For my fifth birthday, back in nineteen-shmamfnshmgnfrome, my parents got me a Fisher-Price record player and provided me with some records that I think they pieced together from their and my uncle’s collections. I remember vividly the Kingston Trio Live from the “Hungry i”, Tom Jones Live in Las Vegas, and Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass Herb Alpert’s Ninth. These I put on a lot and I loved listening while I played with toys or whatever I was doing.
And from that point on I have always had a palpable, crucial, and near-constant relationship with music. I began taping songs off of AM radio broadcasts with a portable tape recorder (“OK, I’m recording!!! No one talk!!”). I loved to go into the little hi-fi shop in my home town run by this eccentric guy who I thought was the absolute shit and had what had to be the coolest job in the world.
As I got older my parents started to let me and my brother use their turntable and stereo system (that they bought from that aforementioned eccentric, cool guy) which made my brother and I feel really special. Our record collection grew, mostly from hand-me-downs of my uncle’s, I believe. This is when I really started getting exposed to some cool stuff. Early Chicago. The Beatles and Beach Boys. America’s first album.
Somewhere along the line, somehow, I became enamored with Barry Manilow. (Here’s where you, the reader, go and double check the category list of this entry and see if it includes “Fiction”. Because who in their right mind would become enamored with Barry Manilow? you rightly wonder…). When I was in like fifth grade, our music teacher told us that if we typed up the lyrics (like actually typed them with a typewriter, no cheating by having a parent help) then we would sing those songs as a class, all together. Holy fuck! Done. I typed up the lyrics to every single fucking one of his songs and brought that shit into class with a sense of pride I’m not sure I’ve since exuded.
Then 1979 happened.The Wall came out. No second thought necessary. I was done with Barry Manilow and began a deep exploration of music that moved me, that was expansive and emotional, that sounded, well, not like Barry Manilow.
At this point I started to collect music, seriously. I bought cassette tapes to play on my Yorx boombox (itself another birthday present). I bought records. And this collection got stored in my bedroom. It was my collection, it wasn’t to be accessed by anyone else. (Yes, I was shitty at sharing my toys.) I wish I could remember my first purchase. I think it was the Star Wars soundtrack, but I truly can’t recall.
When I was 16 and a high school sophomore we moved from Jefferson, IA, (population 4,000) to Denver. Despite that being hard in many ways, it was a boon for my music-loving self. I had access to record stores and stereo shops, the likes of which I couldn’t previously fathom.
And concert venues. My very first concert was at Red Rocks. I’ve seen James Brown, The Grateful Dead, Prince, David Bowie, Steely Dan, Warren Zevon, Nirvana, B.B. King, Sinead O’Connor, and Crosby, Stills and Nash. And those are just some of the shows of performers no longer with us.
Before we moved I began to educate myself on high end audio and stereo systems. I was subscribing to Stereo Review magazine, which was very enlightening. The other important development is that I was now working and had some disposable income. So I bought my first stereo component. It was Technics SA-225 receiver. Shortly thereafter came a Technics SL-5 linear tracking turntable. And a pair of Infinity speakers. Eventually, I added a CD player to my system, and that paved the way for a collection of compact discs that grew in time to over 1,000.
So even though the sound quality of that Fisher-Price player was tinny, squeaky, and pathetic, I began to appreciate good sound quality and I’d come to do what I could to pursue it. I would set up my system to take full advantage of things like room acoustics. In short, I started to nerd out, even more than I already was.
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