Greetings! Welcome! And a hey now!
Or maybe you stumbled onto this link via a google search or something and are thinking, "who the hell is this asshole and why the hell does he think anyone would give a shit about his opinion on anything? Especially music! Hell, look at the shameless vanity displayed in the very first paragraph of his blog! It reads like a goddamn resume!" This is not true. I am constantly full of shame. And I am also currently jobless, so if you're a employer, please read my first paragraph as a resume.
Anyways, over the course of the last several months, my life has undergone some dramatic changes. And as I continue to wade through all these past events and try to piece together what it all means, I've rediscovered my love & passion for music again. Here's the brief synopsis on my life as it pertains to the influence of music and why it suddenly seems so relevant and fresh once more. As far back as I can remember, I've always felt extremely connected to music. I tried to sing along, karaoke-style to Michael Jackson and Prince records as an infant. As I got older, I had an inkling that I may have an ear for music, so I decided I wanted to learn an instrument. My first try was the violin in elementary school. All I recall about the violin was that the music teachers would never let me play with a bow. Instead I had to pluck along while others in my class advanced ahead of me with their damned bows. So I quit that pretty quickly. Next up, I signed up for trombone as I headed into middle school. It was me and one other kid in the band that played this particular instrument. I think I forgot my stupid mouth piece once or twice & hence because of this, I was immediately kicked out. The irony being that the other kid would also repeatedly forget his mouth piece on purpose in the hopes he'd be kicked out, but since he was the only trombone player in the band, they kept him around. Then I had a chorus class. I was stoked. Surely singing along to those Michael Jackson and Prince records was finally going to pay off, right?! Nope. Dr. Clarke took one listen to my voice and insisted I stay buried in the back of the class as part of the background vocals group.
That's a whole lot of rambling, I know. But the point is, my entire life, every "adult" I've ever met has tried to prevent me from following my natural instinct towards music. Or at least none of them helped nourish my desire to create my own music. Cut to several years later, my cousins Silvi & Marcello were not only pivotal in my movie tastes (these two forced me to sit through a double feature of 'A Nightmare On Elm Street' and 'Better Off Dead,' unaware of the little monster they had just created!) but they set me on the path of my ever-growing music tastes. First Silvi introduced me to tons and tons of "hair metal" bands. Sure, most of them were kinda cheesy, but I did kinda think Def Leppard rocked. And then Marcello was like, "no, no, no. You need to listen to Metallica!" And what'd ya know? This was a period in my young life where bullying and name calling had become a regular occurrence and hence I was suddenly very, very angry all the time. Metallica and bands like that seemed ideal. But it wasn't until around 91 when I first heard Nirvana that I decided, you know what? All those people that told me I shouldn't be playing instruments? Well, this band is telling me I CAN do that. And that's exactly what I did. I formed a band with my childhood best friend Steven DeJoseph. We went under many different names in those early days. Silly things like 'Mistrust' and 'Splatapillar' and 'DeeLusion,' but finally after watching A Clockwork Orange one afternoon, we settled on 'Pretty Polly.'
The reason I even bring any of this up is just to give a little perspective of how long it took me to finally accept how important music was to me and that I didn't care what anyone else that rejected me along the way thought of that. Once Pretty Polly was formed, I kept at it for a solid 10 years. All the way through my teens, and through community college and well into my adulthood and beyond. And while I'm proud of a lot of the experiences and times I've had with the musicians I shared either stage or rehearsal space with, I got to a point around 2004 where I was sick of it. I'd seen every aspect of the music industry. I had worked as an artist for 2 Tower Records locations on Long Island for over 7 years. I'd met and played with tons of bands, most of them unpleasant and arrogant that went on to find a lot of success. Even our band was constantly ridiculed and insulted because we weren't "hardcore" enough and sounded too much like "Nirvana." (Which I now think is actually a cool thing.) I'd worked with reps from indie labels, reps from major labels, played countless band showcases with multiple bands and it all left a very sour taste in my mouth. I was over it. It sucked. And I didn't enjoy making or even listening to music anymore. And so I retreating into something that made me happy. My love of cinema. In particular horror cinema. And I co-created Icons Of Fright for no other reason than I wanted to be happy again and talk about something that was pure, unfiltered and untainted from my childhood. My love of horror.
Ironically, it's now 10 years after that and I feel exactly the same way about the horror genre. It's no longer as fun for me or untouched or pure or unfiltered as it had been all those years back. If anything, as I've learned, every facet of your life at some point reverts right back to high school. Where you're constantly having to prove you're the "cool" kid and let everyone know all the cool people and things you're up to. Eh, I'm too old for that shit. And so inadvertently, I've slowly rediscovered my love of music again. And there's a few reasons for that.
