Michael Huckaby's Essentials: Guns N Roses, Nirvana, Bob Dylan, More

Posted by Michael Huckaby on 05.04.2005

411 Sports Editor over does it

10:23am - I wake up on a deserted island wearing only a watch and one high heeled shoe whilst smelling of cheap whiskey. Being a supercool survivalist I realize I need immediate shelter and some food while my memory comes back to me.

10:25am - As I walk around in circles looking for branches to make a hut out of it dawns on me I have absolutely no carpentry skills and the tv show Survivor never really went into great detail when it came to hut building.

10:36am - Is that a rat? Fuck.

11:21am - You never realize how wonderful sunscreen is until you're sitting in a blazing sun for an hour with no water.

11:24am - I figure I'm like Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity and I'm actually some really cool hitman for the CIA or something of the sort. I begin kicking and punching the air but it seems to be more of a retarded dance as opposed to major ass-whippin. They never show movies about people with amnesia who were like painters or fast food jockeys, I need to write a movie like that.

11:25am - I have no pen.

1:17pm - I'm dehydrated and the sea water is starting to look better and better. From what I hear it's a very painful death to drink nothing but sea water... but I also imagine it's a very painful death to have no water. This is what Plato would call a "lose/lose situation."

3:14pm - I begin to sing songs I can remember as loud as I can and dance crazily on the beach. I figure I look like a retarded unicorn doing "The Shovel" and "The Lawnmower"... I assume I was not a professional dancer. I make the woman from Seinfeld look like Michael Jackson. I think dementia is starting to set in.

4:11pm - It's very odd pooping without a toilet. Very odd. I'm sure once or twice in life you had to go in the woods or something of the sort but until you try to dig your feet into beach and let it out you have no idea.

4:13pm - "Ahem" I hear behind me. I turn slowly (still bent over mind you) to see a large African man in a funny hat looking at me strangely.

"Sup?" I manage to squeak out.

"Didn't you see that hut over there?"

As I turn slowly I see a large hut painted bright red with music playing... I had wondered where the sound came from but chalked it up to my dementia.

"Oh yeah. I saw it... didn't want to intrude."

"You're lying."

"Yes."

".... why?"

"You have a funny hat."

He begins to turn and walk away but thinks better of it.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, I suppose. You wouldn't happen to have any water around would you?"

"Yes, the hut has all types of bottled water along with steak and beer..."

"For serious?"

"What? It.. wait. HOW DID YOU NOT SEE IT!?"

"I didn't really look."

"But it's big... and red... and its right there!" *points* "The one with midgets dancing by it."

"Well yes, hindsight 20/20 I suppose I would have looked around."

"To be quite frank all of us have been staring out the window at you and it was disturbing."

"All of us?"

"Yes, we have the Swedish Bikini Team in as are Natalie Portman and the Olsen Twins."

I look at the hut to see both Olsens peeking out of the window with digital cameras. Suddenly it dawns on me I'm still only wearing one high heeled shoe.

"Do you have any... clothes?"

"We do, we have suits and silk pajamas and bathrobes in the hut."

"Could I maybe borrow one?"

"You might very well be the stupidest person I've ever met."

"Your mom."

"Ohhhh good comeback!"

"Fuck you, okay, don't insult me, you wouldn't have seen the hut either."

"It has strobe lights and disco music."

"And?"

"You know what? You get nothing, you don't deserve anything. I feel you might be borderline retarded."

I was agasp. How dare this man insult my intelligence.

"You just stepped in your poop."

::sigh::

"Regardless," he continues, "you've lost your privileges."

And with the snap of his fingers it was all gone. The hut, the food, the clothes, the water, the Olsen Twins... even my high heeled shoe.

"OH COME ON, NOT DENISE!"

"Denise?"

"That's what I named my shoe. He was going to be inanimate friend like in that Tom Hanks movie."

"Castaway?"

"No, the one where he's on the island by himself."

"Castaway."

"No no, the one with like Fed Ex and stuff."

"It was Castaway."

"No, it wasn't. I'm sorry sir but I know movies."

"The movie was called Castaway."

"CITIZEN KANE! That was it."

"Did it have a dying newspaper tycoon say 'Rosebud' in it?"

"No it was a guy on a beach."

"CASTAWAY!"

"CITIZEN KANE!"

"I've never had less respect for a human being in my 400 years here."

"Oh come on, can't I have something? I'm hungry and thirsty and hot and bothered."

"Bothered?"

