My ears through the years with Laurie Rowan

Hello and welcome back to My Ears Through the Years! Your favorite series where we ask great people in the industry about the songs that soundtracked their lives; the tunes and songs that got them through the good, the great, and that first slow dance.

This week, the ears of animator, illustrator and director extraordinaire Laurie Rowan are on tap! Laurie, represented by Nexus, is known for his distinctive style and unique approach to characterization. But what did Laurie slow dance to in elementary school? And, more importantly, who is Akon’s father?! Let’s get to the bottom of it…

Q: Hi Laurie! Tell us what your first memory of music is…

Laurie> I remember we had a VHS of songs we’d recorded from the TV, most of which had been overdubbed with Watership Down. So I remember the combination of “Bright Eyes” by Art Garfunkel seguing into the second half of “Can You Feel It” by the Jackson Five. I remember walking around the house singing the random segue verbatim: “Bright eyes, burning like fire BZZZZZZZUUUURRRPPPP…Feel it, eeeee, can you feel it!”

Q> What was the first music you bought…

Laurie> I went out with my friend Alan and we pooled our money and bought “Deeper Underground” by Jamiroquai and “Lost in Space Theme” by Apollo 440. We took turns playing them, but I mostly listened to “Deeper Underground.”

Q> Your first appearance…

Laurie> I used to go to Glastonbury with my parents in the early 90s and have very vague memories of The Levellers, Youssou N’Dour, The Orb and REM. The first concert I chose to go to was Idlewild in Liverpool in 2000.

Q> A song that pops into your head at any time…

Laurie > “Burning Down the House” by the Talking Heads or “Children Talking” by Aphex Twin (basically children saying “mashed potatoes”).

Q> A song to which you performed your first slow dance…

Laurie> I remember someone playing “Killing Me Softly” at a school disco in elementary school. I still feel ashamed when I think of miming “that one time” while looking into someone’s eyes, which clearly signaled to me that I looked very lame and embarrassed.

Q> A song you felt you couldn’t escape…

Laurie> In another Michael Jackson memory, we had Thriller on VHS. We also lived in an old house with wobbly doorknobs that would fall off in your hand if you didn’t apply enough pressure while turning. My older sisters knew I was scared of Thriller, with the sound effects of the creaking doors and when he turns with his cat eyes. So they put the video on and then ran out of the room, removing the doorknobs so I was trapped with them. Years later, I had a massive Michael Jackson phase that I now attribute to some kind of musical Stockholm syndrome.

Q> A song you grew up with…

Laurie> “Birdhouse in Your Soul” by They Might Be Giants is the first thing that comes to mind. That was our car music, along with “King of Rock and Roll” by Prefab Sprout. I still love that one. My sisters also played a lot of Susan Vega in the car, which I found torturous at the time, and I still can’t stand “Tom’s Diner.”

Q> A song you would take the stage for…

Laurie> I used to play a pretty aggressive stand-up character called Chapsome Bear and I would go on stage to ‘Hustle Bones’ by Death Grips.

Q> Your dancefloor anthem…

Laurie> Probably ‘Around the World’ by Daft Punk. I never get tired of it and never look forward to hearing it when it’s on.

Q: Your karaoke number…

Laurie> I’ve never actually sung karaoke, but I was briefly in a band in school (before I got kicked out for not keeping time) and I mainly sang “In Bloom” by Nirvana. Now I think it would be “Falling Down” (an imitation of the live version of Glitter and Doom) by Tom Waits because that’s the only vocal range I can do.

Q: Your musical vice…

Laurie> I inherited one – “I Love Your Smile” by Shanice. My dad had it on cassette and played it every few weeks. But not casually. He would stand in front of the stereo and listen actively, motionless. Sometimes we’d go in and make fun of him because it was a complete outlier to the rest of his taste. He would defend it adamantly, saying, “It’s just great pop.” He wouldn’t call it a guilty pleasure, but I would, but I like it anyway.

Q> A song that reminds you of home…

Laurie> “Tinseltown in The Rain” by The Blue Nile reminds me of home. My father always found it very emotional because it was so heartfelt and he could see his own feelings as a father reflected in it. Now that I’m a father myself, I rarely listen to it because it really wears me out emotionally. We listened to that and Sneaker Pimps a lot when we were kids.

Q> Music you have come to love…

Laurie> I never understood The Fall growing up, but I like them (him) a lot now, and that’s relatively recent, probably triggered by all the replays when Mark E. Smith died. I think I’m much quicker to reject music I don’t like now, which is an unfortunate product of the abundance of music out there today. It’s been a pleasure learning to begrudgingly like an album that you regretted paying £11 for out of a sense of duty.

There was a lot of music in my household growing up. A really formative moment for my taste was when I found a Warp Records mixtape called Bletch when I was about 10 years old. It was included in a magazine and was rejected by everyone else in my household, but I was really taken with the rough cover art. I remember it being the first music I heard that was weird and off kilter in a way that I felt kind of connected to. It was the first thing I was exposed to and consciously wanted to understand. I think it instilled in me a love of, I guess, weird music, which evolved into a love of music that was badly recorded and sung with a lot of soul.

Q> A song you wish you had written…

Laurie> “Life In A Scotch Sittingroom 2, Episode 11” by Ivor Cutler. I think it speaks to my desire to create a tone. It’s simple, experiential, and comes from an unmistakably unique perspective, yet is universal (just read that again, uh-oh, asshole alert). An entire childhood and wilderness depicted in the documentation of a single family walk.

Q> Your musically unpopular opinion…

Laurie> I can’t say it’s universally well-received, but I’ve always had a distinct dislike for the B52s’ “Love Shack.” The guy’s hype-man song (‘Love Shack, Bay, Bay!’) certainly can.

Q> A song that you think is underrated…

Laurie> I really like a song called “Ayo Ayo Nene” by Mor Thaim. He has 3,455 monthly listeners on Spotify while his son Akon has over 28 million. “Smack That” is not the better song.

F> Your CD for a desert island…

Laurie> “This Must Be The Place” by Talking Heads. It was the first dance at my wedding and I love it every time I hear it.

Q> The song to be played at your funeral…

Laurie> “Daisies of The Galaxy” by Eels. If we want to be wistful. “Paga Le Cuenta Sinverguenza” by Manzanita, if we want to be happy, depends on the circumstances. I’ll leave that decision to someone else.

Q> Best sync moment…

Laurie> I loved ‘Where Is My Mind’ at the end of Fight Club and that started a big Pixies phase for me.

Q> Music that spawned an advertising campaign…

Laurie> This is obvious, but “Phat Planet” by Leftfield in the Guinness advert.

Q> Best theme song…

Laurie > Succession (main title theme) or Sorry! Matt Berry version.

Q> Favorite soundtrack or movie music…

Laurie> Probably the soundtrack to “Thief” by Tangerine Dream or “Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters” by Philip Glass.

Q> A title you would like to sync…

Laurie> “Make 1, 2” by Arthur Russell. Right now. It’s got a beautiful soul and is quirky, with lots of little horn flourishes to hang things from. I often compose little choreographed sequences in my head for my characters to perform to, and I often get lost in visualizing this one. If you asked me tomorrow, it would be different.