A Short History Of You?

[fake]

Short!

Born 1952-Croydon, Surrey, yep a Londoner

Left school at 15 with no qualifications and went straight into a job with a 4 year apprenticeship. A bit young for the summer of love but I had a great time in the late 60's.
Started smoking at 15 but didnt smoke any dope until I was 17 and have only stopped for a few months here and there. (say he with a spliff in his mouth)! Not smoked cigarettes for 20 years though.

Had a good job, career prospects and money but f**ked it all up.

In 1979 within 3 months my father died, I became very ill with typhoid (from eating dope) and I split with the wife. Had a breakdown and went crazy for a while, then started on heroine. I eventually kicked it in 1984, had to cut myself off from everybody and became a recluse. Got my act together, got a flat and in 1987 my son came to live with me and now lives with his gf just 2 doors away.
Was unemployed so I went to college for 4 years, passed the exams and became a qualified electrician. Had to stop in 1999 because of health problems. I'm fairly active on the community level and hated by the Council because of it.

Now something strange.

On millenium eve I got drunk, fell backward an split my head open on the corner of a wall. I passed out for a while and when I came round i was sitting in a pool of blood and had a gash of about 4 inches on the back of my head. I should have gone to hospital, had stiches etc but was too pissed. I did though have the sense to clean it up. I woke up the following day with my head stuck to the pillow and not knowing what had happened until I moved!
It took a while to heal but seemed ok.

Then about a month later I got fed up with the TV and threw it in the bin. I started listening to the radio and stopped reading newspapers.
I then started drawing and writing stuff, stuff that had been in my head for years and I had allways meant to write down. Ideas, stories etc. I also started doing music on the pc with dance e-jay.
I'm not a musician, never played anything in my life and had only listened to music in the past and then suddenly it started to come together.
I did some hard house tracks and put them up on mp3.com, got some good reviews and then I got an important e-mail from someone well known, a dj. He said he liked my stuff said I "framed" things well, not to use samples and now learn to do my own stuff, adding I should do well!

So I started using a midi keyboard, sequencer and vst's 2 years ago, found this place and here I am. I think Status Quo just beat me on the number of chords I can play and thanks to a PC, software and you lot I shall carry on. I do music for fun and I'm not aiming at fame or fortune as I'm not very serious about it.
I've now done a cd with over 60 mins on which was my aim, just a trip through my head with some tracks I like. Some dodgy ones but I don't care.

Having said that I have now given music a break for a while as I must concentrate on the writing.

I was asked to join a band a while ago but they didnt realise my age at the time or that I do it all on a computer. Mind you, I couldnt picture me on stage with a bunch of 20 year olds, the image don't seem quite right somehow.

My attitude on life the universe and everything seemed to change after the bash on the head.
Everything just seems to be diferent somehow. My ex wife, still a good friend, says she thinks it has altered my personality. She says I've changed a lot. I have now only just started to understand myself and relise what I belive in and want out of life. I now have something that I want to acheive and will and it's not music. A bit late but you know the saying...

I even went to the kvr-mcr gathering the first time anywhere in 20 years, and the first time on a train in over 10!

Can you tell, I'm happy, having fun and enjoying myself at last. With me, life did start at 50!

Bernard

[stefancrs]

Beautiful and intriguing story Bernard. Thanks.

[ouroboros]

Yes, it is like a modern parable, thank you!

[cptgone]

great story, fake.

[putte]

fake .. thats the number one story so far. hats off to you sir!

[vurt]

I even went to the kvr-mcr gathering the first time anywhere in 20 years, and the first time on a train in over 10!

Bernard

and it was great to see you there too

[whyterabbyt]

...and its a bloody great CD wot he did as well!

[vurt]

indeed!

[CypherOne]

So, what about you? How long have you been doing what you do? What are your aspirations? How did you start out? Why are we here? Does anyone have a good recipe for fish stew?

Cheers.

I started this thread to find out about people's music history (and also looking for a fish stew recipe), but clearly people's musical history is interwoven with their life history, so here's mine:

I was born in August 1974 in Tooting, south London. My parents, brother and I lived in a 1 bedroom flat but despite the lack of space my (slightly weird) dad managed to acquire the following pets:

Two dogs
Two cats
Two owls
A raven
An aviary with some budgies and canaries
A goose
A fishtank full of breeding white mice to feed the owls with

When I was 6 months old we relocated to Basingstoke (yes Basingstoke) in Hampshire as part of the 70s London Overspill scheme (set up due to a shortage of housing in the capital). Part of the deal was not to bring Noah's Ark with us. Of course I'm too young to remember but I imagine that was some barbecue....

I grew up on the mean streets of Basingstoke with lots of other displaced cockneys. When I was 8 or so I was into breakdancing and me and my friends used to search high and low for the best Diadora and Fila tracksuits and of course the biggest piece of lino we could find.

Years passed...as they tend to.

Eventually I met my little nest of vipers (we've been together 10 years) and in June this year she squeezed out our first child.

Life has seriously never been better.

You can see I missed out big chunks of my life there, I'm saving them for my autobiography (j/k)

[Caleb]

What a great thread.

I was born 1972 in London. My father was posted in Europe at that time with the army so I'm an accidental Englishman from an Australian family.

Nothing interesting to report for the first few years.

Eventually we settled in Melbourne Australia and I went to a Catholic Primary school. I started to learn piano, and touch-typing at about 7 yo. Must have been a "hand" thing.

I really loved listening to my mother play piano which is what inspired me here but I was a bit of a mummy's boy anyway. I loved singing and I had a bloody good soprano voice, but I never did anything wonderful with it. My father pushed us to do athletics and aussie rules football. Far more important than music and performing arts it would seem.

