Music
Music has been a cornerstone of my life for as long as I can remember. My family was very musical. My father had “the gift.” He could play just about anything with strings. Guitars were his primary interest but I’d heard him play piano, bass, mandolin, and violin on various occasions. Not bad for a guy with no formal musical training. My mother played piano, keyboards, guitar, bass and drums. My sister played bass and a little guitar. I guess I didn’t have much choice in picking up some kind of instrument.
For me it was drums. I’ve been playing the drums off and on since I was about 13. I mess around with guitar and bass as well.
As part of my musical bent, I’ve got something like 10,000 mp3, over 80 gigs. There are over 400 CDs in the basement and I’m usually on the look out for new material. Through the years, my tastes have wandered around a bit, but there have been themes. I grew up listening to country. In junior high, I discovered Blue Oyster Cult. High school was dominated by Duran Duran and Billy Idol/Generation X. I was addicted to Headbangers Ball on MTV for a time. Motley Crue, Poison, Slaughter, Kixx, Great White, Ratt, the list goes on. Late 80s hair bands usually thumped from the speakers. Somewhere in there Megadeth was added to the mix. Queensryche was in full force by the time I had my first marriage and divorce in the early 90s. Metallica’s Black album was the sound track for my time in Dallas as did Ministry and a bit of Prodigy.
For a time, I shifted over to more mellow offerings, but that ended when I heard the Matrix Soundtrack. Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, and Rammstein on one CD. That was that. I was back into the metal fold.
