VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR . . . and PEOPLE'S IMAGINATIONS

Come on, admit it. Smells are powerful, so are sights, but sounds, musical ones in particular are absolutely magical.
Or at least they used to be.

When the strains of The Doors' "Touch Me" begin tap dancing through the speaker, I am transported back to ten year old kid-dom, standing on the hyperwaxed floor of the gym at Cal State L.A., standing next to my brother, who towered over me at the time in a silent way that is easy to see and yet sooooo hard to explain. When the first, melancholy vocal of the campy Zager & Evans one hit "In the Year 2525" dirges forward, I'm seated 'round the flame at a Seal Beach fire ring, staring across at my newleywed brother and his now years-dead wife, watching a bag of carelessly tossed potato chips go up like an impaled Roman Candle. Happens every single time.

When, as he is right now, Ziggy Stardust croons "Sufragette City" I'm sitting in the bleachers at my high school, watching all the guys in the upper class section chant along with the "Hey Man" chorus. The uber corny "Me and You and a Dog named Boo" puts me back into the back of a pick up truck driven by the Mom of a fifth grade crony of mine, on our way to the coolest double destination field trip one could ever have - Anaheim Stadium and the local "cool" AM rock station. Swear to God.

Mason Williams "Classical Gas" and I'm knockin' around the crappy little town I grew up in, thinking about the 21st Century like its a millenium away, off beyond the horizon. Sugarloaf's "Green Eyed lady" and I'm in the car, waiting for my older sister to finish her voice lessons at the toney uptown home of her "coach." Seriously, its like I'm right there.

Any early Beatles album - pick it - Rubber Soul, Yesterday and Today, Beatles '65 (yeah the Capitol releases, bucko) and I'm 5 or 6 again, sitting under the Christmas tree, waiting for the Christmas that takes forever to get here.

Silly you say? Quaint? No, shudderingly real, like they could be slipped into with a proper head turn and the right amount of concentration. (Yeah, but then what, right?)

The point of this little rant is, I guess, that I feel sorry for my own kids, and for the generations that immediately preceded them. Not because they don't have any great one hit wonder bands to look back on nostalgically. No, not that. I regret that marketing idiot picked for the younger generations what they're gonna remember when they hear their favorite songs. They no longer have these tunes as little psychic protective sleeves for storage of most precious memories in the recesses of their brains. MTV and VH1 did it for 'em. How bloody sad is that?