What’s this? I’m trying to blog once a day for 50 days! Inspired by Forking Mad and Lou Plummer.

What has your relationship with music been like throughout your life?

My first favorite albums were Weird Al: Bad Hair Day and The Food Album, and whatever else I could get my hands on at the library. At 10 years old, I listened to them as seriously as you could listen to anything.

The same friend that introduced me to Weird Al also invited me to a Beatles tribute concert in Rochester that his dad had an extra ticket to. Ironically, I don’t remember the quality of the concert well at all… but I do know that this was when my eyes - or ears, rather - were opened. I checked out Beatles CDs from the library and listened to whatever I could. My dad also got CDs and MP3 collections from friends and other sources, and together we built up a shared library of classic rock and associated genres on the server in our basement.

Additionally, at some point, I found Pandora.com early in its life, and this introduced me to more music I couldn’t have found otherwise. In high school, I would occasionally go with my family to Goodwill. This was in the late 00’s-early ’10s, which meant that people seemed to be offloading their 20-year-old CD collections fairly often. I built up a solid library of 90s alternative rock and indie music there, too.

In addition to listening to music, all throughout school I played the saxophone - alto and tenor, and a few notable times, baritone. At 16 I decided I wanted to learn guitar too, and I even today I keep an Epiphone Les Paul by my desk, although it doesn’t get played as often as it should…