GranolaBox

Now that Facebook has hooked me up with a lot of my high school friends I’m dusting off a lot of synapses. It’s always good to reconnect synapses, especially when they’re musical memories. Each time I see old friends, I hear the music they planted in my brain forever.

Thanks Everyone! I’m just going to to start with my friends from high school first, in no specific order.

Rick Whipps
Rick is a couple years younger than me I think, but had much older musical taste. He also had no tolerance for shit music as a teenager. Anyway, to be a smartass, he’d play really crappy music on the jukebox before he’d leave Dagwood’s Pizza. One time he played Riders on the Storm. It was the first time I’d heard the Doors. At first I thought it was some easy listening thing Rick put on as a joke. Then I realized it was the lizard king I was listening to.

Rich Merritt
I thought Rich was the shit for much of junior high because he was as into Kiss as I was. He even blew fire like Gene Simmons. But then he got all into bluesy stuff, like the J. Geils Band, which I didn’t come to understand for a long time because I didn’t know they did cool stuff before they sold out.

Matt Russell
Matt is a badass guitar player. I don’t think Matt introduced me to any bands per se, but I remember him playing a Van Halen solo in the band room with his wrist in a cast.

Sheila Haig
I can’t listen to Queen or Adam Ant without thinking of Sheila. There was a time when we were both complete Queen freaks. Sheila had (and probably still has) impeccable taste in music, except for the Bay City Rollers. Sorry Sheil…. never got it.

Sue Olsen
On our way back from a Quiz show competition in Plattsburgh, Sue put a tape of Pachelbel’s Canon in D and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in my boom box. I’d never heard either piece before, and it just sounded so perfect on that day and that time. I wasn’t wild about classical music before then.

Matt Patnode
Matt is the sole reason for any jazz literacy I might have. I listen to Matt’s band all the time now. I’ll never forget him bringing the house down with an amazing solo at the Plattsburgh Jazz Festival.

Jeff Weston
Jeff got me into reasonably serious metal - Judas Priest specifically. Jeff and I listened to a lot of cool stuff together, I just don’t remember much of it.

I guess this is a huge testament to the amount of time music takes rattling around in my brain. Music… and memories of growing up in Saranac Lake.

Filed under: Music, Yesterdaze on June 23rd, 2009