There are two ways to look at the "live music" heard at the Boston Derby Dames' first bout of the 2009 season. One would be to write about the band that played at halftime -- I forget their name, but it was something like I Hate My Dad: Feel My Angst. The problem with this approach is that it's a dead-end. IHMD:FMA's show was the most painfully, unlistenable thing in recent memory, and that's pretty much the end of that thought. So, yeah, how 'bout the weather?
No, the second approach -- writing about the fantastic playlist jumping out of the speakers at the Wilmington Shriners Auditorium -- is much more promising, if only because it segues nicely into something I've been thinking about recently: If I were a major league baseball player, what ten seconds of music would play in my home stadium as I walked to the batter's box?
Every baseball fan thinks about this year-round, and we usually have slews of goofy answers. Last summer, I remember hearing rollicking, side-splitting responses of true comedic genius, like "Why Can't We be Friends?" and the unintentionally hilarious "Something by Afroman, bro!" But before summer sets in, as Opening Day draws nearer, the committed fan approaches this question with a little more gravity.
As players approach the headspace necessary to run around in stifling temperatures for six interminable months, fans need to get ready to help their team in the best way they know how: to sit there and watch it, all of it, with the sad obsession of someone who loves watching other people play sports.
But sports obsession isn't the point. The point is that people who are obsessed are impelled to have a legitimate answer to this question. Why is this seen as important? Why, aside from the fact that we are lame, do baseball fans spend springs pouring over this question? There are dozens of explanations, but for me, the biggest reason (and the link to the roller derby) is because music can help define sport.
This is a straightforward idea. Music is so pervasive in normal human experiences that we usually don't even notice it any more. If you want to get sick, do a little reading on the ways that malls use ambient background music to trick you into buying things.
With sports, though, it's different. It varies, but music usually serves not as a backdrop to the action but (at least part of) the action itself. When a batter heads to the plate, there is nothing else for fans to pay attention to except his 10-second audio snippet. While the dentist can just plug some smooth cheese into the speakers to distract you from your root canal, the baseball player has 10 seconds to distract people, get fired up and in part define himself as an athlete. Better make it count.
One of the many achievements of the first Boston Derby Games was putting together a playlist that both reflected and expanded the sports unique aesthetic, Warped Tour rejects notwithstanding. While empowered women zoomed around a flat oval, slamming and lead-jamming each other into lovely pulps, playful, occasionally tongue-in-cheek, but aggressive selections like MC5's "Kick Out the Jams" and a blur of Black Sabbath songs blared in an endless, perfect complement to the action. Even better was when Boston DJ John Barera spun records (King Geedorah, Prince, A-Trak) that broadened the traditional roller derby sound, reminding people that partying and booze was part-and-parcel with the sport's aesthetic.
One of my biggest regrets about graduating is that I am just now getting into Boston Roller Derby. I could write pages on its appeal -- the empowerment, the spectacle, the sport's sense of humor -- but really, I just like how the sport's name sounds.
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Mikey Goralnik is a senior majoring in American Studies. He can be reached at Michael.Goralnik@tufts.edu
