{"id":21712,"date":"2014-06-19T08:31:43","date_gmt":"2014-06-19T12:31:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=21712"},"modified":"2014-06-19T09:40:21","modified_gmt":"2014-06-19T13:40:21","slug":"garageland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/garageland\/","title":{"rendered":"Garageland"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Combat

Combat Zone.<\/p><\/div>\n

I didn’t bother with local girls, as Graham Parker advised on Squeezing Out Sparks<\/em>, at least those who weren’t already dating the new guy on my baseball team who also happened to take my primary position, first base. I was exiled to left field, about as far away as first base already felt to me in sexual terms. This guy, occupying both my bag and my local crush\u2019s lips, was so kind and sweet I had to applaud him for both conquests.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t bother with them, they don\u2019t bother me,\u201d sang Parker of the local girls, but I desperately wanted to hear girls talk, as Dave Edmunds sang on another perfect record I picked up at that record store on Cottman Avenue. I did fine with adult women from all walks of life, easily harmonizing with female teachers; my Mom\u2019s network of fun, bitter divorcees; and the women at the baby clothes manufacturer, where I worked summers. When it came to girls my own age, however, I was tone deaf. There was a trio of smart girls in my class whom I related to through student government activities. Sometimes they took pity on me in science classes and served as my lab partner. These girls inevitably carried the load on the completion of the lab report. They must have taken turns helping a few of us scientifically dense boys. Perhaps I could have gotten closer to one of these Ivory Soap girls, but as they looked me in the eye and spoke to me in a straightforward, intelligent manner, I would get distracted by the hint of nipple peeking through another girl\u2019s shirt at the next lab counter.<\/p>\n

As I slowly made inroads into our school\u2019s music scene I found myself capable of having conversations with stoner girls and other malcontents of the fairer sex. Music was a bridge discussion topic to certain girls. They, too, had their favorite songs off Who and Beatles albums. They could talk about bands I didn\u2019t quite get, like Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull, without making that high-and-mighty \u201cuh, heh-heh\u201d sound that guys did. When girls loved a song they were more likely to express how the song made them feel, how the song related to something they were going through, rather than flex in the glow of the song\u2019s empowering majesty. \u201cThis song kicks ass!\u201d a boy was likely to shout over Zeppelin\u2019s \u201cRamble On,\u201d insinuating a transference of rock superpowers that empowered him to kick ass.<\/p>\n

Girls didn\u2019t lean on an artist\u2019s credentials, the way guys did when they felt compelled to point out that a certain musician was once lauded in a Rolling Stone<\/em> interview by Pete Townshend (eg, Peter Frampton, Joe Walsh) or was \u201cclassically trained.\u201d For instance, I might ask one of my stoner friends, \u201cWhat am I missing in Frank Zappa? I don\u2019t get him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The guys would fire back, \u201cOh, Zappa\u2019s classically trained!\u201d<\/p>\n

As if either of us listened to classical music.<\/p>\n

The rare girl who liked Zappa might, instead, get to the heart of the matter and remind me of the obvious: \u201cWell, Zappa\u2019s pretty funny!\u201d<\/p>\n

For the millions of teenage boys who didn\u2019t actually listen to classical music, the fact that upstart moronic cock-rockers like Eddie and Alex Van Halen were classically trained carried a load of weight. Talking music with girls was all right, provided I could steer them away from gushing over Jackson Browne.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Being a rebel, an outcast of sorts had its merits when it came to certain girls. Over the course of my first 11 years at this tiny school, I justifiably earned a reputation as a hot-headed, judgmental tight-ass, not only for throwing hissy fits, elbows, and haymakers at a moment\u2019s notice, but for taking unpopular stances in my roles as newspaper editor and member of student government. Although I was a straight-edge, dedicated student who actually loved school, the fringe kids respected my role as a troublemaker within the \u201cestablishment.\u201d Whereas they got under a teacher\u2019s skin by nodding off in class and repeatedly failing to turn in homework, I disrupted classes by firing off rhetorical questions and contrarian comments that just barely managed to stay relevant to the class discussion. The kids bored by standard lesson plans sometimes congratulated me in the hallway for sticking it to the Man.<\/p>\n

