ode to dave grohl

So, yesterday my "today I'm thankful for..." was Dave Grohl. I said it didn't need further explanation. I just love him. Since posting that, I've been listening to Dave almost non-stop... and with that listening, I have come to the realization that while it doesn't need further explanation, maybe it does deserve it. I'm not going to go through the complete history of Dave Grohl or even address every single thing he does... I mean, you can find that on the internet from much more credible sources than me. What I am going to do though is chronicle why I think he's so fantastic... and that comes with a little history, gushing, and visual effects.

I should probably start with a little context here. If you know me very well, then you know that my love for Dave has been lengthy and is currently without boundary. But people who know me only casually probably wouldn't necessarily automatically place me as a lover of that kind of music. I'd like to think of my personal style as "classic with an edge," though years of work in higher education has dulled my edge a little. While we're frequently liberal in thought, we're still often very conservative - and frankly a bit boring - in practice. It's pretty safe to say that on the outside, I don't really scream "hard rock." But that's one of the reasons I love Dave so much. You don't have to scream hard rock in order to appreciate him. 

Flash back to the early 90s. I was in middle school when Nirvana came on the scene. A brief historical perspective... This was a time when pop was at its peak. Popular music was incredibly mainstream, top 40, easily accessible. Whitney Houston. Michael Jackson. Richard Marx. Folks like Mariah Carey and BoyzIIMen were beginning the pop-hip hop movement, but those were still the soundtracks of every middle school dance and cheesy TV moment. I certainly owned my fair share of those songs, and I still enjoy the heck out of them. "Rock and Roll" had largely forgone the days of Led Zeppelin and the Allman Brothers and The Who and Pink Floyd and had evolved (or some might say devolved) into the likes of faux leather and spandex and the biggest hair possible. If I'm being perfectly honest, I have no beef with hair bands. In fact, I was and still am kind of in love with Bon Jovi and Def Leppard and Journey. But the point is that it was all about the big production. The arena rock show. It was mainstream in its own way because it was a spectacle, and it was making a lot of money. There wasn't an independent presence in popular music that I can recall. I'm sure historians could correct me, but the point is that I don't remember it. Punk existed, but it wasn't in the circles of standard everyday people. I mean, those dudes were loud and scary as hell, and of course our parents weren't going to let them into our homes. But then something crazy happened. Nirvana recorded an album on a Happy Meal budget and people actually started listening to it. It wasn't polished and bedazzled like arena rock. And it sure wasn't "easy listening" by any standard. But it had emotion and a sort of frenetic raw energy. It had balls.

Nirvana performing live on MTV.

Nirvana became a sensation against any practical odds. The grunge movement leapt right on out of Seattle and landed squarely in my middle school. Boys who formerly wore Tommy Hilfiger like their parents owned stock in it were now dropping their polos in favor of their dad's old beat up flannel shirts and jeans. Girls who had lived and died by Guess? and Esprit were now wearing combat boots with dresses. WITH DRESSES! All the kids with lenient parents were coming to school with hair dyed using Kool-Aid paste. (My mom, despite being admittedly really cool, never let me do that. It's probably why I've paid good money to color my hair constantly since I turned 18.) It was crazy, really. Baggy jeans and Converse One-Stars (not Chucks, mind you - these were more like skater shoes) and huge t-shirts. All these mainstream kids were trying to have an edge. Of course, I lived somewhere in the space between these two worlds. Middle school is a horrible time when you search for acceptance more than any other time in your life probably, and I wanted that just as much as anyone. But I didn't really want it from only one group. I wanted it from everyone. Thinking on it now, I'm still that way... but it's not so much that I want them to accept me - it's more that I want a little of what every group has to offer. I love our differences, and I love it when people are passionate about something that is a little foreign to me. Some boys I had known all our lives had become these grunge "alternative" kids, and I guess I was kind of intrigued by them even if I didn't fully understand it. It's easy to forget that there was a time when alternative wasn't the norm. I bought my combat boots and proudly donned them beneath a long floral dress worn over a waffle-weave long-sleeve tee. I had my flannel and baggy jeans and Converse One-Stars. And despite my mother's protests, I listened to Nirvana. I watched MTV and My So-Called Life, and a little part of me fell in love with the honesty and lack of pretentiousness in these folks who were not exactly like everyone else. That's when I met Dave Grohl. 

He was so young and wittle. And sweaty, and partially naked. But hey.

Of course we all know what happened to Nirvana upon the unfortunate death of Kurt Cobain. There's a part of me that will always wonder what might have been had he not died so young and so early in his career. But that occurrence also proved to be perhaps the most seminal moment in the development of the entity of Dave Grohl. See, Dave was a ridiculously talented drummer. But he started out as a guitar player and frontman. He wrote his own music while he was the drummer for Nirvana, but as he said, "You're the f*cking dummer. No one wants you to sing." I have to think a little bit of his creative talent might have been stifled while he was part of the Nirvana machine. That was likely to change over time, but we can't know for sure what might have happened. Dave was reportedly devastated by his friend's death and almost left music entirely, but something grew out of that grief. Dave kept writing and started performing again, recording the first Foo Fighters album - all instruments and vocals - completely on his own.

