Andrews Sisters "Ferry Boat Serenade"

You can walk into a grocery store, or department store, or restaurant, or just about ANY kind of establishment, and they'll be playing music on the overhead speakers.

There are a couple of reasons a business will do this.

Sometimes it's to "brand" themselves.  As in, "we're a hip store that listens to the hip music of today so buy our clothes."

Sometimes it's to set a pace.  Fast food restaurants typically play upbeat music, which may encourage folks to eat faster and therefore turn-over tables more quickly.  A fancy Italian restaurant may play slower, more romantic music, hoping to set a mood and encouraging you to order that one more bottle of wine.

Usually, though, the music is there in a public place to make the whole experience of being there a little more pleasant.  Pleasant music, along with pleasant aesthetics and even pleasant smells can elevate a person's perception of their visit.

I've thought about this recently whenever boarding one of the Steamship Authority Ferries.  Wouldn't a little music on the boat make the ride a more pleasant experience?

Now let me say that nearly 15 years after my first Steamship ride, my personal experiences with the SSA are overwhelming positive.  That being said, you don't talk to too many folks on the Island, who don't have a quip about the ferry service.

They have the overhead speakers---a whole soundsystem---in place.  Why don't fill the journey to the Island with a soundtrack?  Carly Simon's "Never Been Gone."  "Van Morrison's "Into The Mystic."  James Taylor's "Lighthouse."

I heard this Andrews Sisters song for the first time recently.  How have I traveled by ferry for 15 years, and never heard this once while cruising across Vineyard Sound?

Oh, I'm sure there's a good reason there isn't music on the boat.  They would have to pay ASCAP/BMI fees.  Someone would have to operate it.  With the boats running 18 hours a day, the song turnover would be maddening to the folks who spend all day working the ferries.

But it would make the voyage more aesthetically pleasant.

Alternate suggestion:  The SSA workers should bake a fresh batch of cookies for each ferry ride for an aesthetically pleasant-smelling boat ride.


Hear the song on Youtube.

Air Supply "The One That You Love"

A while back, I started an occasional weekend feature called "Random Ridiculous Songs That Have No Business Being Played In Public Again But I Heard In The Grocery Store Today."

This week I considered starting a new one called "Random Ridiculous Songs That I Heard In a Martha's Vineyard Cab."

Those who come and go from the Island know---especially the people who live here year-round---that you live and die by the ferry boats.  Everyone's got a story about rushing to make that boat, the last one off the Island.

Less talked about, is that trip to the ferry boat.  Unless you are taking your car on the ferry, you've got to get a ride down to the Steamship Authority.  There is no place to leave your car near the boat.

Because many folks on the mvy staff conduct business on the mainland (really, we do! Some people are so surprised that the mvyradio signal goes all the way across the water to the Cape!), many of us know that trip well.

Fortunately, the station has forged a nice relationship with "the best cab company on Martha's Vineyard," Adam Cab.

They give us rides from the station to the ferry and back.  We air commercials for them.

So next time you hear one of these hilarious commercials you'll know that one of the mvyradio staff members is getting a ride to the boat.

We get to know the drivers pretty well.  Most are guys who are here on a work Visa.  And the majority of the driver are either from Jamaica or Bulgaria.

Now, I've always imagined that being a cab driver lets you play DJ in one of two ways.  Either, you put on music to make an interesting/pleasant experience for your passengers.  Or, you treat the cab like your office, and you listen to whatever music gets you through the day.

Honestly, most drivers do the latter.

But funny enough, they don't always pick the music you'd expect.

When I get in the cab with one of the Bulgarians, its not uncommon to hear some kind of European dance music.  They've plugged in an iPod and are jamming to the kind of tunes they hope to be hearing when they take all the money they made in the summer, and enjoy it in the Sofia nightclubs.  Or they may be listening to one of the local Pop stations, that play the latest American dance music.

The Jamaicans are pretty likely to be listening to Pop music too.  Or, perhaps not surprisingly, they'll be listening to some reggae.  On a lucky day, one of the drivers, who is also a performer, will play some of his own gritty, authentic, modern reggae music.

