40 songs that made me (part 2)

Get to know me more through the music I love.

Welcome to part 2 of this series! If you need the links to the playlist, you can listen to it on Spotify, YouTube Music, or Apple Music. Part 1 of this series can be found here:

Let’s jump into part 2!

I was probably 8 or 9 when I first went to Full Cyrkle Records in Crystal Lake, Illinois. This store was about an hour northwest of downtown Chicago. Looking back, I really think it was the finest vinyl shop in the Chicagoland area that I’ve ever been to. When I was a kid, I would make a want-list before I went. I didn’t get to go as often as I wanted, it was about 45 minutes away from home by car. I remained a customer until they closed their doors. The owner was Marshall, but he went by a childhood nickname of Skip. Sean was the manager of Full Cyrkle, he was there almost all of the time. I started to fill in for him when he needed to take some time off for medical reasons. I learned so much about music there and ended up starting my first career there. I sold used vinyl on Ebay for about ten years. I spent the majority of my 20s doing this. I helped get Skip’s Ebay store set up about 20 years ago. He still sells amazing records there. 

There was this cat who used to hang out at Full Cyrkle named Tony. He was nicknamed Top 40 Tony because of his extensive, savant-like knowledge of popular American music. As I recall, he was homeless, jobless, and an extremely good bass player. One day when I was in, Sean said that I should tell Tony my birthdate because then he’d tell me what song was number one that day. I told Tony, “January 9th, 1984.” He repeated my birthdate and replied almost instantaneously, “You were born during the reign of Say Say Say by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson!” I had no idea if he was right, I didn’t even know that little bit of trivia about myself. But I also had no reason to believe he was wrong. It was pretty amazing to throw any date at him and he would know the number one song. Once we got a book to verify if he was right or not and he was never wrong. Ever. 

Let’s not forget about how great the music video for this song is too. 

I was 17 or 18 when I first met Josh, somewhere around 2001 or 2002. He was playing jazz with Jim at Borders in Gurnee, Illinois. Josh on piano, Jim on drums. I still haven’t heard anything like that even though I played with them for a while on and off. Josh and I struck up a friendship pretty quickly. Aside from the free jazz of Lot 49, we also played several duo shows over the years. We both would sing our own songs as well as a handful of covers we had cooked up. Some of my happiest memories are of working on songs with Josh. We both love Bob Dylan and we tackled several. Certain songs would become mainstays in our setlist such as “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” There was never a complete Josh & Kyle show without Jokerman. 

I don’t remember which one of us sang lead on it. I think Josh sang most of the verses. I might have taken one or two. I remember shouting cacophonic harmonies during the “nightsticks and water cannons, tear gas, padlocks, molotov cocktails and rocks…” line. It’s a song I think of just about every day. The lyrics have become metaphors for that time in my life rather than resembling any meaning Bob originally had. We didn’t change much from Bob’s version, but we defined the song for me. I love the version on Infidels, but hearing it always makes me want to play the song with Josh instead. 

Jokermen circa 2004. Josh on the left, Kyle on the right

Since good ol’ Neil Young’s music isn’t available on Spotify right now, I can’t add Powderfinger. It’s a close second on the list of favorite covers with Josh. 

Fast forward a few years again and I’ve become a guitar teacher. Josh had a son named Zach. He has become one of my best guitar students. I’ve been helping him get audition material ready for different colleges this year. He’s become such a fine musician, not just on guitar, but he’s quite a good singer too. I’ve always let my students pick songs to learn and one of his within the first year or two was When You Were Young by The Killers. I had never heard this song before. Once in a while a student will request a song and it sticks with me. I can instantly see and smell my house I grew up in on Edgewood Drive in Gurnee. That’s the house that I learned how to play guitar in. There’s something really great about being transported to the first time I played guitar and then passing that onto students like Zach all in the same instant. I remember watching Zach level up like crazy with this song. It made me feel like I was leveling up as a guitar instructor. These chords are not easy on the guitar. Plus at the rate in which they change in certain parts, it’s a tough one. 

And sometimes you close your eyes and see the place where you used to live…

The last time I was in Helsinki, Finland was in August of 2015. I got to see Egotrippi at Virgin Oil! It was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to! I had been learning Finnish with the help of their music, plus Memrise and a handful of “teach yourself” books. I let them know that I was coming to see them and then they came out to hang after the show. A few of us ended up going to a bar on Annankatu for drinks. I was so excited that Anna Puu was with, among several others. These were the people that helped me fall in love with this new language that has been such a big part of my identity. Matkustaja, which means Traveler or Passenger in English, was the first song that I heard after Kaunis Päivä from earlier in the list. After the bar closed down, we walked to the studios at Fried Music, where a lot of these records were made. We ended up in the same studio that was featured in Anna’s video for Kaunis Päivä. It was surreal being there and I think about it just about every day. Everyone was so nice to me and treated me like I was just one of the regulars. Matkustaja is the first song that ever inspired wanderlust in me. I never got it until this world was opened up to me. Like I said before, I can’t wait to go back there again. 

Egotrippi live at Virgin Oil in Helsinki, August 28, 2015. Look closely on the left and you’ll see me!

