I decided to write this blog to fill in the part where music became such a large part of my life.
I will start from the beginning.
My older sister had a stack of 45's that were mostly hand downs from my Aunt. Songs that were in the "Bubblegum" genre from the 60's like "Yummy Yummy Yummy", "Chic-A-Boom", "1-2-3 Red Light", "Simple Simon Says" and then some 70s stuff like "Put Your Hand in the hand", "Playground in My Mind", and even some humorous songs: "Dead Skunk", "Hot Rod Lincoln", "Alley-Oop".
My Grandmother was a piano player but had wanted to play drums but was chastized by her parents because playing drums isn't "lady-like" She had an extensive collection of big band Jazz on 78's
My Dad liked the songs from the 50s through the 70s (rock and roll) until around 74 when music became too distant from the formula of music he liked. He also liked Classical like Mozart, Beethoven, and others, and this is how "yours truly" also became interested in the great composers music.
Mozart will always be my number 1 classical pick. I highly recommend people to see the movie "Amadeus" if you haven't seen it already. Make sure you bring popcorn though because its so long it has an intermission.
With a family of music lovers, it was not surprising where my interest was headed, and by the time I was the age of 9, I already owned a AM/FM transistor radio.
I had 2 older brothers and 1 older sister, and a little brother whom is mentally retarded, but guess what HIS favorite thing is?
MUSIC.
Yep. He is considered in the "severely retarded" classification and the 3 things he loves are Music, Cats, and Vacuum Cleaners. (oh, and you can trade him Hersheys Chocolate syrup for ANYTHING including Dads model car that he is literally holding so hard that he is about to crush it.)
Anyway, back to music.
I would listen to my radio daily as time would allow but at night when I was supposed to be sleeping, I would sneak my radio under the covers, turn it up just loud enough that I could hear it when I put it up to my ear, and literally BECOME the music for the next 2 hours. This was the part that later led to my becoming a night person.
Songs like "Black Water"/Doobie Brothers, "Up in a Puff of Smoke"/Polly Brown, "Don't Pull Your Love"/Hamilton, Frank and Reynolds, were among the songs I remember in that beginning stage of music loving.
Fast forward a couple years to 1974 and I was surrounded by stronger rock with more punch and pre-disco such as the "foundation"' group for Eurodance music in the future: ABBA, and my favorites were The Sweet, Brownsville Station, Jim Stafford, YES, and early Styx.
What do 3 of the 5 above all have in common?
Hmmmm, it definitely was another milestone in my roots that led to my music taste NOW.
3 of the 4 used THIS:
Cool noises were always something I loved even as a teeny child. Synthesizers have NO limits as to what sound they can make. I also LOVE echo/reverb.
Many rock groups starting in the late 60s and then going well into the 70s, used Synthesizer for effect.
Some of the greats that used it, were Iron Butterfly, Deep Purple, The Doors,YES, Styx, The Sweet, Kansas, Pink Floyd, Rush, Triumph, The Who.
OK OK OK!!!!
Interjection time!!!
If you aren't having fun yet and haven't been watching the vids, you're a POSEUR!!!
On a sidenote to that last video....trivia time.
Who was the Muppet "Animal" modeled from?
Yep, the "one of three" inspirational drummers that got ME started drumming...Keith Moon.
A little treat for ya:
Now as far as drummers overall, I picked Buddy Rich and gene Krupa as my idols and the other 2 rock drummers being Neil Peart and John Bonham.
OOPs!!! I went off on a drumming tangent.
Ok, lets bring that in while we're at it.
While Elton John was my idol in 72-74, I went on to like progressively quicker bands.
Styx, Boston, April Wine, Van Halen, Ted Nugent, Kansas, you name it. Also, I liked almost ALL of the pop songs out at that time.
When I was in 5th grade, a new kid came to my school who was a drummer.
http://www.stars4iowa.com/KStarret.htm
Kelly taught both my best friend Gary and myself a few basic beats to get us started playing drums.
Gary got a set within a year and I didn't get started on a drum set until 1978 (more on that later).
From 1975 on, I became addicted to music to the point I was listening to it at the very least for 3 hrs a day in my room.
My Dad concerned that my laying in bed looking up at the ceiling as I became one with the music or the constant pounding on my bed with a homemade set of drumsticks, decided to take me to a psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist told him that I was able to separate fantasy from reality and that he should be happy that it wasn't drugs that I was addicted to.
