Waiting for the Music
When my sister Sally went off to college, I got my own room for the first time. In the far-left corner behind the bed, I created a private world for myself. My lunchbox-sized record player was on the floor with my 45s and LPs lined-up along the wall next to it. I danced in that corner, learned lyrics there, and wondered endlessly about how a needle traveling on a spinning black disc caused music to play in my room. I was falling in love with audio technology without even realizing it.
Eventually I got a full-fledged stereo, one of those fold-up types that held 5 LPs on a spindle, each record falling with a swoosh when the previous one had finished.
In college I had a component stereo with a Pioneer turntable and a Kenwood receiver my high school boyfriend gave me when he got something bigger and better. The antenna draped across a Marimekko canvas I had hanging on the wall above it. I liked to lie in in the dark with headphones on, listening, but also staring into the glow my gear created.
When I finally saw my first recording studio, I was fully hooked. All those knobs and tiny red, blue, green, and yellow lights flickering with life and anticipation of the music to come.
I’ve written about this before, so I’ll stop myself now. Suffice it to say, I have always been a gear junkie.
Two things happened this week that reawakened the memory of my diminished obsession. First, Oregon State University opened a new performing arts center called PRAx four blocks from our house. The gallery’s opening exhibit is a history of recorded music. Just inside the door is a billboard-sized photograph of Tonto, one of the earliest analog synthesizers, created by my friend Malcolm Cecil who lived in Woodstock. The last time I saw Malcolm, he mixed a song of mine called “If There’s a Way” and Tonto was in the room. In fact, Tonto took up the entire back wall of his studio. As I went through the rest of the exhibit, I realized what I was looking at was my own history, and it was thrilling.
Then my friend Charlie Lang sent me the final mix of a new song he’s written called “Waiting for the Music.” I’d sung background vocals on it a few weeks earlier and hadn’t gotten it out of my head since. The first time I heard it I wanted to cry, not because it was sad but because Charlie had captured all the dreaming, the gear, and the longing for the powers-that-be in the music business to choose us as their next stars, when what we really wanted – what we had all along – was the music.
Click on the arrow on the right to hear Charlie’s song here:
or watch the video here:
WAITING FOR THE MUSIC is a very beautiful song. I really felt that one!