Nancy Kerrigan & The White Bronco
In which we travel back, WAY BACK, to the year 1994.
There’s a 50/50 chance you know what that title refers to. It’s okay if you don’t. They’re just some things that happened—30 years ago.
It’s wild to write that. 30 years is ⅔ of my life!
The White Bronco is a reference to OJ Simpson’s low-speed chase1 after he was accused of killing his ex-wife and her boyfriend. Nancy Kerrigan was an ice skater at the Winter Olympics in Norway who got attacked by her opponent, Tonya Harding. Both of those, along with many, many other things, happened in 1994.
Last week, I was at band practice and we got to talking about albums that came out that year. We started rattling them off, and it’s an INSANE list.
1994 was a pretty formative year for me. I was between 7th and 8th grade, and too young to have a job (other than the occasional babysitting gig), so most of my time was spent listening to music on the radio with my finger hovering over the ‘record’ button to make mix tapes, or scrounging together chore money to buy CD’s, and watching MTV wherever I could. We didn’t have cable when I was growing up, so I had to take advantage of friends and relatives that did to keep up on the newest music videos. I watched MTV News at my grandparent’s house, 120 Minutes in my friend Nariman’s living room, and Alternative Nation with my friend Jonathan.
Without older siblings, I mostly had to discover new bands on my own. My parents listened to good music, but it was their music. The old couple that lived across the street from me had two grandsons who were a little older than me, but R.E.M. and U2 were their favorite bands. I knew about them already. MTV was a huge resource, but my main supplier was Smokey’s Records. That was my local record store next to The King’s English (where Mazza is now), and two blocks from my house. I walked down there every few days that summer to look at the New Release posters, and rifle through CD longboxes, making mental notes of which albums had the best covers—and which ones had the dreaded Parental Advisory label. My parents didn’t really care about that stuff, but it meant that I couldn’t buy it without having one of them there with me. The record store employees didn’t get paid enough to be yelled at for selling explicit records to kids, and I don’t blame them.
Other notable things I did as a 14- year old in 1994 included riding the bus to Raunch Records2 in Sugarhouse to buy a wallet chain, and look at all the punk fliers for bands that I only knew about from Nirvana album liner notes. After that, we’d walk across the street to the Cinemark 10 to see movies at the dollar theater. I kept every ticket stub from everything I saw there, because next to music, movies were the second most important thing in my life.
The day after practice last week, I started looking for a complete rundown of albums from 1994, and of course, Wikipedia came in with the goods. I went through each album one by one, and created a playlist of all my favorite songs from that year. Some albums I left out because I have no connection with them. Some other, more widely known albums have a hit single or two, but I like one of the deeper cuts a little more. A few albums have one sure fire, can’t miss song that needed to be there. I’ve embedded the playlist below, but I wanted to highlight a few tracks that stand out. I’ll keep it (relatively) quick.
I tried to keep the playlist in chronological order from January - December, but it’s possible that some got mixed up along the way.
Lagwagon - “Know it All” - I didn’t know about this band in 1994, and didn’t discover them until I got the Fat Wreck Chords compilation a few years later. They helped pave the way for my love of punk rock.
Alice In Chains - “No Excuses” - The woman that lived two houses up from us for a short while always mowed her lawn in a bikini. One day she asked if I had an Alice In Chains CD that she could borrow because she met the guitar player on an airplane and he asked her on a date. She had no idea who the band was. I loaned her my CD, and she moved like a month later. I never got it back and I have no idea how the date went.
Green Day - “She” - I didn’t know you were allowed to write songs this simple and catchy. Kind of changed my whole perspective on music.
Sublime - “Saw Red” - I discovered Sublime when I was a freshman in high school, and I don’t think their albums left my CD player for three years.
Nine Inch Nails - “The Becoming” - NIN’s music videos were insane to me as a 14-year-old, and I admired them from a distance because I didn’t really get it. They became one of my absolute favorite bands.
Soundgarden - “The Day I Tried to Live” - The summer of ‘94 was dominated by the “Black Hole Sun” video, and this album showed me what heavy music was.
The Offspring3 - “Self Esteem” - This song came on in the car when I was riding with my dad, so I turned it up. After Dexter Holland said the line “It’s kinda hard when she’s ready to go. I may be dumb, but I’m not a dweeb…” my dad laughed harder than I’ve ever seen him laugh.
Beastie Boys - “Root Down” - MCA mentioning Utah in a song was the coolest thing that I ever heard on the radio.
Rolling Stones - “You Got Me Rocking” - My parents took me to the Voodoo Lounge tour when it hit Rice-Eccles Stadium. All of their friends went, and it was one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had. Seal (also on this playlist) opened the show, and during one of the songs, his backup dancer had a wardrobe malfunction. One of my parent’s friends yelled “Her boob fell out of her shirt! Look! Look!” and shoved his binoculars into my hands, but it was too late.
311 - “Homebrew” - The only time Sublime ever left my CD player during freshman or sophomore year was so I could listen to this band instead.
Soul Coughing - “True Dreams of Wichita” - My freshman year of high school, they put a new soda machine in the lunch area, and it only sold a new drink called SURGE. It was so much cheaper than all the other soda, and the bottle cap sometimes had prizes. I won a pair of skates, and since the NHL logo was all over the label of every bottle, I assumed I had won hockey skates. My friend Tom, who played on the hockey team, told me that he’d trade me an upright bass for the skates. I accepted immediately so that my terrible band could cover Soul Coughing songs. The skates showed up and they were gold rollerblades, and he called off the deal. I sold them to Play It Again Sports, and bought CD’s.
Nirvana - “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” - I had someone record this on a VHS tape sometime after it aired in December of 1993, and I watched it all the time. When Kurt died in April of ‘94, I hung his obituary in my locker at school. I called a different music store once a week asking when it was coming out on CD. I loved Nirvana, and I just wanted more. In a way, I’m sort of glad this is the last thing they released. It’s perfect, and this song as the last of the set is such a beautiful way to go. Kurt softly saying “Thank you” at the end will echo in my head forever.
I could go on, but like I said, that’s a perfect ending.
There’s a really good documentary about this called June 17, 1994. It’s a collage-style doc that uses footage of all the sporting events that were happening that day—World Cup, NBA Finals, Stanley Cup celebration, Masters—to tell the story.
The location I remember the best is where the southwest corner of the Sugarhouse Whole Foods is now. There used to be a laser tag place there, too. Sugarhouse was an absolutely incredible place for a junior high kid to hang out in the early 90’s.
They also filmed the “Gotta Get Away” video in SLC, and there are a ton of people that I know in it.