Music

I'm pretty sure I've written a bit about the importance of music in my life.  I'm not a big techie....I don't have surround sound and wireless connections and all that; I'm not a big groupie; I don't go to many concerts;  I've never bought mp3's from iTunes.  But I do love music and have a decent size CD collection (it's growth slowed after moving to Orangeville/the boonies) which has a wide range of albums.  Looking at the albums is like looking at the history of my life.  Different people brought different genres to me; some I couldn't get into, some I've adopted as "my" thing.

Last night I started ripping all the CDs onto my computer that I haven't done yet.  So, I heard bits of Air Supply, Jann Arden, Chris de Burgh, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Phil Collins, and  Genesis.  This is just a typical cross section of the CDs, there were other albums in that section of the alphabet that I've already ripped.

This morning, I've picked up again with Genesis.  They were my first band crush; the start of listening to new music because someone else (usually a boy) was.  The year was 1983, I was 12.  I'm sure I probably heard a bit of their previous album, but it was their self-titled album (otherwise known as the "Mama" album) that really catapulted them to mass market.  They had finally been able to create songs short enough for radio play but with their distinctive sound and humour.  My brother had a friend who was 16 and "cool".  We'd known him for about 4 years by then, and you know how I described how my mom felt about my other friend in the last post?  Well, this guy, Mr Slick, was totally this way.  Cheesey, slimey, smiley while helping move your new TV in and doe eyed when it went missing the next month type of guy.  But when you're 12 and Mr Slick smiles at you...LOL.  Anyway, he was already a big Genesis fan, so of course, I had start listening. 

Then Genesis went on tour and Mr Slick got tickets.  Oh, did I want to go into the big city on the train and see the show with him.  But I was not allowed :(  In retrospect, I know I wasn't ready for a big time concert then...back then you could smoke inside the arenas, and on buses and trains, and (esp. on concert days), it wasn't always tobacco.  If you catch my wiff.  LOL.

Mr Slick was in and out of our lives over the next few years until he met his real sweetheart and somehow, she got him to settle down and shape up.  Now he's a business owner, father of three, and a far cry from the skinny, smoking, pierced hoodlum of the neighbourhood.  Strangely, when Rob and I were house shopping in 2009, we looked at a couple in his neighbourhood, but didn't know that's where he lived.  That could have been interesting!

 (This is my best friend and me at the end of our Grade 9 band trip, May 1986, with some dude that took a liking to me...)


Anyway, I kept up with my Genesis fascination, and on Sept 22 1986, my best friend and I went to their Invisible Touch concert, on the bus and train into Toronto, all by ourselves!  I'm still not sure how I convinced my parents (or her's; she was a year younger than me!).  It was at the old outdoor, open roof Exhibition Stadium.  The smells were flowing freely that night.  LOL!  Exactly a year later, I was back at that stadium with my boyfriend, Paul, watching Pink Floyd.  Oh boy.  We were right at the top of the bleachers, catching wind of everything that got blown up our way.  I had had a huge fight with my parents about going....if I had gone the year before on a school night, then why was this one such a no-no?   Oh yeah....my parents are older than me....LOL.

Near the end of Grade 10, a couple friends and I went to Toronto for an outdoor performance by the cover band 1964, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Sargent Pepper and the Lonely Hearts Club Band.  One of those friends, Sanjay, was the smartest guy in high school; went off to MIT, and just had his third baby.  The other friend, Mike, or "Boom Boom" as we called him cause he was a drummer and we knew too many Mikes, has become a radio DJ/music director at stations east of Toronto, and just started up a new station in Peterborough that plays the most eclectic mix of songs from the 80s onwards....pop, rockish, light country...I love it!
In July 1987 Mike and I went to see Peter Gabriel, again at Exhibition Stadium.  We had awesome seats.  Instead of putting the stage at the end of the field like usual, it was mid-field, facing the long side of the stands.  They did this because right beside Exhibition Park was Ontario Place, and they were having a fireworks competition.  This meant our almost crappy seats became awesome.  It was an incredible show, especially as he started singing "Red Rain" with a backdrop of red fireworks (supposedly unintentional...).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA3rJXV4R4E

I hate the way Blogger works now, this WYSIWYG is not true!

If you can, watch/listen to the duet with earphones.  They are so in sync you can't believe it's two drummers, yet it gets so intricate you know it can't be one drummer. 
Huey and Rob are learning to play the drums, and I played this video for Huey at lunch time.  He seemed impressed, LOL.  I could listen to it over and over.  And watching it is cool too.  Phil is SO at ease on the drums.  Just like when I wrote about the one-legged swimmer last month....it's the same thing.  The music flows THROUGH him, not just from him....he doesn't just "play", he IS the music.  Does that make sense?

Anyway, I posted about listening to music, and this video, today on Facebook, so I thought I'd go into more detail.  And that takes us only to 1991....LOL!  There were big changes when I started dating Jim....stay tuned?