Introduction and Background

It was back in 1964 and I was listening to 45's in my Father's warehouse when I heard The Beatles' song "She Loves You.."  My father, Mel Kaufman, was a vending machine operator and that included jukeboxes so he had a lot of popular 45's, which were two sided single song disks that turned at 45 RPMs (revolutions per minute).  The bigger LPs (Long Playing Albums) revolved at 33 RPM.  So much for ancient history.

It was at that moment, at the age of 8, that I became hooked on music.

Since my father loved music, it was not hard to convince him to get me an electric guitar (I believe it was dark green and I forget the make and model).  I took lessons from this cool looking tall blond guy who said he played with a guy named Robbie Krieger who was the lead guitarist for a band called The Doors.  His guitar was ivory white and it was a big electric hollow body.

For the next seven years or so I noodled around with guitar (I also remember playing pool stick guitar with my buddies (we had a pool table as well due to that vending machine company my father worked at).

My first piano lessons were with an arranger of pop music named Herbie, so I remember playing things like Georgy Girl and Alfie from sheet music. The furthest I got in terms of chops was George Gershwins's "Rhapsody in Blue." By that time, we had moved from the South Shore of Long Island to the North Shore of Long Island.

The piano that we had was a beautiful 1919 Sohmer from the original New York Academy of Music (now part of NYU on 14th Street).  My mother's uncle Sidney had a job at the Academy and for some reason was able to secure this amazing baby grand. It was originally a burlesque type piano and supposedly white and in bad shape when he gave it to us (my mom says that Sophie Tucker probably sang and the Sohmer accompanied her).  When I saw it, however, it was a deep brown and fully renovated so my father must have spent some bucks on it.  It had the softest tone of all the pianos I have ever played.

At thirteen (1969), I remember laying on the couch with my Koss Headphones at about 2 AM listening at a very loud volume to a new album by a band called Black Sabbath.  This music really touched my dark side, which is definitely a part of me, given my penchant for Horror Movies and scary stuff.  When the rain starts on the title cut "Black Sabbath" it can literally send shivers down your spine.  I recently heard on Sirius Radio, Ozzy's Boneyard, that the entire first Black Sabbath was recorded in twelve hours.

At fifteen, I started taking piano lessons and learned to play the blues. I forgot the name of my teacher (Jeff something or other) but he was much younger and cooler than Herbie and he was the first person to teach me how to improvise and I think I learned about modes around this time.  Also, around this time, I was listening to a lot of fusion music, which linked Rock with Jazz or Rock with Classical.  The bands were guys like David Sancious a very talented keyboard player/guitarist, the original Renaissance with Keith Relf (the founder of The Yardbirds), Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, et al.  At the same time, I was still listening to Cream, Led Zeppelin, Crosby, Stills & Nash,  Lou Reed, Todd Rundgren, Yes, Jethro Tull and other Rock favorites.  I actually liked Elton John up until his "Yellow Brick Road" album.  When he did "Philadelphia Freedom" he lost me...

I went to a lot of concerts during my high school years.  Those days, tickets were a lot cheaper and I think $6.50 bought 8th row to shows at The Nassau Coliseum. In those days, Bands made their money from LPs (I remember paying $2 at Korvettes for a copy of Led Zeppelin II) and the tours were to promote the LPs so they were not the big money makers I assume that they are today.

In 1974, I remember seeing Jethro Tull doing "Thick as a Brick."  I remember the backup band being pretty good -- their name was "Rush" and they did a 45 minute set before Tull got on the stage. I also remember Frank Zappa concerts being very interesting and a saw Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Traffic among many other shows.

A particularly memorable show was my senior year in High School when I saw Pink Floyd perform Dark Side of the Moon and their new album at the time -- "Wish You Were Here."

More to come in subsequent posts.

Eric
 

Rules for the Blog

Preliminary Rules for the Blog --

Most forms of music are welcomed.  However, please do not post anything about Country (except for Bluegrass which my wife turned me onto), Opera, Pop Music, Show Tunes, Cabaret Songs.  We really want to focus on Rock (the harder the better), Jazz (and not that smooth jazz stuff), Classical (except for Opera!) and Avant Garde forms of the preceding genres.

We are hoping to find out new bands, songs, concert gigs, rarities and other stuff.  We encourage you to post your opinions and recommendations (as long as you follow the last paragraph's music genres). Concert information is especially welcome as our links to interesting songs, websites, etc.

There will be more posts forthcoming.

The Tune-Meister