#820: No More Tears (Coda – 1991 Was the End and 1991 Was the Beginning)

GETTING MORE TALE #820: No More Tears
(Coda – 1991 Was the End and 1991 Was the Beginning)

Part One:  The Last Note of Freedom
Part Two:  1991 Was the End and 1991 Was the Beginning
Part Three:  1991 Was the End and 1991 Was the Beginning (continued)

Here’s a bold statement:  I feel that personal rock history is a part of the greater body of work that is the history of the genre.  In other words, I think that stories of people like me, buying and listening to rock music, are important components of the greater gestalt.  When we publish our stories permanently, they are assimilated into the collective history.  Writers like Martin Popoff and Chuck Klosterman are often at their most entertaining when talking about their own tales of childhood musical discovery.

When a memory comes back it can be as vivid as the day it happened, and I try to capture that.  The 1991 trilogy (quadrilogy?) has taken a couple months to come together and who knows, there might be another instalment if more memories surface.  I won’t lie — it’s been an emotional process!  No more tears?  Maybe for now!

It’s important for me to recognise somebody who was there on the periphery of all these happenings in 1991.  Peter M. Cavan didn’t do things the way the rest of us did.  He began working immediately with the goal of becoming an electrical apprentice and eventually an electrician, which he did.  He didn’t disappear after highschool.  The first time he came to the cottage was in the summer of 1991 and that kicked off a serious friendship and many, many years of cottage trips.  Peter worked hard but Peter also played hard, not letting time go by without doing something.  Whether it be throwing a ball around, cooking a meal, driving into town to buy fireworks or frisbee at the beach, Peter kept moving.

And Peter’s favourite artist happened to be one of mine:  Ozzy Osbourne.

It’s safe to say that No More Tears was one of the biggest albums of 1991 for Pete.  When we hung out he always drove.  We played the shit out of No More Tears in that car.  We always skipped “Mama I’m Coming Home” — always.  I didn’t buy my own copy for months because we were listening to it so often.  When I did buy No More Tears, it was strange to listen to it without Peter!

Just as I happened to be really ramping up my interest in Black Sabbath, here comes Peter into my life who was also beginning to buy old Black Sabbath.  At school, Rob V was teaching me the ins and outs of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple’s discographies.  Meanwhile, Peter began travelling to the States a lot for work.  Rob V told me of a rare (here anyway) Sabbath track called “Evil Woman”.  Peter returned from the US with Black Sabbath’s The Early Years including that very track.  I told him he found something special.  Today, of course, you can painlessly get all that Sabbath stuff on readily available deluxe editions.  You couldn’t back then, if you even knew they existed.

While it is true that life after highschool was lonelier than before, I did have Peter.  He was the one guy who never went away.  Peter and I went on many adventures in the early 1990s, some of which featured Ozzy or Black Sabbath in the tape deck.  Peter is a part of my personal rock history and therefore part of the greater whole.  Somewhere out there is a family who wonders to this day why Ozzy Osbourne was yelling “YOU BASTARDS!” at them while Peter and I passed them in our car.  It’s because we synched it up that way thinking it would be funny.  And it kinda was.  We were adults, sort of.  He was learning to be an electrician and I was becoming acquainted with the history of 18th century Russia.  But we still laughed at fart jokes and blasted the Ozzy because why not?  Why do you have to leave that behind?

You don’t.  Celebrate your personal rock history and the rich tapestry of memories that comes with it.

18 comments

  1. I tried to listen to jazz when I was about 15, and I just couldn’t do it. My sophomore year in college I decided to throw down the dollars for a Coltrane album My Favorite Things, and I fucking loved it. That was a huge turning point in my life. I realized I was getting old, and getting boring. I really started branching out from rock on that trip post Christmas. I remember what else I picked up. Peter Gabriel’s Passion, the Amadeus soundtrack, the Angelo Badalamenti’s Fire Walk with Me soundtrack, and Boingo Alive I think. I also got Vince Guaraldi Trio for Christmas that year. Charlie Brown Christmas. One of my bud’s stared to make fun of me, asking why I’d want to own it. Philistine!

    I started liking Genesis more also. There albums had just put me to sleep before that. The Peter Gabriel stuff of course, like Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and Selling England. I was getting more sophisticated in my tastes in music and in film. I always liked movies, but it got hardcore that year. Watched everything from every era I could get my hands on. I remember being totally blown away by Luis Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire. I’d never seen surrealism so subtle before. Lynch was probably the first surrealist director I got into because Twin Peaks was so fucking huge and Blue Velvet was so acclaimed by everyone but Roger Ebert. He’s much less subtle. He goes for broad emotional manipulation.

    Then I was also consuming artsy fartsy stuff like Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn chatting about experimental theatre and how modern society is a self-perpetuating prison for the entire run-time of My Dinner with Andre. Seeing cult punk f.u. indie masterpieces in Repo Man with fresh eyes (I saw it much younger at age 13). Being moved by an outsider’s perspective of the American dream gone wrong in Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas. My buddy was a horror aficionado, so I was well-versed in that genre despite not being a huge fan, I saw crap like Spookies. Lots of stuff to digest that year, media consumption.

    Huh, where am I? Oops. I was reminiscing. Takes me back.

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    1. My Dinner With Andre. Saw it at a young age. Thought it was very interesting. But I forgot all about Wally Shawn until The Princess Bride. And later on, Deep Space Nine!

      You definitely took a left turn with this comment though! While I always appreciated Jazz, I didn’t buy my first Jazz album until the late 90s. 97 or 98. It was whenever I bought Burnin’ For Buddy, which was around when I saw Rush on the Test for Echo run.

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      1. Blue Train by Coltrane and Go! by Dexter Gordon were the first two jazz albums I tried to get into at a young age. Then I guess I was boring enough to like it by the time I was a sophomore in college. Are you a jazz man now?

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        1. I think a real jazz man would say that I am not. I have some. I have some Miles and Wynton Marsalis. Jaymz Bee and the Royal Jelly Orchestra. Not enough to call it a jazz collection.

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        2. Charlie Brown Christmas OST is essential. Sounds fantastic, great tunes, and it’s wholesome as fuck. Wait. Fucking ain’t wholesome. As wholesome as a prostitute down on all fours in a KFC men’s room with a tube of mystery meat crammed up her poop chute, and another person’s meat docked and nesting atop her herpes infested tongue.

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  5. I’m real lucky that I still have the original Rock N Roll Outlaw riding shotgun with me in regards to Tbone as we have been pals since 1975. I’m very lucky that way and also tight with his younger(not by much) brothers still.

    When I think of 1991 and Ozzy its all about the tune Desire which to me is my favourite Wylde solo on record. Zakk melts the fretboard on that one. So good.

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  6. I’d agree with that bold statement – I don’t know Popoff as well as I ought to, but I’ve certainly been entertained by Klosterman and Ladano when they talk about their personal rock histories!

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