______ _ _ ______ _____ ______ /\___/\ / __ \ | `. | | / __ \ | __ \ / __ \ /\___/\ ) ( | |__| | | `. | | |__| | | | \ | | |__| | ) ( =\ /= | __ | | |`. | | __ | | | | | | __ | =\ /= ) ( | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ) ( / \ www.|_| |_| | | | | |_| |_| | | | | |_| |_|.net / \ ) ( ______ | | | | ______ | |__/ | ______ ) ( / \ |______| |_| |_| |______| |_____/ |______| / \ \ / e z i n e \ / \__ __/ __________________________________________________________ \__ __/ )) (( // "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. ___________________________________________________________________ /|/| ` ( @ @) anada505 has been brought to you by Gloomchen. ) ^ / ||| (c) 2002 Anada E'zine www.anada.net * Anada is cat-friendly. / )|||____________________________________________________________________ (__________________________________________________________________________)