Looper's Delight Archive Top (Search)
Date Index
Thread Index
Author Index
Looper's Delight Home
Mailing List Info

[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Date Index][Thread Index][Author Index]

What got ya to where you are...



Okay, you asked for it. :)

Born 1956 in New Orleans.  We moved to Kansas City, MO shortly thereafter
(1957) and my first memories of specifically Listening to the radio involve
Big Band, Swing, and Jazz, which was mostly what was on KCMO back then.  At
some time later I was listening to James Brown, and doing imitations of his
screams on the corner in front of our house (still can, too!), so I know I
was exposed to that, Motown, all that, before the Beatles hit.  I remember
seeing them (you couldn't really hear them that well for the screaming) on
Ed Sullivan.  In '64 we moved to Northern NJ, here I continued my diet of
Motown and Beatles, and the music inbetween (the staple of WMCA and
WAB(eatle)C in NYC, via a transistor radio of one kind or another 
underneath
my pillow.  Even when I went to summer camp I smuggled a transistor radio
with me.  Went through a lot of batteries, of course!  But by 1966, I'd
pretty much consumed popular music at that stage, though the 
"Beatles/Jesus"
controversy pretty much put a moratorium on open listening to the
Beatles)and by '68, armed with that youthful disaster known as An 
Allowance,
I began buying singles.

Really pop stuff.  Jackson 5, Edwin Starr, Mamas and Papas, Temptations,
Beatles, Peter & Gordon, Supremes...

About that time I was (probably purposefully) introduced to Beethoven via 
my
parents and Time-Life, which produced a marvelous D.Grammophon set of all
his works.  My brother can be credited with saving my musical life
officially though, getting me "Best of Cream" and CCR's "Bayou Country" for
Christmas/Birthday.  From then on it was Rock for me, thanks.  Though I
showed an appetite for soundtrack albums even then... "2001", "Grand Prix,"
and so forth, with a real preference for the incidental music from films,
stuff you never hear on the radio.

It's that point - 1968 -that I target when I think about 
ambient/situational
music as a part of my musical construct.  I was especially attracted to the
Ligeti pieces on the "2001" soundtrack, and still like them a lot (even 
when
MST3K does their version of "Monolith Music".  Kubrick, one must say, must
have introduced a lot of people to classical music in this manner.  On the
heels of hearing bits of it on the radio, I got the "Clockwork Orange"
soundtrack, and, armed with my love of Beethoven, proceeded to teach myself
how to play the old "Ode to Joy" variations put forth by (then) Walter
Carlos.  I didn't however buy the "Switched-On Bach" album - as funds were
limited on a paper route's pay, and everyone played the hell out of it
anyway - but instead continued to explore Other-Than-Normal music.  Besides
my rock tastes, which were pretty standard I guess (could anyone not 
include
the Stones?).

It was an eye-opener to find the single of "Whole Lotta Love" including the
drum solo, which I bought right before my first school dance.  The drum 
solo
didn't help me envision dancing though.

I went on to the Moody Blues (from "To Our Children's Children's 
Children"),
Alice Cooper, King Crimson, Pink Floyd (starting with "A Nice Pair"), Black
Sabbath, John McLaughlin/Mahavishnu Orchestra, which could represent the 
Art
Rock contingent, I suppose.  I felt confident enough in a semi-repressive
household at that point to buy "Are You Experienced?", which had no small
effect on me, either!

When I took control of an unused acoustic guitar left by my father from old
lessons, figured out a tuning I could understand (EAEAEG, in that
proportion), and found I could learn to play a lot of modern (ie "cool")
music, I was heretofore attached to the guitar, and vice-versa.  I didn't
play in front of people, however, until 1978, and this was such a disaster
that it not only merits its own story, but caused a moratorium on
performance that lasted until 1990.  That on its own is a journey of 
strange
repute, but it didn't subvert my interest in other-than-guitar-based music.

I don't ever recall focusing in on any particular guitarist at that time,
besides Jimi, insofar as personality data is concerned, (though I remember 
a
lot of people deifying Clapton) up until 1976 when I caught "The Midnight
Special," then hosted by the late Wolfman Jack, with special guest B. B.
King.- wherein he passed on two things, [1] the Real Story of Lucille, and
[2] how he does his vibrato.  I hadn't stretched strings with other than a
whammy bar by that point (on a $49.95 electric Sakova from Sam Goody's that
my parents bought me for Christmas), and that on its own I count a major
step forward in technique.  The first time I tried it on acoustic (B.B. 
said
it makes you work harder) was on Bowie's "Fame".  I still can't play like
B.B., but then who can?  He put forth, though, the element that I needed at
that time, to go off on my own path, instead of imitating others.  But then
I am nothing if not a fierce individualist, and so this appealed a great
deal to someone just approaching 20.

College exposed me to yet more interesting sources of music, especially
Frank Zappa, Genesis, Yes, and a string of obvious Southern Rock items like
The Allman Bros., Marshall-Tucker, and so forth (I WAS at college in NC).
1977 found me in Syracuse, attempting to continue an already spotty 
academic
career (the first attempt cut short by Mono), throughout which people
attempted to introduce me to both Brian Eno's and Robert Fripp's work, to 
no
avail.  I was obstinate then.  It wasn't until 1980 when I found myself 
home
again, taking courses at night, that I began getting their work, and really
listening to it.  Fripp's in particular - in combination with his
monologues - lent me a sense of structure in my playing, and my thinking,
which I admit I was desperately in need of, both then and beforehand.

This is becoming a monologue on its own, and will be continued later after
some chicken soup and a nap.

Stephen Goodman  -  It's... The Loop Of The Week!
EarthLight Studios  -  http://www.earthlight.net/Studios