For starters, my parents sold my childhood home in Long Island, NY earlier this year. I trekked back to NY in February of 2014 to help pack and sort through my old stuff. I boxed whatever I could and shipped it to myself in Los Angeles. Then in April, I lost my full time job. It's a bummer, but FEARnet (my dream job) was folded into Chiller as part of some merger and all FEARnet employees were let go. With a ton of free time on my hands, I started delving into those boxes and I found piles and piles of old photographs, demo cassettes, live VHS tapes and was reminded of some amazing people, experiences and times. Listening to rehearsals I hadn't heard in almost 20 years suddenly reminded me of the albums I was just discovering from Sub Pop at that time, or the upcoming shows I was excited to catch in town. Or the high school buddies I attempted to write songs with. That feeling of discovering something new and sharing it with someone in the hopes to turn them onto it too is unparalleled. It's magic.
Simultaneous to all this, I started discussing the possibilities of collaborating with a fellow filmmaker named Joe Maddrey on a new documentary project. I could not be more proud of 'The Psycho Legacy,' but it took 3 years of my life. I sacrificed relationships to finish it. I lost friendships along the way. I made a lot of rookie mistakes. And while I'm happy with what finally went out there into the world, it took a bit of my soul with it. I vowed not to do another doc again unless it was something I could truly get passionate and excited about. And I think Joe and I have concocted something amazing, based on our mutual love of music. (More on that soon! Promise!) I wanted to share with you guys the two books that have set me on this current path.
THE FREAK TABLE by Gavin Hignight
This one was written by my very talented co-worker from FEARnet Gavin Hignight. He gave it to me just as we were closing shop over there and I devoured it rather quickly during the early days on my unemployment. It's a semi-autobiographical novel loosely based on Gavin's high school experiences in the early 90's and what struck me immediately about it was how raw, pure and honest it is. It pulled a lot of mixed emotions out of me that I haven't felt since those high school years. I guess because I had such a difficult time as a fellow "freak" in those days, that now as an adult, I've tried my best to block out that whole period of time from my memory. But that also means I've been blocking out a lot of feelings and thoughts that initially inspired me to be creative. There's no more potent time for a person than when they're in high school and they fall in love with someone for the first time. Or when they discover a band that changes their whole outlook on everything. Or their friendships suddenly mutate and new "cliques" are formed. You look at death in a completely different light when you're experiencing it close to you at that stage in life. Reading this book opened the floodgates to how it felt to me to be a teenager again. And as hellish a time as that was for me, there were things I forgot about. Like the fact that I'd come home from school and write a new song just about every other day. I never even thought about it back then! Words and lyrics and music were practically second nature because I was relying strictly on instinct. On feelings. On pure emotion. The older we get, we can't help but over analyze every little thing. Hell, I used to draw all the time and dream of being a cartoonist one day! I'd forgotten all that. This book was the catalyst that led me to open up that old box with photographs in my closet that had been sitting there collecting dust for a few months. If you were friends with the skaters or goth kids or the other weirdos that sat at "the freak table," then I think you'll appreciate the memories and emotions this book evokes. Watch a video intro about the book from Gavin right HERE. Buy the book on Amazon right here.
LOVE IS A MIX TAPE: LIFE AND LOSS, ONE SONG AT A TIME by Rob Sheffield
This was actually the first of many recommendations I got from Joe and I absolutely loved it. Robert Sheffield is/was a contributing editor to Rolling Stone magazine and has written a handful of music oriented books, but this one in particular is a literal love letter to his relationship to the love of his life Renee, whom he lost very abruptly into their early marriage together. Each chapter opens with a scan of the front of a mix tape and the track listing is intended as both a time stamp and soundtrack to the memories he's about to divulge. Obviously, as I'm of a different age group, I don't recognize every single track listed, but I know enough of them. (Whole lot of Pavement!) And that's besides the point. What's beautiful about music and mixes in general is that you can totally relate and understand the vibe that a person is trying to express themselves with solely based on how they talk about the songs. The book is sad, it's bittersweet, it's heartbreaking at times, but also hilarious at other times. And it's a true celebration of love. And the love of music. You can buy it on Amazon right here.
I will explain a bit more how these books and some of the topics and stories I plan on writing about here in the future tie into the project Joe and I are cooking up, but that'll have to wait for later entries. If you're still reading and made it this far, I thank you! This is the outlet I needed and I hope it connects to someone, anyone. If even for a moment. 'Til the next one, I encourage you to come as you are...
