innerspaceboy

Anyone who knows me knows that I am obsessed with music and that I collect it compulsively. I do so to a degree that brings my mental stability into question. If I begin speaking about any particular artist, you’d better have a good strong cup of coffee with you, or perhaps an overnight bag… or some strychnine.

To inquire about my musical history would be sheer suicide. Any attempt for me to compile the transitions from one artist or genre to the next would surely be a slow decent into madness. And so that is precisely what I’ve set out to do.

The earliest song officially lodged in my memory is “Mr Roboto” by Styx. My mother used to play it on reel to reel tape when I was a child, and I would happily sing along.

My two babysitters growing up were the Beatles and the Monkees. Strangely, I was only played their respective early material. I wouldn’t hear “Sgt Pepper’s” or “The Porpoise Song” until the eighth grade. As far as I knew throughout my childhood, John Lennon never took drugs. I was also brought up listening to my father play Paul McCartney’s solo albums, and to this day I’ve remained an avid fan.

1980s musical education came from early MTV and from a dual cassette compilation purchased at the now bankrupt department store, Lechmere. “Rock of the 80s” included obvious staple tracks like “Video Killed the Radio Star,” but also dared to introduce me to the “shittier” side of 80’s rock. Specifically I’m referring to Romeo Void’s “Never Say Never” featuring the half-assed refrain, “I might like you better if we slept together.”

I have a vast collection of “guilty” albums. In 1993 I played the hell out of Ace of Base’s “The Sign”, (partially because I was too young for Abba.) I am also guilty of owning all the DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince albums… including all those BEFORE “Code Red.” (You know… with tracks like “I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson.”)

But I do have limits. I own two Miami bass records, namely DJ Magic Mike and DJ Fury, but I will never let them touch my turntable.

Three artists reigned supreme throughout my adolescence. They were “Weird Al” Yankovic, They Might Be Giants and Moxy Fruvous. Admittedly, it would be years before I’d hear the original versions of the songs Al was parodying, but I loved him nonetheless. I made it a point to see each of these artists live, repeatedly.

Soon I would discover the genius of Dr Demento, and then came WITR’s college radio program, “Friggin Here” which played all the demented comedy and novelty artists, introducing me to Napoleon XIV, the Foremen, The Great Luke Ski, and hundreds of others. I should point out by the way that all of these cheesecakes were very delicious.

Throughout middle and high school I could be found listening to the popular alternative artists of the time. I learned to love Trent Reznor, not only for the music but for the packaging design on every one of his albums. By this point I was well aware that I’d be working toward a career in design.

The Offspring were a favorite of mine for a few years. I remember being excited when I spotted the two albums that came before their big break into the mainstream, “Smash.” I found both “Ignition” and their self-titled cassette at the aforementioned Lechmere.

Walking home from school one day I found a tape cassette smashed open in the gutter. I took it home and nursed it back to health. That’s how I first encountered the devil’s music. It was a mix tape. And in the days before Google, (dial-up bulletin board systems offered no such search engine) it took months to painstakingly handwrite the lyrics and find out what I was listening to. The tape included such bands as Black Sabbath, Guns ‘n Roses, Bad Company, Suicidal Tendencies, AC/DC, and Ugly Kid Joe’s cover of Cats in the Cradle.

Age 15 introduced one of the most important artists I’ve ever heard: Underworld. A girlfriend handed me the album “Dubnobasswithmyheadman”, and I never was the same. The first thing that caught my attention was the incredible typographical artwork that made up the album packaging. Karl Hyde of Underworld also works for the Tomato art collective, and I would find great inspiration from both the music and from the work of Tomato. Little did I know how truly dedicated I would become to this band. I’d see them live in NYC years later, and to date my Underworld collection has grown to a whopping 178 albums (if you include singles and EPs), more than any other artist in my catalog. Over the next decade, I’d hunt down the rarest of their recordings, including their humble beginnings as the synth pop band Freur, and the 45 Karl produced with Rick Smith in high school, titled “Teenage Teenage” with “I Just Can’t Stand Cars” on the flipside.