\"NOT

NOT the actual Devil Stallion.<\/p><\/div>\n

One malcontent, Lisa, a bright, bawdy, heavyset, wild-haired kid who idolized Janis Joplin and made little attempt at demonstrating her intelligence in a formal classroom setting, warmed up to me during study halls. She liked to get me wound up over political topics, which I was learning was another surprisingly effective bridge topic for talking to girls. She poked at my combative, conservative leanings on issues like affirmative action and the death penalty. She\u2019d lean forward with a sly smile as I spouted off, finally interrupting my rant: \u201cYou can\u2019t fool me!\u201d She saw through me. It felt good to be seen through.<\/p>\n

Then Lisa would steer the conversation toward common ground, such as feminism, pacifism, and rock \u2018n roll. She knew how to scratch the hippie hellraiser I was at heart. Prior to these study hall and lunchtime debates, I found Lisa the furthest thing from physically attractive. As I would experience years later, however, while watching clips of Janis Joplin perform live, Lisa took on an unexpected beauty as her fiery spirit came to the fore. Even more attractive, after joining in on a few conversations, was her softer, warmer stoner friend, Amy.<\/p>\n

Amy\u2019s long, thick reddish-brown hair fell into a perfect center part. When she smiled, her mouth slowly expanded across the full width of her face and her eyes rolled back gently. Unlike Lisa, who drove me out of my protective cover with a stick, Amy drew me out through a series of questions, the way one waves a string on the ground in front of a cat hiding under the bed. I might have been a curiosity to her, and although there was an element of mockery behind her questions, I was more than fine with the attention. As much as I desired to cover her Chesire Cat smile, I didn’t have a clue how to get out of the batter\u2019s box.<\/p>\n

Before I knew it the Junior Prom was upon us. Our tiny private school had so few \u201cnormal\u201d high school events that I wasn\u2019t about to miss this one. I took a girl from outside our school, Lori, the daughter of one of my Mom\u2019s friends. I\u2019d hung out with Lori regularly in my early pubescent years, as our Moms got together and laughed through the struggles of their divorces. Taking Lori was a great no-pressure move. We were buddies, and she was great looking to boot. For the prurient among you, that\u2019s about the beginning and the end of my high school \u201cdating\u201d life.<\/p>\n

More attainable goals during my last 2 years of high school revolved around music, especially with my baseball fantasies banished to left field. After seeing Syd and Crymson Myst perform at assemblies and dances, Andy and I set our sights on this humble goal. While the members of our school\u2019s established bands had attended a wealth of concerts, our experience with real, live rock \u2018n roll shows through Junior year amounted to seeing the Cars and the Police, and, prior to that, Andy seeing Barry Manilow with his parents in middle school. However, we\u2019d been watching a lot of rock movies and absorbed many important lessons regarding stagecraft.<\/p>\n

With a meager catalog of a half dozen originals (and I use the term loosely) and another half dozen half-baked covers, our \u201cband practices\u201d consisted of journeys to Philadelphia\u2019s revitalized South Street for cultural and film studies as often as times when we actually plugged in and worked to create the distant sound in our heads. The lower blocks of South Street in the late-1970s were prime cruising blocks for Philadelphia\u2019s bohemians, punks, and would-be boho-punks. The place where \u201call the hippies meet,\u201d as the Orlons sung back in 1963, had rebounded from lean years in the late-1960s and early-1970s that sunk property rates low enough for a new generation of artists and aspiring artists to revitalize the neighborhood. We\u2019d pack into my orange 1972 Nova, complete with a black vinyl roof. The car was dubbed the \u201cDevil Stallion\u201d by Duncan. We\u2019d make our way to South Street and circle the loop on Bainbridge Street until we found or made parking. Yes, sometimes a group of teenage boys could make a parking space by lifting the back end of a small car and rolling it forward. Once parked we\u2019d dash to our giddy cruise up and down South Street, getting a whiff from the doorstep of our rock \u2018n roll future.<\/p>\n

