Classic Rock

I've been a fan of KJR, "Seattle's classic rock station" (what my brother and I call "contractor radio"), ever since last summer when I spent 4-5 weeks hand-laying (literal) tons of stone and gravel to create a backyard "patio." Most of the station's music is square in my wheelhouse, and I can't for the life of me figure out why I never listened to it before (KJR has been around for decades)...save perhaps that they play too much Pink Floyd and Beatles for my taste.

[the Stones as well, and their songs are a little hit-or-miss for me. I'm much higher on other 70's rock bands]

But as the decades of my youth (i.e. the '80s and '90s) fall into the era considered "oldies," I suppose it's only natural that I'd evolve a taste for such programming. When I was a kid, you'd have to tune into the "Metal" station to hear acts like Metallica or AC/DC. Now that they're considered "classic rock," I roll with KJR when I'm cruising down the highway, looking for cheap tunes to blast out my windows.

Which is one of the reasons AD&D keeps poking its head into my brain.

I've written before how, in many cases, I associate particular music with particular games. There's a good reason for this: it was not unusual for me, in my youth, to close myself in my bedroom with both a new RPG and a new album, listening to the latter over-and-over on my headphones even as I read, reread, and learned new game systems and settings. This is why, for example, I associate Vampire the Masquerade with Faith No More (The Real Thing), and Rifts with Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti. Sometimes I don't even remember (usually) what I was listening to at the time...it's actually hearing the music that triggers the memory of a game...games never trigger memories of music, for whatever reason.

So it is that lately I've been hearing a lot of the music from Def Leppard's album Hysteria on the classic rock station and having AD&D flashbacks.

Their best album? Maybe. It's
this or High N Dry.

Of course, I played D&D (and AD&D) long before I started listening to Def Leppard (or any music that was personally owned...as opposed to being standard pop radio fare). But by the time Hysteria came out (circa 1987) I was very, very deep into AD&D gaming. There was no B/X in those days; the transition from D&D to Advanced and from pre-published modules to our own campaign settings, story arcs, and adventures was (more-or-less) complete. Hearing its songs, I find myself constantly being surprised by the depths of nostalgia that come gushing out of me. Really startling!

You see, I haven't really listened to that music in decades. When I was a kid listening to it, I didn't even own an official copy of the album, just a dubbed cassette tape made for me by my best friend and co-DM. And can you imagine how long it's been since I've listened to a cassette tape...any cassette, let alone a copy that had been worn thin and tired by constant repetitive play? By the time I moved into CDs, I wasn't listening to Def Leppard anymore, and when music went electronic I never went out and acquired it...it was never uploaded into my iPod or laptop.

Furthermore, it wasn't anything in rotation on the radio since the 1980s. Def Leppard put out that stupid commercial album Adrenalized ("Let's Get Rocked?!") that even my mother bought (I never did) and went onto the pop stations before fading into the background. The metal stations (of which there were never many) played Metallica and Megadeth and (later) stuff like Korn and Disturbed, while "alt rock" stations started a heavy rotation of grunge and indie bands (or later imitators). Hysteria, despite being a huge commercial success at the time, all but disappeared from public airwaves and from my thoughts, save when I heard someone doing a karaoke version of "Pour Some Sugar on Me."

Man, I remember going to Laser Def Leppard at the Pacific Science Center as a young teen (with my fellow AD&D players), almost certainly getting a contact high from the weed being smuggled and smoked by the older folks at the midnight showing. Way back before I had ANY vices to speak of.

(*sigh*)

I suppose what I need to do is pony up the cash and download the album onto my iTunes app and give the whole thing a solid listen. Probably in a dimly lit room, surrounded by copies of my 1st edition AD&D books, wallowing in nostalgia. I'm not really sure what the effect would be: would I feel transported back to my youth? Or would I simply feel as ancient as I do every time I tune into the "classic rock" station and do a mental calculation of how many years its been since an old favorite was first released.

I'm the one in the chair:
the rotting corpse.

Jeez. This must be something like what my father used to feel when he listened to his "Oldies" station, back in the day. Rocking out to the tunes of the 60's when he was living in the 1980's, complaining at the lack of decent music.

I am such an old man.