30% Amnesia
March 8, 1994 was the day I first arrived in the Bay Area. It was the 90s, and I was a textbook Gen-X slacker: no job, no money, single, living at my parents' house, no prospects, and no ambitions. It had been a long, cold Michigan winter, and I thought it would finally be a good time to fly out to California to visit my much more successful brother who was about to graduate from Stanford. I planned to arrive on March 8 and stay for about a week. I remember seeing the green hills from the airplane window and getting this strange sense of coming home to a place that I had never been.
That was 30 years ago. I'm still here. I've done alright. I have a wonderful family, a swell job, a very fine house, 2 cats (not in the yard; indoor only), and once I even made an album that was chosen #1 of the year by David Bash. Still, sometimes I miss the feeling of early 1994, when I had my whole life ahead of me and anything could happen. March remains my favorite time of year in the Bay Area. (I've written more extensively about 1994 in a post from 15 years ago, and a series of top 20 lists from 10 years ago, if you're interested.)
AI rendering of what scientists believe I would have looked like in 1994.
Here are 70 of my favorite songs from that year; one per artist (or per show if showtune). It was a pretty darn good year for music, right?
But wait, that's not all. I've also updated my 20th anniversary playlist of songs about the Bay Area by local people I've been in bands with, been on a bill with, or met in some professional capacity. It's now 30 for 30.
And since I'm commemorating 3 decades: a 3rd playlist, for Apple subscribers only. It's a musical map of the greater Bay Area, arranged roughly north to south. One song per named location. (If the embed doesn't show up in your browser, here's a direct link: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/the-borders-of-my-life-north-to-south/pl.u-8aAVpe1IV8Rm1)