Posts Tagged ‘Michael Stanley Band’

Basement Songs: Michael Stanley Band, “Someone Like You”

basementsongs

youcantfightfashion-lg-1983Who could have imagined that sunny California would be overcast and chilly the entire week my family traveled to Ohio without me? The gloomy weather seems to fuel the grayness of my spirit this week. I miss my family terribly; I don’t do well on my own. Luckily I’ll be joining them by week’s end. The last I saw them, curbside at LAX, Julie and I kissed as she collected the multiple bags she had to wheel inside. Sophie gave me the grandest hug, not wanting to say goodbye. With mixed emotions she let go. Jacob, wearing his crushed and crooked Dodgers cap, asked, “Daddy, will you tell me if the Indians won?” I replied, “Jake, you’ll be in Cleveland. You can tell me if the Indians won.” Earlier that morning he asked me to wear my baseball hat when I flew into Northeast Ohio. “My Indians hat?” “No, Daddy, your Dodgers hat.” As a diehard Indians fan, flying into Cleveland wearing anything other that a Tribe hat seemed improbable.

They left, I drove away, and soon thereafter the loneliness set in. No one ever tells you how empty you feel when your wife and kids are away or how it can screw with your rhythms. When vacations approach and I know I’ll be home alone, I imagine using the free time to write or catch up on the movies I missed. Yet I find it difficult finding the energy to get started; without the family around I’m uninspired. A slug. (more…)

Basement Songs: Michael Stanley Band, “Lover”

My sophomore year at Bowling Green State University, I attended a performance by an African dance troupe. I don’t recall much of that show, save for the troupe inviting the audience on stage to dance along with them during their final number. Self-conscious, I remained stuck in my seat while other free spirits joined them, undulating to the accompanying percussionists beating on the stretched skins of hand-crafted drums. To this day, a small part of me wonders what I would be like had I participated in the communal dancing. Later that night, back in my dorm room, emptiness settled in. Watching those performers connect with their heritage through an art form made me think I had no roots. I’m a white Anglo Saxon dude with German/Scottish/Irish blood in me. Though I knew that my “people” dated back to the American Revolution, I felt like a mutt with no homeland. Although I would eventually leave my room to resume a typical college existence, I couldn’t shake this feeling for years. It wouldn’t be until Julie and I dove into the madness of Los Angeles that I would come to realize that, indeed, I did have a homeland. Instead of the open plains of the African wild, my landscape was the paved, tree-lined streets of North Olmsted and the Cleveland suburbs where I grew up. And the tribal rhythms I longed to have beating inside my heart did exist. The musical foundations of my life weren’t the chants and drumming of Africans; they were the musicians and artists I heard on the radio when I was an adolescent, adopted children like Bruce Springsteen and Pat Benatar — and native sons the Michael Stanley Band.

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