I’m a “sensing” (as opposed to intuitive, like my beloved) sort of person, and I have a good sense memory. A goddamned good sense memory. I notice details. I suck at faces (not entirely face blind, but facial recognition is not my forte and I usually remember people by voice or walk or a scar/birthmark or something), but I do visually remember inanimate objects very well. If you wore an orange T-shirt that I admired, I will remember exactly the shade of orange. I have to, because any other shade of orange would be “wrong”. I sometimes remember people by the scent of their cologne, not because it was overpowering or unpleasant, but because I noticed it and made a memory imprint of “this person goes with this scent”. I remember exactly the way the bolts of velvet felt when I used to touch them in the old Towers department store. V. would run for the toys section, I’d head for fabrics to touch the velvets. I use my senses more than many people do to form perceptions of the world. A red delicious apple should look a particular way, be within a range of shades of red, and the skin should have a particular texture. If it’s not, it’s “wrong”. Maybe that’s why I have so little appreciation for art. I don’t know.
I’d like to remain in possession of all five senses, but the one I would least like to lose is hearing. I’m a “senser”, but also an auditory learner, and either exacting or nitpicking, depending upon who you ask. I’m good at languages, but damned good if I can hear them spoken so I can repeat the words to myself. There isn’t a great lot of difference between the Slovak letters ĺ and ľ, but I can hear it clearly even with my untrained Anglo ear, and both are vastly different from a plain l. I kept straight the French accent grave and accent aigu because I remembered the names and (in my mind) they make a similar sound to the change they make to the letter (jeezus, did that make sense?) I distinctly remember the sound of Mme. Ross’ voice when she taught them to us. If I’m around someone who speaks with an accent for more than a very short time, I’ll pick it up even if I’m making a deliberate effort to not do that. My aunt P. is the same way–she sounds just like Livio, though she was born in England, not Italy, and does not speak Italian at all (except for cursing–that she knows). Anyway, I remember and repeat sounds, and very well!
When I was probably eleven or twelve years old, I used to hear a song on the radio, sometime at home, sometimes at Marlene’s house. On a country station, and I don’t really like country music, but for some reason, I did remember this song. Not the title, not the artist and only a few of the lyrics, but I could hear the music and the lyrics I did know clearly in my head. I started searching for it practically as soon as I’d got Internet access, and although it took me literally years, I found it. Ditto “Bonaparte’s Retreat”; a Glen Campbell song I used to hear when M. had the radio on during the day, though that was easier because Glen Campbell was more popular than Rhett Davis. Same for “Joanne” by Michael Nesmith.
As a teenager, I was a rebellious pain in the arse, and especially after I discovered heavy metal, which (in the early 80s) rapidly evolved into hair metal. Marina didn’t have any music “heavier” than Conway Twitty or The Beatles, so I used to play Q104 (“The ROCK of the Atlantic!”, and yes, I remember exactly how that sounded) when I was at her house. Not loud, because the kids were usually asleep, but I had it on. One night, I turned on the radio partway through a song, and I liked it. It wasn’t anything amazing, but was catchy, and when it was over, I heard the DJ say “Highway (something that sort of sounded like it might be “child”)”. He hadn’t said the name of the song, but I guessed from the lyrics that it was most likely “Christine”. Searches for “Christine” invariably brought up KISS’ “Christine Sixteen”, but goddamn if I didn’t eventually find that song. One person on all of Napster (while it was still worth using) had it, and it took me days to get it on my dial-up connection because he was the only one who did, and he kept logging off before the download finished. The group was Swedish or Dutch or Finnish or something like that, and called Highway Chile. In North America, they weren’t very popular, which was why I heard that song only once; this was, after all, during the Great Hair Metal Flood of the early 80s, and all you had to do to start a band was grow your hair long, wear leather and torn denim, maybe makeup, learn three chords, and scream at the top of your lungs about oppressive adults, partying and scoring with sexy women.
I liked most metal bands, and owned everything from Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and KISS to Ratt, Quiet Riot, Mötley Crüe, Twisted Sister and Accept. I had Raven’s “Sledgehammer Rock”, facrissake, and I liked it. Some I bought, some I taped off the radio. “Balls To The Wall” was practically my anthem; it was just so…harsh. Udo Dirkschneider is a short, stumpy, hideously ugly little German man, but his lungs are made of fucking boot leather. There is nothing melodic about the noise he makes on stage, but when you’re sixteen, hate practically everyone and everything, and wear more chains and studded leather to school than Rob Halford, it’s just what you want.
One night, probably some time in 1984, maybe ’85, I was lying in bed, “herbed” half out of my mind, trying to go to sleep. I had school the next day and it was long, long after midnight. Anyway, I was sort of lying there, half-listening to the radio, and I heard what sounded like an old, scratched record playing some kind of polka, and a woman singing something in German. At first, I thought, “What the fuck?”, but it wasn’t more than a few seconds before I heard the record scratch, an unholy scream, and a voice that sounded like Udo Dirkschneider. The song was okay, but I couldn’t tell what the hell he was screaming because it was Udo Dirkschneider, and because I wasn’t precisely in full control of my faculties. I eventually went to sleep, and never gave another thought to that song.
Yesterday, I wandered in my internet travels across a site that mentioned Kevin DuBrow, the (questionably talented) former frontman of Quiet Riot. I went looking to see what he’s doing these days (producing his own material, being a prick), and Dee Snider was mentioned in the interview. Of course, that made me think of Twisted Sister (who are still together!!), and eventually of Accept. I went to YouTube and watched a video of Balls To The Wall (still love it), then recalled that other song and wondered what it might be. I’m nearly forty years old now, and really not interested in metal anymore (just the stuff from when I was a teenager), so although I was almost positive the song with the scratchy record at the beginning was Accept, I really didn’t want to sit and listen to everything they’d done prior to “sometime in 1985-ish”. I poked about on the site where I’d found the Kevin DuBrow interview and found one with Wolf Hoffman, another short German (with a frog-mouth) who’d been a guitarist with Accept. I read the interview, and he mentioned a song where they’d asked someone’s mother for “kid’s records”. He said, “We wanted people to think they were playing the wrong record”, and I knew that had to be the one. I was right; the scratchy bit at the beginning is a recording made by Dieter Dirks when he was about five years old, and the screaming afterwards is called “Fast As A Shark.” I still think it’s only okay, but my most vivid memories are the auditory ones, and as soon as I heard it, I was once again a sixteen-year-old rebel, lying across my bed at Dad’s house, half-asleep, all baked and wondering, “What the fuck???” 🙂