Big Me was one of the singles from the first album. And the video is still hilarious to me.

In high school and early college, when boy bands were the new black, I was in my "too cool for pop" phase. I dated a rock band. Well, I dated a boy who was in a band. But anyone who has ever dated a boy who was in a band can attest to the fact that if the boy is at all committed to the band, and you are at all committed to the boy, then you are by default committed to the band. That relationship was never going to last forever, but it gave me such an appreciation for the musicianship involved in good quality rock music. Those guys introduced me to music that I might have ignored without understanding how much talent it takes to play it well. And that's when I really fell in love with Dave Grohl. Seeing the Foo Fighters live (with the Red Hot Chili Peppers - awesome) only cemented my love. You can make a lot of money off of three chords, but it takes more than just being loud. You have to have some measure of skill, and in order to keep making money - certainly in order to keep making art - you have to change it up. It's now been almost 20 years since Dave recorded that first Foo Fighters album, and with the evolution into a multi-member band, the Foo Fighters only seem to be growing in popularity, both critically and commercially, as their most recent album has been their most successful. Now for some samples.

Here's a live video of Best of You. Dave wails. And it is awesome. (Oh, and shout-out to Taylor Hawkins on the drums. Beast.) 

Here's the acoustic version of one of the Foo Fighters biggest hits, Everlong. This song will never, ever get old to me. And I love how beautiful and understated it is here. 

This is one of my favorite things ever. Dave and Taylor have been asked to cover Stairway to Heaven on the Craig Kilborn show. By themselves. Insanity and amazingness ensues. 

That, folks, is why I love Dave Grohl. He sings, he plays guitar and drums, he writes, he produces, he SINGS guitar solos, and he surely doesn't seem to take himself too seriously. He continues to grow and develop his sound. He continues to take risks with what has now become a mainstream product. A few years back, the Foos won the Grammy for Best Hard Rock Album... and you know what they did next? They released a double-disc album that had one entire disc of acoustic music. ACOUSTIC. We're talking singer-songwriter-y guitars and pianos, and even a duet with freaking Norah Jones. Who does this guy think he is?! His music sounds every bit as good as a mellow guitar track as it does wailing on stage with a full band. He collaborates with everyone... Paul McCartney, Tenacious D, Rob Zombie, Puff Daddy... He has his own projects on the side. He has his own studio where he produces stuff himself. He literally does everything. That most recent best-selling album? In a world where digital is king, they scrapped all the autotune and computerized technology and recorded on real live analog tape. No one, literally, no one else does that now. They're too afraid it won't be perfect. But not Dave. No, no. Dave still embraces that imperfect sound that gave him a way into the world of music, and he continues to expand his own musical world with the influences of the people who inspire him. As someone who loves music as much as I do, that idea makes me feel all tingly and warm inside, like I want to start having musical babies with him or something. (The only reason I didn't say "real babies" is because he seems to be happily married and loving his real life with his own live actual children. Super cute, btw.)

You know how he recorded a duet with Norah Jones? Well, he also performed with her live at the Kennedy Center Honors, when Paul McCartney was honored a couple years ago. It's ridiculous that the same guy who was wailing up there is doing this beautiful thing here. I may or may not have cried.

There aren't a lot of people from that original grunge music still finding success, but somehow Dave's projects continue to reinvent and add to the world of rock music. I guess that's what I love about what's happening out there now. Some music is so hard to classify, and I think that's super cool. You don't have to be just one thing. You don't have to have just one sound. If you have the talent, you can showcase that and use it to reach other people in so many different configurations. It doesn't have to be perfect to be good. It just has to be honest and real, and people will respond. And it also doesn't hurt if you happen to be a hot tattooed beast of a man. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for scruff and aviators. ;)

on giving thanks.

"Thank you." Those words are so simple. For those of us who were raised "right," they were ingrained in our vocabulary from an early age, along with big brother "please." But perhaps second only to "I'm sorry," I think those two words are often the hardest to say. I'm not talking about the basic auto-response when someone opens a door for you or hands you the cup of coffee you just ordered... I'm talking more about remembering to be thankful for the big physical things like jobs, homes, cars, clothing as well as more intangible things like personal relationships, talents and skills, and even the blessings of hopes and dreams.

Those things seem sort of obvious when you type them out - I mean, duh, of course I'm happy I have a nice place to live and a car to drive to the job I'm grateful to have. Absolutely, I'm thankful for my family and friends and the gifts they share with me and that I am able to share with them. But those things are also frequently the things we so easily take for granted. Maybe it's just me, but it's hard to be thankful for a job when you feel your blood pressure rising and find yourself emotionally drained every day. It's hard to be thankful for your family when you have those moments of tension and difficulty. It's hard to be thankful for your friends when they do things that drive you crazy. At the end of a rough day, though, those are the things you have to stop and appreciate most. Perhaps most unfortunately, those big picture things are also the things that make you lose sight of the little things that can add up to make or break any day.

