All pop-crits have this story: the Epiphany. That erotic moment when you peeled back the shrink wrap and offered your cherry. Most describe it in fetishistic (and almost certainly embellished) detail. It's locker room braggadocio for audiophiles: instead of bra-strap fumbling behind the gym, you get hot chatter of needle drops on some virgin Gram Parsons high-grade. The phenomenon reached fever pitch in 2000 as Cameron Crowe's doppelganger, William Miller, discovered his sister's record collection in Almost Famous and massaged the sleeves of Joni Mitchell's Blue and Crosby, Stills & Nash's self-titled debut.
For my generation the Epiphany usually involves Pop's wax or an older sibling's stash. Since I had no brothers or sisters until 1978, I was on my own. My father was a rock 'n' roll baby himself, arriving on the coil in 1950 and, more critically, hitting milestones at every musicologist-approved juncture in the genre's development. One could dive into my dad's collection and find anything: Neil Young & Crazy Horse, The Beach Boys, The Cars, Cream, Blue Cheer, Blind Faith, Band of Gypsys, CSN, Led Zeppelin, REO Speedwagon, Jackson 5, The Temptations, Spanky & Our Gang. So if I wanted the time-honored Epiphany, I was covered. But being an '80s kid, I gave less than a wrought-iron fuck about those hoary, sideburned jackasses living under his stereo; what did Jack Bruce have on George Michael? My world was the Top 40 KIQY-FM morning and evening, with a post-homework MTV pit stop for pop replenishment. Saturday nights were reserved for Night Tracks on WTBS and Night Flight on USA, although the latter was notorious for indulging my dad's generation and couldn't be fully trusted. My perspective didn't extend beyond what was given to me—not because I wasn't receptive to other channels, but because as far as I knew, those channels didn't exist. Sure, there were kids at school who were into funny-sounding bands, but you couldn't buy any of those albums at the local stores. Their videos weren't broadcast anywhere. I was a 12-year-old with a limited purview: If I hadn't heard of it, if my friends hadn't heard of it, if MTV didn't acknowledge it, it probably didn't matter.
Then around 1984 my hometown of Albany, Oregon, birthed its first (as far as I knew) alternative record shop, Audio Addict. It was shoved into the back of a carpet warehouse downtown like some shameful family secret. Its logo was an ear bombarded by jagged sound waves. Tiny ads for the store ran intermittently in the local paper, usually heralding the arrival of some whosits' 7-inches from somewhere.
I visited Audio Addict once, right after my 13th birthday in November 1985. The interior was bright and deceptively open, though in truth it was about the size of the average shoebox. It bore the familiar aroma of historic age (most buildings downtown smelled like this mix of dust and crayon) blended with incense. Immediately I knew the store was different when I saw twirling above the middle counter a copy of David Lee Roth's Crazy from the Heat LP with a steak knife jammed through the erstwhile Van Halen vocalist's chest—and it was the only album in the entire store I recognized. Everything else may as well have been printed in Japanese, and strangely enough, some of it was. But I had $20 of Hallmark-enveloped lucre aching for release, so I was determined to find something at least mildly interesting, even if I had no idea what it was.
My attention quickly wandered to a double album whose price was the immediate attraction: nine bucks. That would leave me with enough for a T-shirt (The Cramps—dug the name and the rebellious possibilities; it ended up getting me tossed out of gym one fine spring day), plus the latest issue of Mad and a Big Gulp. Public school economics in action! My decision final, I copped the sleeve and dragged it to the counter, where the resident clerk, a woman in her mid-20s, stood wearing a case of permanent apathy. She checked the cover, then nodded down at me and uttered a single word of affirmation: "Nice." Elation speared my body like a corn-dog stick. I hadn't a clue as to what I was buying, but it was cool enough for an older woman to regard with some level of raised awareness.
The album? Zen Arcade, by Husker Du. Swear to God.
At 13 I knew nothing of punk rock, other than it had existed once, and now it kinda didn't. That there were multiple genres had never occurred to me. I don't believe I was even familiar with genre as anything but a spelling word. There was rock 'n' roll, country, rap, and old music, which covered every noise plunked before my father was born. What little I remembered of punk was primarily visual: the Mohawks, the safety pins, the torn leather jackets, the kid with green/blue hair I saw in Portland, his bandaged fingers skittering quietly up a guitar neck, the legend Nuclear Donut scribbled in ball-point on his Converse high tops. The form's two confirmed twin towers, the Sex Pistols and The Clash, were extinct. The former was a familiar-sounding name that sounded naughty; the latter loitered a while longer, brewing "Rock the Casbah" before relinquishing their cultural foothold to the U2s and Culture Clubs. In 1985, in Albany, Oregon, punk was a flat-lined aberration, vanished under manicured suburbia and American Top 40. Or so I thought.
That night Zen Arcade earned its first spin on the turntable I inherited from my father when he traded up for a better system. Here's where I'd normally wax nostalgic on the record's life-altering sonics, discussing in rising hysteria how I'd never, ever be the same again.
But you wanna to know the truth? Zen Arcade scared the living s-h-i-t out of me. It didn't last ten minutes in my woofers. I tore that needle off to stop the assault and asked myself how I could've wasted all that potential video game money on what sounded like someone dumping truckloads of amplifiers and instruments from a ten-story building and recording the eventual crash for posterity. Where were the melodies? Why were these jackasses screaming? Why were they so mad? What the fuck were they saying? Did they really think those guitars sounded good? Who was stupid enough to book studio time and release this as a two-record set? Was this some kind of joke? I jettisoned the Husker turd and floated in the familiar waters of Mr. Mister. Welcome, little one, to this place of earth and stone. Damn skippy, bitch; it's good to be back.
The funny thing is, every few months or so I'd give Zen Arcade another try. And eventually it grew on me. When I listened to "Chartered Trips," I thought it was beautiful rather than reprehensible. "I'll Never Forget You" didn't inspire me to reach for the Bufferin. That song and "Never Talking To You Again" expressed betrayal better than any simpering ballad could—expressed a more realistic reaction, at the very least. "What's Going On" wasn't hackneyed noise; it was full-bore rock. The eidolon piano on "Monday Will Never Be the Same" chilled to the soul, each chord an ice-pick to the heart. I begrudgingly became a Husker Du fan and was rewarded through the few years they had remaining with Candy Apple Grey and Warehouse: Songs and Stories (the Warner Bros. output was much easier to find; it took me a while to gather all the SST albums)—and embraced the posthumous The Living End. I tailed Bob Mould through his solo efforts, then his stint with Sugar, followed by another solo run that has culminated in the brilliant Body of Song. Although I lost track of Grant Hart after Intolerance, his 1990 return-fire to Mould's Workbook, I'm doing my best to rectify that.
So was there an Epiphany? I don't know. I just learned that rock 'n' roll existed beyond the perimeters of my own experience. Maybe my dad had some taste, after all, and maybe I could learn from history. There were secrets in catalogs, revolutions in bedrooms, surprises in carpet stores. Joy in the unexplored and unknown. This was brought home to me about four years later, in 1989 or so, when I visited another, new local record store, a link in the Camelot chain, and discovered The Flamin' Groovies' Groovies' Greatest Grooves, which was like a chariot race through rock 'n' roll heaven. Not even the far-reaching grasp of media could or would even be willing to cover everything and give it its due. I opened my ears and overcame prejudices I didn't realize had been ingrained, and as I get older I work double-time to make sure that perspective doesn't become a prejudice itself. I learned the greatest lesson music has ever taught me: You'll never stop learning. Everything counts. Everything matters. And it's your lifelong obligation to listen.
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