No not really a face off here.  It’s just something I was thinking about yesterday.  My wife discovered a new radio station in town that apparently has a lot of Rod Stewart in their database.  Or at least he’s scheduled to play a lot.  I think they have the same 2-4 songs that every other contemporary rock station carries (“Have I Told You Lately,”  “Downtown Train,” etc).  But she says that whenever she turns on to this station, they’re always playing Rod Stewart.  We now call it the Rod Stewart station.  So this can become an annoying thing if you’re channel surfing your radio in the car and you want to hear music instead of commercials (the other big thing commercial stations seem to play a lot).  You finally find a station that isn’t telling you about something you’ll never buy and it’s……Rod Stewart.  An hour later you’re surfing again, or you just turn on the radio and there he is, Rod Stewart stalking you.  He’s kind of a scary looking dude, after spending decades on alcohol and drugs.  That could be a haunting thing.  Let’s not think about it.  I saw some pics of him in the 70s and he was always around attractive women.  That’s the power of being a rock star I suppose.

So where does Mariachi music come in?  That’s another somewhat funny story, or series of them.  Two or three houses down from us (I can’t tell in the dark), there’s someone who likes to pull up in their truck at 7AM and/or 11PM, blaring mariachi music.  It’s not tejano, it’s not Mexican traditional music, it’s just mariachi stuff.  And we can’t even hear the music, just the bassline, which is the same in every single song, I kid you not. The only way that could be different is if his cd player only plays one track on repeat and he never gets sick of it turned up super loud.  So this dude sits in front of this house with his stereo in his car cranked up for the world to hear and either wake up (at 7 AM) or not be able to go to sleep (at 11 PM and sometimes later).  The bassline sounds like a radio alarm that you can’t turn off.  Boom-boon-boom-boon.  That’s pretty annoying too. 

We were in Mexico several years ago doing some missionary stuff with a church in the colonias, an area of extreme poverty where most people have a housing structure but little else.  We were sleeping on the concrete floors, which weren’t too bad.  It was around 1 AM and suddenly we hear outside this very loud mariachi music start playing.  It was like a concert showed up in the middle of the street.  We didn’t hear screams or shouts or any sound of people enjoying it or wanting them to shut up.  I guess it was accustomed on that day of the week for somebody to do a whole mariachi routine at 1 AM.  We looked around at each other and were trying to figure out how to stop it so we could go back to sleep.  Fortunately, thirty minutes or so later they either moved on down the road or packed up and went away.

What’s my point with this?  Mariachi music and sleep don’t mix.  There are some things I can handle and still be able to sleep.  There are several other people in my neighborhood that drive down the street with their subs cranked waaaay up and the bass on their hip-hop is thundering.  I don’t mind so much.   Maybe I’m used to it now, but that’s really not too bad.  I can at least hear or discern some musical style in that.  Hip hop beats aren’t all the same and the basslines are pretty interesting.  Not so with mariachi music.  Especially when the accordion comes in.  But the bassline in mariachi is always the same.  The only time I’ve enjoyed mariachi is when I saw my step brother-in-law’s band play in Phoenix.  He played guitar and his drummer was the most phenomenal player I’ve ever heard.  It was like metal mariachi on drums, double bass-pedal galore and lots of smooth, fast rolls.  Very impressive.  But that was just one time.

So I have this conundrum on which is worse, Rod Stewart every time you surf to one station or have mariachi music keep you from sleeping.  I’m not sure.  What do you think?  Or perhaps, do you know of something worse?  Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t that I don’t like Mexican music.  Mexican rock band Mana is one of my all-time favorite bands.  But they sound nothing like mariachi.  Maybe it’s the timing of it. Maybe it’s kind of like certain beverages or meals.  You don’t start  your day with a searing hot steak cooked medium with mashed potatoes and a tall one.  Maybe if I were served some talented mariachi music during the middle of the day it would be better.  We’ll have to see.