“Mommy's alright, Daddy's alright - they just seem a little weird”
- Cheap Trick/Surrender
Today is Rick Nielsen's birthday (1948). Nielsen is the co-founder, lead guitarist and primary songwriter for the band Cheap Trick. Cheap Trick formed in 1973 in Rockford, IL, and with its same four members, has ground out midwestern, working class rock and roll ever since. Saying you don't like Cheap Trick is like saying you don't like pancakes. It's tantamount* to saying you hate America.
Nielsen's zany, animated antics on stage, replete with cartoonish outfits and wild custom-made guitars, has been a part of the bands persona and popularity from its beginning. Of course, none of that would matter if he weren't a skilled, infectious player and songwriter.
Cheap Trick was inducted into The Rock Hall of Fame in 2016. I guess that's an honor. They sure didn't need that nod to acknowledge their greatness.
Cheap Trick has a Memphis degrees of separation thing that's meaningful to me. The cult band from Memphis, Big Star, the most famous band in the world that nobody knows about, had a song called In the Street. It ended up being used as the opening theme song for TV's That 70s Show. The original song was not used, but instead a version done by Cheap Trick. It's this kind of cultural minutiae that takes up space in my brain and crowds out room for math and passwords.
* Growing up I learned a lot of facts and vocabulary from music. I learned the word “tantamount” from the Foreigner song The Damage is Done. I also learned the word “incognito” from the Alice Cooper song No More Mr. Nice Guy. Who needed school?