i am lost in the sound

It's 1984, and I'm driving my Dad's late 70s Chevy pickup. I'm stopped at the damn train track, listening to Who's Next on the eight-track player. The speakers are behind the seat.

And as the synth part in "We Won't Get Fooled Again" plays, something strange happens: I cannot tell where the music is coming from. I'm listening to the lowest-fi setup I can imagine, and suddenly I'm surrounded by crystal clear sound. I don't even want to turn my head for fear of losing this acoustic anomaly. There is no localization.

***

It's the 80s. Just pick a year. It's raining, and I open my bedroom windows, placing microphones at opposite corners of the room. I record the ambient sound of the rain for a while, then play it back, listening intently on the speakers or on headphones. I don't know why, yet I do it time and time again.

***

It's 1987, and I'm dancing--dancing!--on a tightly-packed floor at some all-ages club. I'm loaded on Southern Comfort, which is my heartbreak drink. I threw up in the weeds in the parking lot just from sheer nerves before going into the place, again. But in this dark, packed club I am anonymous, feeling the overwhelming bass as the DJ spins "Brass Monkey" and "World Destruction."

***

It's 1989, and I'm driving from the Armadillo Ballroom back to Angleton at 2:30am or 3:00. I've been running monitors for the band all night, having arrived at the club around 5:00pm for setup. After hours of loud music the silence is startling, and I've got the echoes from the amplifiers ringing in my head. I'm wired, and won't get to sleep for hours, not that I care. It's a shame the sun ever has to rise.

***

It's 1990, and I'm at the Cannibal Club in Austin, watching a Course of Empire show with a girl named Lisa. She's the first person with a pierced nose I've ever seen. She roughly bumped some random woman on the street as we walked in, giving her a few curse words as a parting shot. We are at this show on some sort of date. We're friendly but not that interested in each other, and really just had no one else to go with.

I've brought no earplugs, and the guitarist's solid-state Roland amp is piercing my brain all night. Pure pain. The drums are louder than angry gods, and I just go with it.

***

It's 1997, and I am at the Meyerson in Dallas. My employer gave me tickets to an organ performance at this prestigious concert hall. By this time my ears aren't what they once were, yet I still find what I'm listening for. The sound is everywhere in that grand auditorium. The organ seems to surround me. I'm reminded of listening to the Who in 1984.

***

It's 2002, and I am in Houston for two weeks, sent there by my company for training. I do not like my company, I do not like the training, and I do not like Houston.

By day I sit in a conference room, listening a presenter as he tries to pound into our heads the specifics of operating the new traffic software. By night I use my generous per diem on Cajun food, and do what I can to avoid my empty hotel suite off of South Main. I get in the car and drive, just drive.

This bit of pop electronica catches my ear. It's just the sort of thing I never listen to, but "Days Go By" by Dirty Vegas captures this miserable loneliness. As it plays, I drive this way and that, following the curve of the road, feeling the bass in my rental car's sound system. The song ends and I am quite accidentally back where I started.

***

It's 2006, and I'm jogging in total darkness at the LD Bell track at 10:30pm. I'm blaring "Stay Clean" by Motorhead on my iPod, and I can barely see where to put one foot after the other. The lights from the car dealership across the street make star shapes in my eyes, and the whole run has a dimensionless feel as I go, mile after mile, all but invisible.

***

It's tonight, and I'm driving back from north Dallas, having seen a movie with a friend. The radio is playing electronic dance music, some of which I recognize, some of which I don't. I turn it up loud as the stripes zip by. The traffic flows, and some cars pass me while I pass others. The drive is smooth and long, and I hate for it to end.

***

A stack of 45s I play before sunrise in my house as an eight-year-old.

Glorious distortion, from my various guitar amps, or maybe from the cassette recorder I overload with my microphone, pleased at how beefy and synth-like it sounds.

Feedback from my amp as I'm blasting the Smashing Pumpkins, my Strat squealing and wailing along to "Drown." I don't dare do this for long or the neighbors will surely send cops.

Any given morning on my way to work, when the stereo in the van simply won't get loud enough as I play Wolfmother or Porcupine Tree.

I am lost in the sound.