to say that they would dare play anything good as it is. But Setzer kept it focused on where it counted: entertainment. And as the years passed he only got better at it.

He even put out an instrumental record and, like the old masters like the Ventures or Dick Dale, made it fun. No pretension to be found.

However, there was one album he put out in 2009 that hit me, apparently, much harder than anyone else out there.

The album was called Songs from Lonely Avenue, and it was something he has not done since. He flirted with another era long since forgotten.

He got back with the Orchestra to create a soundtrack for a film noir movie that never existed. Of course he paints in darker tones, but his experimental phase allowed him to try things he never would before while still keeping everything sharp, to the point, and energetic. This was one of the albums that finally pushed me to start writing for real, even if it wasn't right off the bat. There was a bit of magic to this one that many missed the first time.

Brian Setzer has never been afraid of being thought of as cheesy or corny. The man put out more Christmas albums than most bands put out normal records. But he always said that he just wants to make fun music to move people, and he does it seriously. This is an approach I don't think anyone has anymore.

The passion behind this album, and Setzer's whole career, made him one of my biggest inspirations. Without him I would not be writing what I am writing. This is why he is the first inclusion on the list.

Selections:

• Stray Cats - Stray Cats (1981), Gonna Ball (1981), Rant N' Rave with the Stray Cats (1983)
• Brian Setzer Orchestra - Guitar Slinger (1996), The Dirty Boogie (1998), Songs from Lonely Avenue (2009)
• Brian Setzer - Ignition! (2001), 13 (2006), Setzer Goes Instru-Mental! (2011), Rockabilly Riot! All Original (2014)

The Ramones

The first true punk band and the most ripped off of the 20th century, the Ramones were a band I discovered when going through my punk phase, back when the genre wasn't filled with whiny zealot brats. As I've gotten older the four brothers from Brooklyn are about the only band in the genre I can stomach to listen to anymore.

This is for two distinct reasons. They always kept it simple and focused. There was an unwritten rule that a Ramones song would never exceed four minutes in length, and they never did. The band came along at a time where the Baby Boomers were twisting rock music into a self-indulgent mess of musical masturbation and hedonistic urges over entertainment and excitement. They went the other way with clear '50s rock influence and aggression not seen since the day the music died. The Ramones also consisted of a band with varying beliefs, politics, and interests, which kept them fighting each other instead of their audience.

As for why I consider them the band of the 20th century, it is because of their violent aggressive sound contrasted with lyrics about cartoonish antics, pop culture absurdity, and societal decay that showed the dead end the west was coming to.

No band that came after them hit that perfect storm of being in the right place at the right time. I don't think there's another band in the 20th century that got it quite as much as they did.

Selections:

• Ramones - Ramones (1976), Leave Home (1977), Rocket to Russia (1978), Road to Ruin (1979), Too Tough to Die (1984)

Urge Overkill

I've explained this before, but Urge Overkill was the Gen X response to Boomer hedonism. A rock band with smart lyrics, rocking tunes, and enough noise to put hair on the chest of the neighboring Nirvana fan.

They hit their stride with their Stull EP before getting big with their fourth album, Saturation, which satires and skewers the rock n roll lifestyle that had become a punchline by that time. They then went through a rough time of their own afterwards and put out Exit the Dragon as their final major label release which is a 100% serious take on bottoming out and crawling out of the darkness. It ended up being their final work for sixteen years when they came back with their independent Rock & Roll Submarine, a sort of check-in to show they were still alive and kicking. It managed to keep the rocking alive.

These albums showed me a side of rock I had never seen before about the dangerous habit of pleasure seeking our society had headed towards and the destruction we are in for. There is more to life than bleeding out and smiling about it, and few bands are willing to admit it. These albums, especially, helped me through some dark times.

Sometimes there is a hidden depth behind what seems simplistic at first.

Selections:

• Urge Overkill - Stull (1992), Saturation (1993), Exit the Dragon (1995), Rock & Roll Submarine (2011)

Retrowave

This is a genre I got into about the time I started writing seriously. My story Someone is Aiming For You came to me as I listened to the song Early Summer by Miami Nights 1984. Satellite Young's debut album helped me come up with several stories currently in various stages of production. Noir Deco helped me nail down my interpretation of Cyberpunk being best when smashed with Gothic Horror. Of all the genres, Retrowave is the one that has given me the most direct inspiration for writing, even when I'm not.

As is fitting my selections are the newest on this entire list. The genre's penchant for mixing and matching old with new, putting passion and creativity before pretension and without pandering to the mainstream, has made it one of my favorites. It continues to inspire now.

