Music in Motherhood

by Emma Purves

“Although many relate culture to heritage and tradition, my family defines it a little bit differently.”

Emma: Although many relate culture to heritage and tradition, my family defines it a little bit differently. We don't have strong ties to our ancestors, or a clear understanding of where we're from. But like every other culture, we like music, and all kinds of music. In this story, you will hear from my mom, Lynette, about her fond memories of audio in the 80s, and how it played a defining role in multiple parts of her life.

Emma: I really wanna do radio. Like I want to have a radio show, or like speak on the radio, or stuff like that.

Lynette: That was so much fun.

Emma: Did you do that?

Lynette: I did not, but my best friend, who was my roommate when I lived in Portland, did that. So my best friend in high school went up to Lewis and Clark College in Portland, and her freshman year she was in the dorms. Her sophomore year, she said, "Please, Lynette, please move up here. Please move up here and let us share an apartment, I don't want to live in the dorms anymore." So I moved up to Portland, and I was making $3.15 an hour [Emma laughs]. Yeah, but she was doing the radio program there, and she had Saturday nights from midnight to 2am or 3am. Well, it was so much fun because I would go with her, and a couple of other friends would go, and we'd all hang out in this little teeny room and she'd play the music and talk. And they even had a phone line, and so she'd try to get people to call in. Yeah, one night we could tell no one was listening because there was no one calling in. We were offering to pay people to call in, and they still wouldn't. So we said, "Okay, obviously no one is listening to this broadcast at all" [Laughs]

Emma: What kind of music did she play?

Lynette: Good music, really good music. That was in... let's see, I turned twenty-one up there, so that was in 1986. And she was playing a lot of punk and ska, and alternative 80s music, you know? A lot of stuff that you would hear like on Rodney on the Rock. Fishbone, I remember Fishbone.

Emma: Fishbone?

Lynette: We played Fishbone a lot on the radio station. We loved Fishbone. But then I remember going to the record store that was in downtown Portland and thumbing through stuff, and finding stuff. And one of my favorite albums that I bought is Fishbone, and it's down in my bedroom right now.

Emma: Why do you think your music taste has evolved so much? Like how did it start with, like, ska and punk, and now it's where it is?

Lynette: Well it’s… all that started when I was listening to K-Rock.

Emma: Yeah, that's true.

Lynette: It all started with K-Rock.

Emma: What drew you to K-Rock in the first place?

Lynette: There was another station that we couldn't get very good, but we could get it when we were down at the beach, that we listened to. Because we always thought that that was so cool, because it was at this little teeny radio station that nobody knew. And then, um, K-Rock, everybody started talking about K-Rock, it's out of Pasadena. And it was exciting because you could actually hear it, so it was a good… it was like a little teeny station, but you could hear it really well. And we knew where it was. And back in that day, you could, like, go down there, and knock on the door and go, "Hey—"

Emma: "Play this."

Lynette: Exactly. I remember doing that. I actually did that once. I knocked on the back door and went, "Hey." Yeah, so it was all listening to stuff on K-Rock. And… and then when your dad and I got married and moved up here, your dad was so interested in different kinds of music that we started renting videos. And he would get different documentaries about different stuff with music.

Emma: Yeah… and he kept doing that.

Lynette: He did.

Emma: Even when I was a kid—

Lynette: I was going to say—

Emma: Cause I remember growing up and watching those. And it’s still such—there's such significant memories of like watching them and remembering the songs and the music videos, and… they're just very vivid memories of watching those videos.