It begins with my youth and being fascinated with sound. I was about five. And my sister was a young teenager who listened to all the Top Hits on the radio or 8-Track Tape!! So, I soaked up the sounds not knowing that I would be getting well-acquanted with sound and music a few years later. Here is just a snippet of my evolutionary process towards electroacoustic music.
The Strongest Memory Award goes to Steve Miller.
Let’s start with good ‘ol Steve Miller. “Fly Like an Eagle.” It is one of the best grooving songs ever. Ok, maybe that’s my 6yr old ears talking but you have to admit. I had good ears at 6. 😉 Anyway, the intro was played on the radio back then and often. Each time I heard it begin playing I basically froze like a…. well …. nothing else existed for those few minutes. Have listen…
Steve Miller – Space Intro / Fly Like An Eagle
… as I listen to the tune above I get chills and listen to the musicality as I once did as a kid. So awesome.
I was also captivated by Michael Jackson. Seeing him on TV was inspiring, but he didn’t have any surreal experimental music that I had heard. I still had to mention him too though. There was lots: the Doobie Brothers, Eric Clapton, … I could go on. I really enjoyed the music in 70’s and the 80’s. Yeah I don’t care what you say. lol!
Eventually I found AC/DC; and that led to Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd (See!! The 80’s did have great bands!) and so many other greats. But Aerosmith had Sweet Emotion with another interesting “space” intro-like piece. Captured Again. I stopped and listened to every nuance in that Sweet Emotion intro. As a side note, Toys In the Attic on 8-track tape became my friend!! 😉 I was around 7 years old.
Yeah… so that was a snippet of my childhood in music terms. Of course there was things like the best cartoons EVER in history with all the classical music, but again this post is about the “electro-acoustic” stuff that was happening.
Then the following interesting album revealed itself to me after I had gone through many others by Pink Floyd. Umma Gumma was VERY different from what I had ever heard. My ears completely blew off the side of my head!
I became interested in Pink Floyd after hearing a recording of a partially backwards drum solo by Nick Mason!! It’s actually what led me to check out Pink Floyd a little more. And now that I’ve done a bit of research finding pictures I need to check out his book with the “fitting” title: Inside Out much like his solo.
Pink Floyd in January 1968 Left to right: Mason, Barrett, Gilmour (seated), Waters and Wright (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
That was so weird at 12-14! Oh man. How did I come across that? My older sister’s boyfriend who was a drummer and he made an awesome tape collection of drum solos. 😉 Fast Forward a couple years later and I come across…. Pink Floyd’s Umma Gumma.
That album is so psychedelic. As I was writing this I was listening and remembering some great stuff about that album. I’m going to have to plan a listening day in the near future. I need to hear that album again and decipher some of it with my new set of ears. Maybe you can join me in some way?
Well, that should give you an idea of how I came to be interested in different sounds and electro-acoustic music. I find it fascinating and I’m continually looking for more. It’s just more different now but all part of the same journey.
Happy Listening!
Mike Crain 