When you load up Spotify, a great big chunk of the time you can’t think what to play, right? You default back to your old favourites, those albums and songs you played on repeat when you first discovered you could make them yours.
This isn’t about guilty pleasures; it’s about those songs you’ll still be listening to when you’re old and in your rocking chair. So, enter Teenage Kicks – a playlist series that sees bands running through the music they listened to in their formative years.
Next up, Alex Lahey.
YEAH YEAH YEAHS – CHEATED HEARTS
I consider myself so lucky that I was a teenager at a time when Karen O was my modern punk rock hero. This song is from the ‘Show Your Bones’ record, which is my favourite YYYs album. I wrote “I think that I’m bigger than the sound” on my bookcase in permanent marker when I was 14. It’s still at my mum’s house.
MICHELLE BRANCH – EVERYWHERE
This was the first song I ever learned on guitar when I was 13 years old. The start of a never-ending journey with the instrument. I remember getting the chord sheet from ultimate-guitar.com. I think there are a few of us out there that owe our careers to that website. This song and the ‘Spirit Room’ album is the blueprint for so much music that’s coming out today – a timeless classic.
THE LIVING END – ROLL ON
The Living End are one of the greatest rock bands to ever come out of Australia, and were my first ever “real” gig. They did an all-ages show in Melbourne at The Palace in St Kilda as part of their State Of Emergency album run, and it blew my 14-year-old mind. I can still recall the brand-new feeling of the kick drum in my chest.
ROONEY – I’M SHAKIN’
Some people had older siblings to show them new music – I had music supervisor Alex Patsavas and The OC. The music from the tv show The OC was revolutionary at the time and deeply shaped my own tastes. Putting Rooney in here as a representative for all the bands that were showcased throughout the course of the show, but this whole self-titled record absolutely rips.
THE THAD JONES/MEL LEWIS ORCHESTRA – GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS
I was very passionately involved in my school’s big band as a teenager, so I feel like there needs to be a lil shout out to ~jazz~ in this list. I specifically chose this tune because it’s not your usual meat and potatoes jazz standard. It’s a big band chart that, dare I say, kinda rocks.
RAMONES – BONZO GOES TO BITBURG
The Ramones are one of my favourite bands of all time, and I had their iconic poster of them posing in front of CBGB up on my bedroom wall for at least a decade. What I love about the Ramones and this song specifically is how despite being a stalwart of the two-minute, three-chord punk genre, they have so much emotion and melody in their songs, especially in their later albums.
BIG BROTHER & THE HOLDING COMPANY – PIECE OF MY HEART
I remember the day my mum showed me this song when I was 14 years old, and Janis’s voice floored me, as it had so many people before teen me came along. I think as you get older, those moments of experiencing someone doing something that you can only describe as “magic” become fewer and fewer. This recording did just that to me and set the benchmark for the kick-in-the-guts feeling of hearing something truly otherworldly.
MISSY HIGGINS – STEER
Missy Higgins is a seminal artist for so many songwriters coming out of Australia. Despite still being a young person herself, Missy has already cemented an enduring legacy in Australian music history. I used to cover this song with my first-ever band when I was 15 years old, and the chord shapes I learned from this song are still the first chords I play whenever I pick up a guitar.
Taken from the June 2023 issue of Upset. Alex Lahey’s album ‘The Answer Is Always Yes’ is out 19th May.
