Teresa Gunn

“Hey Teresa, can I buy you a beer?” This was a safe question in the mid-eighties. Beer was cheap. Miller or Bud, maybe a Heineken for an extra fifty cents. No getting blind-sided with a Dogfish Head IPA or a Troegs Mad Elf at eight bucks a bottle. It was a simpler time. Beer was refreshing, maybe a way to a buzz. For flavor, you ate food.

Teresa was a rock-star – at least to me. A staple of the DC punk band circuit. Leader of the Teresa Gunn Group. She was hot. Pretty, womanly, worldly. Eight or ten years older than me, in her mid-thirties. I had a huge crush on her. My ex-girlfriend had shared a joint with Teresa in the bathroom at her most recent show. Now this was my moment to bask in Teresa's glow. It didn't matter that I was on a date. That date was disintegrating anyway. I was drinking too much.

Part Blondie, part Patty Smith with a sprinkling of jazz thrown in. I never understood why Teresa didn't break out into a national act. Her recordings were clean and professional. Her stage presence, charismatic and assured. She was the real-deal. And she was playing in a shitty little bar to forty people. Half of them the group I came with. She was about to call it quits. But right now, she was having a beer – with me.

Before she packed it in, she rebooted. She took one last shot at stardom, at a music career. She created Urban Burlesque. An attempt to catch that metal/punk wave swelling at the end of the eighties. Bands like L7, an all-girl heavy metal group with a strong punk following. Joan Jett, rising from her ashes with yet another hit and now a heavy metal sound. Teresa put out a single, a pair of songs clearly worthy of airplay. She moved to California to make it big. And I never heard of her again.

Until recently.

And not for lack of effort.

Once the world wide web was up and running, anonymity became difficult. Everything is on the web. Anyone with any notoriety at all is on Wikipedia. My father, a mid-level government appointee for a few years under the George H.W. Bush administration has a Wiki page. Anyone who ever recorded anything, including my 9 year old son, is on Youtube. When I google myself, my life comes up. Past jobs, my resume, road-race times, quotes made to the newspaper. But not Teresa Gunn. Until very recently. It took almost two decades for her to show up.

Four years ago, I was certified as an indoor cycle instructor. I started an early morning spin class at a local fitness center. This entails coaching a one-hour workout two mornings per week, plus uncounted (and uncompensated) hours pulling together play-lists of songs for my classes. Mining through thousands of songs from my music collection, trying to create a fresh and motivating set of music. At age forty-eight, I was suddenly re-immersed in music in a way I haven't been for decades.

In the eighties – in my twenties – tape-mixing was one of my favorite pastimes. Hours spent splayed on the floor in front of my stereo. Recording songs from diverse bands in unrelated musical genres that nevertheless flow. Songs, once paired, seem as though they they have belonged together for eternity. Mixes to distract me on my morning commute. Mixes to keep me company on road-trips. And mixes to energize me on the way to races.

Over the past four years, I have sifted through and incorporated a vast and eclectic library of music. Pop hits, punk classics, country twang, classic rockers, show tunes, even kids' music. It is only natural that I would want to include some of my favorite songs from the eighties DC club scene. Songs that few have heard, yet remain some of the best music I know. The Slickee Boys' Jailbait Janet; Tru Fax and the Insaniacs' King of Machines; Martha and the Muffins' Echo Beach. These songs I've used. I bought them on Amazon.com. Teresa Gunn? She's not out there. The only Teresa Gunn songs I listened to for more than twenty years was the music I owned – that one Urban Burlesque single. And I've only listened to those two songs over the last few years. After I grabbed a turntable out of a recycling pile.

So she's been lost – at least to me. Each time I googled her name, I wouldn't find anything useful. A couple of old reviews, positive reviews, from DC's city paper. That's it. No videos on Youtube. No followup band. No greatest hits CD. Not even songs for sale on Amazon.com.

My assumption is that at the promising start of her career, Teresa expected fame and fortune. She expected to become a rock star. A real one, with more than a small local following in Washington, DC. She was doing more than creating art, more than jamming with her friends in a bar. She was living a lifestyle. Creating an image. She was hard at work, and watching less talented acts “make it” instead of her.

I know this feeling. My “art” is writing personal essays. Taking an arcane topic – like Teresa Gunn – and poking at it until it gels. Until it paints a picture. Often a picture of society, or a bit of society, but invariably a self-portrait as well. It's a popular format for long-form magazine articles, which is what I aspire to write. Frequently, I'll read an article and think “I can do better than that. I have done better than that.” Like most artists, those of us who never transcend the art-as-a-hobby-phase, I wonder why a few break out, while I'm forced to keep my day job.