And these are the kind of things that you'd expect.

But every once and a while, a driver will be listening to something that defies expectation.

Like the Turkish kid who drove last summer, and seemed to prefer to listen to mainstream Country radio.

Or the crusty old Islander driver, who knew every 80s Pop song that came on the radio.

But the one that really blew my mind, was a ride I took this week.

I just would never expect the 20-something Jamaican kid, with dreads and everything, to be cranking Air Supply on his iPod.

But there we were, barreling down the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road, "rocking out" to the most vanilla, smoothed out AC power ballads you'd never expect to be hearing, had you looked in the windows of our Adam Cab.

But as the jingle says, "Adam Cab keeps your secrets . . . "


Hear the song on Youtube.

James Plattes "The Silver Spear & The Banshee."

She turned to me and asked, "What about you? Did you enjoy that?"

"Hmm," I paused. "Did I enjoy that? Honestly, I have mixed feelings about it.

"You know, I got on the Steamship today because I'm headed back to the Vineyard and I'm going straight to work. I work at the local radio station. WMVY. And I had a bunch of stuff I had hoped to accomplish on this ferry ride. I found this booth, sat down and opened my laptop, and I was deep into my work when you arrived.

"Now let me say this: I love music. I LOVE music. In fact I was sitting here with my headphones on, listening to some new releases when you arrived. That's part of my job. People send me their new songs, and I try to give them a good, fair listen to decided if the station is going to play them.

"I saw you come up the stairs and I could see the instrument slung on your back and I smiled because I feel some kind of kinship with people who love music enough to make it a daily part of their life. But I didn't give it much thought when you sat in the booth, directly behind me.

"Let me say again, I LOVE music. So I flashed through a wave of varying emotions when you started playing your fiddle.

"On the one hand, good for you. You have an instrument and you have a gift and you feel like sharing. A fiddle, on the morning before St. Patrick's Day? On the Steamship? How delightfully unexpected!

"On the other hand, your fiddle was REALLY FUCKING LOUD AND RIGHT IN MY EARS, LADY.

"I mean, if a person came onto the boat, sat in the middle of people clearly trying to work (or converse as the people around here were), and put a boombox down and turned it up as loud as you were, I think we would all think that person is kind of an ass. If a person came on the boat, sat right down next to you and started talking on their cell phone right next to your head, at a volume similar to your fiddle, we would also think that person is a complete ass.

"So why is it different for you? It's not. It's kind of the same thing.

"I was trying to listen to music, oddly enough. To listen and absorb and enjoy music. And I was being interrupted. Over-powered. By music. Other music.

"Maybe you saw me take off my headphones. I had my back to you and I was staring out the window at Vineyard Sound. I was trying to enjoy your playing, for the beauty within it. But I couldn't help coming back to the notion that a) you were forcing this upon me and b) I really did have to get some work done on this ride and you were a huge f-n distraction.

"Maybe you saw me pick up my laptop and go to another section of the boat, where I was able to listen to the music I chose, and get some stuff done.

"Or maybe you didn't notice my comings and goings. Maybe you were lost in your music. Though I bet you took note to the smattering of applause from some of the other passengers. Maybe that was incentive to keep playing. And certainly it played a role in me not asking you to go somewhere else and play. Before asking me if I enjoyed your music, you asked the guy at the next table, who said he did like it. Who am I to decide for other people?

"So when you ask me if I enjoyed your playing, I could try to be objective and say that I found beauty in your music and your willingness to share it. But unfortunately I have to view it from a subjective place where it was more of an annoyance than a pleasure.

"That being said, maybe I'll run into you some other time, and you'll be the one who sat down first and are already playing your fiddle, and I can decide to sit in the booth next to you, tell myself 'The Hell with work, for now I'm going to enjoy this musician' and get lost in your sounds. I hope you have a great St. Patrick's Day."

------------------------
She turned to me and asked, "What about you? Did you enjoy that?"

