Thanks for the Music...

 An old blog I wrote a few years ago for Myspace.  Giving thanks to those who have helped my on my way....

I was fortunate to grow up in a musically diverse family - everyone plays at least one instrument if not several. My fondest memories of childhood are the Sunday night jam sessions we used to have after dinner. Every instrument you can imagine, we had it. Oh, and there was this amazing wash tub bass.. ehemm.. But even with all of those glorious instruments in our house, I was usually stuck playing the tamborine, the maracas or the bongos - because according to my older siblings, I was too small to play anything else, DOH! I am still possessed by the drummer bug to this day and when nobody is looking - Keith Moon lives on through me!

I love all music - well, ok, most music. My mom was into opera and big band, my dad was into show tunes and country, LOL, my oldest sisters were into Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, The Eagles, James Taylor, Cat Stevens, the list goes on! When I couldn't sleep at night, my brother used to play Stairway to Heaven for me on his guitar or Heart or Jefferson Airplane. My other sister was into Styx, Rush, Cheap Trick, Black Sabbath and I remember many a night of joining her in her room to play War Pigs on our guitars....

And me, I was a total metal head once all the other influences left the house! Ahh, the good ole days! But I am just as happy playing my beloved Jude Cole and my Eagles as I am playing Megadeth and The Foo Fighters. I love the looks I get driving to work in my business suit while I am banging my head to Anthrax on the radio, LOL!

I am eternally grateful to my parents for sparking my interest in music at an early age and making it part of our family time every week. I am also grateful to my older siblings who left behind their Beatle albums, ELO, The Turtles (ok, could have done without that one - all I did was stare at Flo in that fig leaf, eeek!)

I have fond memories of sneaking into my sister's room when she was out and borrowing her Rush, Supertramp and Styx albums - and her beautiful black Gibson SG.... Which, by the way, I broke the head off of (after tuning the strings so tight to play along with Rush) when I leaned it up against the wall and it tumbled to it's untimely death, sigh. Sorry for that, Dee. The guitar suffered another devastating blow when my sister came home to find her beloved black beauty decapitated (ok, the head was still being held on by the strings....) and then proceeded to throw it down the stairs at my head - she missed, thank the Lord! Ah, the memories.....

So today, I can switch gears from one genre to the next without blinking an eye. Which comes in handy when you have a husband whose idea of jam music is Glenn Campbell and The Bee Gees. Oh, it gets worse. When he wants to torture me he plays Donovan's "Mellow Yellow" (quite right slick - blechhhh) or Captain and Tenille - ARGHHHHHHHHHHH! Right now he is playing Harry Nilsen's "Coconut Song" - he is trying to piss me off because he knows I am blogging about him - oh well, I digress...

I must admit I have been going back to my roots and am finding a lot of the music I didn't care for when I was younger is now appealing to me. Shit, I've become my mother..... No, no, no - no WNUA light jazz music for me, and if I ever start listening to that crap, shoot me! I just don't care for a lot of the new music these days - although I am finding a lot of very talented bands on Myspace! And if it wasn't for Jude Cole and Ironworks producing amazing talent like Rocco Deluca, Honey Honey, Lifehouse and Billy Boy On Poison - I would be stuck paying $500 to go see awesome artists like The Eagles or The Police in concert. So thanks Jude - now I don't have to tap into my 401k to go see good music live....

And thanks again Mom and Dad, Sisters and Brother, and even Husband for enabling me to continue enjoying the many diversities of music......