I'm not looking for fame or fortune. But I would like to make my living doing something I truly love. Change my avocation into a vocation, as the saying goes. I won't do this as a spin instructor. The ten or so people who regularly take my class cannot possibly support me and my family. But as a writer? Maybe that is a reasonable goal. And so I write.

This is about more than making some money. At age fifty-two, I'm feeling mortal. I'm wanting to leave a mark on the world. My footprint so far is very small, and not so deep. A wife, two children, small extended family, a handful of friends. Some, especially my wife, would argue that my dedicated career as the finance manager of a non-profit community center is enough of a mark to leave behind. That I have impacted a whole town. But to me it feels more like a job than a calling. Maybe I'm important to the organization, to the town, but I'm certainly replaceable. So I write.

A year or so ago, I found Teresa. Well, I found her website, and then I found her. We exchanged a few emails. I asked her where I could find her digital music. During this exchange, I learned about what she was now doing with her life. Because it is well written, I'm not going to try to improve on her biography:

In 1998 Teresa turned her artistry into social action through the founding of Musicians for Education, a collective of artists of the same heart and vision. She developed an original music program called "Street of Dreams". Street of Dreams has become a fully accredited high school to college bridge program for kids who are trapped in the juvenile justice system due to the generational effects of drug addiction, alcoholism and poverty. The children served by Street of Dreams come from homelessness, incarceration and foster care. Gunn's devotion to providing creative and educational support to children in the "system" has produced a highly innovative and successful arts-education model.

Failing as a rock star has let Teresa become a true star. The most important person in the lives of the kids who have graduated from her program. I still love her music, the few songs that I can find. Teresa pointed me to a handful posted on Youtube. One of my favorites, Sister Digs the Sharpies, has made its way into my spin class. My riders haven't commented on it yet, but in time they will. One of them will ask about it, and I'll spout off about how the great Teresa Gunn Group was the best that DC had to offer in the eighties. I might even mention Street of Dreams.

The lack of Teresa Gunn Group and Urban Burlesque on the internet is proof to me that Teresa has found something more important to her than her music. As a blogger, I understand self-absorption, self-promotion. This is where I live. Teresa doesn't do this, not with her prior rock-star life. She has moved on to something bigger, more important, more impactful. I doubt this is where she thought she would land, just as working in a community center isn't where I expected to be at this point. While I would love more Teresa Gunn music to listen to, Street of Dreams is clearly more important.

Check out the Music for Education/Street of Dreams website.

Party for your Right to Party

The organization where I instruct spin classes had a recent complaint taking offense at the use of “Ghetto Rap” music in classes. The writer called it misogynist.

I take offense at this complaint. I call it racist.

Ghetto: a section of a city, especially a thickly populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority group, often as a result of social or economic restrictions, pressures, or hardships.

By calling it "Ghetto" Rap, the implication is that Rap music is offensive when it is made by poor, urban, minority populations. However if the music is made by wealthy, white people, A-OK. Or the writer might just be suggesting that misogyny is only a problem in the "Ghetto." The complaint was unsigned so it wasn't possible to start a conversation with the writer on biased language.

Today, I thought I’d acknowledge that complaint by playing the Beastie Boys “Fight for your Right (to Party)” followed by Public Enemy’s “Party for your Right to Fight”. Neither song is misogynist, but both are certainly rap. Regardless, I'm sure I'll ultimately get slapped down. The Public Enemy song praises the honorable Elijah Muhammed. That's a big no-no in my small, super-christian town. The Beastie Boys talk about your Mom finding your porno-stash, but I doubt that will push any buttons. 

The Best Songs You Won't Hear in Spin Class

Energy, anger, humor, disdain, resignation. A driving beat. Guitar, bass, drums. Raw and sparse. A recipe for punk rock. It cannot be pulled together like ingredients for a cake. It forms naturally, holistically. And at times, it's art. It's not for everyone. Many don't like it. Or they don't understand it. I've tried to change this. A little education, exposure in my very small corner of the world.

In my rural town, there is a ‘community center’. It is much bigger than our population would suggest. And truly one of the centers of our community. In a region where three out of four people are overweight, this is the place where the exercise crowd congregates. This is the place that I instruct spin classes.

I'm an introvert. I thrive in one-on-one situations. Not at the front of a room, performing. But music and exercise are important to me. I know a bit about each. Enough about music to pull together a clever playlist – multiple decades, various genres. Enough about exercise to coach a challenging workout – a mix of drills to improve strength and fitness. It’s not surprising that I've put this all together, for pay. Although at $9.00 per class, it’s more of a hobby than a job.