"You know..."

"OH GOD... you know what you can have something."

"SWEEEEEET!"

"I'll give you a walkman and let you pick any 10 CD's you want."

"That sounds like a pretty shitty gesture."

"Fine, bye."

"NONONONONO! I'll take it I'll take it."

"Which CDs would you like and why?"

"Why... I'm glad you asked."

----



Guns N' Roses
Appetite for Destruction
{1987} {Geffen}

How this is not on every single person's list is beyond me, almost everyone under forty has this somewhere on their top ten favorite albums list. You got your Welcome to the Jungle, Sweet Child O' Mine, Paradise City, and the hugely underrated Night Train which should always be listed with those other three as classic GnR.

Perhaps it's best I retell my story from the HapHuckaby wrestling article (filling in for Hazard) two weeks ago. I hear the tornado sirens blaring and I run to find a radio after the satellite goes out. As I'm trying to find the ABC News station I come across the classic rock station. What's playing? Welcome to the Jungle of course. So with sirens blaring, the sky looking horrible, and no news about what's coming I listen to the song for a full minute banging my head up and dance and wishing for a mosh pit.

When a song can make you put your life threatening situation on hold to listen to it... that's a pretty kickass song.




Local H
As Good as Dead
{1996} {Island}

Oh man, it's my first "I'm so indie" moment in life. I'll be the first to admit I've never been huge into music. Fact is if it hasn't been on the radio before chances are I won't like the band or the song. Therefore when a friend played me this when it came out it was like a new era. I ran into school the next day (I was ending my high schoolishness) and was like "HEY! THERES THIS NEW BAND LOCAL H!" It was responded to by two of my friends pulling the CD out of their backpacks. Greaaaaat.

How can you not love Local H? I hope it's not because you heard Bound for the Floor on the radio and judged them upon it. It makes me sick every single time I hear that track on the radio as I know people that have never heard them before will judge them on a song that in no way symbolizes their music (maybe the mood but not the flow).

This is one of those few CDs that I can put in and just listen to the whole damn thing and enjoy every single song (except Bound). This is a MUST while trapped on the desert island. Best songs? Lovey Dovey, my alltime favorite Nothing Special, I'm the only person in the world that can understand Back in the Day, and kickass screaming Fritz's Corner.

They could make this CD a best of simply by adding 5 or 6 more tracks from their other discs. Friggin' beautiful.



Bob Dylan
New Morning
{1970} {Columbia}

It's so hard to find one album to put on your list for people like Bob Dylan, Aerosmith, or Johnny Cash. Basically I had to pick my favorite song (Man in Me) on an album with other songs I enjoy (Went to See the Gypsy, If Not For You, Time Passes Slowly). Great thing about Dylan is all of his albums could be released for the first time tomorrow and they'd still be in the Top 10 on Billboard. How many 1970 CDs could you say that about? I heart you Bob Dylan, I heart you.




Everclear
Sparkle and Fade
{1995} {Capitol}

Ah, Everclear before they went too poppy. Yes they're one of the worst sounding big money live bands you'll hear but the CD is nearly flawless to me. Just so happens when I first heard the CD I was having problems with my then girlfriend and listened to You Make Me Feel Like a Whore for the first time. God bless Art Alexakis and crew for making me angrier and angrier until she cheated on me.... ? On second thought maybe that wasn't for the best.

Almost every song on the album brings a different kid of mood and it's yet another I can listen through without skipping a track (well maybe Chemical Smile). It was pretty much a tossup between this and Afterglow for a coveted spot on my list but I wanted another faster angry album as opposed to I Will Buy You a New Life. I figure if I'm on an island I'm going to be angry no matter what I listen to so I might as well fit the mood.

People say this about a lot of bands that change their genre but maybe one day they'll release the old (before this) banging angry stuff once again before they disappear off the face of the planet.



Dead Kennedys
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
{1980} {Alternative Tentacles}

Fun Fact: I got sent home one day in 10th grade for wearing my "Holiday in Cambodia" t-shirt.

This album breaks my "love every song" rule as even I can't listen to more than a half an hour of Dead Kennedys without wanting to break my stereo. That said the last song on the album is my all-time favorite cover with Viva Las Vegas in crazy garbled fashion following Holiday in Cambodia on the album making it my very favorite back-to-back in CD history.

Just once... just ONCE I'd love to see a Kennedys or Rage go out and blast on liberalism and discuss how great big business is. Wouldn't that be great? Just once. A super speedy CD mixed with several very good songs and perhaps the sweetest concert t-shirt in the history of bands make this a must have.