When I was 17, I went to a party where one of my bandmates of the time (we called ourselves “Spork”) played me an earth-shattering tape. It wasn’t the Pigmaster or Ministry I was used to… it was Daniel Bell. I’ll never forget the mechanically looped vocal with all sorts of effects warping the lyric, “I’m losing control… I’m losing control.” I think it was the first time I’d heard a TR-909, and I was hooked. Soon after that I’d discover the Prodigy’s “Music for a Jilted Generation” and “The Experience.”

A few years later, during a brief stay in a local hospital, I found a strange CD on a rec room bookshelf. I say strange because my Bush album had been seized for containing contraband lyrics (as if Gavin Rosdale has ever sung about anything coherent), but somehow grindcore death metal gods Carcass got their “Heartwork” album into the hospital’s music collection. This CD would later inspire me to purchase Fear Factory’s Demanufacture, which equally kicked ass.

Out of the hospital I found myself in a Media Play. (Do all the stores that bring me musical influence have to go bankrupt?) Wandering through the CD department I noticed Spiritualized’s album, “Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space.” I had never heard of them. The packaging looked like a prescription bottle. It was simple, but smart. I took it home and fell madly in love. I had discovered “space rock.” This record sat nicely beside the later recordings of Beck and the Flaming Lips. Hi-fidelity bliss.

Speaking of high fidelity, this was about the time I walked into the Record Archive and spotted Stereolab’s “Aluminum Tunes: Switched On! Volume 3.” I’d been familiar with Stereolab because of my interest in Moog synthesizers, and from their more popular album, “Emperor Tomato Ketchup.” I couldn’t pass up Stereolab on vinyl. There’s a law. Probably.

Getting into more progressive sounds, I must mention my father’s CD shelf. It greatly influenced my listening habits while I shared an apartment with him, and it still influences me today. Dad turned me on to Jethro Tull, beginning with Thick as a Brick and then every other Tull album followed. Tull was one of the first artists I insisted on collecting in a vinyl format. Ian Anderson isn’t the same on CD. And neither is the gimmicky album packaging that was only possible with a record album. (Take the album “Stand Up”, for example, which has a pop-up book die cut of the band in the gatefold record sleeve, or “Thick as a Brick,” which unfolds and reads like a full newspaper.) After Tull came Gentle Giant’s “Octopus,” which blew my mind. I’d never heard time signatures like that before. Jeff Beck’s recordings from the 90s similarly opened me up to progressive sounds I’d never imagined.

Finally, Dad gave me Chris Duarte. Chris is a Texas blues guitar god who would play Manhattan Square Park each summer for free. We always made sure to see his shows together, and had every one of his albums autographed. Now that my Dad has passed, those are memories I’ll hold onto forever.

Dad also helped me set up my first turntable. He gave me his vinyl collection, and I continued to expand it by visiting thrift stores every chance I could. Albums like Graham Nash’s “Songs for Beginners” and Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind” established a strong foundation of folk music that would soon grow to include Donovan, Bob Dylan and many more.

As the summers turned to autumn, I needed something new, something ethereal to steady my racing thoughts and foster a more meditative state of mind. I don’t recall just when it happened, but when I found the ambient work of Brian Eno, my life was forever changed.

Brian Eno – Ambient 1: Music for Airports was the first ambient recording I ever heard. It opened my eyes to a whole new world of music. I became passionately obsessed with the genre, and researched it for years, building my own personal library. It led me to Harold Budd, to Mannheim Steamroller’s “Fresh Aire”series, and later, to Robert Fripp’s experimentations with Frippertronics. To date, I own 30 Robert Fripp albums and 40 by Brian Eno. I even went as far as to design a visual map of all the artists Eno has produced and all the recordings he’s self-produced, perhaps in an effort to track my own progress.

All this exploration of synthesizers led me to read more about Bob Moog, and I began to collect Moog synthesizer records. I was happy to discover a modern Moog band, the Moog Cookbook at a local music store called the CD Exchange, (thankfully NOT in bankruptcy.) The band covers classic and modern rock tracks entirely using Moog synthesizers, which makes for an entertaining record. My historical research also led me to acquire Walter/Wendy Carlos’ Switched on Bach, as well as various recordings by Dick Hyman and, of course, the legendary Kraftwerk.

