In the late ’90s, I wasn’t old enough to use a second hand to count my age. With that being said, you may be wondering why that era’s rock music brings me back to my tweenage years. It all starts at camp, the place where my musical horizons expanded beyond the purview of 50 Cent and everyone else that can be generously lumped into the category of party rap.
The first year I went to camp, I was 10. With a CD player and two-dozen CDs—this was a land before iPods, something that may shock the younger readers of this column—I found myself totally immersed in my own music before I went to bed each night.
But music was a big part of our day-to-day camp experience, with speakers blaring out my counselor’s choice of music throughout the day. Instead of being inundated with “In Da Club,” I became exposed to bands like Something Corporate, Dispatch, O.A.R. and Dave Matthews Band.
And while later in my camp experience, Something Corporate and O.A.R. were tossed by the wayside in favor of bands like Phish and Grateful Dead, there is something about those two bands that has remained indelible in my mind, despite the fact that as a Phish fan, I should be rejecting all four of the aforementioned bands to keep up the appearance of a “true Phan.”
For those of you who don’t know Something Corporate, they were (from what I’ve gathered) a big deal in the early aughts, with their lead singer Andrew McMahon splintering off to form Jack’s Mannequin before going fully solo.
Two of their songs stick out in my mind as songs I’ve likely listened to 1,000 times, all thanks to my camp experience. The first is “I Woke Up in a Car,” the third song off their 2002 album, Leaving Through the Window. A perfectly formed pop-rock song, there is nothing particularly distinctive about the song other than the fact that this particular song marks a shift in my own musical tastes from “In Da Club” to what I listen to today.
But the song that sticks out in my mind that still gets (probably too much) continued play is the next song on the album “If You C Jordan.” I first heard “If You C Jordan” in my first year at camp. That year, and the ensuing six years, I had a bunkmate named Jordan, which makes the lyrics of “If You C Jordan” that much better.
While I won’t list off all the lyrics to the song—they’re readily available on the Internet—let’s just say that the final chorus of the song introduced a new word to my vocabulary that has weaseled its way into my everyday vernacular ever since, for better or worse.
The other band from this era that I (somewhat embarrassingly) listen to is O.A.R. I say somewhat embarrassingly because I probably should be embarrassed to listen to them; however, they are the oft-overlooked musical cousin of Dave Matthews Band and other bands that fit into this genre of frat-rock—or whatever you want to call it. Once upon a time, I happily paid money to see them in concert… twice.
O.A.R. is the kiddie-pool version of a jam band, which allowed me to dip my toe in the water of double-digit minute-long songs—listen to “That Was a Crazy Game of Poker” as an example. While no one would call O.A.R. a jam band, their penchant for instrumental improvisation and lead singer Marc Roberge’s love of scatting and creating lyrics on the fly certainly put listeners in that direction.
It’s likely O.A.R. will never be someone’s favorite band, as anyone who listens to the band is likely a fan of the aforementioned Dave Matthews Band or cites Dispatch as their favorite band. But don’t overlook O.A.R.; their lyrics are shockingly poignant and relatable.
Just the other night, a set of song lyrics popped into my head. As I racked my brain to put a name on the song, I realized it was an O.A.R. song, which perfectly summed up my thoughts from the day. The next night, while lying in bed, a different O.A.R. song popped into my head.
To sum all of this up, while we may outgrow music we listened to a decade ago, becoming too cool to listen to them any more (you know the next time “In Da Club” comes on at a party you’re at or “Black Rock” starts playing out of a dorm room down the hall) you’ll look back with love and memories of a simpler time, sitting in your own bunk bed.
Do you have any music you loved listening to at summer camp? Send Brian a playlist of campground favorites at weidy@wisc.edu
