And you thought amphibole was dense...

Web pages are nothing but self-advertisements and therefore pure mind numbing conflagarations of ego. Thousands of people put up web pages talking about themselves and their cats and blah blah blah, and who cares? Like this, all I'm doing here is, like everybody else, talking about the music I like. You don't give a dingo's apendix what kind of music I like, but I'm going to talk about it anyway, because I have a vast array of self-centered macho know-it-all opinions. What a great invention home pages are. a tremendous advancement in computer technology. This entire thing is a waste of hard drive space and bandwidth.

I grew up listening to my dad's old Tex Ritter and Jimmy "The Swingen' Swede" Jensen records. I heard a lot of old fart and courtry music (don't get me started on the last 20 years worth of drek in the later department... er 30). My mom's only influence was her 60s KDWB-pop records. I have no taste for 80's anything. I used to be able to deal with the idea of reganomics, but even my idealized fantasies of state-subsidized capitalism have gone under by now. I never listened to the radio, leading to my one clear musical advantage - I have no Journey influences (and he was just ripping off Santana anyway).

When I was a kid my oldest brother Justin inculcated me with the stylings of Black Sabbath, then Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Iron Maiden, Twisted Sister, lots of lousy metal bands (though I dig Jett now, all the associations of random violence to her music brings back fond memories of youth). Justin would get psyched whenever he listened to them and chew on walls.

He now listens to shitty alternative bands, just like he used to, and he jumped on ye ole alternative bandwagon just as soon as it was cool to do so. He was just born with good timing. At one time he had the largest cassette collection in Becker County. How's that for solvent. And, lest we forget, he lip-sinked "Pissing in the Wind," the Jerry Jeff Walker tune, before his entire graduating class and faculty at the school's graduation party. My older brother is cooler than you.

My other bro Jeremy listened to a lot of rap; that was weird. Only weirder was when he went through his Neil Diamond phase (right about when we were running our Fish Cleaning Service, after Justin retired to gas pumping, and a bit before Jeremy bought that second LL Cool J album). He's notably the only person I've ever known to go through a Niel Diamond phase, usually it's life or nothing. I think it operates something like being a fan of Tom Jones, but what do I know.

As he got older and fartier he started getting into more of our Uncles' record collections and old 70s country - like Jerry Jeff and Hondo Crouch, Jimmy Buffett, Guy Clark, Gary Nunn, etc. etc. Throw in some Ray Wylie Hubbard and Merle Haggard and you get the general picture of things. 'Wood would always take the crap he found and shove it down his brother's throats like the rusty cow manure we used to chuck back on the neighbor's farm for kicks. This was in fact how I discovered Leo Kottke. We don't need another testimonial about one's dissolution after hearing him play Airproofing so I won't bring it up.

I am currently a Durutti Column fan and feel directionless.

I still hum the old polka tunes of my childhood in the shower. From renditions of "Nickolina" that my grandfather used to play to "Who stole the Kishka" with that old duck Franky Yankolvich. Sometimes we would get harmonies going with "No Beer in Heaven" in the dorm showers.

My great Uncle John was a member of the Dutchmeisters, which is the cause of endless pride to my brothers and I. My grandfather also played accordian, but this usually consisted of alternating two chord keys and picking out the melody with his other hand, and singing. In a Frippish sort of way he was a genius, maybe.

I mostly play acoustic guitar, John Fahey called it "American Primitive" guitar, and I figger' most of what I do is pretty much just that. I am unedumacated, untaught and froth with inadequacies. Which is what Fahey basically meant, all ties to primitivism aside, when he said primitive.

So basically all I do is slack off for 4 or 5 hours a day and play, I noodle, I wander around the fretboard and pop my guitar in weird tunings and never remember, having finally found a melody or groove or whatever, what the fuck it was I did and rarely play it again. I figure there's enough permanence around here, so fuck it.

I've been playing since sometime around 1995, whenever I came to college, I ended up spending a lot of time on my guitar rather than my homework, which shows. I can't read music, I can barely perform other people's stuff, but I keep myself entertained. That's why I started in the first place, like beating on pots and pans as a kid, pushing buttons for the beeps and whistlers, fun right? I started with some basic dumb shit like Jimmy Buffet or whatever, at some point I figured out Blackbird, Fahey was revealed to me during my tenure as a dj at nur, from there I found Joe Spence and Django Reindhart, and Steve Tibbets pops up. It's all improvisation on some blind theme that may or may not exist in my head. I can't tell yet if I know what I'm doing on any level.

I have:

Some J-series 6-string fender acoustic.
A 1972 F212 jumbo Guild 12-String.
Dad's old Eko archtop, f-holes and all.
"Kentucky" Korean-made a-type mandolin.
Fender FB58 5-string Banjo.
Old Horner 5-string, roommate's been learning on it.
Ben Hamman's Uncle's accordian. Kapow.

At points I've listened to fair amounts of Joe Pass, Spider John Korner, Frank Zappa, Doc Watson, and crap like that. I was working on the jazz show at WNUR for a long time, but because of a) my bad back b) insufferable laziness or c) prioritizing the immenatization of a career, I don't anymore. If you're interested in jazz you might dig Joe Germuska's Jazz Web. I've been listening to Hamid Drake's duets with Peter Brotzmann and Michael Zerang a lot lately, following the multitude of Jim O'Rourke projects and related crapamajigs ( Sam Prekop, The Sea and Cake, Tortoise, Gastr Del Sol), and among other things I'm a big nut for early Guided By Voices.

Usually I can stand the bulk of your running-mill popular shit (Meatloaf may rot in the bowels of whatever ugly hole he came from.) that doesn't end up making you puke your brains out (Bolton, Carrey, Alanis...). I'm not one to wish wash when somebody sucks. On the other hand you know, I can dig Clapton maybe or entertain a penchant for weird prog rock bands, I went through a Pink Floyd thing of some sort somewhere in highschool, I dig Eno and Fripp, I feel the urge at times to buy more Stones or Barry White albums. I think this sort of behavior is only reasonable. Just slap me if I get political about it.