Vol. 114 - Kick Out the Jams

MOTHERF*CKER!

The other day, as my son and I were driving in the car, he asked if I could put on a specific song. He knew the song he wanted to hear, but couldn’t remember the name. He was getting frustrated.

“Daddy,” he said sheepishly. “Is it okay if I say a curse word to describe it?”

“Sure thing,” I said. “But only if it’s in the context of the song.”

I peeked in the rearview mirror and saw a smile creep across his face.

“The guy says, ‘Kick out the jams, motherfucker!’ when it starts,” my son said, now laughing.

I was hit with a burst of pride that my six-year-old already has enough taste in music to request one of rock-and-roll’s greatest achievements. I mean, for my money, there is perhaps no band that better defines “Rock and Roll” more than the MC5. And there is no better MC5 song than “Kick Out the Jams.”

At one point in the journal I kept while Emily was pregnant with our son, I wrote that “I hope I have enough sense to raise him on good music.” And to this point, I think I have.

To wit, the recent search history on our streaming service reads as such: The Stooges, MC5, Roky Erickson, Carly Rae Jepsen, ZZ Top, Interpol, Deftones, The Rolling Stones, Cass McCombs, Die Antwoord, Electric Light Orchestra, Bowie.

These are all artists my son has requested on our drives. In one of my great achievements as as a father, my six-year-old son has excellent taste in music.

But here’s the thing: it isn’t his taste at all. It’s my taste.

Of course, with good music, that’s usually the case. Growing up, I listened to and loved much of the same music that my old man grew up on. The Beatles, Yes, Hendrix. But then, probably around middle school, I started to discover my own lane, which included bands like Dinosaur Jr, Pavement, Drive Like Jehu, and, of course, an overwhelming diet of punk rock and hardcore.

It was music my father couldn’t stand. Yet, to his eternal credit, music he always gave me space to listen to and enjoy, even in the car.

But, whenever my old man would chide J Mascis’s deadpan voice or how terribly the guitars on Operation Ivy’s Energy LP were recorded, I’d remind him that he probably sounded a lot like the adults from generation before him, complaining about how The Beatles had nothing on Henry Mancini or Tommy Dorsey.

For now, my son parroting my taste in music is okay. It’s great, in fact. He’s learning about good music and I don’t have to suffer through bullshit. Win/win.

But I hope this is not the case when my kids get older. In fact, I pray that, sometime around puberty, my kids find and obsess over music that I absolutely cannot stand (and I hope and pray that, like my father, I have the patience to let them play it in the car).

A few days after my son requested the MC5, I was in the recording studio, cutting a new record with a band I play in. As we milled around in the control room (which, to the uninitiated, is like 99% of what you do when making records), I relayed this story to a few of my bandmates. Our guitar player Peter Holsapple was telling a story about how his daughter’s favorite song was a Rolling Stones cut and it reminded me of my son and his budding interest in anything rock-and-roll, an interest that was defined wholly but his request for the MC5. I told Peter the story I just wrote above and he told me that I won the “Cool Dad of the Day” award, which I couldn’t argue against. After all, coming from a cool dad himself, it was high praise. But then I told him my theory and all about my hopes that someday soon, my kids find music that I can’t stand.

I mean, getting your six-year-old to request “Kick Out the Jams” is a victory, to be sure. But discovering music your parents simply don’t understand, well that’s one of the great joys of growing up.