// June 3rd, 2007 // 3 Comments » // Brain Dump, Meme Posts
Summer is quickly approaching, the apartment is starting to bake in the sun, and it’s the time of year when the great weather is far more important than the computer… Sit over the waffle iron and plug away at the keyboard, OR drink a cold beer outside in the sunshine with a barbecue in close proximity…. Tough choices I know!
So, to kick off the slower blog season (statistically proven), we shall begin with a fun post.
I grew up in a time where country music was country music, the big ‘hair bands’ were overdosing for the last times on hairspray, technology was quickly improving, and early electronica had escaped Detroit.
It was an age of ‘computer-based’ music with synthesized sounds, and the ability to quickly and effectively sample bits from other sources, and incorporate them on the fly. I was in heaven.
My earliest memory in terms of music is my mother holding me in her arms, dancing about the living room while the Bee Gees cranked out through the Hi-Fi. I can also tell you this, that when it wasn’t the Bee Gees, it was the king himself, Elvis.
It is my firm belief that exposure to bass and a fast tempo is the reason why electronica music is my main staple.
Ok, so the blog title is called ‘The Great 180′ – so does this mean that I’ve done a 180 on electronica and now hate it? Um, no. What I have completely come about on is a band called Led Zeppelin. Now remember, when I was growing up through adolescence, I had latched onto electronica music, and you’ll also remember that while while journeying through those teenage years, when we find the right genre, everything else is absolute, crap. We’ve found our music, and come hell or high water, it will see us through that time!
It’s only afterwards do we get a chance to stick our head up and take a quick look around to see what else is going on. Our music collection expands rapidly and more genres enter and exist like they’ve always been there somehow….
Back in late 2000 when things for me personally took a great 180, a good friend of mine introduced me to a phenomenal group called the Dave Matthews Band. Right place, right time, or whatever, this definitely-not-synthesized band stuck a chord (pun intended) with me and I’ve been a big fan ever since (it’s also how I re-met my wife – sounds odd but it’s a great story).
From the incredible styling of Dave Matthews, I was eventually lead down the path to Led Zeppelin, which previously, I detested more than say, oh I don’t know…. Country music.
When electronic music was on it’s way in, Zeppelin was on it’s way out (there were still many in denial which was holding up it’s death), which was the exact opposite of what rebellious teenage youth was craving. It was music from a different generation that we didn’t understand and frankly, scared us a bit.
Time passes, knowledge, experience, and outlook changes, and we find ourselves looking around to see what we might have missed.
For me, I missed Zeppelin. Floyd I could still could care less about (it’s down there with country music), but Zeppelin was something completely overlooked. It really wasn’t until I was away on my North Carolina trip that I truly realized how much I had missed.
Now the trip I was on was a SCUBA diving trip to North Carolina, and the shipwrecks we would be diving on are a 2.5h boat ride straight out into the Atlantic Ocean. With a total runtime of 5h for a round trip, there was a lot of time to kill, and even 6 Canadians can only talk about the weather for so long…
Thankfully, back a couple years ago I had won an iPod from McAffee Antivirus which was perfect for killing large amounts of time. It was bursting at the seams with music, novels, and various talks by great leaders. For this particular voyage back to port after some extremely successful diving, I opted for the Led Zeppelin 4 disc box set due to it’s long runtime and consistent flow.
What I hadn’t been expecting was the auditory and cognitive stimulation one gets when listening to Zeppelin though headphones! I had been listening to LZ for a few years now, but never once had I ever listened with headphones, which means, I WAS MISSING OUT! Again….
Ok, so what, right? Well, when I look at it, sure, it’s a simple example and this type of thing happens all the time. But why? What is it that has changed? Yes, we can slap on a convenience label such as “Maturity”, but there must be something tangible. Do we go for the convenience label most often, or do we actually say “Wait a minute!”, stop, and have a look?
For me, it was an appreciation of one the greatest bands ever which is completely 180 degrees from a point in time previous. The big one-eight-zero. Opposite. Not just moving up from worse than country to slightly better – no, right to the medals podium with complimentary flowers!
The lesson in this 180? Understanding that lessons have been missed on previous 180s that were simply labeled out of convenience.
Now, we’re not done quite yet. See, it’s been quite a while since I’ve talked with Bob, and it’s been even longer since we’ve had a good meme to poke with a stick and see how it floats – I now liken memes to paper sailboats – yeah, they’re going to sink at some point, but making, and casting into the water is the fun part!
So, in my attempt to prove my previous theory that a single-tag meme can actually work… I am tagging Robert Hruzek over at Middle Zone Musings:
Bob, what is the most significant 180 you have experienced in your life?
With a single-tag meme (or at least this one), it follows the One Question/One Answer rules and regulations. One person is tagged, and they are tagged with a single question that they must answer as their post. At the end of their answer to your question, they get to ask absolutely anyone they want, ANYTHING they want, and tag that person with the question. There is no specific topic, or theme – the theme of the meme is that you get one question of one person on anything you want to know from them (the more detailed guide is HERE – it has more specifics on things like post titles and such).
So, there we have it, a fun little post down memory lane, and a MEME to kick off the summer!
Time for a beer…. 
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