I was awash with a myriad of conflicting feelings. I, for a split second, wished I was Elizabeth Montgomery in "Bewitched" where I could freeze time and have 5 or 6 minutes to gather my thoughts. But I knew I didn't have that time, so I just answered, simply:

"Yes. Very nice."

Then I spent the next 5 or 6 minutes composing the above monologue in my head.

As my mind reeled through those thoughts, I packed up my things, and made my way toward the Walk Off ramp. And in those 5 or 6 minutes, though she was 20 steps ahead of me, I learned all about the musician's family, what her plans for the day were, who her brother was and what he did for a living, what she looked like as a child and a number of other things she was easily and loudly sharing in conversation with the passengers she was next to.

Okay, so she's someone who doesn't have a clear sense of boundaries about where she ends and the rest of the world begins. She has no idea how loud she is or that those within her aural range might not be interested. There was ego at play, but not arrogance. Just an ego that roams freely, unaware.

I tried to soften my feelings. To accept that she was not malicious. To connect to the purity of expression that is live music. To have empathy for someone who probably doesn't realize that the things that are potentially delightful about her, are annoying in other contexts. To go forth into my day feeling like I had learned something from my strong reaction to this brief vignette.

But the thing that sticks out the most, that I can't get out of my head:

Fiddles, unaccompanied. In a large, mostly empty room. Are REALLY FUCKING LOUD.

(Apologies to James Plattes. He has absolutely nothing to do with this post or the person mentioned in it. I wanted some solo fiddle music to go along with my story, so readers could turn it up really loud and have an experience similar to mine. So I went on Youtube and found something at random that seemed pleasurable, and akin to what I had heard.)


Hear it on Youtube.

The Beatles “Daytripper”

There are geographical peculiarities about every place. And vocabulary peculiarities that go along with it.

The title of this song probably doesn’t mean anything special, or particular, to someone from, say, Butte, Montana.

But I was on a Steamship Authority bus, just about to get off at the Woods Hole terminal, to go back to the Island on a hot August day, when this song came on the bus driver’s iPod, which he was running through the radio speakers.

“Good song for tourist season,” I said, and we both smiled.

Literally thousands of people will come off that bus, hop on a boat, buzz around our Island for a day and head back to the mainland, unaware that many a local is humming a familiar, catchy Beatles riff at them as they buzz on by.

The Smiths “Panic (Hang The DJ)”

It was one of those days. I was coming back to the Island on the Steamship Authority, and I was already late.

It’s summertime and the boat was an Ark overflowing with summer visitors, pushing and jockeying to make sure they were going to set foot on the Martha’s Vineyard before the 800 lumps in line behind them, who themselves were trying to do the same thing.

“I’M going to work,” I grumbled to myself, in full August-annoyed mode.

The Island Home had left Woods Hole 20 minutes late, so I was going to get to the radio station later than I’d planned to start with.

But now I’m out in the hot sun at the Vineyard Haven Pick-up/Drop-off, and my taxi is nowhere to be found. I’d called as soon as I got on the boat, to make sure they were waiting for me, so I could go straight to the radio station.

Twenty minutes tick by, and I realize that they’re not just late or caught in traffic.

“Hey, it’s PJ Finn. I called for an appointment an hour ago . . . “

“Ah crap,” the dispatcher says, “I forgot you. I don’t have a cab anywhere near you right now. Hang tight, I’ll see who I can send.”

Ah crap.

So there I stand for another 20 minutes, wilting in the sun. I’m dressed for the mvyradio offices, which have to be kept super-air-conditioned cold, due to the equipment. I’m wearing a sweatshirt and jeans and socks for God’s sake.

Finally, a cab swings around the corner, piloted by one of the young, bearded, college student summer drivers.

As I pull myself into the van, I hear what’s coming out of his iPod.

“Hang The DJ. Hang The DJ. Hang the DeeeJaayyy.”

I don’t hate much. But I hate Morrissey.

“Are you guys trying to send me a message?” I ask the driver. He shrugs, not clued in to where I’m coming from, and off we go.

Hear The Smiths “Panic (Hang The DJ)”

See the video, here