I remember being at a friends house playing pool in the basement, back in 1976. I was 12 at the time. My friend had two older brothers who were really into music (then again, who wasn't back then) and stereo equipment. My friend grabbed an album (vinyl of course) by some band called...Boston. He put the album on a belt-driven Sansui turntable, that had a brand new diamond needle on it. The turntable was connected to a Sansui amp., which was also connected to a pair of monstrous Cerwin-Vega speakers. The moment he set that needle down and I heard those guitars and those vocals...I was absolutely blown away and hooked!!! The richness of the sound quality was absolutely stunning. It felt like the band was in the room with you. I remember listening to the album from start to finish, more than once that day and it just got better and better, each time.
My friends brothers had also built their own speakers and cabinets, complete with woofers, tweeters and cross-overs and they sounded almost as good as the Cerwin-Vegas. I was impressed and in awe. Now I was hooked on being a techie. as well and I wanted to learn everything I could about electronics and stereos. Soon after, I saved enough money and I bought my own Sansui stereo system, speakers and albums...Boston, Queen, The Eagles, The Who, Pink Floyd (I remember listening to the Wall from start to finish, over and over), AC/DC, etc. I was fortunate enough to be able to be part of the last years of true rock and roll!!! I wish I would have picked up a guitar then and learned to play...unfortunately though, that didn't happen until I was 41, almost 10 years ago. Better late than never I guess...having a lot of fun now, especially with the Axe-Fx II and being able to play at night with headphones or through an amp. when no one is around.
My first concert was in 1978...Trooper, great Canadian band. I grew up in a small northern Canadian town...not a lot of concerts to go to. When I was older and moved away to school, I was fortunate enough to see The Who, Pink Floyd, Billy Idol, The Eagles, Mellancamp, Jeff Healey, David Wilcox, April Wine, Northern Pikes, Tom Petty and many others. I remember seeing U2 during the ZooTv tour in 1992 at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto. Edge's tones and his guitar playing absolutely blew me away. Not only did they sound incredible live, but the whole visual experience was something else. I brought a tenant with me to the show. He had literally just moved in that weekend. It was his first time away from home and it was his first concert. He was a huge Danzig fan and had no idea who U2 was. He rented from me for two years and five of my U2 CD's never left his 5-disc player the entire time.
Other than a few recent bands like Imagine Dragons, One Republic, Fun and not so recent, like Green Day, The Killers, etc., when I think of the music industry today and what's classified as 'music', it makes me sad, really sad! There's no artistic creativity, no lyrics to speak of and most importantly...no guitar. I remember Don Henley saying that back in the 60's and 70's, if you didn't have 10 quality songs, there was no way a record label would produce an album for you, it was just too expensive. I think that was a great 'quality control' check.
Most people today don't care about music and what it stood for and they don't understand what true musical talent and artistic creativity is. Case in point...Justin Bieber! Oh well, guess I'm just getting too old.
