For knowing that someone in this world
Feels as desperate as me -
And what you give is what you get.
It doesn't matter if we never meet again,
What we have said will always remain.
If we get through for two minutes only,
It will be a start!
For knowing that someone in this life,
Loves with a passion called hate
And what you give is what you get. - The Jam "Start!"
Hello and welcome. Seems I have a lot on my mind lately. So much so that I have to "squeeze the sponge" so to speak. One can get so much on one's mind that one has to let it out somehow. This is what I'm attempting to do here. I'll try to keep the angst and maudlin things to a minimum... though I can't possibly guarantee it. And I'll try not to "write like a moron" but again I can't promise anything. So without further rambling, let's begin.
Ok, I know what you're thinking. What is the significance of 'ayche'? Well, lemme explain... It all started in high school. I was known as H, at least my friends called me that anyway. I prefer H to Harold anyway, anyday. Well in my senior year I was in the newspaper/yearbook room when a yearbook photographer named John heard about my nickname and suggested trying to spell it out. How would you spell H, I wondered. He came up with "A-Y-C-H-E", all the more funny because the letter H is in there. Later John also suggested I sign my name with an exclamation point, thus 'Ayche!' Later when I started chatting in Club Wired a couple years ago, andimaniac suggested 'aychepling', pling being the exclamation point. I don't use that as much, but I still like it as well. So that's where the 'ayche' comes from...
So what else am I going to go on about? Well... I have a ton of interests and one of the big ones is music. I've loved music as far back as I can remember. As a little kid, I played 45's on a record player (even my "Close and Play"). I used to drive my mother buggy with the ones I'd always play... like "Witch Doctor" or "Yellow Submarine" or "Winchester Cathedral". Later on, I listed to a lot of radio. That's when the AM band was still king. I used to listen to WIXY and CKLW all the time. Yeah, even with a transistor radio with an earjack in bed. What I liked was the variety of what was played... in a hour you could hear folk, rock, soul, R & B, all styles mixed together and it sounded good. Then came listening to baseball and football... and Gary Dee and the whole WERE People Power thing and Pete Franklin's Sportsline going out to 38 states and half of Canada. Then came the discovery that with a radio, one can also get stations from other cities. New York City, Boston, Detroit, Atlanta, Chicago, name a few. I heard ballgames from other cities. I even listened to the Canadian top 40 program ever Saturday night.Then came the discovery of the other world... FM. I had thought FM was only the refuge for the 101 Strings and Montovani, but I was gladly proven wrong when WMMS was the first FM station I heard. I think the first song I heard was Bowie's "Diamond Dogs". It made an impression and I came back again and again. Then came M-105 and G-98 and for awhile I never looked back. I then got into punk when I was 13. The Sex Pistols. The Clash. The Ramones. The Damned. Thankfully the Peaches in my neighborhood stocked all the cool punk 45's and albums. The used places were cool too, especially when I got Stones and Kinks albums in mono and other cool stuff like the Stooges, MC5 or 13th Floor Elevators. Back then I was the only person I knew of my age group who liked the stuff. When in high school, the college stations boosted their power so we could actually hear them. Then the fun really started! I had read how the programmers on college played whatever they wanted, and I was definitely not disappointed. I was introduced to so many bands on college radio. I still listen mostly to college radio for the variety plus these are the stations that play real alternative music (more on that later). Lately I listen to college, some commercial radio and a lot of talk radio. But let's get back to music, shall we?
Hearing
Eddie Fisher on WJW every morning on my mom's clock radio as she got me
ready for school and herself for work
Watching Barnaby, Captain Penny
with Jungle Larry ("You can fool all of the people some of the time, but
you can't fool Mom!")
Captain Kangaroo, and seeing Mr. Jingaling every Christmas (Halle's
Seventh Floor!)
Listening to WIXY 1260 with Mike Renieri and "The Wild
Child" as a rugrat
WGAR with John Lanigan "in the morning", still going
strong on WMJI
Seeing the terrificly terrible
Gene Carroll Show followed by Paul Wilcox and Polka Varieties every
Sunday afternoon
Jim Doney's Adventure Road, Bowling for Dollars
listening to CKLW all the way to Sandusky and the cottage
Ghoulardi and the Ghoul playing cool songs behind them as they wrecked
heavy duty brain damage, and wondering for the longest time who did
these songs
Hearing WMMS for the first time in '74 and discovering a whole new
world, as I first heard artists like Bowie, Iggy and Alex Harvey among
many others , and the personalities of Jeff and Flash, Matt The Cat, Kid
Leo, Denny Sanders, BLF, Joyce Halasa, Betty Korvan...
