Over the years I've always had a number of musical mentors in my life; friends who have shared their love for music with me. When I moved to Washington, DC back in 1982 to attend film school, I met Andy and Steve. Although they were sophomores, and I was a grad student, our class schedules often intersected. One of our first assignments was to create a narrative from a series of slides and a mixed soundtrack of music and other sound effects. My slideshow was an eerie set of images depicting a young woman being stalked in and out of the shadows of Georgetown by a mysterious male figure. It ended with the girl being followed down the ramp of a spooky parking garage into blackness and after a tense pause, a startling, ear-piercing scream. The music and the scream that comprised my soundtrack came from “Subway Song” by The Cure. My eclectic soundtrack clearly caught Andy and Steve's attention. I can still remember walking back up the aisle of the theatre where we presented our projects and noticing the two of them eying me with a slow-motion cinematic-like curiosity: their eyebrows slowly arched and heads nodded in appreciation of my obscure music choice while I responded with a shrug of the shoulders as if to say “What? Do you think undergraduates are the only ones cool enough to know good music?” Years later we would laugh and agree that our Intro to Film & Video Production class had indeed provided us with a pivotal point in our friendship that day.
Soon after, we started hanging out together, working on each others films projects, going to concerts, exchanging music, and spending many Saturday afternoons making a circuit of every worthwhile record store in the area: namely Yesterday and Today Records, Joe's Record Paradise, Vinyl Ink, and Go! Discs. A sizable portion of my music collection is full of records acquired during these pilgrimages. An equally sizable portion of my mixed tape collection is comprised of songs borrowed from Andy and Steve's music libraries — collections which make mine look like small potatoes. The hardest part about going to the record stores with the two of them was never having enough cash to buy all the music they would load me up with — not to mention having to re-file it all — under the watchful eye of Skip or Ted or George — and hope I could remember where it all was the next time I shopped there. I imagine I'll be sharing a lot of music and anecdotes from those early Washington days…
Indeed, today's Happy Medium Song of the Day is a two-fer. Obviously I couldn't tell this story and not include “Subway Song” by The Cure… but I'm also including a second tune that is indicative of the music I was buying at that time — not to mention the silly kinds of conversations we would have as we bombed around town from one record store to the next… “How about a mix tape featuring nothing but songs with celebrity names in the title?” “Can we fill both sides of a tape that way?" "Specifically ('cause there's always an even sillier catch in these instances) music celebrity names.” In other words: “Who Shot Elvis?” or “I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives” or “I Can’t Get Bouncing Babies by The Teardrop Explodes,” etc. Twenty years later, here's one of my favorite songs from that conversation and, soon to be compiled CD — today's second Happy Medium Song of the Day is: “Iggy Pop's Jacket” by Those Naughty Lumps. Enjoy! (Please use the comments box to share your thoughts.)