Music

[finding_neo]

 I have loved music my entire life. I was told when I got older that as a baby, once I could stand, I would hold onto the side of my parents' record player and dance. They probably thought I'd become Ginger Rogers, but alas, I can't follow a routine to save my life. Nor can I play an instrument. I tried the flute when I was in grade school, but only because when the band instructor came to our school to talk to the kids who were interested in joining "band," he noticed my overbite and had me blow on a flute. I would have rather played the drums. I spent 2 arduous years in "band," from 5th to 7th grade. I got first chair flute for a while, but only because I'd practiced the piece and was the only one who could play it without a mistake. Otherwise I probably was a C level student in band. I had little interest in learning to play well and really only tried so as not to get kicked out. The whole point of "band" back in the '70s seemed to be to perform in parades and sport games, outside, no matter the weather. I'm not sure which was worse, chilly fall nights on the football field where you could see everyone's breath or marching in 80 percent humidity. I think I only lasted 2 years because I didn't want to disappoint my parents since they spent hard to come by money on an instrument. 

But I still love music. The same year I quit band I discovered Top 40 radio and Casey Kasem's American Top 40. I can count backwards very easily now thanks to that program. For about 3 years I wrote down the songs every week. I also rated them because even at that young age I knew music I liked and music I didn't like, without thought to style or who the artists were. As the '80s approached my interest in electronic music or new wave developed. It started simply because luckily some new wave made it onto the charts in 1979 - Blondie, the Cars and Gary Numan specifically. I also stayed up late to watch the late night weekend shows like Fridays, Saturday Night Live and the Midnight Special. I remember seeing the B-52s perform Rock Lobster on SNL in early 1980. I'd never seen anything like them. We watched lots of variety shows in the '70s and they were tame compared to the bands and performers I saw on those shows. I was delighted.

It wasn't until 1982 that I discovered college radio. I've never looked back. I quickly realized the radio I'd been listening to, Top 40, paled in comparison to what was being produced and had been produced in the UK for the past 5 or 6 years. Sure, by 1982 we had had songs by bands like Human League, Haircut 100, Soft Cell, so it wasn't a complete draught of UK new wave music, but the variety was so much broader than I ever could have imagined had I not found a college radio program called Pipeline out of St. Louis University. I wrote those songs down too and discovered life long favorites in the bands played on the program long before some of them became near household names in the US. I still consider bands like Depeche Mode and the Cure "alternative," although both of them now sell out stadiums around the world. 

To be continued.