JosiahMusicology 1-0

This is the first in my "Josiah Musicology" series, which I'm calling my "music collection organized autobiographically" until Mesh gets me a more clever name. Of course, I'm not actually organizing my music autobiographically (until somebody writes an amazing plugin for iTunes), but I'm more or less organizing the soundtrack to my life.

So, the 1-0's (pre letters)

Tu-Pac Shakur - "Picture Me Rollin", "All Eyez on Me", "Changes"

I didn't really get into Tu-Pac until I moved to California in '95, and only then in a non-descript fashion. Given my that my highschool had one African-American if you were going to listen to rap socially, it's not like there was a huge hip-hop crowd, except for the Philipino's of course. The albums I was most into were "All Eyez on Me" and "Makaveli" two of in my opion, the greatest rap albums ever.

At Covenant I used to listen to alot of TuPac with Andy Ross (that's him in the middle, 4th from the left or right), one of the only other folks on Catacombs other than Trevor who'd listen to TuPac. Andy and I would do many a smoke drive listening to TuPac. Rarely does "Changes" come on where I don't remember cruising in his old Cutlas grandma-mobile on down Scenic Highway puffin' on a Camel Light. On occasiona Lucas would join us and sometimes Trevor. But I can remember pretty clearly it was on those drives where Andy and I first got to be friends.

Now he's my banker, is married, has a daughter with another on the way. Amazing what can happen in 6 years.

Tu-Pac - "California Love"

When I first saw the video it's blatant borrowing from Mad Max made me an immediate fan. The fact that this crazy pot-growing workaholic named D----- used to sing it while he loaded trucks forever cemented it in my memory to my time working at Furniture by Thurston.

D----- smoked more pot than any guy I'd ever seen (he was quite literally, nevernot high) yet he would work any person in the factory, whether doing assembly or loading semi's, into the ground. And it's not like people weren't working hard themselves, far to contrary, it's just that Dennis after three or four good rips of his own homegrown suddenly started acting like he'd hit three or four good rips of speed. He also weighed about 135 lbs and was tops 5'6", with a mullet mind you.

For awhile I thought D----- laced his personal stuff with Coke or something to give him some kick, that is until the day I saw him beat the crap out of a couple guys he caught smoking meth behind the warehouse. D---- hated tweakers with a near fundamentalist mentality. They were the enemy; they ruined drug use for everyone else. They might work hard for a couple months, but sooner or later a meth fiend was gonna start stealing peoples lunches and $500 desks from the back of the warehouse, at least that's why he professed to hate them so much (and it's not like he was wrong).

Personally I think he was bitter from the time he caught a couple of other tweakers pulling up some marijuana plants he had been cultivating behind an abandoned building next to the Thurston factory.

But back to the song, "Califonia Love": D----- started singing the song after his wife won one of those crazy radio "win a free cruise" contests. After the trip D----- came back singing the songs supposedly because on the final night of the cruise he'd had an enormous amount to drink, so much so that he'd gotten up the gusto to go dancing with his wife in the hip hop club of the cruise ship, and at the point in the song where Dr. Dre says "Sacramento, Sacramento where you at?" D----- and the rest of the folks on the Cruise Ship who had won a free trip (there were a couple dozen I guess) suddenly went nuts, including D----- and his wife.

This was always strange to, since D----- lived in Grass Valley, which is about an hour and fifteen minutes from Sacramento, but whatever.

4 Non Blondes - "What's Goin' On?"

two words: Andrew McNeely. We'd sing this song on Catacombs when Wes was RA. We'd sing it loud and sing it proud, largely because it was one of the few songs we could play. I think even Benji Sweet Buns Swinburnson got in on the action a few times, which was always a good sign.

JosiahMusicology | By Josiah Roe | 08:18 PM

Comments

Posted by: Jeannette at January 12, 2005 11:33 PM

Posted by: ARoss at January 13, 2005 02:03 PM

Posted by: andrew at January 14, 2005 12:49 PM

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