Circa 1980, South Street was anchored by two rock clubs that na\u00efve underage kids like ourselves could only peek into as the doors swung open for legal patrons: the long, narrow pub JC Dobbs and the hippie-era holdout Grendel\u2019s Lair. The former was known to us as the Philadelphia outpost of nearby Wilmington, Delaware\u2019s George Thorogood & the Destroyers, not to mention the city\u2019s unsigned local legends, musicians we\u2019d meet a few years later who in still held onto dreams of being the next Bruce, the next Dylan, the next Bowie, in one case all in the guise of a single local musician. The latter flew its faded freak flag with an endless run of a nude play called Let My People Come<\/em>. Grendel\u2019s also hosted the first Philadelphia appearance by the Police. Some minuscule number of people were said to have attended that show, so few that people didn’t even bother to lie about having been there. A few years later our eventual fully developed band would make its debut at the latter, while the former would become a regular haunt and a hotbed of our own breakthrough dreams.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Used book and record stores appeared on every other block. At the back of Book Trader, a gently organized bookstore in which it was easy to get lost, there were a couple milk crates of used records in a back room. Most of the records contained within were crap, the kind of mildly hip variety show stuff your parents bought on a whim in 1967 and stopped listening to a month later. A thorough flip through the bins, however, might turn up a cheap, used punk record worth taking a shot on. I shelled out $2.50 for Gang of Four\u2019s Entertainment!<\/em> one night based on the grim, sarcastic album cover comic strip alone. Another night while flipping through the moldy, discarded Tijuana Brass and Al Hirt albums, I stopped abruptly at an album cover showing four skinny Irish kids in high-water pants, or floods. They looked as young as us and only a little more clued in to the punk scene than we were. The album had a $1.99 price tag on it. I only knew the slightest bit about the band through brief mentions in Trouser Press<\/em>. I jumped on it. These kids gave off an attainable vibe. They might have been a couple of steps ahead of us on the road to Coolsville, but they were miles behind our heroes, the Clash. The Undertones\u2019 self-titled debut would quickly become one of the most electrifying albums I\u2019d ever purchased. Andy, Seth, and I wore out that album, from the slashing rhythm guitar and rumbling drums of \u201cFamily Entertainment\u201d to the obsessive riffing of \u201cTeenage Kicks\u201d and \u201cI Know a Girl.\u201d The music fired us up with hope and positive energy as each 2-minute anthem shot off the grooves. There was nothing to suggest classical training, nothing to evoke that knowing \u201cuh, heh-heh\u201d sound.<\/p>\n

\"Where

Where all the hippies meet.<\/p><\/div>\n

Speaking of being clued in (or not) to the punk scene, which was nowhere near as prevalent as will be show in movies and documentaries the further these times fall into the distance, Zipperhead, the punk clothing store that would be immortalized in the Dead Milkmen\u2019s \u201cPunk Rock Girl,\u201d was good for a quick, anxious visit. We never aspired toward the stereotypical Malcolm McLaren SEX boutique fashions that were featured at Zipperhead, but we would have been complete pussies if we didn’t man up and at least pretend to be interested in the shop\u2019s offerings for a couple of minutes.<\/p>\n

The Theater of the Living Arts, or TLA, was a historic repertory theater that turned us onto a range of classics, foreign, and cult films. If the stars aligned, South Street runs were capped off with a midnight showing of a rock movie. Each movie added to our rock vocabulary, which we would rehearse as ardently as we rehearsed our music, actually more so, considering the weeks that might pass between actual band rehearsals.<\/p>\n

We never missed a screening of the semi-dramatic Clash movie Rude Boy<\/em>. Along with the mind-blowing live performances that not only delivered all we\u2019d ever need to learn about the power and glory of Forearm Rock, the movie demonstrated the band tremendous sense of color coordination, Joe\u2019s bulging neck veins, and Mick\u2019s pouting lips. We learned what real overdubbed vocals looked and sounded like as Joe and Mick sang alone in the studio to the backing tracks for \u201cAll the Young Punks\u201d and \u201cStay Free,\u201d respectively. That\u2019s how they did it, man! There were memorable lines like, Joe\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m keeping an eye on you\u201d and Mick\u2019s \u201cGet off the fucking stage!\u201d We\u2019d repeat those lines to each other whenever the opportunity arose, both for laughs and to rehearse for the moment when uttering memorable lines would become a necessity. Rude Boy<\/em> even introduced us to wonderful side characters, like the roadie Jacko. We made note of the need to get ourselves a Jacko, a loyal soldier who could train and police up-and-coming roadies.<\/p>\n

