Friday, February 12, 2010

Origins

 Influences? Is that really necessary?

In 1980, I had a  3am Sunday paper route and a portable Walkman cassette player the size of a college textbook...my favorite cassette had  Deep Purple's Machine Head on one side and The Clash's first album on the other...the tape was finished with a few songs by an old UK punk band called 999 and the first six minutes of Pink Floyd's Astronomy Domine.

In my last year of high school, I tried to teach myself to play guitar by listening to The Cramps' Smell of Female (Live at the Peppermint Lounge) LP over and over again...but the songs were too difficult for me to play, so I traded it in for a used (but seldom-played) copy of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music.  That worked for me.


My first concert was Joe Walsh. My second was King Crimson. Third was the Talking Heads.

My friend Ron Curry gave me my only lesson in 1984...he sketched out a couple of major barre chords on the back of my notebook during a high school pep rally. I liked them so much that I never learned any others.

In 1986 I attended a Grateful Dead concert stone-cold sober. They played a extended cover of 'Gloria', which was bad enough, but Bob Weir added insult to odium by spelling it 'G-O-L-R-I-A'...over and over in-between endless guitar meanderings...I spent the next decade playing loud, fast and angry punk-metal. One band was hailed in the local press as being "destined to join [Richmond's ] rock pantheon"...we broke up the night before the review was published.

That influenced my decision to get a 'real job'.

Doing sound in nightclubs.

(To be continued.)

3 comments:

secret agent woman said...

GOLRIA - good Lord.

I sometimes sit in on the kids' guitar lessons and am astounded at how detailed they are - the kid who teaches them is serious about music and he isn't content to let them just learn to play songs. So although he and they lean toward metal, they seem to be getting a pretty solid grounding.

yellowdoggranny said...

I'd smack him for the Golria thing.
ahh, the angy young punk..ha
dont forget my nephew needs your help..he and a friend(nephew in texas .friend in calif) want to work together like you did on your album..but they dont know how or what to use, etc..email me and i'll give you his email address and you can maybe give him some help????

AngelConradie said...

Was he dyslexic or drunk?
Did you kick yourselves when you saw the review?