Well, after almost a solid decade of emotional self-abuse every March 17, I've decided it's time for a bit of a shakeup. And there's no better way to illustrate said shakeup than the following tale of my musical genesis / awakening.
For me, my sonic "Big Bang" happened when I was all of seven-going-on-eight years of age. It came in the form of the first two record albums my brother and I ever owned, both gifts from our slightly older cousins. The first one was Sir Reg's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and its' companion was Who's Next. Talk about jumping straight into the ocean, completely innocent of even rudimentary swimming skills; there's really no other way to describe the wonderful shocks that constantly assaulted my brother and me as we absorbed both collections.
The 25 megaton groundburst went off the instant I heard "Won't Get Fooled Again," perhaps THE textbook showcase of the formiddable talents of a certain Keith John Moon from Wembley England.
Since Moonies' in-depth autobiorgraphy has been thorougly collated and published both on and off this Interwideweb-thingy, I'm free to keep the focus on the symbiosis between the two of us. As a truly galvanizing event, my discovery of the wonderful world of drums - as narrated by Keef 'imself - instantly put me on the torturous path I'm still following to this very day. To my tenderling-mind though, the gist of it all was very simple; Keith sounded like he was having one hell of a fabulous time at some grown-up soire`e, and I most definitely wanted to ditch the kids' table on the spot, and begin to hang out where the real action was.
As such, I quickly liberated a 5 gallon bucket from my Dad, and a pair of wooden mixing spoons from me Mom, and began to have at it with a vengence. And just as quickly as I started, I became deeply frustrated; nobody had told me about acquiring a basic skill-set first thing, let alone how to hone my basic technique once it developed. I was only 7 or 8, remember - my situation was rather like learning to read from the complete works of Shakespeare, instead of mastering basic phoenetics first, then building upon the foundation in proper sequence.
Fortunately enough, I did have a rock-solid backup plan in place with GBYBR; thus, whenever Moonies' madness and mayhem sailed higher over my head than I could reach {which happened frequently} , I would simply turn to my man Nigel Olsson to compensate, whilst still mastering the basics / developing technique, etc. In a nutshell, Keith and Nigel became the first two of the eventual four dudes I looked to as Drum Mentors. Years later, Nigel himself perfectly summed up the dichotomy: "Keith plays everything I don't play, and I play everything that he doesn't, simple as that."
For the next few years, my brother and I constantly added to our music library {with Elton and The 'OO remaining cornerstone anchors}; and I slowly began to grasp and really understand the fundementals of music creation from a drummers' perspective. And when I was gifted with a new 3/4-size Ludwig junior drumkit - ordered straight out of the Montgomery-Ward catalog, no less - for my ninth birthday, the die was well and truly cast. Just like that, my fundementals began to hyper-accumulate, and my nascent technique had finished germination and was beginning to bud.
However, my musical applecart came within a whisker of being permanently upended and obliterated the very next year, when Moonie died . Just like others recalling the JFK asassination, or 9/11, I vividly remember where I was and what I was doing when the news broke. Like millions of others, I saw the ABC newscast that broke the tragic information the evening of September 7, 1978. It was the first time I'd ever cried for somebody outside my nuclear family. Right there and then, I made a personal vow to somehow always keep Keiths' spirit, if not his entire musical legacy, alive in my heart. I'm proud to say that I've very conscientously done just that to date, so far. Long may I continue to do so.
As for the rest of the tale, my musical education continued right along; I made both my first school concert appearance, and my first-ever rock band public debut within weeks of each other. Keith was with me the whole time, and his loony influence rubbed off hard - like my favorite juvenille running gag of breaking into the "George of the Jungle" riff every time I got assigned to play the kettle drums!! Or breaking into the beginning of the "Hogan's Heroes March," whenever I was assigned to snare drum chores. By this time, Keith and Nigel had been joined by Mitch Mitchell and Ginger Baker as my Mentor / cornerstones, but I gleefully kept building my skills on top of their foundation, even as it ws just being finished by their arrivals; the process continues unabated to the present.
No, I don't see myself as being as good a drummer as all my Mentors are / were, but I will modestly claim the title of "seasoned journeyman" under their combined tutelage. Keith's zest for life in general, and "work" in particular has made him seem unapproachable most of the time, yes, but there have been more than a few instances where I've channelled him so meticulously, that icebergs travel up and down me spine. Hell, I've even frequently made my own bands just simply stop in astonishment over some crazed "MoonieMoments" I'm notorious for playing at odd offguard instances. It's all good, as they say. And so it goes.
Finally, permit a silly observation. The four drummers I look to as Mentors all can play a variation of "Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon" with each other, at least in my eyes. I'm talking things like Mitch auditioned {and failed} for The Who mere weeks before Keith turned up; Elton's original trio featuring Nigel and Dee opened up for Ginger Baker's Air Force in 1970; Ginger himself offered to fill Keith's throne after he passed in 1978, etc, etc, etc.
Pretty off-kilter yarn about surviving a massive sonic trauma at an early age, no? That's Our Dear Boy Moonie's Way, Fellow Babies - I obviously ain't been quite the same since, dig?
More shortly..........
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