The rock movies kept coming. Before we could fully digest the Who documentary The Kids Are Alright<\/em>, which we\u2019d seen a half dozen times since its release a few months earlier, we gorged on Quadrophenia<\/em>, an angst-filled Mod drama depicting the Who\u2019s most bombastic rock opera. The Who\u2019s music and the occasional soul records the Mod kids listened to roared from the TLA\u2019s speakers. The characters in Quadrophenia<\/em> spouted off their own share of great lines, most memorably, \u201cAye, chuck me a couple a packies,\u201d English slang for condoms, we learned, during the sloppy drugstore heist. Jimmy bones a cute blond \u201cbird\u201d in an alleyway, cumming in about 3 seconds. The movie introduced us to the wonders of speed, which we were still too straightlaced to have actually come in contact with, but which immediately appealed to us because the Who\u2019s music seemed to go so well with a hopped-up Jimmy.<\/p>\n

The movie depiction of Jimmy was eye-opening. He was so fucking pissed off\u2014at his parents, at his peers, at himself. He couldn\u2019t fit into any scene\u2014and no wonder: he was a total ass! Nevertheless, I identified with his plight. From that point forward, when I got pissed off at my latest dire teenage situation, Jimmy was my internal gauge. The world needed to know that I was as pissed off and scared and desperate as he was. It was empowering to find my own generation\u2019s pissy little twat and not have to depend on re-enacting the antics of James Dean\u2019s few movie characters. If all that weren\u2019t enough teen power to stew on in one movie, Sting shows up as a character called The Face, the alpha dog among the Mods. Just a year or two before we began to figure out that Sting was not, in fact, cool, he appeared to us as, basically, the Mod Fonzie, riding the coolest scooter on earth.<\/p>\n

If the TLA wasn\u2019t showing a rock movie to our liking, which was guaranteed once monthly for the regular midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show<\/em>, we\u2019d bend the truth a bit when letting our parents know of our plans for the night and make the longer, hairier trek to the Tower Theater, the 3000-seat concert hall where Seth and I saw the Police play the exact set with the exact stage banter and riffing that we\u2019d heard on a King Biscuit Flower Hour broadcast a few months earlier. Seeing The Last Waltz<\/em> on that giant screen with that booming sound system was the next best thing to being at Winterland. We\u2019d see some turds there, too, such as Ralph Bakshi\u2019s animated Heavy Metal<\/em>. Duncan talked us into seeing that one. He was a metal\/fantasy guy at heart, stuff that never flew with the rest of us. Another heaping turd most of us were a few years behind seeing was the turgid Led Zeppelin concert film, The Song Remains the Same<\/em>. The so-called cool kids in my school had been raving over the fantasy scenes. We finally decided to see what all the fuss was about, despite Duncan warning us that it wasn\u2019t Zeppelin at their best. Seeing that movie set me back a few more years in my ability to finally come to grips with the band\u2019s greatness. It was a truly awful rock movie that confirmed my suspicions about the mainstream tastes of my schoolmates.<\/p>\n

The strip on South Street circa 1980 was devoid of fast-food chains and other chain stores, which moved during the late-1980s, bringing standard-issue party boys and girls of from all sectors of the city with them. That crowd would be worthwhile fodder for television\u2019s It\u2019s Always Sunny in Philadelphia<\/em>, but it marked the end of South Street as we knew it.<\/p>\n

Cruising South Street with my bandmates was only one part of figuring out how to be an actual band. The other part of the equation was getting together to rehearse. Initially we tried rehearsing in my Mom\u2019s 1-car garage. Andy, Seth, Appice, and I (Duncan was not much of a factor in rehearsals, as will be covered in further detail) were packed tight. We made quite the racket with the garage door closed and everything bouncing off the concrete floor and cinderblock walls. To make matters harder to manage, we were in a rowhouse, so the music easily traveled into our neighbors\u2019 houses. Referring to the early sounds of the Zone as \u201cmusic\u201d is an extremely liberal use of the term.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We had carefully crafted songs based closely on real songs that we loved. From the start, my approach to songwriting often began with a sincere attempt to learn a record by ear before giving up and refitting the couple of riffs I could approximate for a dumbed-down forgery. Our execution was piss poor regardless, but Seth was never to blame. He was always worlds ahead of us as a musician. You could tell he had already been learning to play drums. His first year of lessons, before we met him, consisted of nothing more than learning the rudiments on a practice pad. I think he told me he did nothing more than grip his sticks for 3 months prior to that. By the time we found him he had a full year on a full kit under his belt. He could set a beat and pretty much see it through. I could barely play my own riffs, parts I \u201cadapted\u201d from 1960s singles like the Doors\u2019 \u201cBreak on Through,\u201d the Music Explosion\u2019s \u201cLittle Bit O\u2019 Soul,\u201d and the Count Five\u2019s \u201cPsychotic Reaction.\u201d My student, Appice, rushed ahead of the beat, eager for a chance to play his take on a Buddy Holly chord solo, those quickly strummed intervals up and down the neck in lieu of individual notes. Rhythm solos fascinated us as we half-learned \u201cNot Fade Away\u201d and the Buddy Holly-modeled \u201cI Fought the Law.\u201d They were easy covers to learn, at least poorly. Appice would later get his rocks off like never before when he started to figure out Pete Townshend\u2019s more complicated intervals in the Live at Leeds<\/em> version of \u201cSparks.\u201d More on that unfortunate tale later.<\/p>\n

