Someone very funny once noted that the further you get from a major urban center, the more likely merchants and service providers are to replace Cs with Ks in their businesses’ names in hopes of standing out and luring customers. You know, Kustom Kounters, Kwickie Kuts, and so on. (If anyone remembers who first made that observation, please remind me!) I would take that concept one more step up (down?) the logic ladder, and say the more misplaced Ks in a phrase, the trashier and more absurd anything associated with it becomes.
In that spirit, today’s Formerly Hot moment was brought to you by the the letter K, as in the Kup of Koffee I picked up at the uberKool Kafe on the Korner of my Kids’ Kindergarten block after I dropped them off.
As I was waiting to order, Back in the New York Groove came on (click to hear). Naturally, I started rockin’ out. It was instinctual. I was 11 when the song came out, and the boys in my school were KISS fanatics, even coming in for Halloween in full glam rock makeup and regalia. I am pretty sure I acted as if I liked KISS, thus beginning several decades pretending to hold opinions I did not for the sake of boys’ attention. That said, Back in the New York Groove is actually a good song, in its poppy way, one an 11-year-old girl (whose tastes ran more to the inoffensive, almost feminine Shaun Cassidy than nasty-ass mutant-tongued Gene Simmons) could wrap her prepubescent groove around.
So I’m humming to myself while they made my coffee, and the teeny, assless, American Apparel wearing 21-year-old behind me asked the baristo (23, tops) what was coming out over the speaker. He said he didn’t know. “Some ’70s stuff,” he shrugged. She giggled. He tossed his ’70s-style bangs out of his cornflower blue eyes and rolled them skyward as he plopped my drink on the counter.
With that, two poreless hipsters who weren’t born until Reagan’s second term dismissed an entire decade of popular culture as so much ironic background noise. Yes, the music was arguably atrocious (Afternoon Delight, anyone?), but it nonetheless meant a lot to 11-year-olds at the time, who owned only AM radios with those little white earpieces.
“KISS,” I said.
“Pardon?” the coffee dude asked. Despite the hipster hairdo, he was scrubbed and wholesome, and appeared to have been well-loved by two parents who thought it wiser to raise children someplace Ks are substituted for Cs with reckless abandon. I could tell by his glance that this was the first moment he really looked at me. That phenom of being looked at but not seen has become increasingly frequent now that I’m 41 and have children and visible pores.
“KISS,” I said. “Back in the New York Groove. That was KISS.”***
“Oh, okay,” the Kute Koffee Koordinator nodded. “NEXT!” He gave not one single shit.
But that was OK. I felt pretty hip myself, in a way that doesn’t make much sense, considering knowing who sang Back in the New York Groove isn’t exactly a precious gem in a treasure trove of accumulated wisdom. In fact, the only thing it says about me is that I’m old. Still, as I sipped my coffee (those hipsters do make good coffee!) and listened to the rest of the song, I felt glad that I know a thing or two, about myself and about the life cycle of coffee houses in New York City and the people who man them, and that when I rock out to KISS, nowadays I do so sincerely and without ulterior motive.
_________
***I have since been corrected; the song was on Ace Frehley’s solo album, but performed by KISS often enough that it’s all one big blur of pyrotechnics and platform boots and greasepaint. Matt and James, who set me straight, are officially cooler than I am.
Photo by: Eric, CC Licensed
January 21, 2009 at 1:09 am
Sometime in 2000, I had to replace my first (eponymous) Black Sabbath album, having given my copy to a co-worker who had hit a rough patch in his life. We make sacrifices…
So, I ventured into the Tower Records on 66th and B’way (RIP), and was delighted to find an import copy (with bonus track), on sale. As I stood on line, waiting to pay, I marveled at the fact that the (1970) album was already thirty years old, yet packed no less of a wallop than it had when I first heard it (ca. sixth grade). That disc was and remains POWERFUL.
I handed it to the pre-teen goth girl behind the register, whose eyes lit up when she saw the front cover (high-contrast, eerily-tinted photo of a creepy woman, with dark cavernous eyes, in a black shawl, standing in the brush in front of the Mapledurham Watermill). She had obviously never seen the record before, and had probably never even considered the merits of the band itself.
She mumbled a “hmpf… [shrug]… cool…” of resigned approbation, under her breath, and dumped the CD in the bag. I was tempted, reflexively, to give her a “you kids today, with yer Bauhaus and yer Morrissey…”-type speech/tirade, but thought better of doing so.
I felt like an old fogey, clinging to my thirty year old Black Sabbath record (thirty-nine now), but I took (and continue to take) comfort in the fact that Sabbathâ€â€and not, say Lawrence Welk or Les Brown and his Band of Renownâ€â€is *my* “old man” music….. and it’s still better than 99-and-99/100ths of the crap that anyone’s liked ever since…..
January 21, 2009 at 10:08 am
A few years ago, I tried to play some of “my” music for my now 15-year-old niece, but she just rolled her eyes and said it all sounded the same. There is no way that “Scary Monsters” sounds anything like “London Calling” or “The Idiot” sounds anything like “Atmosphere.” Fortunately, by last summer, she had come to her senses and now likes listening to “oldies” with her old auntie.
January 21, 2009 at 12:05 pm
My dad took me to see KISS when I was 11, (they played “New York Groove”), and it was the coolest thing ever. KISS was why I started playing bass (mutant tongues RULE when you are an 11 boy), and though my tastes have expanded since then, I still play bass, and I still get a kick out of hearing my kids rock out to KISS in the car. Although these days, they’ve discovered RUN-DMC. It’s Tricky….
January 23, 2009 at 12:07 am
I love this entry–you just resurrected memories of me, sitting on my shag carpet in our tiny living room on 35th street in Lubbock, TX, staring longingly into Peter Criss’s and Paul Stanley’s solo album covers (right?? they each had their own album covers? or am i making this up?) and singing along to Sure Know Something, one of their slow ballads. They were my little brother’s favorite band, and i never fully admitted to him how much I liked them, but hello–how could a teen girl resist men wearing makeup!
I’m going to download the song from itunes right now!
January 23, 2009 at 10:44 am
Do you remember when KISS went disco with “I Was Made for Loving You (Baby)”?
Shameful lowlight or brilliant highlight? Tough call.