Unreliable Sources

Before Kent, I got music from unreliable sources. When I was in sixth grade a kid named William showed up to class with the first record album I ever felt a visceral covetousness for. It was the double album of "Jesus Christ, Superstar", the brown one that came out before the Broadway show or the movie. When Mrs. Rivers was out of the classroom probably having a cigarette or getting a little space, William laid one of the LP's onto the vinyl upholstered, educational-grade record player that sat near the door of the classroom. He dropped the needle onto the spot he liked best. Pontius Pilate screamed at a full tilt: "Don't let me stop, your great self destruction!" When it got to the screamingest part William, whose fingers rested nonchalantly on the volume control, would spin the knob up a touch to get a little extra mileage out of the system. The result was that my mind was entirely blown. As a mix engineer I've adopted this technique many times to positive effect.

That very first time I heard it, there in the classroom by the open door, with the sound echoing down the elementary school hall, at the instant the singer shredded his vocal chords, I had a wild sense of expansiveness overlaid by delicious terror. This sensation was brand new and I felt it as discomfort, fear. It must not have been so bad though, because I ran to the store and purchased the album for myself as soon as I could scrape together the dough.

"Jesus Christ, Superstar" constituted my entire on-purpose record collection for a year or so. I did have a few items in my library previously, but they were not obsessive objects of love. Somehow a Credence album landed there, I'm not sure why. My favorite song on that album was "Lookin' Out My Back Door". I listened to it about a hundred times before moving on to other activities that had to do with my bicycle. My Grandma heard I liked music and apparently bought the next album she saw, which was "The Very Best of the Cowsills" because it was an album. I don't recall any of those tunes, I'm not even sure I listened to it because the dorky cartoon representation of the band on the cover made my nose crinkle. Before all of that, when I was but a pup, I made my mom buy me a 45 of "Dizzy" by Tommy Roe at the supermarket because I was taken by the red label in the rack at the checkout line. I played the A side so many times that I actually became ill. Try it yourself, you'll get the same effect. That might have charted the depths of my musical obsession until William came rolling into class with his trophy. I liked everything about Superstar, the two-recordness of it, the ritual of playing the sides in a certain order, the fake leather texture of the classy cover. Even the music.

The next acquisition was a profound stoke of maximal dimensions. An unsophisticated guy named Dave who lived down the street decided to get out of the business of listening to records and divested himself of his entire collection. I bought all ten of his albums for a buck each. This gave me eleven albums in my collection. Kiss my former life goodbye, I was now a fledgling music fan.