Recently while watching a couple of episodes of Diggin’ In The Crates I heard the artists talk about listening to their parent’s old records so I went diggin’ in the garage in search of my own parental music experience. I didn’t find any records but I did find something almost as cool. CD’s. Now this may sound much lamer but seeing as I actually own a CD player rather than a record player it was quite helpful. While rummaging through a few dusty shoe box’s I came across a few absolute gems. Finding out that your mum listened to bands like The Celebrant Rifles and the Hard Ons is a truly fantastic moment in any teenager’s life if they should ever get to experience it.

During the past few weeks slowly taking what I like from the box’s and putting them in my room I’ve rediscovered some of the songs of my younger years, just the other day I found Massive Attack, Blue Lines, not remembering much of their stuff I slipped it in my player and the memories came flooding back of a childhood spent in the freezing cold. This weird look into my parents younger years actually made me realise something I had never even thought about thinking before, were my parents cool? This collection certainly vouched for them so I decided to investigate a little further. I asked my mum about the large number of punk albums and quickly brought a smile to her face, I learned that not only had she been a punk with every different hair colour under the sun but had actually hung out and dated members of the Dead Kennedys in her college years. On top of that she had grown up with Tommy Stinson in Minneapolis making custom band tees with The Replacements. As if this wasn’t enough she told me that her grandmother, my great grandmother had lived in the same complex as Bob Dylan, sharing a swimming pool with the great song writer and mediocre singer. And last but certainly not least she had been hugged on stage by the man himself, Bruce Springsteen.

This sparked me into finding out more about the other half of my genetics. When I told my dad I had been rifling through his old albums he immediately came out to my room and had a look at what I was listening to. And picked up a super dusty copy of Nirvana’s In Utero, “I saw these guys at the very first Big Day out at Horden Pavilion and liked it so much I went to their two Sydney side shows.”

I’m a little hesitant to say this but I had never really listened to Nick Cave all that much before I found my dad’s copy of Murder Ballads. This in my book is now a sin that I cannot repay back to the king of Australian Rock, last year my parents went to his Brisbane show at the River Stage and I didn’t think much of it but now. ARE MY PARENTS STILL COOL?

What I’m trying to say to all you super angsty teens rebelling against and hating your parents is, don’t judge them until you’ve checked out their music collection because you might be surprised.

-Mac Dennis