I went to a Catholic boys boarding school in Ballarat for high school and sung solo for a the church masses there while struggling to maintain an interest in piano lessons.

Gave up classical piano for a year and took up modern piano which taught me the basics of everything I use today moreso that my classical music education did.

Took up flute and started playing in a concert band for a couple of years. Liked the flute - cool instrument.

Avoided performing in any concerts on the piano. I never liked performing piano for an audience.

Strangely enough though I loved performing in general and had no trouble at all singing solo or public speaking.

Eventually I was roped into becoming the church organist for the school parish and during that time I started to write music. I even wrote some church music. I never had trouble performing on the church organ - just hated performing on piano (strange).

Music was something that stayed in my head after highschool finished (1990). I wrote lyrics, I hummed tunes but I never did anything more with music until maybe 1997 when I used the money from a tax return to purchase a Yamaha QY700. I wrote so much music with this sequencer.

At some point I decided to join the computer revolution in the creation of music and bought one a couple of years later. While shopping around I avoided the temptation to listen to salesmen who were saying that Logic Audio was it and instead bought an issue of ComputerMusic (issue 3).

This magazine taught me how to find software that wasn't a total rip off and I ended up using the sequencers that came on the CDs until I was ready to make a purchase - n-Track.

Anyway - many things have happened since then including writing music for community television in Melbourne, being nominated for (and losing) a Community Television award for the station id music I'd composed, writing and very occasionally finishing projects, writing some tutorials for ComputerMusic for the CMStudio they use there.

The future is where it's at though hopefully with a CD coming out in the vaguely near future and a complete renovation of my website to something (I hope) more professional.

My aim is to have a supplimentary income in music production (and maybe some other things) that will hopefully support me once I retire.

There's probably a heap more I could say about my life and it's not very difficult getting it all out of me - a few well-directed scotches to the stomach usually does the trick. But this will do for now.

Caleb

[opiadream]

fakes story
readers digest version: all it took was a good smack on the head.


I agree.Good story

[Sascha Franck]

Wow fake - now that's what I call a life (be it bad or good, as long as in the end you get out more or less well).
Thanks for sharing this!

[bluedad]

born in Birmingham 1955, and shortly thereafter joined my parents in a exodus from the southland to northwestern Indiana where jobs were plenty.
My earliest memory is hearing Elvis sing 'heartbreak hotel' on the radio. Scared me to death (so did Tenn Ernie Ford). Another memory, some guy in the neighborhood told me to be sure not to eat the holes in crackers you can imagine the consternation that caused me!
Always loved music; banging on old pianos at church, strumming my dads big old silvertone, pulling the drawbars on the Hammond..Got my first guitar in 1964.
Christmas 1968, I got a new acoustic guitar, the Beatles white album and the sheet music for the same. I immersed myself in beatlemania all over during the holidays, and by the time they were over, I had written my first song and recorded it on a huge webcor reel to reel.
Family moved back to Alabama early 1969, where it didn't take too long to be introduced to whiskey and Johnny Cash..Two days after 17th bd (1972), I joined the Navy where after bootcamp was sent to Viet Nam and spent as much time as John Kerry (no purple heart tho).1974 I was out, and not doing anything..through the magic of mushrooms and lack of sleep I got into a bit of trouble..brokered a deal with my parents - they get me out of jail, and I'd go to work with my father learning the piano tech business.
Early 80's was working in a huge music store; I'd get to work early and read the keyboard mags and twist knobs on the synthesizers..drooling. Played in bands
with gigs in hideous places. 1987 bought my first pc, sold my saxophone (now that was a failed experiment)and bought Sequencer Plus from Voyetra.
(shit, this getting long). More gigs in redneck bars (but I did meet Paula, who I kidnapped - but in my defense let me say, she was old enough to work in a bar)
Early 1996, I had enough with the politics and clash of egos playing in a band, and quit. But I still wanted to play music..Got a new pc and sequencer (power tracks pro)..reading in dancetech a review of orion; checked it out and bought it. Not long after I lucked up on a legit deal for Cubase and I've been using those two for quite a while now.

[CypherOne]

I think it's understandable that the older members of the gang have more to say....maybe a should start "a Slightly Longer History of you" thread.

[IIRs]

I was born in August 1974

Same here! Good vintage

Was born in Belfast to two classical musicians; moved to Israel as soon as I was old enough to fly (my dad played cello for the Israeli Philharmonic) then moved to Manchester when a year old when my dad got the job of principal cellist with the Halle..

I started on the violin at the age of four, and music quickly became the only thing I felt I was really good at..

Hormones kicked in at about age 13, and told me the violin wasn't loud enough, and that I would get more blow jobs if I played electric guitar instead..

I have often wondered since if this was a wise move: I've managed a few, but definitely not as many as I anticipated.

Age 16: sold the nice violin my grandad bought me to buy my first Gibson Les Paul

18 - 27 ish: played guitar with Elfin (made a name for ourselves locally & on the festival circuit, but looking back we had our heads too far up our own arses to ever hit the big-time)

During this time however, I bought one of the first ever Roland VS880's to record our demos & begged an Atari with cubase off someone to automate the mixer: my studio was born!

A few years later I had sacked the rest of the band, upgraded the Atari to a PC, and started to learn synthesis techniques (thanks to SynC Modular & Synthedit)

Currently i earn my living programming MIDI with Cubase VST (I am the best ringtone programmer in the world!!) and make music at home with Tracktion: I feel I have now got the skills & equipment to produce release-quality mixes, and my next step is to find a good singer & concentrate on writing some great material..