| Last updated: 28 October 1997 | |
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Note: This page is undergoing a major overhaul, and it may be a while before there's a lot here. Please be patient.
I was born in 1969, so I largely missed the 1970s as far as popular music went. I remember that a friend of mine tried to introduce me to Led Zeppelin around 1980 or so, but I wasn't much interested. My parents introduced me to a couple of Beatles albums (Meet The Beatles and Sgt. Pepper's), and to Cass Elliot, formerly of The Mamas and the Papas, but that was about it. I became mildly interested in music in junior high and high school, and spent my fair share of time watching videos on MTV. I bought LPs (yep, I'm one of the last to have bought stuff on vinyl), and even singles. My favorite groups at the time were The Go-Gos, Howard Jones, and Duran Duran, i.e., basically the popular artists of the day. In retrospect, part of the reason my tastes were uninteresting is that 1980s rock music in general was pretty weak, leaning far into the realm of pop and playing around too much with synthesizers and drum machines to produce a dance beat. Pretty mindless stuff, really. Early in college, I discovered Tommy Shaw on the radio, and that led me to get into his former band Styx. Now, Styx is not a huge step above Howard Jones, but they were a more traditional rock group with an ensemble band approach to their music rather than being essentially produced by a studio. With a little prodding from a friend, I also got into The Who, who are a genuinely great band, and things went on from there. I spent a lot of time and money in college exploring rock music, and found that I tended to be interested in the early-to-mid 1970s era, with an auxiliary interest in Celtic-flavored folk music. I listened to Jethro Tull, Roxy Music, King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, Yes, and the like. I also concluded that Pete Townshend is the greatest songwriter in rock history, an opinion which I hold to this day. I've been more interested in 1990s rock music than 80s music, and I enjoy groups such as Sonia Dada, The Freddy Jones Band, Shawn Colvin, and The Dave Matthews Band. My interest in folk music has continued to grow, as I enjoy Enya, Clannad, Dougie MacLean, Steeleye Span, and others along those lines. I also have some limited classical music interests, such as Beethoven and Aaron Copland. I'm starting to become interested in jazz music, but have not really spent much time exploring it so far. Maybe sometime soon...
Artists Included below are essays I've written about various artists I enjoy (or don't enjoy, sometimes). Rock
Live Performances I haven't seen a whole lot of concerts - this happen when you dislike stadium venues and helf of your favorite groups no longer exist - but below are some of the ones I have seen.
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