EM KAY

It's been pretty simple so far, knock on wood...NJ born and raised, spent some time in New England and loved it, been back in NJ for a long time. Wife and 3 year old son. I really like to Golf, I wish I could play Tennis and I wish I knew how to Surf, most of all I like to hang with my family......A friend's sister made a tape for me in the summer of 1986, right before my freshman year of high school. One side had The Smith's "The Queen Is Dead" and the other had R.E.M.'s "Reckoning" (tape was made starting with the "right" side first and that is how I still listen to it now). I was 14 years old. Prior to that it was a lot of hip-hop (LL, RunDMC, PE, UTFO, B-Boys, Boogie Down Productions, Big Daddy Kane, EPMD, Ice T, Red Alert and Chuck Chillout master mixes on KISS FM NY) and Billy Idol, I still love hip hop and Billy Idol. Most important thing to happen to me short of getting my ass kicked by my stepfather was hearing those two records. Both events woke me up. Pretty much shaped the rest of my life, simply...how I think and feel. After that, quickly came the Violent Femmes first album and Mats "Tim". Without those records, I am really not sure where I would be.....In suburban NJ, especially where we grew up, town life was interesting in that you really had a choice. It was a very diverse situation, not really culturally but socially. It was sort of a stop and shop of ideas and personalities. You could be the guy driving down the main drag blaring DJ Rob Base and EZ Rock's hit "It Takes Two", run cross country, where very tight sweat pants with shoelaces around your head (all the rage at the time), buy black Chuck Taylors and pretend to be punk, throw up at the jock party, score wine coolers in newark, join the Key Club, or just do all of that at any given time. I did all of those, except the tight sweat pants thing and Key Club. Either way, it was a great way to grow just because of the exposure to very different things. Most important, the situation forced you to get closer to things that others didn't gravitate towards. I was really proud of my 7 Seconds albums and t-shirt, it was all mine and a handful of other really smart people. Trust me, I was not smart, just proud....It was always the music. Two friends of mine, cousins...took me to the Village with (not kidding) their mom and grandmother (she was way more punk than we were at the time, summer 1987??). Village was very different place in '87, NYC was very different...pre-Guiliani. We went to two different record stores, Venus Records and It's Only Rock and Roll. They were down the street from one another on I believe 4th Street on the West Side, somewhere near the 6th Ave basketball courts or "the Cage" as it is so acurately known (still there, legit NYC hoops if you ever get the chance). Shrines. Another life changing moment. Neither store still stands. Most mom and pop record stores are gone, Crazy Rythyms in Montclair, Mickey Music in Passaic and Belleville, Pier Platters of Hoboken (also sold tix to all Maxwell's shows), some place in Lyndhurst we used to go to (on Ridge Road), Red Rocker Records in Manahawkin, and that instrument/record store on Franklin Ave in Nutley, Giovine's. Sound Exchange in Wayne is fortunately still open, I was there the other day. We would ride our bikes to the store on release day, rip the record open, throw it on one of our parent's turntables, and out would come "Warehouse:Songs and Stories"..."These are the important years". Shaped us....I guess that's the 'about me' section. I love music and the people that make it. Did I miss the point of this?