I Believe in Rock and Roll: Some Found Sound Adventures

By the way, I much prefer Rock and Roll to "Rock'n'Roll." Rock'n'Roll makes me think of all things cheese, drunken punters shouting all right now, Time Life boxsets being hocked on late-night TV. No, it's Rock and Roll.

As much as I enjoy just records and concerts and whatnot, for music's sake, some of the most profound joy I've ever experience came from the following events.

1) Spring 1994 - Mrs. Walker's English II class. I had just gotten into the idea of musique concrete, and enjoyed hearing music in whatever sounds I could find. I was also getting into avant garde and dadaism in a big way, all but abandoning "music" in any normal sense.

We were asked by Mrs. Walker to move our desks out of the way for something or other. The resulting sound of twenty-five or so squaky chairs being dragged across old linoleum combined to make an exquisite symphony. I was almost paralyzed by ecstasy. I never felt weirder or freakier in my life.

2) Spring 1996 - I was in the backyard of my friend Travis Bond's house, a few weeks away from graduation. It was one of those blissful days when the air seems alive and electric, the warm sunlight hits your face, and sounds and smells of innocent tranquility hang heavy in the air, the smell of pavement after a spring rain.

The marching band was playing in the distance at the practice field, preparing for their annual trip to Tri-State in Enid. This was to the east of Travis's house, about a block away. Simultaneously, to the west, the calliope strains of an ice cream truck began. This was more exquisite than any stereo recording ever committed to tape. Big sound, open sound, scary in its beauty, but feeling big, like the natural order of things deemed it to happen. A piece of cosmic music. My friends wondered why I stopped talking suddenly. "Listen to that!" was all I could reply.

3) April 2004 - Reynolds Center, TU - Ben Folds - as awesome as this concert was, my favorite moment was the gap in between G.Love's opening set (bleugh) and Ben's set. Someone piped "Bohemian Rhapsody" over the sound system, and, before the first verse was over, the entire crowd, thousands of people, were singing along. It's surely one thing you don't experience sitting alone in your music geek sound world, spinning your records in the privacy of your room. The immediacy. The connection. The communal experience. This music is truly our folk art. It's a gift. It can transcend differences and unite culture. It can change the world. I later located a copy of the concert, but, sadly, it didn't have the crowd singing along.