\"Indeed!\"

Indeed!<\/p><\/div>\n

Andy did his best to power through our overreaching material. His boyhood trait of maintaining a constant smile as he spoke had not faded, and carried into his singing. He exuded joy while singing whatever punk rock tripe my pen delivered. The Zone was one more joint project he believed in as much as I did. At that time we were the only ones who thought we were onto something important.<\/p>\n

Duncan missed our first two rehearsals in my Mom\u2019s garage, which was probably a good thing. That cinderblock box was already packed tight with unharmonious sound waves. The low end of a poorly plucked bass might have made us cut our rock dreams short right then and there. After two rehearsals in the garage we sought a better location.<\/p>\n

Seth suggested we rehearse at his house, under fluorescent lighting and a drop ceiling in the finished basement of his Dad\u2019s modest single home in a 1960s development of winding streets and cul-de-sacs in the \u201cJewish Northeast.\u201d The space around at Seth\u2019s house was more inviting than my neighborhood. We felt comfortable running through our ritual greetings on his front lawn: high fives, fake sucker punches, weightlifting poses, and wrestling holds\u2026 We couldn’t do this stuff outside my house for fear of being seen as \u201cpussies.\u201d Although Seth barely spoke in those days, he was a part of his neighborhood. He had friends up and down the block, including our loosely affiliated keyboardist and live bootleg mentor Stuart and a terrifying behemoth of a teenager named Scott, who would go on to become a professional wrestler and, later, a Hollywood stuntman. Like an untrained puppy eager to hump an unsuspecting kid\u2019s leg, Scott got too excited by our wrestling pantomimes, coming across the street to nearly break one of our necks with a Full Nelson or to drop one of us to the ground with an actual body slam. The kid was a menace to us outsiders, but he was gentle with his old buddy Seth.<\/p>\n

Seth and his acerbic older brother Doug had been raised by their Dad alone for about as long as Joey and I had been raised by our Mom alone. As freely as I expressed pain over my Dad\u2019s desertion and the epic battles with my Mom, the term \u201cclose to the vest\u201d didn’t begin to explain how Seth wore his emotions over his parents\u2019 split. He wore them like a second skin. Despite whatever went on in that house a half dozen years before we met Seth, his Dad had established a serene, loving vibe. Like my Mom, he kept the house immaculate, with a \u201cshowroom\u201d living room preserved in plastic slipcovers. Like my Mom he was warm and inviting, offering us soda and snacks before we got down to the business of rehearsing. Unlike my Mom, he reserved judgment, or at least kept it hidden behind the gentle twinkle in his eye and a few puffs on his pipe as he chatted with us in the kitchen.<\/p>\n

Big Brother Doug played the role of hard-ass family gatekeeper. He made no attempt at emulating his father\u2019s laid-back style of observation. He\u2019d come down the basement as we were setting up to look down over his glasses and shake his head in disbelief at our juvenile interests. Doug wore his mustache as if he\u2019d had it since 5th grade.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen are you going to learn to play real music,\u201d he\u2019d smile disapprovingly, punctuating his remark with an \u201cuh, heh-heh.\u201d<\/p>\n

This went on for a few weeks of rehearsals. The thing that occurred to us, for all his bluster and superiority, was that Doug didn’t seem that cool. He had a solid mustache, sure, but he didn’t seem to be getting laid and wasted, like the cool kids in school who looked down on us. He wasn’t a jock or a burnout. One day we asked him what constituted this \u201creal music\u201d he spoke of.<\/p>\n

\u201cHold on,\u201d he said contentedly, as if he\u2019d been waiting for just this moment, and he ran up the basement steps. He came down a minute later holding a John Denver album. \u201cWhen are you going to learn to play music like this,\u201d he asked, holding up an album cover with the broad, smiling face of the artist.<\/p>\n

