About Me

I was born and raised in the Midwest. Music has been part of who I am for as long as I can remember. My parents used to tell me that when I was little, I’d fall asleep with my head against the speaker on the car radio. Looking back, maybe that was an early sign of what was to come.

My dad was the one who first got me interested in music. Music was something we could share, and looking back, I think it became a way for us to connect. I enjoyed listening to music with him, talking about it, and discovering the artists and records he liked. It gave me a chance to spend time with him, and his love of music had a big influence on mine.

Dad listened to just about everything. One day it might be ELO, Fleetwood Mac, or Boston. The next it could be Donna Summer, Linda Ronstadt, Boz Scaggs, or the Bee Gees. Music was just always around, whether it was on a family road trip or listening to Casey Kasem count down the American Top 40.

I grew up in the ’70s, then spent the early ’80s in high school and the later part of the decade in college. Those were the years that really shaped my musical tastes. Like a lot of people, I can hear a song from those years and instantly remember where I was, who I was with, and what life felt like at that moment.

For a while, I actually thought music might become part of my career. In high school, I wrote a Top 40 column for the school newspaper. The whole school voted and I published the results every month. I’ll admit, part of the appeal was that I got out of class to conduct the voting.

By then, I had bigger plans. I wanted to write album reviews for Rolling Stone. I started college pursuing a journalism degree, but I soon found out it wasn’t for me. I changed directions, eventually ended up in IT and project management, and never looked back.

If I had to name a few favorite artists, they’d include The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, John Mellencamp, Queen, and Jimmy Buffett. I still love going to concerts whenever I get the chance, and over the years I’ve built a collection of several hundred albums and thousands of CDs. There’s something special about putting on a record and listening to an album from beginning to end.

Writing about music may not have become my career, but I still did it from time to time. Occasionally I’d write an album review or a recap of a concert and post it on Facebook. Years later, a friend of mine who writes a music blog encouraged me to start one of my own. It took me a while to finally do it, but eventually I decided to give it a try.

So here we are.

There’s a scene in Almost Famous where William Miller asks Russell Hammond, “What do you love about music?” Russell pauses before answering, “To begin with… everything.”

I think that pretty much sums it up for me, too.