Remember those days of drivin’ to the beach with your intimidating but super hip Dad in a 1983 Jeep CJ7, blasting the radio (102.3 WBAB!) so you could croon along to some of the greatest rock and roll jams ever? I do and I can guarantee one of those band was English rock outfit, YES. Known for their lengthy songs, mystical lyrics, elaborate album art, and live stage sets, Yes achieved worldwide success with their progressive, art, and symphonic style of rock music.
Feeling nostalgic just like me? Well you’re in luck, because Yes is coming to the beautiful & historic Warner Theatre on August 4th. Tickets just went on sale, so snag a pair here if you think luck isn’t on your side.
Wanna win these tickets? Well go ahead and tell me your favorite memory with your Pops. Winner will be selected by Friday afternoon so get on it. Use a real email address when you comment!
My dad and I flew first class to meet my mom in Jamaica. We got SCHWASTED as we began drinking in the airport at 5a and continued on the flight. My mother was pissed when we met her and her colleagues completely annihilated. So we went off on our own, continued to drink through the night on the beach, where my father proceeded to give me advice on everything from love to cars to plumbing to sex.
1991: hilton head island. living room. light brown-bordering-on-nauseous-orange shag carpet. younger sister is 4 years old, i’m 9. dad strolls in with a stack of records and a box of mystery. suddenly, freddie mercury is singing, and wigs, white jackets, and tight pants emerge from the box. it takes a family to sing “killer queen,” this much is true.
my memories of pops throughout childhood always involved lots of flannel and woodchopping. despite his rugged nature, my dad had an affinity for crooner music, which my young self, still entranced by 80s jams and singles by the spice girls, resented deeply. i couldn’t stand his taste in music, except for one band – YES. we would belt out the lyrics in his pickup truck on the way up to go camping in the old logging roads in maine. there’s something mysterious about that place that i always associate with their music.
Best memory with dear old Dad is my first helicopter ride! Pop was an aircraft mechanic on the base in CC, TX. After he and his crew were done fixing an Apache, I was able to hop on that sucker & ride over the waves!
Bonus: I got to see all the sharks swimming with the people (yikes!)
1984: My father removed my face from the stove top, yelling, “Don’t you ever mistake Yes with Rush again! Do you hear me? Do you hear me with the one ear that hasn’t melted to your cheek? Because if you do, know this; one more Pink Floyd remark and I’ll castrate you too.” Thanks Dad. Many skin grafts later, I know that Yes is the best prog rock there is, and will ever be.
My dad frequently had his camera out, taking pictures of me and my siblings. One time, when I asked him how his beloved camera worked, he told me there was a tiny man living inside the camera that could paint pictures really, really fast. I grew up wanting to be a photographer.
My dad took me to my first 10 or so concerts starting in 1984 when I was about 9. Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Idol (twice), U2 (twice), The Cult, and a few others. It was a pretty good run of shows for a 9 year old.
…. the envy is just radiating through my computer screen right now. ELP was the first band I could recall my Dad ever caring about. The connection to Yes, of course, came closely thereafter.
My parents are DEEAAAAAAAD
Seeing the world’s first all-synthesizer ensemble Mother Mallard and prog-rock god Keith Emerson perform in the Carmichael Auditorium of the National Museum of American History as a part of the Smithsonian’s “The Keyboard Meets Modern Technology” on April 14th, 2000 – and the subsequent interview with NPR for being the youngest audience member [at age 13]. [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1073418]
Age 9 to infinity: Learning on road trips that air keyboards are just as valuable as air guitar.
It was the fall of 1996. Mother was out of town for a Gideon conference somewhere down south. Due to my mother’s absence, the responsibility of cooking dinner for us kids was left for my Dad. He had just returned from doing herd pregnancy checks all day. He cranked on the stove. He told us the special for the evening was rocky mountain oysters. We all looked forward to chowing down on the novel dinner our pop had prepared for us. “These are dellliiccciooouusss oysters dad!” I exclaimed. “Glad you like them son.” he replied. After eating a ton of the little fellas I inquired about their name. My dad informed me that it was only a nickname for calf testicles. “Don’t worry, they’re very fresh. I snipped them off myself a couple of hours ago”. I forgot to mention, he had Blue Oyster Cult playing the whole time.
To a me of age 13, the significance of the event was overshadowed by the experience, this being my first live musical performance, of participating in a newly discovered – for him recently revitalized – pastime of my father’s. Stories of his previous encounter with Emerson twenty-six years past in which he performed as ELP at the California Jam “playing a grand piano spinning end-over-end 50 feet above the ground” [http://youtu.be/uSm5IQFaTZA], “often seen as the summit of the band’s career,” enthused a then highly impressionable first-timer. Ever since, I’ve been searching for my version…
Has a winner been chosen? I’m providing another email address [the previously provided address does in fact accept messages] in case one hasn’t.
Summer, 1995: My father spent the good part of my life up to that point trying to get me to car about Jimmie Rogers, a musician he described as a “railroad hobo, living the rails and singing his tales.” That faithful summer, during a family road trip, my dad coerced us all into visiting the Jimmie Rogers museum, where I was appalled to learn that while Mr. Rogers did live in a railroad car, it was bigger than our house. Some hobo! My father felt so disillusioned with the the obvious success and wealth Rogers acquired, he never made us listen to that damn yodeling fool on family trips again.
Okay, well, except “In the Jailhouse Now” but come on, that’s a baller song.
My dad was the first to take me to a record store instilling the love of music and vinyl into the head of a very wee lad. So much so, I started a lil website in his memory.
When I was around 3 my father took me to a park. I remember being too scared to come out of the car because there were several white butterflies outside. He eventually convinced me to come out of the car. The memory is hazy, but it brings back warm memories of him.