« New Header? | Main | Lost Tape/Summer of Noise »
September 9, 2005
Michael Jackson-Bad!!!!!!!!!! (The New Plan; Dreams)
8th Grade, the year I became a "new person", the birth of my "new ideas", the year of the Punk vs. Preps. In the fall of 1999 I discovered something that changed my life, Punk and Ska music. What was this new music? WHAT, HORNS!? It's so fast! AWESOME! My first exposure to punk and ska was through amazing christian groups like Five Iron Frenzy, MXPX, The Insyderz, The Dingees, The Supertones and Ghoti Hook, all were on this christian compilation, Seltzer 2, my Mom had bought for me through her Sound and Spirit membership. As soon as I heard this music I realized something I had to do, PLAY THE GUITAR! Of course everyone would think I was awesome if I had a band, I thought. So, that christmas I received my first Squire Strat Pak ®. I don't know why I thought this, but for some reason I believed as soon as i picked it up I'd be ripping solos and riffs. This was not the case. The guitar strings hurt my fingers, it just didn't sound right. At first I thought, well it is probably because I have a small crappy amp.
After a few months of practice and learning 5 chords or so, I was ready to start my band. So, I got my friends together and we were going to be this amazing band. The first practice was divided like this:
First 15 Minutes: Help our drummer set up his drum set he had bought that day to be in the band.
Next 30 Minutes: Each of us goof around, showing off our skills and coming up with song ideas.
Next 30 Minutes: Discuss a name.
Next 30 Minutes: Go doorbell ditching.
Next 30 Minutes: We do it, we start with this amazing riff i made up which consists of playing the Low E String at the twelfth threat, down one note, down one more and then back over and over (With loads of Distortion of course).
Practice is over, our parents pick us up.
Through the next week I decided to be the songwriter of the band and record some riff ideas on tape. I found my Mom's General Electrics tape recorder (with speed control) and set it in front of the amp. That week I created what I thought to be genius. I had created the best, thickest sounding guitar riffs ever created. After I was finished I wrote "Michael Jackson-Bad!!!!!!!!" on side A. This I found as an 8th Grader to be extremely hilarious. Side B was labeled "Guitar Riffs...Demo Ideas"(not as hilarious).
On Monday I will post excerpts from this tape.
But, the reason I thought of all this today was because I was thinking about how the beginnings of hip hop are so awesome because of the amateur quality of the recordings and the attitudes of the dj's and mc's. This made me think of my own early recordings. Then I came up with a dream I hope comes true.
Dream: Find 100 Cassettes of various people playing guitar for the first time or first few months.
Will you help my dream come true? If you have any early recordings of you or someone you know or don't know playing an instrument, singing or your 5th grade band concerts, please send them to me and i'll post them and we can discuss them. Send them to coryweaver @ gmail.com or mail them to:
Cory Weaver
7585 Terrace Lane
Jenison, MI 49429
This will be the new plan for the blog. As you can see it's now called, "Recreational Bathing Environments: The Early Recordings Of Everyone". I will begin posting some recordings i've made and found on Monday. I hope everyone participates!
-Cory
Posted by cory at September 9, 2005 12:41 PM
Comments
I want to make an album comprised entirely of samples people send in. Like, beats they made, them playing any instrument, them talking, banging on things, whatever.
This sort of reminded me of that. It'd be fun to piece together what you get.
Posted by: Luke at September 9, 2005 7:59 PM
I LOVE YOU! Good job writing a good story.
Posted by: Karen Kirkpatrick at September 12, 2005 1:50 AM