hearing Pere Ubu
at a record store, and subsequently buying a copy of "30 Seconds Over
Tokyo"
Going to my first concert (Elton John at the Coliseum)
Seeing Black
Sabbath and Boston in '76 with Mom
Seeing Elvis' last appearence in
Cleveland
Reading Circus and Rock Scene and Creem and Hit Parader, and discovering the New
York Dolls and the Ramones and punk rock
Buying many punk rock records
at Peaches
Discovering Coventry (and the Record Exchange and Record
Revolution and Grum's Sub Shoppe)and the wonder atmosphere and openness of the
neighborhood
Going to the Drome when it was near W 117th and Detroit and
later when it was downtown at E. 12th and Euclid
Finally hearing WCSB
and WRUW and the "left of the dial" once those stations raised their
power, with Mark Edwards (Psychic Dance Hall was my fave radio show, and his band My Dad is Dead is still a favorite), Brian James, Pennie Stasik, Linda Jackson among
many other at WCSB (Where Cleveland Sounds Best) and Lars, Larry
Collins, and Michigan Mom (whom I'm indebted to for it was thru her I
discovered Joy Division, among many other bands) among many others at
WRUW
Writing my music column for my high school newspaper The Parma
Chieftain
Discovering Loony Toons and its owner Chris Andrews, then
Chris opening Warped Records and selling Looney Tunes to Bear, thus doubling our record buying pleasure.
Hitting 18 and going out to see real bands in real clubs... sure, the
major artists like the Ramones and Cheap Trick, but also local bands
like The Wild Giraffes, The Killers, The Adults, The Generators, The
Action to name only a handful.
Getting the System 56 single then hearing it a few months later on
commercial radio
Going to shows at the Agora and the Pop Shop, the so
called "Fungus on the Foot" of the Agora.
Seeing Men Without Hats (twice!) and the Dead Kennedys at the old
Engineers Building
Seeing REM,Motorhead (Watch out for that plaster!),
Dead Kennedys and OMD among others at the Variety Theater
Seeing a lot
of underground bands at the Underground
So why am I so into music in the first place? Well, it's the form of expression with which I most identify. When I'm feeling blue, I don't go to a museum to look at painting, though I probably should. I get out some old records and play them. I feel much better afterwards. A few old Buddy Holly sides or a bunch of Beatles or Stones stuff and I'm smiling within minutes. Add some Al Green or some Otis Redding and I forget why I was blue in the first place. But if I wanted to relect my sadness, there's side two of Joy Division's Closer, Nick Drake, This Mortal Coil, and on and on. If I feel anger, instead of taking it out physically on myself or others, that's where the Sex Pistols or Motorhead and the like come in. After a while I feel much better, given the time to think and letting the music wash me in an experience. I play music when I'm happy too. Or when in deep thought. Or just about anytime really. I also play all kinds of music, not just rock and soul, but country, classical, jazz, world, et al. As a healing force, it works better for me than drugs, alcohol, you name it. Although sometimes I think chocolate works really well too sometimes, but I'm trying to avoid it now. I play the guitar. There are times I feel I express myself better on a guitar than just talking, or even writing. Those times are rare as I'm not playing guitar as I should. I just picked it back up recently after a long time of not picking it up. It seems I missed it more than I thought. It's taken a while to get the dexterity back in my fingers, but ever since I picked it back up, I feel better, less frustrated. Dare I say it... even happy. There's a lot to be said for music, how it can heal and soothe ones soul, how one kind of music can make some people react a certain way, etc. Music is truly the universal language.
I never really knew my "father", because he had more of an interest in booze, and when he drank, he became violent. After telling my mom that he was going to "knock the kid out of the crib", that was all my mother could stand. The argument that ensued became so loud, my uncle could hear it a few blocks away. He had to come and physically remove my "father" from the apartment. I never heard much from him again. Not even so much as a Christmas card or even the child support he was supposed to pay. He married a few other times afterward (mom was his second marriage, her first and only), including one woman twice. He died of cancer in 1983 in Newport, Tennessee. Oh yes... the reason I'm named Harold. Well, Mom had thought to name me Brian Keith, after the actor, but "dad" was insistant that the initials had to be the same as his: H. A. I'm just glad he didn't insist I be named after him. Horace Abraham. So Mom picked Harold, then my middle name Alan after the actor Alan Ladd. Mom is still living. She raised me almost by herself. She has more guts, more moxy, more courage than anyone else I know. Oh and for those of you into that sort of thing, I went to a site to get my astrological chart done. Too bad it costs to interpret it. :)
History Lesson - Part II (Watt) - The Minutemen
(in retrospect, the saddest song in the world)
our band could be your life
real names'd be proof
me and Mike Watt played for years
punk rock changed our lives
we learned punk rock in hollywood
drove up from pedro
we were f*cking corndogs
we'd go drink and pogo
mr. narrator
this is Bob Dylan to me
my story could be his songs
I'm his soldier child
our band is scientist rock
but I was E. Bloom, Richard Hell, Joe Strummer, and John Doe
me and Mike Watt, playing guitar
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