John Fucking Denver. Thank God I\u2019m a Country Boy John Denver. Take Me Home Country Roads John Denver. Rocky Mountain High John Denver. Aw shucks, bespectacled, blond bowl-cut hairdo John Denver. Real music.<\/p>\n

Having the world\u2019s most ineffectual bully come downstairs to heckle us and challenge us to study the John Denver Songbook helped us bond with Seth and built strength, the latter admittedly through the mild resistance of jogging with 6-ounce weights on our ankles.<\/p>\n

Friday night rehearsals provided countless opportunities for bonding. Getting the songs worked out was only half the battle. For a group of untrained, unskilled teenage musicians, much cajoling and strong-arming was necessary to get each of us on more or less the same page, more or less the same beat and chord. The sidewalk greeting routines built trust. Doug\u2019s insults built unity. The time spent waiting for Andy to show up for rehearsal built our rhythm section.<\/p>\n

We usually scheduled rehearsals for Friday night. Friday night came before Saturday, and Friday night couldn’t come soon enough. Every Friday night, however, Andy was obligated to eat dinner with his family. Obligated. No ifs, ands, or buts. Some Fridays the family ate at home and Andy showed up at rehearsal only 15 minutes later than the rest of us. When the family went out for dinner, however, we may have been forced to wait an hour to get started with our singer.<\/p>\n

At first we didn’t know how to practice without Andy singing and setting cues. Appice, Duncan (when he showed), and I were such beginners that we had to look down at the necks of our guitars at all times to know where to fret. Attempting to make eye contact for more than a couple of seconds at a time was daunting. Andy would get right in our faces, if necessary, to remind us that a solo was coming up or that the song was about to end. Trying to sing my own songs while playing guitar at that stage in my development was out of the question. At first we\u2019d sit around and wait out Andy\u2019s arrival.<\/p>\n

The more Friday nights we had to wait, the more jokes at Andy\u2019s expense we\u2019d cook up. The more we cut on Andy, the more confident we became that we could make some use of our time as an instrumental combo. Appice might launch into the riff of a song he learned off the radio, something half decent, like the Rolling Stones\u2019 \u201cShe\u2019s So Cold.\u201d I might introduce the latest \u201cadapted\u201d guitar riffs and chord progressions rattling around in my brain and see if we could play them long enough to find the start of a chorus. Duncan, if he actually made it to rehearsal, would inevitably crack us up by playing the opening licks to a Black Sabbath or Rush song. Seth drove the beat during any one of these excursions, always making us beginners feel like we were getting somewhere as we rode the broad shoulders of his competence.<\/p>\n

For the next few months we were a basement band, until we moved operations to Duncan\u2019s parents\u2019 giant converted horse stable of a garage. My little garage, meanwhile, was better suited for my first-ever demo recording, a manic garage rocker called \u201cUncle Joe,\u201d in tribute to my uncle. I had no idea I could make a multi-track recording until I stumbled on an old 2-track reel-to-reel in a storage cabinet. Among my Dad\u2019s many quickly abandoned hobbies and guises in the 1960s, I learned, was that of an audiophile. My Mom rolled her eyes, \u201cHe wanted to be one of those guys who listened to music exclusively on reel-to-reel tape. That was the fad.\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t recall this passing fancy, but in a few days\u2019 time of my discovery I figured out how to thread the tape and get the thing working. As the reel-to-reel heated up it gave off that beautiful warm, dusty tube smell. There was a green, gaseous, glowing power light that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. The instruction book was in the case and had barely been cracked open. I figured out how to bounce tracks. I could change speeds, which allowed me to solo at lightning rates I still can\u2019t approach as a guitarist. I even figured out how to plug my guitar directly into the recorder and use it as an amplifier, a trick I\u2019d read was behind Keith Richards\u2019 guitar sound on \u201cStreet Fighting Man.\u201d The sounds I was generating were beyond belief. Our band was nowhere near compiling such weird and weirdly unified parts. I blurted out some lyrics that barely kept up with the song\u2019s breakneck-pace variation on the \u201cGloria\u201d rhythm. I have no idea what happened to that recording or the tape deck. It was probably as amateurish a mess as anything we could play as a band, but when I finished bouncing tracks and listened to the playback\u2014over and over\u2014I felt like God.<\/p>\n