I had an obsession with music at a very young age.
Some of my earliest memories are of standing on a chair in front of my moms old record player.... which was basically an enormous piece of furniture with a lid that opened revealing a turn table... and playing record after record.
She had an amazing record collection with everything from George Jones and Slim Whitman to the Platters and Temptations to Stevie Wonder and James Brown to Bill Evans and Miles Davis....
I remember listening to some of these songs and feeling very emotional.... I had no idea what they were singing about I don't think.... but my emotions were stirred up by the melodies and the rhythms
There was one record that I think was called Funky Favorites ... it had songs like Purple People Eater, My Dingaling, Monster Mash, Charlie Brown, Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, Beep Beep, Hello Mudduh Hello Faddah etc... but there was one song by Lee Dorsey called Ya Ya that I thought had this amazing groove and I would dance all over like crazy.... that song took over my soul and I would listen to it 50 times a day.
I wanted some drums so I could play that song .... I would get up on the kitchen counter and bang on the flour, sugar, and coffee canisters.
Eventually my older brother started taking drum lessons from a family friend down the street in I guess 1978 or 79.
My parents bought him an old Frankenstein set Slingerland Stewart hybrid with some old Zildjians .... I loved to beat on that thing.... but my brother hated me banging on it so he taught me a few beats ....
one he called the strip beat which was basically the jazz swing beat
one he called the rock beat which was basically Bap Bap Bap Boom Bap Boom ... kind of like Pretty Woman or whatever... and some other beats.
When it all really became mine was when I found a KISS record in my sisters collection.... Destroyer... I heard the intro to Do You Love Me?.... and I was hooked ... I needed to play that .... my journey had begun
A couple years later ... I guess around 1983 I discovered Run DMC and my mind was blown..... I needed those beats to come off my limbs.
by age 12 I had gotten into metal and everything else you can imagine and was gigging heavily .... as heavy as a 12 year old could gig I guess
so here I am today .... a big sloppy goulash mixture of country, Motown, funk, jazz, rock, metal & hip hop
sorry for the novel uncle L.
but it was nice to reminisce for a minute