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So anyway, here's an incomplete, short
history of the music that I've listened to in my life.
The Beginning: sisterly influences
Being born in 1970, I started with your
average 70's music that you listen to when you are less than
10. My sister had a heavy influence on all this (she's 4 1/2
years older than I am), so Smokie and David Cassidy live somewhere
in my memory. I never did like the Bee Gees, though. For some
reason, I don't remember much music existing when I was 10 or
11. Once I got my very own radio, I listened to Top 40 radio
back when Top 40 still existed and was good: Men
at Work, ZZ Top, Cyndi Lauper, Eurythmics, the Police, bands
like that. I remember hearing Zenyatta Mondatta the first time
on my sister's tape deck while on our way to the World's Fair
in Knoxville, TN, in the back of the car, and I still love that
album.
Moving from pop to hardcore... and classic
rawk!
Later, I moved through a HUGE classic
rock phase (I always said that my sister got me into both veins
of my life: The Who led to classic rock, and Gary Numan led to
New Wave which devolved into punk which evolved into everything
else). In junior high, there was a short lull with hardcore,
due to this guy Scott Wilkens who later mellowed out, where I
listened to bands like the Dead
Kennedys and Minor
Threat and Corrosion of Conformity and Ugly Americans (hey,
they were from Durham, and the singer pestered me over the phone
later on when I was a DJ at Duke). Mostly, though, I listened
to Zep, the Doors,
the Who, and OF COURSE the
Beatles. There was a time when it seemed that to grow up,
you had to go through a Beatles phase. I doubt that happens anymore.
High school and the girlfriend factor
In high school, my girlfriend tried desparately
to get me out of this phase, since she had been into Duran Duran
and Billy Joel and Kitaro. You know how it is, I tried....but
it just wasn't my thing. I mean, I've since learned that Duran
Duran isn't death (though after the Jenny Forsyth experience
of 7th grade, that would have been hard to prove), but at the
time, no way! So we didn't really listen to the same things.
A bit of classical and jazz was shared, since we both liked Mozart....
Governor's School roommate influence...
Things changed for the most part, and
my present schizophrenia of music came to the forefront when
I went to North Carolina Governor's School during high school.
My roommate there (Andrew Platt, whom we called Skank because
it made sense at the time) got me into Joy
Division,and I took it and ran. It wasn't that different
from Gary Numan, depressing and moody like Down in the Park or
something. He was coming out of New
Order and Oingo Boingo, so it was something new for us both.
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Music exists just about everywhere in my life.
I'm thoroughly addicted to the stuff. As I write, I'm listening
to Gorecki's
Symphony #3, with Dawn Upshaw singing. Hey, it's nice to have
a CD-ROM that plays music and a pair of good headphones so that
I don't bother the others in my office. Anyway, music is a constant
theme in my life. I have a running soundtrack in my head, the
music never really stops (it's called an Ohrwurm = "ear
worm" in German). Sometimes it's someone else's music, sometimes
it's a little invention of my own. I used to play a bit of piano,
some sax, and a tad of guitar, but I know more theory than skill,
so I don't ever put those inventions into actual sound. They
sound just fine in my head (and in case you were wondering, I
talk to myself inside my head, too, full conversations and everything,
how ELSE does a person think?).