I hoped to be a DJ at my college radio station. This was thirty-five years ago. Freshmen were not permitted to do this. A year of academics before distractions. By my sophomore year, the station was closed, funding concerns. It later reopened, but I had graduated. I missed my chance to spin tunes - until now.

I branded my class Punk*Cycle. The other classes were pop, country. And classic rock, but not the Stones and the Who. Not T-Rex, the Kinks, or even the Doors. They used Foreigner, Journey, Manfred Mann, Yes. I wanted a cycle class that rocked. The Clash, the Pixies, Social Distortion, the Offspring, Green Day, X. High-energy, beginning to end. The oldies that helped shape the musical revolution of the seventies. Louie Louie, Paint it Black, Surfin’ Bird, Break on Through. The bands that predated the punk title – New York Dolls, Blondie, Patti Smith Group, the Stooges. I thought I would draw out the closet-punks. That repressed group of spinners enduring the crap they heard in the rest of the classes – like me.

This is not a city. Small-town Pennsylvania. The people President Obama accused of "clinging to guns or religion".  Afraid of change, of the outside world. He's right. People around here are not edgy. There weren't any closeted fans of punk rock. Not a single person said they were attracted to my class for the music. But over time, I started hearing people say how much they liked the music. I doubt they consider it punk, pre-punk, post-punk, neo-punk. They just hear it as a rocking set of music in an exercise class. And now they sing along.

My all-punk-all-the-time playlist became boring, at least for me. Two classes per week, every week. I needed more variety, and longer songs. (Good) classic rock, reggae, new wave, blues, even some contemporary pop. It has all found its way into the class. Show tunes when I want to be ironic. The mix is defiantly counterculture. Not a radio mix. An adult mix. Almost everything is old, decades old. But it’s new to the people in my class. And they still enjoy the music. They say so all the time. Music-wise, it’s as varied a class as you’ll find. Every genre is considered. But the class still skews towards punk.

Punk is the music that speaks to me. Motivates me. Gives me my edge. Makes me laugh. So I play punk. I play it for myself, and I'm happy that my class seems to enjoy it. At times, I go too far, and I'll do it again and again. Suicidal Tendencies' Institutionalized. Marilyn Manson's Sweet Dreams are Made of This. Master of the Puppets by Metallica. When these songs start, there is a collective groan. A sense that the class will indulge me this one time, but let's not do it again for a month or two. But there are twelve songs that are off-limits. A dozen phenomenal  songs. Banned by decorum, by expectations. These are the best songs I won't play -- unless I'm sure it's my last class – ever. They are just too rough for polite society. Profane, divisive, shocking. And if I can't play them in class, at least I can post them on my blog.

Caution *all* of these songs contain extremely bad and/or offensive language, but oh, what a playlist they would make. (Please contact me if any links are broken)

• Body Count -- Ice-T's 1992 masterpiece about violence in the 'hood. This dude is pissed.
• Don’t F*** Me Up (with Peace and Love) -- Rocking and funny. Unfortunately, Cracker uses too many F-bombs to avoid.
• Star Star -- A Rolling Stones classic from 1973. If you don't know why it's banned, just listen. Initially, this song was thought to be in response to Carly Simon's You're  so Vain (this song is not banned, but I don't like it), often presumed to be written about Mick Jagger.
• Killing in the Name Of -- I actually have used this song, part of it. Up to the four-minute mark. Then the song completely falls apart in a way designed to give a teenager's parents a heart attack.
• Bad Habit -- From The Offspring's "coming out" album, Smash. An energetic driving-song with an attitude problem -- and a really profane road-rage release. Oh, and Smash, the album's final, its title cut. Not so nice either.
• Orgasm Addict -- Almost forty years old. Early, early punk. And as inappropriate as any song since.
• Repo Man -- Iggy Pop's theme song for the kooky and brilliant movie by the same name. I actually use this one from time to time, but I need to be very aware. If I miss my volume cue, the back-to-back F-bombs leave half the class red-faced and the others falling off their bikes laughing.
• Dark Center of the Universe -- Even NPR's Linda Wertheimer loves this one. She is the person who introduced me to Modest Mouse. Unfortunately the frequent refrain of "F*** you over" makes it unplayable.
• Gigantic -- A love (lust?) song by the Pixies. Sexually charged and perpetuating stereotypes. Nothing good can come from playing this song in a family gym.
• Look! No Strings! -- A great cut on Chumbawamba's best album. Multi-layered as a parfait, both musically and lyrically, But... it is easy to read it as disrespectful to Jesus. Bummer. I love this song Susej em kcuf ho!
• Not Now James, We're Busy -- I use almost all of the songs from Pop Will Eat Itself's "This Is The Day... This Is The Hour... This Is This". Great fast songs for a variety of drills. But this one goes too far.
• Scrap -- Girl-group metal-core rockers L7 compare Christianity to being high on inhalants. I doubt anyone would catch the meaning of the lyrics during a workout. But these people get up at 5AM to take my class. I really don't want to offend anyone.
  