Johnny Cash
The Best of Johnny Cash
{2000} {Castle}

I'm glad Melchor made the "one best of" rule because an island or list without Johnny is no island or list at all. How the hell are you going to pick a Johnny Cash CD when there are roughly 4,200 of them? This one "best of" is the one to get, Boy Named Sue and Folsom County Blues to go along with favorites like I Walk the Line, Big River, and Casey Jones. Are some missing? Of course, it's not a 40-disc set after all. I have alot of hard music on my list and I needed some country. I had to eliminate Tim McGraw, Loretta Lynn, and Brad Paisley because if you have to bring one country album which would you bring? I'll be all internet nerd now and say, "rest n piece jony cash!"




Neutral Milk Hotel
Aeroplane Over the Sea
{1998} {Merge}

When I make my nerdy artsy post-film school movie it'll be difficult not to include every single song from this album. Each one has a distinct feel and makes your mind wonder to all types of different places. Some people feel it's too cryptic but as a person that loves Lynch movies and the like I can enjoy some good crypticism (?). The first couple times I listened to the album I couldn't help but picture scenes from an open field to a hospital to a mountain. If I was alone on the desert isle and couldn't have this CD I'd throw the other nine away. If Gilligan and crew had this CD they wouldn't want to leave, they'd just get tripped out on spiked coconut juice (thanks Professor) and chill the hell out. I'd struggle to call it my favorite album of all-time but it's most certainly not not my favorite album. I need to stop.

This is the absolute best neo-psychedelia/indie/neo-progressive/lo-fi/alternative album EVAH!




Aerosmith
Get a Grip
{1993} {Geffen}

Aerosmith, along with Nirvana, is my favorite band of all-time. Aerosmith has to be the only band to ever put out 10+ albums that I bought. I have every single studio album they ever made and I picked this out of the bunch not only because it was the best mixture of songs but this tour was also my first concert. You start almost rapping with Eat the Rich and Get a Grip before you get to normal bigtime Aerosmith with Livin' on the Edge. If it ended there it would still probably make my list but with Cryin, Crazy, and Amazing it just puts it way over the top. Amazing, if not my favorite, is one of my top three or four Aerosmith songs ever recorded but for whatever reason it doesn't get any of the hype. The average rating I saw of this album was about dead average and maybe some of it is my bias stated above but I think the album just has an incredible flow and with all the different types of music you get it is a must for a desert island.



Various Artists
Above the Rim Soundtrack
{1994} {Interscope}

One of four soundtracks I ever bought (Pulp Fiction, Natural Born Killers, Big Lebowski) I almost had to include it on this list. Look, more or less I hate rap... new rap anyway. I grew up on gangsta rap being in a bad neighborhood and I still love Ditty by Paperboy like it's my mother. Old rap is fun, old rap is entertaining; therefore, old rap must be on this list. This CD includes the awesomely unknown Didn't Mean to Turn You On by Second II None, my second favorite rap song ever in Regulate, and Pour Out a Little Liqua by Tupac and Thug Life. Add that with some classic rap tunes and some good Dogg Pound stuff and you have yourself a nice little rap/r&b collection.

Funny side story for those of you that watched this last season of the Surreal Life on VH1 with Chyna in it.... I thought Da Brat sang Afro Puffs. Seeing that this is on the album and sung by Lady of Rage it dawned on me I couldn't name one Da Brat song if you put a gun to my head. She had the gall to call those people washed up? I know who Peter Brady is, I know who the models are, I know who Mini Me is, hell I even knew who Chyna was. Who the hell is Da Brat? Sure I could look up her hit or two but I genuinely don't care that much.




Nirvana
Nevermind
{1991} {DGC}

Yeah, like I was gonna leave this off. In ninth grade this ugly kid named Monte (who in this drama class always made up scenes with him and a girlfriend which everyone thought was HILARIOUS) laughed when we went around a circle and I said Nirvana was my favorite band. He did the fake gun to his head "BANG" thing. I got up and ran across the circle to tackle him... I got thrown into the wall but this is not the point. I got thrown into a lot of walls in 9th and 10th grade, thats what happens when you're 8 inches shorter and 40lbs heavier than you are now.

Anyway, what can I say about Nirvana, it's Nirvana.

Sorry my list was a bit too mainstream for somes liking but I'm not indie by any stretch of the imagination, I likes what I likes.