Early in our relationship, one that dates all the way back to junior high school, I knew my friend Brian to be a rock and roll guy. We actually went to see Metallica together in 1997 when his older brother ended up with a couple of extra tickets to the show. That is definitely one …
I recently watched a video of White Zombie playing at a kid’s house in Vincennes, Indiana from back in 1995. There was a contest held by MTV called MTV Invades Your Space where they would broadcast from the winner’s house for a day, highlighted by the White Zombie performance. It looked like an absolute blast …
The earliest biopic about a musician I can remember seeing was La Bamba. Because I was so young, I didn’t even really grasp that it was a fictionalized story at first; I thought it was basically a documentary. It wasn’t until my dad explained things to me that I realized that movies could have actors …
As I looked at the song lineup for the only LeRoy Huston album I’ve ever had a chance to work on, one title stood out, a song called “Cool Out.” In that moment I thought of a completely different artist, Ice Cube. I kept thinking of a background vocal in one of his songs where …
In my youth, our local mall was pretty much where everybody I knew would go to buy their music. One of our parents would usually drop us off, or, if they were all working and we were on our own, we’d make the trek on foot. On one occasion when we hoofed it, we thought …
When I started my job almost 15 years ago now, I really didn’t understand the scope of the material I’d be working on or all of the skills needed to be the most effective in my position. My first day on the job informed me of the skills part as I sat in my boss’s …
I hate it when I have a small part of a melody in my head without lyrics, but I don’t know the artist or the title of the song. We used to have a guy at work who was really good at figuring that kind of stuff out. All you had to do was sing …
Earlier this year, I got a request to work on some material by the band Ween. I remember them being talked about here and there, mostly when I was in college and indie rock seemed to be on the rise, but I had never heard anything by them back then or since. Through this recent …
Every artist has their swings and misses. Heck, a majority of artists probably have more duds than hits when looking at their entire catalog, but I never let the worst works of an artist affect my outlook on their best. When I originally heard that Lou Reed and Metallica were working on an album together, …
Junior high was probably the first time I really played any kind of percussion instrument besides snare drum or bass drum in school. In most cases, you still wanted to play snare or bass drum, simply because there tended to be more to play during the song, but it was fun to learn the intricacies …