Lost And Found

You won't find me painting on this album often, possibly never again. Genesis' "Selling England By The Pound" is perhaps the most important record in my musical history. Here's why.

Back in school, I used to go to independent used record stores in Santa Monica quite frequently. I'd spend hours. I got lost flipping through the bins looking for new music to throw on the stores' players. I didn't mind the sweaty headphones.

Record Surplus on Pico was one of the best because it was huge and well laid out. They had to create a limit to the number of records you could take to the players probably because of me. I'd take stacks of 20 or so that I'd never heard of before and skip through a few tracks. Hours, man. Hours.

I loved Peter Gabriel's solo work in the '80s. "Big Time" and "Sledgehammer" had such great videos on MTV, ahh those were the days. So I always looked in the G's. Genesis was right after Peter and one time a copy of "Selling England By The Pound" was in Peter's section. I got confused because he was on it. See, I didn't even know he'd been in that band before.

The album was nothing short of a revelation (sorry for the biblical pun) and I told my friend Michael about it. He and I got into "classic rock" music at the same time and branched off in the same direction towards Pink Floyd and prog rock. He flipped over the album and took his adventure incredibly deep into the bowels of prog rock, finding groups like Can, The Nice, and King Crimson. I found Tangerine Dream which eventually led me into electronica. Michael also took off towards psychedelia, getting lost finding greats like Jefferson Airplane. Their "After Bathing At Baxter's" is another album vital to my musical aesthetic. I only hope Michael can find his way again.

So besides The Beatles' "Revolver", this album is pretty much it. And I still love listening to it. In my music, of Genesis' albums with Gabriel, I have it, "Foxtrot" and "Live" on CD as well as vinyl. I just entered a bunch of my vinyl to my online collection at Rate Your Music, which was why it occurred to me to paint this piece. I'd kept this beat up copy separate since I was in high school because it was the next album I was going to paint on back then. It's gotten lost and found along with me.

I'm glad I got around to it today now that I'm lucky enough to get lost in creating to honor that which I got lost in devouring.

Peace.

15 Musical Landmarks In My Life

Rockzone Records in Chandler has six pieces now: Lou Reed, Jim Morrison, Michael Stipe, Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, and KISS. I've got pics in my online gallery. Jerry and Otis are for Primitive Kool. I realized I haven't really talked about what music has been important to me over the years. Here, then, are some of the bands and musicians that were pivotal in shaping my musical taste and have become part of my musical culture:


The Beatles - my dad introduced me to Revolver, on vinyl of course
Genesis w/ Peter Gabriel - lead me into prog rock, thank you MTV and "Big Time"
Pink Floyd - prog rock/psychedelia crossover
Jefferson Airplane - full-blown psychedelia
Jimi Hendrix - psychedelia/blues rock connection
The Doors - added in more keyboards and hammond organ
Led Zeppelin - blues rock/heavy metal transition
Black Sabbath w/ Ozzy - "Paranoid" was my first heavy metal CD
Nirvana - grunge diversion, I was a teen in the 90s
NIN - moving into industrial, helped with teen angst too
Autechre - headlong from industrial into electronica, got a little intellectual around then
Acetone - hometown band that combined grunge, heavy metal, and interesting vocals
Lou Donaldson - got a little funky on the horn as electronica lead me into sampling
Stereophonics - a move to Phoenix and it became more about the vocals in front of the rock
Blind Melon - and passionate, pure, raw beauty

This is by *no* means near complete, but it does give a bit of an outline of my journey, musical landmarks if you will. While in college, I spent a LOT of time in used record stores listening to anything I hadn't heard before, so my interests got very diverse, and quite weird at times. Maybe someday I'll actually catalog my CDs and post a list or something. For now, here's mister Otis Redding:

Tell me about your musical journey!

Blues Roots

John Lee Hooker is among the blues legends that influenced most of the musicians that I listen to regularly, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The White Stripes, The Black Crowes, and the Rolling Stones to name a few. So this is my painting from yesterday. Whad'ya think?

I also wanted to share some more important influences on me. Since I'm already talking music, let's talk music. It is my main passion other than my wife, so I have a lot to say about it. To start, though, I wanted to list the albums that had the biggest initial impact on my outlook towards music. In no real order:

"Revolver" by The Beatles

"After Bathing At Baxter's" by Jefferson Airplane

"Foxtrot" by Genesis

These albums formed the beginnings, the roots of my deep interest in music. My passion can be traced back to these albums and their creators. This isn't to say that all that I listen to relates to these in particular, but they are why I love music as much as I do. In future posts I will explore where my musical interests have meandered, but for now this is a start. If you haven't yet, you can see my painting of Peter Gabriel from his early solo career after leaving Genesis if you:

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