So for that 5 years, I developed my drumming skills with those homemade drumsticks and occasionally my dad would catch me and say "I don't know why you waste your time, you will never play drums".
I didn't listen, (of course).
Kelly went on to play in bands and performed at the schools he attended and I caught up with him in tenth grade at my High school.
I was impressed that he could sing and play drums at the same time.
He also was just finishing drum lessons to sharpen his skills from just playing by ear to playing notes as well.
Unbeatable combo.
Gary went on to keep playing the drums as a hobby and did some late night DJ'ing at our local hard rock radio station. He died a few years ago of liver complications.
Kelly still plays in the direct Midwest area at bars for 3 different groups as needed, mostly with "Roadshow".
I have tried to contact him three different times through MySpace but it appears his head has swollen a few notches through playing bars for so many years or he is just too busy to talk to old friends.
I'm hoping its the latter.
Back to my music interests.
Disco swept through in 75 -79 in a BIG way and there were several songs that had synth used in them, so of course it caught my ears.
ABBA was one of my favorites.
My usual pick though was hard rock songs.
From 1981-1990, I became a addict of hair metal/heavy metal.
The stronger the music, the better.
I didn't really care for thrash until about 1987 though.
Because of the extremely heavy drumming in metal, it became my choice of music to drum to.
I also cant get enough of "finger tapping" which I equate to being one of the coolest sounds on the planet. Listen and watch for the tapping during the guitar solo in this next video:
Some of the harder bands I liked were Savatage, Grim Reaper, Helloween, Iron Maiden, Accept, Motorhead, WASP, Black Sabboth, you know, a lot of the European stuff.
Ozzy started using synth and orchestral instruments in his music later in the game too.
ozzy osbourne - waiting for darkness from jezabell on Vimeo.
A lot of other European Heavy Metal bands were using synth too for dramatic effect and power.
Even Great White had fun with it:
Even Dio!!
Enter the 90s.
Hair metal was crucified by the new "angst" grunge rock.
So for giving a solid 10 years of "fun, partying, positive" rock, we get people complaining about their lives as a thank you.
Well....NO thanks!!
You know I am ALL ABOUT POSITIVITY.
Grunge was the epitome of the OPPOSITE ME.
Musically, there were a few songs I liked but the lyrics?
Stop crying already, that's what Country is for!!
So, I had to reinvent my musical tastes and I went the way of dance/hip hop and Alternative.
Technotronics and Alanis Morrissette and 4 Non Blondes were in my playing list.
Technotronics was the closest thing to Eurodance you could find in radio played music in America, and Eurodance was not even coined that term until around 1994 by Captain Hollywood Project.
I continued listening to Hair metal and Alternative and let grunge and Nu Metal pass me by.
Then in 2000, the music hit the airwaves that I deemed "the death of good pop music".
Boy bands were plenty and artists from all over had to literally swallow their microphones to be heard.
Then they had to do this silly thing that Christine Aguilera did with our National Anthem and ruin the idea of having any pizzazz or soul.
I grew tired of my overplayed hair metal and needed something new, something FUN, something positive, a good tempo, and where singers could be HEARD.
In 1996, I was listening to a dance channel on DMX (digital music xpress) that was a Cable offered music subscription, and had actually recorded several hours of "house music".
House Music is Eurodance music in its older form.
House music is the child of disco.
Technotronics is techno music but techno is NOW considered a "subgenre" of Eurodance music.
there was an online site that also released CD's called "Launch".
On Launch, I came across Eurodance and was able to identify it as such and the addiction began.
This was in 2002.
The first Eurodance song in its pure form that I saw was surprisingly BY the same artist that COINED the term "Eurodance":
here is that video:
There were some Eurodance videos already released in the US at that time that finally got to have a "home" in a named Genre:
M.C. Sar & The Real McCoy • Another Night • EU... by real-mccoy
Eurodance originally was about dancing and positive rap verses.
Later it became more commercial and sexualized and the theme became very spicy as evidenced by the following videos:
Master Blaster - Ballet Dancer by boixois
Dj Sava feat. Elena - Honey by VERGINIQ
and one of Lika's favs:
and notice that ALL Eurodance songs have that same thing in common with what I have always liked: Synthesizer.
It uses it as a "lead".
I still occasionally listen to my metal but Eurodance is the primary music played in both our vehicles and in our house.