Ambient music did not stop in the 70s, thank God. Modern Ambient electronic, slowcore and post rock bands made for wonderful winter music – there was Air, Boards of Canada, Explosions in the Sky, Labradford (which directly segues to Stars of the Lid), Mojave 3, Mogwai, Mum and Mus… all of whom I could listen to with Low’s discography sitting in arms’ reach.

Ah, LOW - a band that succeeds by playing as slow as possible! The incredible tension that they create even in their softest and most peaceful songs has kept their CDs in my player for months at a time.

Art school introduced more indie artists into my collection, including Elliot Smith, Andrew Bird, Grandaddy, Kings of Convenience, Neutral Milk Hotel, Azure Ray, and countless others. I also grew very fond of Mike Doughty’s solo work. I had loved Soul Coughing back in the 90s, as well as his Moonlight Meditations poetry rants. After the group disbanded it was quite a relief to see Mike pick back up where he’d left off. “Smofe & Smang” is still my favorite of his recordings.

In 2002, Lemon Jelly released “Lost Horizons,” an album I discovered via the Web. Fred Deakin was not only a musician, but was responsible for designing the fantastic packaging for all their albums. He is part of the Airside design team. It was like Underworld all over again… but with a “happier” vibe. The true gems of Lemon Jelly aren’t to be found in their commercial releases, though “Lost Horizons” is gold from start to finish. Still, their sample-heavy bootlegs and the sets they’ve djed for the Breezeblock on BBC Radio One are even more bizarre and entertaining. 65 albums later (including the radio broadcasts), I’m still a huge fan.

2003 reawakened my love of Daft Punk with the release of the animated house musical, “Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem.” I intended to play the “Discovery” album until it burned out my CD player. I believe I've tracked down copies of all their work thus far, 86 discs in all.

2ManyDjs, aka Soulwax have been the latest incarnation of my obsession with dance music. They opened me up to the world of mashups. All it took was hearing Skee Lo’s “I Wish” mashed up with Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.” Following suit with my OCD, I acquired the entire catalog of Radio Soulwax and the “Hang All DJs” series - 63 albums worth of funky beats and ridiculous bastard pop anthems.

I think it was around that time that I came upon Tom Waits' Raindogs LP. I loved his Howlin' Wolf style vocals and his circus carnival quality like that of Captain Beefheart. Slowly but surely I've acquired 39 albums of Wait's massive discography.

Sometime around 2004, I received Parliament Funkadelic’s “20th Century Masters” as a gift. Another groundbreaking musical realization; I had found the Funk. I went on a crusade to acquire all things funky. I began with the other 32 Parliament albums, along with 21 of George Clinton's solo efforts. I’m still missing several on vinyl, so for any of you trying to think of suitable Christmas gifts…

The Funk continued to grow into a lifestyle. I purchased every funky LP I could get my hands on. I learned to love BT Express, the Meters, James Brown (the godfather, himself), Fred Wesley and the JB’s, the Ohio Players, the Isley Brothers, Curtis Mayfield, Herbie Hancock, and Sly and the Family Stone. And I was surprised to learn that Chris Duarte’s “Just Kissed My Baby” was originally a funk tune by the Meters.

I stumbled upon massive archives of funk music online; collections such as the DJ Prestige’s 20+ album collection titled, “Flea Market Funk,” the “Street Jams” CDs, and the incredible 100 volume “Hit the Breaks” series.

The last LP I purchased was Gil Scot-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” pressed on 180 gram virgin vinyl. Next I’ve got my eye on the Meters’ UK import, “Second Hand Strut.” Very funky.

To date, I own albums by 1270 artists, and have 5,542 albums, so I sincerely apologize for the MANY I’ve left out of this brief history. In their own way each has greatly influenced my listening and my life. So there you have it - from birth to the present, these have been the greatest stages of my musical evolution. I don’t know what will come next, but I do know that I’ll love every minute of it.

Keep the Funk,

Jamie