About The Author - redux

Music has been a crucial part of my identity since the summer of 1984.   My parents and I moved to Lausanne, Switzerland where losing myself in familiar music was my only tie to home.  Swiss radio stations were brainwashed by France's pop/synth culture.  I couldn't listen to that spineless Franco-fluff.  Dismal disco book-ended by DJ's that I wanted to reach through the radio waves and throttle.  Thankfully, my British school-mates tuned me into the punk movement that exploded in England some years earlier.  I got my first dose of the Sex Pistols - the most notorious and vilified band from that movement.  And I was hooked.  Soon followed bands like the Damned, The Clash, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Generation X, The Slits, The Adicts, The X-Ray Spex and many, many others.

I started high school the following year in San Antonio, Texas.  Talk about culture shock.  I went from a school with eight kids in the entire 8th grade to a freshman class with over 1,500.  Freshman lunches consisted of barricading myself in a vacant stairwell and comforting myself with music.  There, I heard whisperings of a band called Suicidal Tendencies.  One of their songs - I Saw Your Mommy - describes discovering with pubescent glee the mutilated body of a friend's mother.  What could be more perfect for a teenage basket-case?  I played my cassette until it too committed hara-kiri.  I made other discoveries, though trial and error were my main influences.  The Misfits, The Circle Jerks, Social Distortion, Love & Rockets, Bauhaus, Fearless Iranians From Hell and countless others.

With college came a new appreciation for slower, more psychedelic music.  Moshing and pot smoking don't mix well.  I'm not talking about bands like The Grateful Dead or Phish - favorites among my granola friends.  I still needed some "melt-your-face-off" elements in my music.  I'm referring to the likes of Jane's Addiction, Primus, The Sisters Of Mercy, Tripping Daisy, Nirvana, 311 and so forth.  These bands were played as a compromise since most of my collection was deemed "too scary" by the hippie majority.

Fast forward to today.  Life's priorities have taken center stage.  Job.  Mortgage.  Kids.  With that said, I have lost touch with my particular music scene with the exception of a chance find or two.  My goal with this blog is to uncover some new bands and some old ones.  I want you come with me on this sonic excursion.  Let's see what's out there.