I will start from the beginning.
My older sister had a stack of 45's that were mostly hand downs from my Aunt. Songs that were in the "Bubblegum" genre from the 60's like "Yummy Yummy Yummy", "Chic-A-Boom", "1-2-3 Red Light", "Simple Simon Says" and then some 70s stuff like "Put Your Hand in the hand", "Playground in My Mind", and even some humorous songs: "Dead Skunk", "Hot Rod Lincoln", "Alley-Oop".
My Grandmother was a piano player but had wanted to play drums but was chastized by her parents because playing drums isn't "lady-like" She had an extensive collection of big band Jazz on 78's
My Dad liked the songs from the 50s through the 70s (rock and roll) until around 74 when music became too distant from the formula of music he liked. He also liked Classical like Mozart, Beethoven, and others, and this is how "yours truly" also became interested in the great composers music.
Mozart will always be my number 1 classical pick. I highly recommend people to see the movie "Amadeus" if you haven't seen it already. Make sure you bring popcorn though because its so long it has an intermission.
With a family of music lovers, it was not surprising where my interest was headed, and by the time I was the age of 9, I already owned a AM/FM transistor radio.
I had 2 older brothers and 1 older sister, and a little brother whom is mentally retarded, but guess what HIS favorite thing is?
MUSIC.
Yep. He is considered in the "severely retarded" classification and the 3 things he loves are Music, Cats, and Vacuum Cleaners. (oh, and you can trade him Hersheys Chocolate syrup for ANYTHING including Dads model car that he is literally holding so hard that he is about to crush it.)
Anyway, back to music.
I would listen to my radio daily as time would allow but at night when I was supposed to be sleeping, I would sneak my radio under the covers, turn it up just loud enough that I could hear it when I put it up to my ear, and literally BECOME the music for the next 2 hours. This was the part that later led to my becoming a night person.
Songs like "Black Water"/Doobie Brothers, "Up in a Puff of Smoke"/Polly Brown, "Don't Pull Your Love"/Hamilton, Frank and Reynolds, were among the songs I remember in that beginning stage of music loving.
Fast forward a couple years to 1974 and I was surrounded by stronger rock with more punch and pre-disco such as the "foundation"' group for Eurodance music in the future: ABBA, and my favorites were The Sweet, Brownsville Station, Jim Stafford, YES, and early Styx.
What do 3 of the 5 above all have in common?
Hmmmm, it definitely was another milestone in my roots that led to my music taste NOW.
3 of the 4 used THIS:
Cool noises were always something I loved even as a teeny child. Synthesizers have NO limits as to what sound they can make. I also LOVE echo/reverb.
Many rock groups starting in the late 60s and then going well into the 70s, used Synthesizer for effect.
Some of the greats that used it, were Iron Butterfly, Deep Purple, The Doors,YES, Styx, The Sweet, Kansas, Pink Floyd, Rush, Triumph, The Who.
OK OK OK!!!!
Interjection time!!!
If you aren't having fun yet and haven't been watching the vids, you're a POSEUR!!!
On a sidenote to that last video....trivia time.
Who was the Muppet "Animal" modeled from?
Yep, the "one of three" inspirational drummers that got ME started drumming...Keith Moon.
A little treat for ya:
Now as far as drummers overall, I picked Buddy Rich and gene Krupa as my idols and the other 2 rock drummers being Neil Peart and John Bonham.
OOPs!!! I went off on a drumming tangent.
Ok, lets bring that in while we're at it.
While Elton John was my idol in 72-74, I went on to like progressively quicker bands.
Styx, Boston, April Wine, Van Halen, Ted Nugent, Kansas, you name it. Also, I liked almost ALL of the pop songs out at that time.
When I was in 5th grade, a new kid came to my school who was a drummer.
http://www.stars4iowa.com/KStarret.htm
Kelly taught both my best friend Gary and myself a few basic beats to get us started playing drums.
Gary got a set within a year and I didn't get started on a drum set until 1978 (more on that later).
From 1975 on, I became addicted to music to the point I was listening to it at the very least for 3 hrs a day in my room.
My Dad concerned that my laying in bed looking up at the ceiling as I became one with the music or the constant pounding on my bed with a homemade set of drumsticks, decided to take me to a psychiatrist.
The psychiatrist told him that I was able to separate fantasy from reality and that he should be happy that it wasn't drugs that I was addicted to.