Materially Relevant

"In twenty, twenty-five years, she will be completely irrelevant. You'll see." This was my brother, dissing Madonna. I think we made a bet, but we were drinking so it’s unlikely that anyone remembers what was wagered. There were six or seven of us in all. The sides were drawn on gender. My girlfriend, my college friend Alice. They were the pro-Madonna camp. My brother Dana, Joe, and one or two of the Michigan Eds were the antis. That's University of Michigan. Joe and the Eds went there. Madonna went there too. Just a couple of semesters, but she calls it her Alma Mater. That pisses off Joe, Ed and Ed. Where was I? With the women, I was propping up Madonna.

I wouldn't call myself a fan. I didn't switch the radio station when a song came on, but I also didn't have any of her albums. This was 1990. Madonna didn't need much propping, she was on fire. Always on the charts, usually in a movie, reliably in four or five magazines. I was arguing against my team. We were cooler than Madonna. We listened to the Pixies, Jesus and Mary Chain, Throwing Muses/Breeders, Camper Van Beethoven, Nirvana. Alt-anything. Madonna was bland pop. No art, no risk. Just a hit-maker. Or so we said. But everyone has their secret favorites. A soft spot for a song or a band that seems completely out of character. Neil Diamond's "Song Sung Blue" is one of mine. Madonna, another. So here I was, propping her up.

Twenty-five years later, this seems like a stupid conversation. The unending parade of stars influenced by Madonna is a who's who of popular radio. From Brittany Spears to Lady Gaga, scores of female singer-songwriters owe a debt to Madonna. Clearly she's still relevant, She's still producing music, still making hits. And while I don't seek them out, whenever I hear new Madonna songs, I kind of like them.

But for me, the bet was settled in 2007. This was Al Gore's Live Earth concert. Here, Madonna introduced Gypsy punk band, Gogol Bordello to the world. At this point in the essay, the three  Gogol Bordello fans who will ever read this post will get indignant and huffy and say that the band  already had a global following. Sure, but the truth is that most people, especially those watching Live Earth, never would have heard of them if they didn't join Madonna on stage. A week after that concert, Gogol Bordello was on Letterman, and for years hence a regular fixture on the late night circuit. Two years later, they were on a major commercial label.

The song they sang? Well, it is really two songs. Madonna's Latin-themed "La Isla Bonita" interspersed with segments of the Romani-Gypsy folk song "Lela Pala Tute." The racous outcome is the perfect blend of pop and punk, singing and screaming. A long song, almost six minutes, with a driving beat from beginning to end. It starts fast and ends faster. It is one of my favorite songs to feature in my spin class. And it is always on my MP3 player for long-runs.

Listen to La Isla Bonita from Live Earth

Madonna is still everywhere. She's released a dozen original albums, acted in twenty-one movies, and at least one, Evita, was well received. She's still in magazines, in controversies, and omnipresent on the internet. Just a few years ago, Lady Gaga nailed a number one hit with a remake of Madonna's "Express Yourself" – she called it "Born this Way."

It's been twenty-five years since that argument, that bet. It's time to take stock. It's time to check in with Dana, Joe, the Eds. They didn't win that bet... Madonna did.

Mix Tape

Becoming a young adult in the 1980s gave me a front row seat to a unique and short lived societal phenomenon – the mix tape. Typically 90 minutes on two sides of a cassette. 20 to 30 carefully chosen songs. Each side a unique theme.

In an era of digital music where playlists are created in a matter of minutes, where an 80 minute CD can be burned with minimal effort by any 10 year old, and individual songs are readily available for purchase (cheap) or for swapping (free), the mix tape concept loses its short-live glory. Or, maybe it doesn't.

In the mid-eighties through the early-nineties, tape mixing was an all evening affair. It would often take 2, 3 hours or more, lots of planning, erasing and re-recording. Because of the time investment, much more thought went into the song choice and order than a playlist of today. The mood of an entire side of music could be scuttled by a poorly chosen song. A sloppy recording job – missing an intro or cutting off a fade-out – could take a brilliant tape and turn it into a hack-job.

