Matthew J Searles

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a keyboard player.
To me, being a keyboard player was better than being president of the United States. Even before I wandered in to the Yamaha shop for an after-school job I knew I wanted to be a part of them. It was there that I knew I belonged. To me, it meant being a somebody in a neighbourhood that was full of nobodys.
They weren't like everybody else. They did whatever they wanted. They double-parked in front of the hydrant and no one ever gave them a ticket. In summer, when they played their Casios all night, nobody ever called the cops.
Tuddy ran the keyboard shop and the pizzeria and a few other places for his brother Paul, who was the boss over everyone in the neighbourhood. Paulie might have moved slow but it was only because he didn't have to move for anyone. And he had a rather heavy Yamaha DX27 that he lugged everywhere with him.
At first, my parents loved that I found a job across the street. My father, who was Irish, was sent to work testing circuit-boards for the early Moog synthesisers at the age of eleven, and he liked that I got myself a job. He always said that American kids were spoiled lazy (which actually seemed kind of irrelevant since we lived in Carshalton Beeches, Surrey). And my Mother was happy after she found out the keyboard players used the same type of Roland sound-canvas that she did. To my mother, it was the answer to her prayers.
I was the luckiest kid in the world. I could go anywhere. I could do anything. I could even play that catchy riff from the beginning of Aha's Take On Me. I knew everybody and everybody knew me. One day, some kids carried my mother's Korg M1 back from the store. You know why? It was outta respect.
But it wasn't long before my parents changed their minds. For them, keyboard playing was supposed to be a part-time job but, for me, it was full-time. People like my father could never understand but I was part of something. I belonged. I was treated like a grown up. Every day I was learning to score (well, that and playing by ear mainly).
My father was always pissed off. He was pissed that he made such lousy money. He was pissed that my brother dressed like Martin Kemp out of Spandau Ballet. But after a while, he was mostly pissed at hearing me play the riff from Just Can't Get Enough all the time. Every once in a while, I'd have to take a beating. But by then I didn't care. The way I saw it, every keyboard player takes a beating once in a while.