So for that 5 years, I developed my drumming skills with those homemade drumsticks and occasionally my dad would catch me and say "I don't know why you waste your time, you will never play drums".
I didn't listen, (of course).
Kelly went on to play in bands and performed at the schools he attended and I caught up with him in tenth grade at my High school.
I was impressed that he could sing and play drums at the same time.
He also was just finishing drum lessons to sharpen his skills from just playing by ear to playing notes as well.
Unbeatable combo.
Gary went on to keep playing the drums as a hobby and did some late night DJ'ing at our local hard rock radio station. He died a few years ago of liver complications.
Kelly still plays in the direct Midwest area at bars for 3 different groups as needed, mostly with "Roadshow".
I have tried to contact him three different times through MySpace but it appears his head has swollen a few notches through playing bars for so many years or he is just too busy to talk to old friends.
I'm hoping its the latter.
Back to my music interests.
Disco swept through in 75 -79 in a BIG way and there were several songs that had synth used in them, so of course it caught my ears.
ABBA was one of my favorites.
My usual pick though was hard rock songs.
From 1981-1990, I became a addict of hair metal/heavy metal.
The stronger the music, the better.
I didn't really care for thrash until about 1987 though.
Because of the extremely heavy drumming in metal, it became my choice of music to drum to.
I also cant get enough of "finger tapping" which I equate to being one of the coolest sounds on the planet. Listen and watch for the tapping during the guitar solo in this next video:
Some of the harder bands I liked were Savatage, Grim Reaper, Helloween, Iron Maiden, Accept, Motorhead, WASP, Black Sabboth, you know, a lot of the European stuff.
Ozzy started using synth and orchestral instruments in his music later in the game too.
ozzy osbourne - waiting for darkness from jezabell on Vimeo.
A lot of other European Heavy Metal bands were using synth too for dramatic effect and power.
Even Great White had fun with it:
Even Dio!!
Enter the 90s.
Hair metal was crucified by the new "angst" grunge rock.
So for giving a solid 10 years of "fun, partying, positive" rock, we get people complaining about their lives as a thank you.
Well....NO thanks!!
You know I am ALL ABOUT POSITIVITY.
Grunge was the epitome of the OPPOSITE ME.
Musically, there were a few songs I liked but the lyrics?
Stop crying already, that's what Country is for!!
So, I had to reinvent my musical tastes and I went the way of dance/hip hop and Alternative.
Technotronics and Alanis Morrissette and 4 Non Blondes were in my playing list.
Technotronics was the closest thing to Eurodance you could find in radio played music in America, and Eurodance was not even coined that term until around 1994 by Captain Hollywood Project.
I continued listening to Hair metal and Alternative and let grunge and Nu Metal pass me by.
Then in 2000, the music hit the airwaves that I deemed "the death of good pop music".
Boy bands were plenty and artists from all over had to literally swallow their microphones to be heard.
Then they had to do this silly thing that Christine Aguilera did with our National Anthem and ruin the idea of having any pizzazz or soul.
I grew tired of my overplayed hair metal and needed something new, something FUN, something positive, a good tempo, and where singers could be HEARD.
In 1996, I was listening to a dance channel on DMX (digital music xpress) that was a Cable offered music subscription, and had actually recorded several hours of "house music".
House Music is Eurodance music in its older form.
House music is the child of disco.
Technotronics is techno music but techno is NOW considered a "subgenre" of Eurodance music.
there was an online site that also released CD's called "Launch".
On Launch, I came across Eurodance and was able to identify it as such and the addiction began.
This was in 2002.
The first Eurodance song in its pure form that I saw was surprisingly BY the same artist that COINED the term "Eurodance":
here is that video:
There were some Eurodance videos already released in the US at that time that finally got to have a "home" in a named Genre:
M.C. Sar & The Real McCoy • Another Night • EU... by real-mccoy
Eurodance originally was about dancing and positive rap verses.
Later it became more commercial and sexualized and the theme became very spicy as evidenced by the following videos:
Master Blaster - Ballet Dancer by boixois
Dj Sava feat. Elena - Honey by VERGINIQ
and one of Lika's favs:
and notice that ALL Eurodance songs have that same thing in common with what I have always liked: Synthesizer.
It uses it as a "lead".
I still occasionally listen to my metal but Eurodance is the primary music played in both our vehicles and in our house.
