24
Jul 14
Weekly Worthy List #18: That really left an impression on me!!!
Part 1
Ever start humming a song you haven’t heard in 20 years? What about cracking a joke from a movie you only saw once but it totally reshaped your sense of humor? Ok…have you ever had a dish that tasted so good, one that you’ve never had again, that you can pull up the taste of that in your imagination right now? Almost taste it? Yes, yes, yes, the mind is so powerful and so largely untapped! In this week’s Worthy List I will take a look at points in my life that really left big impressions on me as a musician and as a person. I think I will, for the sake of forsaking hemlock, stick to the happy impressions!!! I encourage you to make your own list in your mind, on screen, on paper, or wherever. And don’t forget to make new memories and impressions, they are gifts to yourself!!!
Impressions…
- Seeing Grease at the theaters. Ok, I wasn’t totally excited when Stacy Upton asked me to go to the movies when I was 7 or 8…and to go see a John Travolta and Olivia movie? Couldn’t I just stay home, draw volcanoes, and listen to KISS and Peter Frampton on my giant Realistic headphones??? Well, our moms took us and I LOVED it!!!! I hated to admit it, but when it was over…I wanted to sing and get a leather jacket!!! Well, to this day I know the lyrics and melodies to all of the songs and I believe that Sandy and Danny are still happy and living by the beach where they first met. Stranded at the drive-in…
*Side note: I saw this movie without “full audio” from the hood of a car at my fathers shop one hot summer night in 1978 or 79…his shop was about 100 yards from a drive-in movie theater!!!!
- Seeing Star Wars at the drive-in theater. Yes, it was 1977, I was 6, and I may have already had Star Wars bed sheets and a C3PO model that I built at the kitchen table. This movie made you WANT to be a good guy!!! Of course, I will admit, I always related to Han more than I did to Luke…but I was obsessed with the goodness that supposedly existed in Darth…brilliant to make us wait to see it for 5 years….brilliant. This movie just floored every kid my age, we all had the shirts, the trading cards, the pajamas. Yes, I’d say it left an impression!!!
- Seeing The Grateful Dead in concert. It was May 9, 1987, if memory serves me correct. My friend Eric and I drove down Highway 1 to Monterey then on the little country road that takes you Southeast to Laguna Seca Raceway. When we got there we walked through a dirt parking lot filled with pot smoke, incense, and the smell of various essential oils. Everyone was wearing gypsy clothes and tie dyes, and Bill Graham was driving around on a 3 wheel motorcycle…good times. We wandered around, I bought a cool tie dye and we made it to the stage just as the Dead were getting ready to come out…it was great. They opened with Sugar Magnolia. I took the pocket t-shirt I was wearing off…replaced it with my tie-dye…I was hooked; this great band in these beautiful California Coastal foothills…ummmmm…IMPRESSION!!! My guitar playing forever changed that day.
- My buddy Eric making me a tape that had Alive She Cried on one side and Neil Young’s Neil Young on the other. Oh man…I wore this tape out in NO time!!!! First of all I love every song on both sides, second of all they are polar opposite in vibe…and I love me some balance!!! So many times I recited The graveyard poem at the end of the jam session in Light My Fire. It is just a haunting and lyrical little ditty…Jim genius. On the other side we have lovely and sentimental early Neil stuff…The Loner, Here we are in the years, and Old Laughing Lady to name a few…beautiful stuff that will always have a place in my mental shuffle. We used to listen to this tape while driving up the coast to Greyhound Rock or Half Moon Bay…just being kids and having fun. We would get really quiet and pay close attention to Last trip to Tulsa….strange song!
- Meeting Ian and Daniel (1986). Ian Tully and Daniel Lavoisier were both street musicians in Santa Cruz when I began to busk a bit. Ian was a really accomplished acoustic player who could ad lib Tony Rice meets Jerry Garcia type jazzy-bluegrass-flat picking lines…and a really interesting trouble character. Daniel was a gypsy flute player who had a cool scratchy voice and could make the whole Pacific Garden (outdoor) Mall echo with the sounds of a spring day flute, another interesting and troubled character. I learned a lot from these guys about playing off of other musicians, vocal harmony, and vocal and instrumental texturing. I spent a lot of time with them for a year or two and learned a way of life that…well…I probably want to steer clear of for the REST of my life. I still remember the time though, it was a learning experience…it became obvious during that time that even my cool heroes were human.
Seems like I could stretch this out into a couple of installments, and if I know myself correctly, I will be kicking myself for leaving this or that out of my lists…this could, quite frankly, go on forever!!! Make some lists of your own, and for pete’s sake…make a good impression on yourself!!! Like…now!!!
When he’s not enjoying fishing, road testing cables, or fielding musical or instrument cable questions over the phone/e-mail, Michael handles operations and purchasing and is simply loving life.
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