I got into the Grateful Dead sometime in high school. My algebra teacher, Mr. Witek was into the Dead too. And once I started hanging out more at the record store in Crystal Lake, I heard the Dead non-stop. Sean, the manager of the store, was a huge Deadhead. He followed them around in the early 90s until Jerry died. I think the Dead are really hard to get into. They have so many records, and so many live shows, where do you start? I’ve always felt like one needs guidance at the beginning. When I asked Sean which album I should start with, without thinking he said, “Europe ’72, it has a killer Jack Straw.” And that was that. I was hooked. I remember driving home from the store with that in my CD player. One thing led to another, Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty, and an endless supply of live recordings online. It never gets old. I love this band in all of its incarnations. 

We used to play for silver, now we play for life. 

There aren’t many musicians in the world in the same league as Mike Finnigan. My friend Mitch turned me onto him when we were in high school. I think he might have found him because of his appearance on Dave Mason’s album Certified Live. Check out “Goin’ Down Slow” from that album for Mike’s lead vocal and organ solo. Mike didn’t have too many records as a lead singer, he was most often in the credits as a hammond organist. Electric Ladyland by Jimi Hendrix was his first session as a side musician. (Dave Mason also played on that album!) In 1970, The Jerry Hahn Brotherhood released their sole LP on Columbia records. This was unavailable on CD for a long time. I don’t know if it ever got an official CD release but it’s on the streaming sites somehow. It used to be one of the rarest records I knew of. 

At one point I had mp3s of the whole album available to download on my old website about 20 years ago. I wrote a lengthy review of the album and it attracted attention from all of the members of the band. They were all really nice and thankful that someone remembered their album. As this album developed more of a cult following online, my site got mentioned in the New York Times. This made my site crash due to using up my monthly bandwidth allotment. I had to keep the mp3s offline after that so I could still have a functional website. 

My favorite song on that record has always been Early Bird Cafe. Mike Finnigan is playing hammond organ and singing lead on this. I think he’s also playing harmonica. Mike was one of the nicest guys and we developed a great friendship online over the years. He helped me with lots of music related things. He’s even the reason I use my middle name professionally. I mentioned something about another Kyle Young in the business and he asked me what my middle name was. I told him and he said, “you gotta use that, man!” He passed away in 2021 and I miss him every day.

With ancient earth beneath my feet and new dust in my hair.

Smokey Robinson’s song I Second That Emotion has been one of my personal favorites since I was a kid. I remember listening to WJMK in Chicago, the oldies radio station. Magic 104.3 FM. Dick Biondi was my favorite DJ and I always got excited when this song came on. I used to open my solo shows with it quite often. It’s a perfect song. It only uses the primary triads, but it uses them so well. In fact, I don’t think there’s a better 3-chord song out there. Smokey Robinson was a master at not only crafting good melodies, but delivering them as well. I really flipped over Jerry Garcia’s versions of this over the years too. That’s more the style that my renditions were like. 

We got a cat when I was seven. At first I wanted to name him Billy after one of my favorite singers. A little while later I settled on Joel for his name. He was such a great cat. He was my best friend growing up. He took wonderful care of me. There are little hints of him in my cat Delila now. I keep a few framed pictures of Joel around the place. Delila listens to me play and sing just like Joel did when I was a kid. She even brings toys to his picture. He’s the reason, along with my middle name, that I use the name Gray Cat Music for my record label.

My sweet Joel, decorated in ribbons.

I never learned to play many Billy Joel songs. With guitar being my primary instrument, his music was a bit out of reach for me. Sometimes the chords might be simple, like in the case of Only The Good Die Young, but I’ve never been able to carry that song very well on a guitar. This song ended up being my go-to pick for karaoke. I only have about four or five karaoke tunes, and this is probably my favorite. I won a couple karaoke contests several years ago with this song. 

I was pretty young when I first saw Eddie & The Cruisers. If there was a TV show or movie with guitars in it, I needed to see it. I got really into this movie. I think I like the sequel more actually. But the main plot is about this fictional band fronted by musical genius Eddie Wilson. Eddie gets into a French poet named Arthur Rimbaud, which then I had to read of course. One evening I took beauty in my arms — and I thought her bitter — and I insulted her. (I learned about the importance of a caesura from this movie.) On The Dark Side was the big hit record in the movie. It’s played countless times in various forms throughout the movie. I often compare this movie to That Thing You Do! in my mind, but The Oneders weren’t as close to the dark side as The Cruisers were. This movie made me decide to start playing tenor saxophone in fifth grade. That was the only time in my life I ever took private music lessons. That was a very valuable experience for me. 

Live at Uncle John’s Records, Sioux City, Iowa, March 2001

David Crosby had one of the greatest, sweetest voices we’ll ever hear. I got to see him perform a live solo acoustic show at Uncle John’s Records in Sioux City, Iowa back in 2001 with Mitch. He was in fine form that night and I think about that show often. (I played an open mic at the same place a few days later!) His music has been in my ears my whole life, whether it’s with The Byrds, Crosby Stills & Nash (and all of CSN’s various forms), or as a solo artist. Page 43 is one of my favorites in his entire catalog. Three simple, concise verses that remind us to not take a single moment for granted. And with that, you’ve been reading this blog for too long. I’ll be back later. Let’s go do something outside for a while. 

You should grab a hold of it, else you’ll find, it’s passed you by.

Click below for part 3! Thanks for reading!

~Kyle