By the mid-nineties, most adults' music collections had not transferred completely to CDs, and certainly not to MP3s. Songs were often recorded off of LPs (now referred to as 'vinyl'). Because individual songs were not readily available, one needed access to the entire album that contained the wanted song. This usually entailed borrowing albums from friends, buying 12 inch singles, and in some cases buying entire albums to record one or 2 songs to tape.

In movies made after the 1990s, there are from time to time disparaging references to mix tapes. They are viewed as a relic of a bygone era and seem worthy of disdain. In truth, the mix tape was at times a modern equivalent of a suitor writing poetry. A several hour introspective commitment scouring your music collection, looking for songs that demonstrate where your relationship is now and where you want it to go. The songs must be ordered to flow well for listenability and of course there needs to be the perfect blend of pop & edge.

Prior to the mid-seventies, the fidelity of cassette tapes just wasn't up to the task of capturing the music in a form worth recording. As a result, the length of tapes available for purchase was generally more geared to other activities. Being an early adopter of the mix tape phenomenon, I first started packing my favorite Beatles and Doors songs on 60 minute Memorex tapes. Initially, my motivation was to cut out the 'clutter', simply flooding the tape with my favorite songs, the hits. But quickly, I learned that 20 hit songs in a row becomes boring. Carefully chosen clutter improves the tape immensely. Eventually, my tapes would include only a handful of favorites. These songs became the pinnacle, the apex. The rest of the tape was the art. The intentional backdrop required to elevate the pinnacle songs to soaring new heights.

As I became more adept at tape mixing, I began to record a brief snippet of a song to enhance the tape. My most impressive tape introduced Sonic Youth's "Youth Against Fascism" with Frank Black's brilliant and bizarre "you f---ing die" diatribe, and I plugged Public Enemy's "You're Quite Hostile" refrain into the silence after Fugazi's "Waiting Room" introduction. The power of the mix tape. You engineer the music better than the producer. And then you listen to it so many times that 20 to 25 years later, the songs still seem to belong together.

I have a paid hobby as a spin instructor. Because of this, I still have the opportunity to mix 60 minutes of music twice a week. Obviously, this is all done digitally now, and decorum requires that I avoid phrases like "you f---ing die". While I still pay attention to song combinations, I'm often looking for contrast in addition to flow. Where my mix tapes would be rolling hills of sound, mood and energy, my spin mixes are much more likely to resemble plateaus and valleys. Slower, more mellow songs often followed by fast, angry songs. The idea is to shake up the workout with the music. Irony helps lighten the mood. I'll throw in an odd, old pop song – Afternoon Delight or Summer Loving – just to get a laugh and give people a break after a long segment of hard-driving beat and tempo.

The shuffle features common with digital music, first with CDs and now MP3 files, have made us desensitized to music flow. I suppose the radio has always been guilty of throwing disjointed songs together, but the artists' LPs were often carefully crafted to create a mood, to tell a story. Unlike the hours of effort to create a mix tape, the ease of working with digital music has made us lazy. While taping, the time investment made us want to be sure we got it right the first time. When burning a CD, or simply dumping music onto an MP3 player for a run or a workout, it is so simple and cheap (free) that if a song doesn't fit into the mix, we can either re-burn the CD or delete the song from the playlist and get it right second time around.

For years now, I have wanted to learn the ins and outs of music engineering. Essentially giving myself a skillset that I had with cassette tapes. There are so many things that I want to do, so many
songs I want to blend, trim, edit. Fade-outs & fade-ins, eliminate F-Bombs. Here's one of my "things" – I am almost completely incapable of reading directions to learn how to do something. I either need to work through trial and error, or someone needs to show me how to do it.

I've downloaded DJ programs and tried to work through the process of engineering a song, and I just can't do it, I can't figure it out. And as a 50ish adult, I don't know anyone who can show me how. Because my kids are almost teens, in a few years they will likely possess an innate ability to navigate these software programs. If I can just hold off a couple more years, maybe they can show me how. But without this skill, I will never fully recapture the music mixing style of my early adult years.

Like so many of the conveniences of the modern world, something special is lost when activities become too easy to do. Tape mixing was truly an art form, and it has become lost to all but a few – including me.

Possibly, I'm overthinking this – a habit of mine. In the eighties, cassette tapes were the best technology available. The Sony Walkman was the iPod of the time. A few years earlier, we were still listening to AM frequencies on transistor radios. Tape mixing was our attempt to control the flow and order of music – something only a DJ could previously do. But the medium grew. Tape mixers truly cared about the final product. And to this day, I've yet to hear a home-crafted CD that comes close to the top five tapes I’ve mixed.