If you have not yet gotten into the genre I have included many of the albums that affected me the most in the creative process and just when sitting around thinking.

Selections:

• Miami Nights 1984 - Early Summer (2010), Turbulence (2012)
• Noir Deco - Future to Fantasy (2011)
• Sunglasses Kid - Graduation (2017)
• The Midnight - Nocturnal (2017)
• Megadrive - Futurescape (2012)
• Satellite Young - Satellite Young (2017)
• FM Attack - Dreamatic (2009)
• Megahammer - Raw Licks, Sleazy Flicks (2016)
• Tokyo Rose - The Chase: Last Run (2017)

And lastly I wanted to include stray albums with a quick explanation as to how they got to me. Not everything is centered around a handful of artists.

Dick Dale & His Deltones - Surfer's Choice (1962)

One of the first pre-Beatles albums I heard that showed me just how rich the soundscape of pop music was before everything was torn down. This album is a kaleidoscope of rock from before a time where it was required to water it down.

Madness - One Step Beyond (1979)

A breezy, goofy ride through a downtown neighborhood that no longer exists, this album portrayed a youth that is long gone, but remains as exuberant and exciting as ever. One listen to this and you'll be wondering if maybe things will be okay again.

Blur - Modern Life is Rubbish (1993)

An album made in response to the murky nihilism of the early 90s, of all Blur's albums it has remained the least dated to a degree no one wished for. Modern life is still rubbish, what were once tiny fractures have grown and all but torn apart what was once united, and emptiness remains in its place. That said, its power remains undiluted and it remains Blur's strongest album, and probably the best of the '90s.

X - Los Angeles (1980)

This is a band I should like more being that they were an early punk band with a clear rockabilly influence, but most of their material isn't powerful enough to me and many of their lyrics are typical subversive chants about nothing. However, their debut is different. X was composed of three members from Illinois and a drummer from the album title in question. Los Angeles is a searing indictment of modern life in the worst city in the world with songs blasting drinking yourself to death, cocaine, Hollywood, sexual assault (but I repeat myself), and the world falling apart around your ears. The vocalists deadpan delivery burn the impression of an empty-souled city and modern life with nowhere to go but hell. They were never this powerful again, and never as dead on in describing the problems of the 20th century. All of it is in Los Angeles and still around today.

Carl Perkins - The Dance Album of Carl Perkins (1957)

One of the first Rockabilly albums and the one Elvis fell in love with, the Dance album is one that has been ripped off countless times, and probably by bands who don't even realize it. He created the template for a fun versatile style of music that few bands have truly taken advantage of to this level. If you haven't heard this one you're missing out. As much as I like Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran neither of them had an album as strong as this one.

Oasis - (What's the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

To be deadly honest, as much as they've been called rip offs of the Beatles, I have always like Oasis more. This album especially was the first I ever bought as a kid from a band I discovered on my own. It stuck with me for decades and while Oasis had other great albums (their first two and last two are generally considered the best) none hit that sweet spot of pop hooks and big sound that made the postivity of Britpop overtake the nihilism of American grunge. For a minute everything was going to be alright, and that minute is this album.

The Jam - In the City (1977)

Before Paul Weller got an ego the size of the titanic he put out The Jam's debut album in the year of punk rock. However, this was a mod album which meant it was about dancing more than moshing and the lyrics were more concerned with the destruction of old things, escaping the dehumanizing encroachment of city life on the mind, a past that was gone forever, and the Batman theme. Yes, there is a cover of that, and it is amazing. In a year of super serious punk rockers already missing the point of The Ramones while cashing in on them, The Jam, at least for now, was doing it right. Telling the magazines he voted for Thatcher was a great touch, too. It took years for the hate to come off these guys, but the album remains a snapshot of fun amidst a downhill climate that was rapidly becoming clear to everyone.  

Deluxtone Rockets - Green Room Blues (2000)

An album about clawing for Christ in a situation where hope has all but been squashed, this one helped me both through some rough times and when writing stories of my own. It has always been a shame that these guys only have two albums to speak of, but this second one contains a rainbow of rocking sounds to match lyrics of crushing darkness with piercing rays of hope cutting through. It's a remarkably strong album, and one that inspires me to this day. Rock fans passing it up because the band is Christian is doing themselves a disservice. This is fantastic stuff.

And that is it for this post. I apologize for the length, but I wanted to be thorough and explain just how music can affect a writer and their process of storytelling. It happens a lot.

Next time I will be more straightforward with a different medium that has a focus on narrative, but for now I hoped you enjoyed the ride. Communication can do wonders for your mind and soul.

Art truly is a wonderful thing.