Apple, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie - You Were Young and So Was I

Music is such a strange animal. Although I was born in the mid/late '80's, I feel like I grew up with my mother and aunt's music more than my own. While it is true that I was obsessed with Paula Abdul and had a Michael Jackson button on my winter coat, it was the music playing on CBS FM 101.1, the "oldies" station, that I recall as the music of my childhood. I've probably said it before but it was Bobby Darin, The Spinners, and Bobby Vinton that I thought of as musical geniuses when I was younger. I remember getting so excited when "Beyond the Sea" would come on the radio. That song along with "Heat Wave", "I'll Be Around", any Chicago song, and another silly favorite "Apple, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie" were the songs that would get me going. Between the ages of 3 and 11, I'm not sure that I knew any other music exisited. It wasn't until TLC and who knows what else that my friends in elementary school made me realize that it wasn't "cool" to like oldies.

Although I wanted to fit in, it took me years to finally appreciate new music as it came out. Maybe by eighth or ninth grade I got the hang of it (and I'm not too embarrassed to admit that I did like *NSYNC - I thought their vocal harmonies were excellent and I still do).

For a long time after discovering Pete Yorn, basically the artist who got me into the style of music I still most enjoy today, I let go of some beloved oldies tunes. I got so absorbed in new singer/songwriter music during my teen years that it wasn't of interest to me to listen to the same old songs I had been hearing since my youth.

Since high school that has dramatically changed. MOST of what I listen to today has harkened back to that time in my childhood when the only thing I wanted to hear was classic R&B. It's not the easiest thing to explain because my favorite musicians still are John Mayer and The National, but as a whole classic soul/R&B is my favorite genre to hear. While I can point to certain musicians like Sam Cooke, The Temptations, The Spinners, and Mary Wells specifically, it's really the songs like Jay & the Techniques "Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie" that bring me back to that certain time in my own history that was the sweetest. It was a much simpler time for sure but also might have been the best time of my life musically.

I just downloaded that Jay & the Techniques song onto my iPod for the first time today and I've been listening to it nonstop. It is such a classic and gives me this wave of nostalgia that I quite enjoy.

Also, I should give credit where it's due: this post sort of came to me after reading about Phil Collins' new album full of motown covers, trying to give homage to the music of HIS youth that he claims to love most of all. I adore Phil Collins and although I was hoping, like many others, to hear some new material, I'm super excited for this new album.

So give this song a listen - and don't forget to check out more classic R&B on Amazon, iTunes, or wherever you get music.

An Old Time Memory

I feel the need to show some love to semi-forgotten bands from my childhood today. I've been listening to an exorbitant amount of Alien Ant Farm lately and it always throws me off when I'm playing it in the car and someone says something like, "I remember them. I used to love them!" Why did you stop listening to them then? It's funny how you can truly love an artist and for some inexplicable reason let them slip through your fingers... or ears.

Naturally, I can understand how certain songs or even entire bands bring back so many memories from a certain time that you can't stand to listen to them anymore but personally, I've always been a gigantic nostalgia fan. When my mother brings out the albums with mold and dust on them, it always turns out to be a good day. She tells me stories of how she used to sit in her bedroom listening to Buffalo Springfield Again for hours and tape up the Tom Petty record inserts on her walls. It makes her seem more human. Music is the most human thing on earth.


For me, other than the oldies bands my family was listening to, it was bands like Incubus, Mest, Eve 6, Mindless Self Indulgence... that was in the early teens and mostly because my best friend was into them. Then came my obsession with Everclear that hasn't gone away as much as metamorphosized into a distant love. Of course before that there was Michael Jackson and Paula Abdul, my crush on Frankie Valli, and much later the neverending saga of singer/songwriters like Jason Mraz and John Mayer - a man I once had to wait in general admission lines for five hours in Baltimore to see (we won't even discuss Britney Spears or *NSYNC - luckily that died fast and never went to ugly extremes like 98 Degrees).

I work at a venue where forgotten artists like Third Eye Blind, Toad the Wet Sprocket, The Breeders, and Toadies get love and where a band like Hanson has fans waiting in tents the night before. Naysayers be damned - It just goes to show that the old adage: "There's someone for everyone" is absolutely true.

Some of my old-time favorites:

Alien Ant Farm - Attitude. Still one of my favorite songs..


Incubus - Echo. Absolutely beautiful.


Paula Abdul - Cold Hearted Snake. This really brought back memories! She's just fantastic.