My Musical Marrow

From Buddy Guy to VU to the Dead to Springsteen to the Clash to the Replacements to Soundgarden to Waxahatchee to. . .

So exactly what kind of music is Fine Tuning all about?

The headwater of my musical taste is a familiar one—the blues.

One of my most vivid musical memories is seeing Buddy Guy perform at the Lone Star Cafe in New York City when I was in 10th grade. Sadly, that esteemed venue is long gone, but my recollection of that singular night remains. At one point, Buddy left the stage still plugged in, walked out the revolving door, and jammed by himself on Fifth Avenue. The music was raw and emotional, but still somehow joyful. The bliss on Buddy’s face lasered its way to my core. I remember my own sense of joy and lightness as I bore witness. Junior Wells was playing harp with Buddy that night and I managed to get backstage after the show and have them both sign the back of the Lone Star promo flyer!

Looking at the flyer again now, I should’ve set up shop down there! Dickey Betts, Jorma Kaukanen, Bo Diddley, Rick Danko and Richard Manual—are you kidding me? What a magical venue it was.

A year later, I saw Stevie Ray Vaughn at the Pier in New York City. He opened the show with “Couldn’t Stand the Weather,” and I looked around the stage in search of the second guitar player, incredulous that Stevie Ray was making those sounds with just one guitar. As an aspiring guitar player myself, these blues acts mesmerized me and were my entry into the world of music.

My passion for the blues led eventually to classic rock. I went to as many concerts as my parents would allow. I remember in the pre-internet world having to camp out with friends for Springsteen tickets; calling TicketMaster on speed dial for hours on end to score Rolling Stones tickets (the euphoria of hearing a dial tone instead of a busy signal!); navigating the mail order gauntlet for Dead tickets; cutting class my senior year in high school to line up to see the Jerry Garcia Band play the Lunt Fontaine theater on Broadway; seeing Michael Stipe wipe (what looked like) coke off his nose during a R.E.M. concert; the Replacements so drunk they could hardly play their instruments at Toad’s Place in New Haven; Little Steven sitting in front of me at a U2 concert; Joe Strummer sporting a white three-piece suit and orange mohawk as he leaped from the drum kit pounding out the clipped, opening chords of “London Calling” to open the (Mick Jones-less) Clash show at the Hofstra University gym; somehow getting past the ID check to see the Ramones at a bar in Philadelphia; getting Dickey Betts’ autograph backstage at the Beacon Theater during one of the Allman Brothers’ ritual month-long stands; and trying to find somebody— anybody—to go with me to see Lou Reed my junior year in high school.

A few years later, grunge arrived and I was all in. As I recount in my memoir, after my father died, grunge flat out sustained me. I needed the music of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam like a plant needs sunlight, only in reverse. It was the darkness that nourished me, made me capable of interacting with the living.

Lately I’ve become obsessed with Waxahatchee. Katie Cruchfield’s vocal stylings may be as far down the spectrum as possible from Chris Cornell’s, but her music still falls squarely in my wheelhouse.

Which is all to say that blues-inspired rock is my musical bedrock. Music in dialogue with that rich lineage is the music I’m interested in exploring—be it new artists or older artists who have flown for years under my radar.

I look forward to exploring it all with you!