Entertain Us

K and I went to the grocery store on Sunday afternoon. After we were done shopping, and since I wanted to make it something of an outing for him, we went to the nearby record store. I thought we could find some Farmer Jason. That's Jason from Jason and the Scorchers in his new gig. With some help from the store clerk, we did find that disc. Meanwhile, Kieran piled in my hands many other discs that he wanted. Because he can only recognize a dozen or so words, he was simply going by the cover images for what he preferred. It is a study in marketing. Invariably, he chose recordings that had colored drawings on the covers, reminiscient of his beloved comic books. It's no wonder Joe Camel was so successful.

So Kieran got his reformed punk rocker kid music CD and I found one as well. When we arrived home, I showed Mrs. B our finds. "Here's one for Kieran, and this other one with a underwater baby chasing a dollar bill on the cover- I think that's some kid music too."

Mrs. B. peered at the cover. "What's that?"

I tried to hide my disbelief that she didn't recognize the iconographic image from THE album of the '90's- an album that launched a fleet of Led Zep-Black Sab soundalikes and made "alternative music" mainstream. "It's Nirvana."

"Oh, I'm into more obscure bands," she sniffed.

"But they only sold 30,000 copies of their previous album," I countered.

We had a little dustup about my failing to hide my disbelief - I imagine Harold Bloom had the same difficulty with his wife - but I had to chuckle in the end. When Nirvana broke, I wasn't into them; I was too cool. It was fun to do "Teen Spirit" karoake on Bourbon Street, but I couldn't take it seriously as music. I had seem them live the year before and it didn't appeal to me.

Later I put the CD on and it is good. It didn't get K doing his hot foot wiggle leg dance like he does for R.L. Burnside, but I enjoyed it.

Update: Today I was able to pass off Led Zep's "Mothership" collection as family music.