If I thought it was hard to remember to be thankful for those more obvious good things in life, it's damn near impossible to be thankful for the difficult challenges and adversity we face every day. I mean, let's be real. Who is happy when they feel terrible? Who looks forward to having a fight with someone? Who really likes meetings that last for hours only to end with no resolution and more difficult questions? I'm pretty sure no one ever thinks, "Man, I hope I have major car trouble that interrupts everything I want to do today and ends up costing me a lot of money." And my goodness, I can hardly bring myself to list the unthinkable, like losing a family member or friend, or even a pet. But when things don't go our way, we have opportunities to learn and grow and become better at being who we're supposed to be. That thought pretty rarely makes it easier in the moment for me. No one wants those things to happen, but even through those difficulties, we have a God who is faithful to us - even to the tiniest, seemingly most insignificant detail - and will bring us through them. It's the old saying that "when God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window." I'm not a big talker when it comes to my religion and personal faith, but I feel like this is something I'm willing to put out there. That's where I find my Peace, and that's where I try really hard to find my Joy. I capitalize both of those - Peace and Joy - because they're not just small, generic notions to me. They are the ultimate gifts that come along with everything else, positive and negative, for which we should be thankful.

I think all of our lives have peaks and valleys where we find it easier or much more difficult to be happy. But through all of that, we should have Peace and Joy. Happiness is not the same thing. Happiness is an emotion, and emotions are fleeting and changeable. But Peace and Joy are sustainable gifts that should be there no matter the circumstance because of the Faith that our God will carry us. This whole idea has been a major struggle for me lately. I think sometimes you can talk yourself into moving on or changing your attitude, but there are times when you really need a little bit of a jolt to move you in the right direction of trusting God for those things. I got that jolt last week.

I found myself in circumstances that really weren't so bad... it's not like I'm facing any major crisis or anything. But all those little things were building and frustrating me. I was dealing with situations fraught with incompetence (one of my biggest pet peeves), I was feeling stressed and ready for a break, I was feeling overwhelmed by things going on with other people in my life, with decisions and choices that seem incredibly unfair and unjust and, in some cases, even unholy. Those are the things that can pile up on you when you're not paying attention, and you end up feeling like you're at the end of your proverbial rope. When I feel like that, my first step usually is to consult my mom, because not only has she been there, but she also has the ability to be one of the most calming forces in my life. She's a no BS kind of person, and she takes you back to reality at a pretty alarming pace, while also having this ability to still do the mom thing and feel sorry for you if that's what you need. We prayed over the phone, and when that wasn't really enough to get me to that place, we prayed together in person after I went home to get a hug and a mom-cooked meal. And then I went out of town to one of my favorite places in the world, the University of Notre Dame.

I know it's weird, since I didn't actually go to school there. I'm also not Catholic. But my parents are from Indiana, and I grew up with the mystique... The Four Horsemen, Knute Rockne, the forward pass, The Gipper, even Rudy (I can't help how much I love Sean Astin, and let's face it, really ANY movie about football)... and I became a fan from an early age. I visited the campus for the first time when I was in high school, and I fell in love with the beauty of the buildings, the trees and green quadrangles, and yes, the Golden Dome. It sounds cheesy to say it this way, but it represented everything that I felt was good in the world - education, faith, exploration, and the beauty of creation. When I go there now as an adult, I still feel those things. It is sort of the real life Dead Poets Society, full of hope and nostalgia and innocence... and like the ocean or the sprawling flat cornfields in Indiana or the snow-covered streets in a sparkling city at Christmas, it's one of those places where I feel the ultimate Peace and Joy. Standing in the near-silent stadium on Friday afternoon, I was completely taken with the peacefulness I felt looking at the unadorned grass field and the expanse of empty original California redwood plank seating. It was almost like I breathed a sigh of relief that the ugliness of the week was over, and I had finally made it.

And it was exactly what I needed, leading into this month of Thanksgiving, to help me realize that there are too many blessings in my life to allow the energy required to maintain the stress and general "ugh" I had been feeling. I remember in those moments of prayer with my mom that she said, "When you get to Notre Dame and everything falls into place, remember that it was God who answered your prayers, and give Him all the glory." In the most difficult circumstances, all those big ugly overwhelming problems, God sees to it that the smallest details come together for us to create the perfect moments and experiences.

So in this month of Thanksgiving, as I've seen others do, I'm listing those things for which I'm thankful, no matter how silly, on a daily basis. I'm making a concerted effort not to take those small things for granted, not to forget to thank others for what they do for me or to thank God for those big blessings, and even to be grateful for those difficult times and the lessons they bring. Here's to a season of Peace and Joy for everyone.