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So
why do I do this wretched music thing? Well, it started a long
time ago. I grew up sitting by myself in smoky bars listening
to my dad play upright bass in bluegrass bands. I also spent
a good deal of time in the car with my mom; she'd be talking
to me and I'd be listening to the Bee Gees, Leo Sayer, and
Roberta Flack on the radio. (I even named my dog Mandy after
the Barry Manilow song.) So I had these two wildly different
musical influences going on, and then when I was eight or so,
and bored, I started listening to certain records over and
over, like Van Morrison's Astral Weeks (my parents'
blind date record) and Billy Joel's The Stranger. When Thriller came
out, I taught myself the moonwalk on the fireplace tiles and
decided I was going to become a rock star.
So, because of this, there are now two videotapes lying around
which no one is allowed to see: one is of me doing the moonwalk
to "Billy Jean," the other is of me singing "Tomorrow" from
Annie. But this is where it all started. My dad taught me a few
chords on his old nylon string guitar, and then when I was ten
I started having vivid dreams that I was wearing Ray Bans and
playing the electric guitar riff from Dire Straits' "Money
For Nothing." So I got a used Ibanez Roadstar and took some
lessons with a very cool guy named Steve, who was the first person
to ever tell me that being an adult was fun, and that paying
bills wasn't such a big deal.
This is probably more than you wanted to know. But for the sake
of continuity, here's the rest. At 12, I discovered the Everly
Brothers and got a big kick out of figuring out all the harmonies.
At 13, I moved on to Simon & Garfunkel. By this time Doris
(who I met at 8) and I were both obsessed with harmony, and just
like our press bio says, we would actually sit around in her
garage after her parents were asleep and I'd play that old acoustic
and we'd sing Simon & Garfunkel, the Mamas & the Papas,
and anything else we could harmonize to.
The first song I ever wrote was called "Of
Mice and Men".
I was 14; it was for my 9th grade English project on the John
Steinbeck novel. Doris & I started going to the Nat'l
Guitar Workshop in
New Milford, CT, and taking lots of classes in blues, jazz, slide,
fingerpicking, and classical guitar, plus tons of theory. Then,
we found a phenomenal player back home named Jim Kelly, who for
the next four years trained us to be classical guitarists. We
both briefly considered conservatory, but for my part, I was
more interested in writing classes and free time than I was in
8-hour practice slots in a four-by-four cubicle, and you can
see Doris' bio for her reasons. So I went to Sarah Lawrence,
where I had enough bad relationships to give me writing material
through the year 2067. During my freshman year I wrote a maudlin
song called "The End" which contained far too many
metaphors and was about 7 minutes long. Dor & I performed
a bunch while we were at college, and met Nate
Borofsky and Julia
Joseph there,
two of the best musicians I know. I listened to The Story, Joni
Mitchell, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Ani DiFranco a lot, and
later, Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Joan Armatrading, and, uh,
Ace of Base. I started writing for real during my junior year,
which I spent in Florence, Italy, the same year I learned about
really good coffee.
After college, I still felt the same way about music, and Dor & I
decided to make a go at it. Well, and I realize I've gotten to
this point without saying much about that-about how I actually
feel about music itself. Maybe this'll tell you something: Last
year I was on a train, heading south through Spain, and I was
listening to Richard Shindell. The countryside passing by was
among the most beautiful I've seen--grazing cows, dilapidated
castles, little farmhouses and blue blue skies. I was overcome
with this peaceful feeling, and looking out at the Spanish cows
I knew it was because, for some reason, without ever having asked
for it, I was able to hear every little emotional nuance, every
instrumental flourish in the song I was listening to. And I guess
when I perform, without really knowing how, and again, without
ever having asked for it, I'm capable of communicating every
little nuance of myself--sometimes when, as a friend of mine
says, it's on.
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