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Road-trip music: Mixes, melodies — for us, that's the stuff of family memories
Maldonado family road-trip music
One dad's road-trip songlist
• Led Zeppelin, "Rock and Roll"
• Social Distortion, "Ball and Chain"
• Pearl Jam, "Corduroy"
• The Academy Is . . ., "Checkmarks"
• Smashing Pumpkins, "1979"
• The White Stripes, "Seven Nation Army"
• Armor for Sleep, "Car Underwater"
• The Offspring, "Gone Away"
• Interpol, "The Heinrich Maneuver"
• Nine Inch Nails, "Only"
• Silversun Pickups, "Lazy Eye"
• The Cult, "Love Removal Machine"
Wife Isela's list
• Lily Allen, "Smile"
• Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Hump De Bump"
• Green Day with John Lennon, "Working Class Hero"
• Fall Out Boy, "Sugar, We're Going Down"
• My Chemical Romance, "Welcome to the Black Parade"
• Juanes, "La Camisa Negra"
• Bjork, "Big Time Sensuality"
• Hoobastank, "The Reason"
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Gold Lion"
• Taking Back Sunday, "Makedamnsure"
Son Pauly's list
• Lydia, "Your Taste Is my Attention"
• Smashing Pumpkins, "Tonight, Tonight"
• Paramore, "Let This Go"
• Taking Back Sunday, "A Decade Under the Influence"
• Head Automatica, "Beating Heart Baby"
• Something Corporate, "Konstantine"
• The Used, "Blue and Yellow"
• Arcade Fire, "Rebellion (Lies)"
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Date With the Night"
• Dance Gavin Dance, "Open Your Eyes and Look North"
Daughter Emily's list
• Saosin, "Seven Years"
• Underoath, "A Boy Brushed Red Living in Black and White"
• My Chemical Romance, "The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You"
• Paramore, "Emergency"
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Maps"
• Boys Like Girls, "The Great Escape"
• Ramones, "I Wanna Be Sedated"
• Taking Back Sunday, "One-Eighty by Summer"
• At the Drive-In, "One-Armed Scissor"
• Jane's Addiction, "Jane Says"
• Chiodos, "There's No Penguins in Alaska"
• Alexisonfire, "This Could Be Anywhere in the World"
By the time you read this, I will have been to my sixth consecutive Van's Warped Tour.
My wife, Isela, has been to them all with me, save for the 2004 version when my son, Pauly, and I went solo. That was a great father-son bonding experience and a true road trip — to Las Cruces, to the show and back home in 15 hours.
The next year, my daughter, Emily, now 17, joined us because her then-favorite band, My Chemical Romance, was headlining; Pauly's band-of-the-moment, Fall Out Boy, was also on the main stage. It turned out to be an epiphany for them: They've since become live music fiends, going to all-ages shows, either with or without me.
This spring, they even went on their first road trip with friends, a show in Denver without the parents. But subsequent Warped Tours have become family affairs.
My kids have always been surrounded by music, and since I've been writing about it for the past 17 years, they've been fortunate to hear the latest music, often before anybody else. And though we share a love of music, we don't always share the same tastes.
Pauly says his first memory of music and the road was when he was 5 or 6, and we were living in El Paso.
"It was the time we came to the State Fair, and we were listening to that tape you made. There was Garbage and the Cranberries and Smashing Pumpkins," said my son, who turns 19 on July 13. (Happy birthday, Mijo!)
That mix tape, which I labeled "Alteraquerque," included two of my then-preschoolers' favorite songs - Nine Inch Nails' "Head Like a Hole" and Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." For the latter, they amended Kurt Cobain's screeching chorus of "A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido" to "Maldonados and potatoes."
"When I hear (those songs), it reminds me of that trip," Emily says. "Or other songs remind me of a trip, like that trip to Dallas. When I hear those songs now (Better Than Ezra's `Good'), it reminds me of that trip.
"All of `Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge' by MCR and 'From Under the Cork Tree' by Fall Out Boy remind me of the first time I went to Warped Tour."
For me, a road song has to be bombastic, have a feel of propulsion and a singalong quality. For Isela, whose favorite group is U2, "It's something that makes the trip interesting. Something that's upbeat, not boring."
Emily says, "A road song is memorable, nostalgic."
"It has to have singable lyrics, a nice breakdown and good rhythm," Pauly says.
On recent road trips, however, the teens have forsaken our choice in traveling music, preferring the comfort of their iPods.
"I prefer my music; that way I can hear what I want to hear," says Pauly, whose Nano is loaded with 1,089 songs and whose favorite band is Taking Back Sunday. "Sometimes I listen to what you guys are listening to. In fact, a lot of times I listen to what you guys are hearing. But if I want to hear a certain song, I'll turn on my iPod."
Emily, who has 1,044 songs on her Mini and counts Saosin as her favorite group, has a different philosophy: "It's 'cause a lot of times you and Mom listen to what Paul and I don't want to listen to, or you don't want to listen to what Paul and I listen to.
"It's better that we have our own iPods."
