The evolution of 'Teenage Kicks'
November 20, 2014
The other day, a reporter from the Star Tribune called to ask me some questions — she was working on a story about Generation X. She couldn't have picked a better interviewee: From my birth year ('74), to my divorced parents, to my student-loan debt, to the fact that I waited until I was 39 to have a child of my own, I fit the Gen X profile so perfectly, it's laughable.
And like a lot of latchkey kids in single-parent homes of that era, I had the coolest babysitter: MTV, which taught me about bands like Split Enz, Squeeze, The Tubes, Missing Persons and The Go-Gos. By middle school, I was a prototypical American New Wave kid, aping my style from Molly Ringwald and getting dropped off by my mom at OMD and Tears for Fears concerts.
But then something happened that wrested me away from the synth-pop of my youth: An older cousin gave me a copy of R.E.M.'s Fables of the Reconstruction. It was moody, lush, and it had a jangle reminiscent of the country music that pervaded my South Texas childhood. I fell in love with it, and it primed me for a new sound that was about to enter my life.
When I went to live with my dad in California for a while, the next chapter of my music education began. San Diego has a radio station called 91X, which today is a pretty typical commercial alt-rock station, but in 1986, it was 100 percent modern rock. There'd been nothing like it in Texas. Any time of day, I could turn on my radio and hear — clear as bells, blasting from across the border in Baja California — all of my new favorite bands: The Replacements, The Smiths, English Beat, New Order, Love and Rockets, Siouxsie & The Banshees.
When I returned to Texas in 1989, the only way I could access this music was to tune in to a barely audible college radio station or stay up late watching MTV's 120 Minutes. Those years in California solidified my love of '80s modern rock to the extent that, by high school, I was a slow adopter of all the newer bands my friends loved, like Nirvana and the Pixies. In some ways, I never really got over the '80s (there is much evidence of this, including the fact that my hairstyle has changed little over the years, or that I refuse to send my collection of Swatch watches to a thrift store).
Despite my mother's concern about the long-term effects of listening to The Cure, I made it to college. I only wanted to be a DJ if I could play the music I loved, but I knew that wasn't the reality for most students who majored in Broadcasting, so I got a degree in Art History. I didn't get to be a DJ until the age of 28, when I went to grad school in New Mexico. For three years, I hosted an unfortunately named, retro-modern rock show called Blue Eyeliner. All of my regular listeners were professors — the 20,000 undergrads at New Mexico State University couldn't have cared less about The Smiths.
Fast-forward to my work at Minnesota Public Radio and at The Current. When Jim McGuinn came along as program director in 2009, I pitched the idea of a retro show, and it just so happened Jim had the same idea. We decided to build the show together. There were a lot of discussions among me, Jim, and marketing manager Ali Lozoff about what the show should be called, and we agreed on a great name: the title of a song by Northern Irish band The Undertones.
For the first few years, Jim programmed the music, and I hosted the show. Two years ago, I took over all the Teenage Kicks duties, but Jim still sits in when I'm sick or on vacation (I think of him as Kicks' godfather).
Five years on, it's been a real honor to be part of your Saturday morning — to be let into your kitchen, your car; to keep you company while you're jogging around the lake or taking the kids to swim lessons. But the bigger thrill: those moments when we connect over our shared love of a song we both assume everyone else forgot. In my youth, I had friends who liked the popular songs by Depeche Mode and R.E.M., but my tastes always ran deeper. I had nobody to talk to about my love of The Beautiful South or House of Love or XTC. But now I have you.
Thanks for five great years.