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Early Days

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A cliché that often applies to artists is that they come from bad or traumatic childhoods. This is what made them into artists. In my case, it is true, except it did not make me into an artist, at least not immediately. The art would come later. As a child, I was an athlete and a good student, and reading, writing, or playing instruments never happened, basically. I give props to my big brother Bob, however, for putting together the soundtrack of my childhood. He played the guitar and had a vinyl collection and he provided a continuous stream of Beatles, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Pink Floyd, and more. It was my musical heriatge, so to speak, even if I didn't know it or realize it until many years later. The one band that I could claim as mine was Kiss, and I saw them in concert in Fort Wayne in 1979, during the Dynasty tour and before they unmasked famously on MTV. Somehow I managed to acquire three of the four solo albums they did (all but Gene Simmons'), and I saw the movie on TV in which the Kiss band members played superheroes. The Kiss concert was the first of what would become dozens of concerts that I would see. 

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First Efforts and Formative Years

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I took the required music classes in elementary and middle school, and I remember playing the recorder and singing in choir in sixth grade, but I do not remember learning theory or being taught how to read music other than FACE for the spaces on the treble cleft and EGBDF Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge for the lines on the staff (is that what you call it?). As I began to come of age, I started to listen to music of my own choosing and artists at the top of my list were Duran Duran (Save a Prayer was my favorite), Prince and the Revolution (Purple Rain! I was 12 when it was released. ), and Motley Crue. One strange memory I have is listening to one and only one Rockline episode on the radio when I lived in Indianapolis, during 8th grade, which must have been 1986-1987 and the following summer, before 9th grade, and the guest was R.E.M., no doubt there to promot their album Document and the single "The One I Love." I thought then that the song was something new, something I wanted more of, and I still think that it is R.E.M.'s best song. Nevertheless, I did not pursue R.E.M. after listening to the radio and I did not hear them again on any platform until 1991's  Out of Time, when the band would establish itself on a global level. Why did I not pursue R.E.M. or any other musical artist at that time? I would say it is because I had no external motivation, means, or support to go about it. I had no idea where to find R.E.M.'s music, I did not have MTV, and I was still generally interested in sports and baseball specifically. I collected baseball cards and not albums, and that was that. 

 

In high school, back in Fort Wayne, I did begin to pursue hair metal bands and I even saw Poison, Ratt, and Cinderella in concert. In the summer of 1988, however, my definition of "good music" began to change. A friend of mine (thanks Brian!) kept talking to me about this song called "Welcome to the Jungle" and how kickass it was. Then, perhaps by dumb luck or fate, I heard "Sweet Child O' Mine" by the same band and before hearing "Jungle." What a revelation it was! It sounded authentic, raw, raunchy, and basically like rock should sound. Guns N' Roses became my gateway band in that moment. First, I bought the cassette two or three times and wore it out each time in my 1976 Mustang's (a Fastback) tape deck from playing it so much. GNR was my first musical obsession. Second, as my obsession grew, I paid attention to the (electric) guitar playing for the first time, and I was able to distinguish between Izzy's parts and Slash's parts. GNR Lies enhanced my obsession. Additionally, my success in purchasing the GNR album led me to purchase albums by other, little-known-to-me artists, such as N.W.A., The Black Crowes, and more.  

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Toward the Muse

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If GNR was the gateway to music listening for me, Nirvana was the gateway to playing an instrument. On September 17, 1991, I was the first in line at the music store in the mall to purchase Use Your Illusion. It was a great collection of songs, and I still listen to it occasionally, but the following week Nirvana would blow the doors off the establishment with the release of Nevermind. Of course, I did not hear anything from it until probably November, 1991. One night while at my mother's house, I was listening to local 103.9 (WXKE --The Rock) on her big console stereo when I heard the opening notes for "Come As You Are." When the song finished, I had the same feeling that I did when I heard "The One I Love" or "Sweet Child": I just knew that things were going to change for me. I went out that week and bought Nevermind, which was when I heard "Smeels Like Teen Spirit" and the rest of the album for the first time. I was in college and was able to watch some MTV in a commons area in one of my buildings, and the video for "Teen Spirit" just crushed me. Wait a minute! Teens burning down their high school? Hell yes! It was on MTV that I saw and heard Pearl Jam's "Alive" for the first time, and later, in an apartment I shared with two dudes from high school, I saw and heard for the first time, again on MTV, "Cherub Rock" by The Smashing Pumpkins. All of this was so new, so weird, and so great, not to mention Romantic. I was learning all kinds of things in my college classes, meeting new people, reading novels for pleasure (The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway was chief among them), learning a new language (Spanish), and dating girls for the first time, and the music that changed American popular culture also changed me. I eventually purchased an acoustic guitar, an Alvarez. Depsite my great intentions, my self-taught approach fizzled fast as my fingers were always in pain and I was not ready to commit to the 10,000 hours it would take to master the instrument. I put it away, taking it out occasionally over the years, replacing it with an Epiphone, adding to it an electric guitar, and putting away my desire to play the guitar.    

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The Muse

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What pushed me to finally learn the guitar well enough to write songs was developing a relationship with my eventual wife. I was so enamored that I began to write words and poetry and song verses and that pushed me into playing the guitar and then putting the words to music and the rest is history. Today, after 17 years of marriage, I still write songs for her. It will likely never stop, and those original songs and the creativity and skills I developed as a guitar player, while still not being those of a virtuoso, have led me into songs about other themes and also into writing fiction following the path of Hemingway, the gatekeeper that led me to García Márquez, Fuentes, Kerouac, Vargas Llosa, Plath, Carpentier, and many other great writers.  

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