Kick, Joe

At twilight, we walked around the side of the house, through the backyard, into what we used to call the "back-backyard," that small tract of land right before the steep drop off into the ravine where Conrail had a set of train tracks. So this land was possibly owned by Conrail, but it's not like they were sending representatives into people's backyards to make sure they weren't burying time capsules up there.

That was the assumption made by my dad and his brother, my Uncle Pat, back in 1987, the year before I was born—if we bury a time capsule in the back-backyard, no one is going to disturb it. I have no idea what prompted them to bury this thing in the first place. Possibly it was just one of those weird nights, when goofy ideas start flowing after a few too many Coors Extra Golds. I didn't know, and I really didn't think to ask, to be honest. All I knew was that now, 33 years later, Dad and Uncle Pat had decided to go dig the sucker up.

With the new owners' apparently reluctant permission, we three walked through the property, shovels on shoulders, looking to uncover some buried "treasure" ("treasure" in quotes, of course, with the caveat that one man's trash could literally be another man's treasure).

After paying respects to Mitzy, the long-deceased pup of my dad's childhood, also buried back here after being fished out of the veterinarian's dumpster by my Uncle Jim (but that's another story for another album review), we started digging, and after a few minutes, the steel tip of Dad's shovel make a distinct bonk sound against the aluminum of an old popcorn tin. Uncle Pat, his hands rough from a lifetime of manual labor and habitual smoking, managed to pry the lid off the weather-beaten container, and we all peered inside.

If you think this was some seminal moment in our lives, maybe one where we discover something valuable or priceless or otherwise life-changing inside the old tin, then you've been reading too much fiction. That's not how life works. Artifacts simply included some old photographs, various knickknacks of sentimental value, a couple baseball cards, a full unopened can of Coors Extra Gold (ha!), and weirdly, a vinyl copy of INXS' 1987 smash hit, Kick.

I took the record, and brushed away the ancient cobwebs off the skateboard pictured on the front cover. "Dad, why is this in here?"

"I dunno, Joe. It was a while ago."

"But did you guys actually listen to this stuff back before I was born?"

My Uncle Pat swatted away a mosquito and sighed. "Your Aunt Donna loved this album."

"Your mom too," added my dad. "Michael Hutchence, as you can see on the cover, drove lots of women up a tree back in the day."

"Uncle Pat, didn't you make fun of Bruce Springsteen at a Jersey Shore house party back in the day for being short?"

"Okay, what's your point?" Uncle Pat shot back quizzically.

"I guess I'm trying to say that we're approaching the whole idea of music differently. I don't care how musicians look while they are creating and performing music—and if we're being honest, I'd rather not hear about who my mother did or did not find attractive when she was younger. Tell me about the music."

We cracked open the Coors Extra Gold and started passing it around. It was a little flat.

My dad finally spoke: "Well, this definitely sounds like the '80s."

"That's another question. Did all music sound like this back then?"

"C'mon, you're smarter than that. Of course not. Culture is filtered as the years pass. This sounds like the '80s because that's what we're told the '80s sounded like, not because that's actually how it was." My dad, the sociologist, apparently.

"The only reason I asked is because I love this album, I haven't been able to stop listening to it this week (which I guess makes it kismet that it ended up in this old time capsule), but I'm curious as to whether I love this album because it sounds so much like the 1980s, or despite the fact that it sounds so much like the 1980s."

It was a muggy night, and so now Uncle Pat had a bunch of those old photos in his fist and was using them like a paddle fan. "I guess you'd have to give us some examples of what you consider a '1980s sound,' and then ask yourself whether you like those individual pieces or not."

That was reasonable. "Okay, how about the cheap sounding drum machine sounds? As a former drummer, I guess this could offend me a little bit."

"As someone who owns a garage where your band practiced and a living room above said garage where I often tried to read the newspaper, I do not need to be reminded that you are a former drummer." Not sure if his grimace right there was because the Coors Extra Gold was decades past expiration, or if the memory of hearing my old band play "Beverly Hills" over and over was just too painful. "I think you're just going to have to accept the fact that INXS sounded cheap, but also really catchy."

"Well, that's the thing. This is so corny." (I would've normally said "corny as fuck," but I don't really swear in front of my father.) "Like, I'm thinking maybe I would be embarrassed to listen to this if I was a teenager in 1987. But here in 2020, we no longer have to be beholden to those 'standards of cool.' Good music is good music. Catchy music is catchy music. So what if this is corny? So what if the guitars sound processed and fake? It shouldn't matter if those guitars are also playing riffs like those in 'New Sensation' and 'Need You Tonight.' So what if the lyrics silly more often than not? It doesn't matter when you consider the rhyming dictionary prowess of something like 'Mediate.' And so on."

"It sounds," said Uncle Pat slowly, "like you are trying to convince yourself. We don't need convincing; we're the ones who buried this album in the earth for 33 years because we thought it was worth preserving. You're the one who just listened to Kick for the first time this week." The man makes a good point sometimes.

"Yeah, I don't even know why I'm hand-wringing so much. I have no problem with loving this album. I think I just like to hear myself talk."

My dad and his brother cracked up at that, as if to say that this wasn't news to them.

"But isn't it just nice to listen to an old album that doesn't purport to be anything other than a collection of extremely catchy pop rock tunes?"

"I don't think your mother was listening to this because it was catchy."

"There you go again, telling me things I don't want to know about Mom. Was this dude Michael Hutchence really all that and a bag of chips?"

"First of all," cut in Dad, "that saying is from the '90s, not the '80s. Get your decades straight. Second, you're speaking as a heterosexual male."

"I guess that's a decent point. I guess I do prefer those moments of pure unsexual joy, moments like the raucous title track, versus those moments when Hutchence is clearly using his sexual prowess to try and move mountains. I guess what I'm really saying is that I prefer horns to horniness."

That last pun earned some boos and hisses. It was getting dark, and I couldn't see which of the two threw the empty beer can at me in mock disgust.

"What?! It's true!"

"Yeah, but you can't blame someone for liking an artist more because they are sexually attracted to them. What about you and your, um, what's their name... Frankie Quigley?"

Now I was the one laughing. "Frances Quinlan, dad! C'mon, doesn't WXPN play enough Hop Along for you to remember that?"

"I told you, the post office doesn't let us listen to music while we're delivering mail anymore."

"True, true. But yeah, I get your point. I don't even know why we're still talking about this. I don't give a f— I don't really care who likes INXS for what reasons. I know that I like it because it's unpretentious. Corniness is good when done right. INXS does it right."

An awkward moment of silence, which I followed by blurting out "I would probably give this album 4 pukes out of 5."

"What does he mean by 'pukes'?" asked Uncle Pat.

My dad sighed again and said, "Don't ask."

At that, we packed up and left the back-backyard, a sad kind of silence hanging in the air.

I think about that night whenever I listen to Kick these days. As the years crawl by, I'm starting to appreciate that there are things in life worth preserving. Small moments with family, small tokens of remembrance, small 1980s pop albums. I try to hold onto them. I try to pretend that they aren't all just water in the palm of my hand.