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// "I Am My Stereo" \\
(( 20/01/02 by Gloomchen anada505 ))
\) ________________________________________________________________ (/
"They don't even know what it is to be a fan. Y'know? To truly love
some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it
hurts."
--Sapphire, "Almost Famous"
Not a day would go by that I didn't hear some rockin' tune pouring
from my father's speakers. I learned from the time I could walk that you
are not allowed to touch the buttons and that the stereo was something to
RESPECT. The laundry room featured a giant fuzzy blacklight poster, as well
as an unholy-large poster of the cover of Dark Side of the Moon. KISS
albums were strategically placed to scare me away from places that should
have been left alone or for the adults only. I heard Van Halen's first
album and Queen's "Jazz" more times than I could remember, and all of this
formed in my brain as I entered school.
And in growing up, even with the addition of Barbies and Transformers
into my daily regime, it was still all about having some sort of music
around. I had a Raggedy Ann & Andy record player for my Strawberry
Shortcake albums and graduated to a Smurf AM walkman. I wasn't allowed to
own my own "jambox" until I was nine, and this was far too long in my eyes
after my parents separated; I don't even think my mom owned a radio, and it
was eating my alive. But once that magical Christmas day arrived and I had
my own personal source for tunes, I never looked back.
It started out pretty small, actually. I had three blank tapes, and
on them I recorded my favorite songs off of the radio. I got a Wang Chung
and Bon Jovi tape for my birthday, and I listened to my friend Nikkia's
Menudo tape with her. I was introduced to the Beastie Boys by the boys
across the street and Motley Crue by the neighbors downstairs. We moved
again, and I quickly taped Madonna and Cyndi Lauper and various other
favorites from my new neighbors. I began babysitting, and I used the money
mostly to buy more tapes. I got a nicer, much more useful dual-cassette
player at the age of 12, and nothing in the entire universe could have ever
remotely made me happier.
In junior high I met Jen, a rich girl who owned every tape a girl
could ever want. She loved the Monkees and the Beatles and otherwise had
taste quite similar to my own; we both liked New Kids and hair metal bands.
Shawn had moved in upstairs from us, and his collection of metal sparked my
interest far beyond Bon Jovi and Guns 'N' Roses, thus allowing me to become
a little more non-radio-friendly. I spread much of this to Jen, and we
became devotees of Headbanger's Ball. She got a CD player, I got a CD
player, and it was almost a rivalry for who would accumulate the most music.
Jen and I drifted apart, but I found many more musically inclined
friends in high school who also ate music as sustenance. I was introduced
to Anthrax, Carcass, Yngwie, and four hundred million other variations of
rock. In two months of first owning my CD player, I had 15 cds. Within a
year, I had over 100. Babysitting was now a necessary means to an end, as I
couldn't possibly NOT buy the latest CD of a band I saw shilled on the Ball.
I fed my addiction, still upholding my tradition of slipping in a CD and
sitting in an uncomfortable chair directly in front of the stereo, doing
nothing but listen to the album while reading lyrics or liner notes.
Some of my friends had scary music taste; Terri liked Mariah Carey,
Toni liked Bryan Adams, Nicki liked Natalie Cole. But that was okay,
because I just didn't talk music with them. I'd been to a KISS concert with
Jen, a Nelson concert with Terri, and later a Pantera/Skid Row concert with
Shawn and Jen. If someone didn't like what I liked, I just listened to it
alone. Finding people who had heard of some of the stuff I liked was like
finding a grand treasure on the day all of the bills are due. But whether
or not I had those types of friends, I always had friends in my stereo.
I babysat a family of kids who were similarly musically inclined, and
we opened each other to more than I think any of us even realized. From the
first day I met them, the boys were into AC/DC, and we got along fabulously.
Nowadays, most anyone in this town who listens to Dream Theater can be
traced back to me or the boys, as we all fell in love with them in late '92
and haven't looked back. To this day, running into one of them somewhere
sparks a "Hey, have you heard of..." conversation, and it's the greatest
feeling of long-distance kinship.
I sit here meditating upon my history of musical adoration as I
contemplate what has turned into a full-blown addiction. At last count, I
had well over 3,000 albums. The thought of losing any one of them creates a
horrendous empty feeling in my chest, even if it's an album I only grabbed
to laugh at. People who borrowed and never returned my music are forever
scorned in my mind. People who abused CDs were blasphemers. And if I ever
found out who stole 20 CDs out of my car, there is no telling the physical
pain they would endure. Woe is he who criticizes my musical choices, and
death to anyone who should take my sincerity with a grain of salt.
I have always maintained that there could be nothing worse than going
deaf. To this day, I think it would drive me completely mad, but not for
the obvious reasons. More than anything, I just know a song by The Jets
would get stuck in my head and I would forget how the next verse started,
and it would taunt me and taunt me until my brain forced me to tie cement
blocks to my feet and dive off a bridge. Being deaf would leave me trapped
with no new music and no way to rediscover the music I once loved. It would
all fade away.
And I wish more than anything on this earth that I could play an
instrument. I have an ear, but I've never known where to begin most of the
time. The only musically inclined person in my entire family lineage was
my great-grandfather who could play over 30 instruments but never learned to
read a note of music. He had an ear, too. When he discovered as a child
that I had his talents, he had no problem setting to work teaching me on his
organ. But he passed away when I was young, and my guidance was left to a
shitty piano teacher for a year, and it all fell apart and away. I've
always sung, but have never been able to do so in public (barring drunken
karaoke, of course). And that is where my musical expansion hits a dead
end.
I have wanted nothing more in my life than to be a musician; a "rock
star," if you will. Barring that crazy dream, I have only wanted to be
surrounded by neverending music. Nothing makes me happier than one of my
friends saying, "You should check out this band," and them sending a copy
on over. Nothing makes me feel more understood than someone recognizing my
love for music and respecting it by feeding it and letting it breed. And
most of all, nothing makes me feel more proud than to bestow new music upon
someone, letting them discover the depth of joy that I feel every time I
hear something new and exciting.
I don't think I would have understood or gotten over portions of my
life without musical guidance. There is nothing more friendly or familiar
than knowing that someone else out there knows how you feel and can express
it in such a way that stimulates your senses and pulls emotion from you with
a pair of forceps the size of the globe. And I don't think I could have the
ability to learn new depths of myself without someone forcing the
realization out of me via a simple song written about an experience.
Crazy feelings are much easier to cope with when you can stamp them into
words and a tune, stare at them and hear them, and learn from that song
where your next steps should fall. The answers to life are all out there
and carved in one of many forms of plastic.
___________________________________________________________________
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( @ @) anada505 has been brought to you by Gloomchen.
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