February, 1980. I'm in grade 7 -- just a regular kid in a regular school in a regular neighbourhood, who listens to regular mainstream radio. "Disco sucks" is in the air like a whisper, yet to become a shout. My favourite group is (please don't hold this against me) ABBA.
One weekend I'm watching Saturday Night Live. The musical guest is a group called the B-52's. They are, to say the least, baffling. There are two women in the band with the most outrageous hairdos, like something out of the 60's, and the strangest clothes. The lead "singer" is an angular looking fellow with a pencil-thin moustache. He doesn't so much sing as he does chant or squawk. He holds a toy piano in the palm of one hand. As the band plays, he bangs on the keys in time to the music with his other hand, curled into a fist.
What the hell?....
June, 1980. I'm off to music camp, where I will spend the best part of a week dutifully playing classical violin. Only thing is, I'd performed poorly at my audition a few weeks beforehand, and when the orchestra placements are assigned, I find myself relegated to the second violins. Argh. To add insult to injury, one of the first pieces we play is one that I played in my school orchestra as a first violin.
So, when not in scheduled orchestra rehearsals, I ignore my instrument, electing to draw or sculpt in the art studio, or hide in my cabin, swapping dirty 12-year-old jokes with my bunk-mates.
Night time brings the occasional faculty recital, or some other activitiy. By far, the most anticipated events are the dances for the students.
At the first dance, I and my fellow campers shuffle into the dancehall (actually the cafeteria by day) where we are subjected to -- not disco -- new wave. Edgy, raucous, rebellious punk rock and new wave. The Police. Blondie. Gary Numan. The B-52's. To hell with doing "The Bus Stop" -- let's Pogo
By the third dance, jumping on the dancefloor is banned. Seems that all us burgeoning new wavers bouncing up and down in unison is putting the building in some structural distress. But the music plays on.
I return from camp a changed person. I still look the same (except for maybe a couple of safety pins stuck in my sleeve or lapel), but something is different.
The rest of the summer is an age of discovery. The Pretenders. The Clash. Squeeze. The Monks. Elvis Costello. The Cars. The Ramones. An endless line-up of bands in white shirts with skinny ties, pumping out power chords punctured by the occasional keyboard riff.
In the following years, there will be other sounds that will capture my attention. Synth-pop. House. Grunge. Techno. These too will form a soundtrack to my then-present life, to be later recalled with nostalgia and longing.
But those first wailing bits of guitar feedback and driving chords, those haunting leitmotifs invariably playing on a Hammond B-3 or a Moog synthesizer, those discordant vocal eruptions -- for me, no other style of music is going to evoke quite the same sense of puzzlement, wonder, and awakening.
Put on those skinny ties, break out those safety pins, put on that eyeliner, and spike that hair-- it's time to pogo!
(Sigh. Pogoing is not unlike the dance-form known to you youngsters as moshing. And we slammed into each other too.)