My step brother, Andrew, had his 18th birthday on Sunday. I went out to my mom’s house and enjoyed the time with everyone. Andrew is definitely a good kid and a musician. I’m sure my mom wasn’t expecting to go from a son who was obsessed with music to a step son much later in life with the same affliction.
Andrew is very into death metal. In a lot of ways, he reminds me of myself at his age. He’s open to ideas and opinions musically and likes to learn. The death metal follows the simiar pattern of mine in that I was a heavy metal fan when I was younger.
So, my charge is to be a positive influence…musically. Over the past couple years, I’ve tried to give him CD’s by people he may not have listened to previously. This year, it was the Jimi Hendrix box set.
If you can’t like Hendrix, you probably can’t like music.
When I was his age and younger, I had someone who was constantly pointing me in different musical directions – turning me on to artists as wide ranging as Albert Collins, Steely Dan, the New York Dolls, Talas, Tower of Power, Rolling Stones, Santana and so on. It was a musical education that was hugely influential on my development as a musician and a person.
Hopefully, I can do the same for Andrew. Of course, I’ll pretend that everything I like is cool when we all know that is totally not true! 🙂