The little brown tape deck.

I'm not even sure when I got it. Probably for Christmas or a birthday. At some point I was given a gift that would be my new best friend. It was a cheap little brown tape deck. This tape deck would allow me to do things I couldn't do before. I would be able to record some things. More important though, I could play music whenever I wanted to. I didn't have to put on a record any more. I didn't need my parents permission to play music with this new device that would never leave my side. At times I did record with it. I still have a tape somewhere that has my mom and her sisters playing scrabble on one of their "Sisters weekends". What an amazing gift. I would listen to many albums on this tape deck. There is one that stands out though. For my birthday one year my Aunt gave me a gift package of the New York City Breakers. Breakdancing was a newer art form back then, and this crew was one of the best. In the set was a poster, some cards and more importantly, a tape. This tape would be my introduction to the world of rap. A lot of people were very turned off by the idea of rap in the beginning. I couldn't have told you why then, but I loved it. The beats, the words, and the style just made me feel good. As I got older I realized I loved this form of music because it was basically poetry set to music. This tape had many different artists but the one that stuck out for me was RUN-DMC. To this day I love their music. Back then I just loved the way they spoke to me. "Two years ago, a friend of mine asked me to say some MC rhymes so I said the rhymes I'm about to say, the rhyme was def and it went this way". I loved it. It was exciting, and new. Rap has changed quite a bit since those early days, and to be honest I'm not such a fan of a lot of the new stuff. Back then it was about telling stories about where you came from. Now it's more just bragging. That tape would get worn out in my tape deck along with another album from a little group called Cool and the gang. It was titled "Emergancy". I loved that album. I would listen to the song Cherrish and think of the girl that I liked at the time and picture myself singing it to her. I guess that little brown tape deck did more than just play music. It helped to tell stories. Now I have stories to tell of my own.

You never forget your first.

I was a younger fella. I would do things around the house to earn a little money from my mom and dad. A chore here and there. Maybe cleaning my room, the bathroom ect. When I received what I thought was the right amount of money, my mom asked me what I wanted to buy with it. I didn't even pause. I knew what I wanted and I knew if we went to any local store, we could buy it. Back then music was available almost anywhere. In a form that time has forgotten but my ears love to this day....Vinyl. We went to Sears of all places and I bought my first record. It came in a paper bag. I opened the inside, and looked at the man in the inside huddled with a tiger. The album was "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. I listened to that album over and over and over again. It spoke to me. My parents had an old record player that was housed in a piece of furniture. It was a brown wood case that I remember dusting many times to earn the exact money that allowed me to earn my new greatest possession. I listened to many singles on that player that mom and dad bought for me before I had earned money for my first LP. Abracadabra by the Steve Miller Band, and other random 45s were played often. But this, this was MY first album. I would bring it everywhere I went. It would be known soon to my relatives that if you wanted to get something for Ryan that he liked, MJ was the way to go. My Aunt Susie would feed this with posters, and pictures and folders I could take to school. I will never forget the moment I got this album. It was the beginning of who I would become. The curly haired little boy that need to hear this music so bad he would do anything to get it. We lost MJ recently. The first thing I did was go to my album collection, and grab the old, dusty scratched up album that started this complete love for what music was. What it could do. Knowing that you could go the store and pick up a piece of someones heart, and soul and put it on a record player, or in a tape deck or in cd player and let them tell you their thoughts. I live for this moment to this day.

That's not Rock and Roll......

I was about 13 years old. Two of my good friends and I would always go over to our buddy's house every Friday night and watch headbangers ball. His mom went to bed early every night and his dad would always be at the bar. He liked his booze. We would sit there and wait for video's from our favorite artists at the time. Anthrax, Metallica, and most of all, AC/DC. One night while we were having our weekly headbanging meeting, there was two videos back to back that sent us into a frenzy. Metallica's "One" and then AC/DC's "Moneytalks". We were so excited. Half way through the second song, the back door swung open and my friends dad stumbled in, smelling of local bar. He looked at the TV and said "What the hell is that?" We replied "It's AC\DC's new song." He looked at us for a second and said "Do you think that's Rock and Roll?" We nervously replied "yes". He walked over to his stereo located underneath the TV we were watching and eyed his record collection. My friends and I looked at each other confused. He grabbed one of the dusty albums, pulled out the sleeve and placed the record on the outdated turntable. He turned the volume to 11, and then turned to look at us. What I heard next would change how I looked at music for ever. It sounded loud, agressive, sexy and as a 13 year old boy, a little bit like something I should not be listening to. He looked at us and said "This is Rock and Roll boys!" About 5 minutes later my friends mom came downstairs and yelled a few choice words about playing music so loud and so late. So he turned to the Stereo, turned down the music, grabbed the slipcase for the album and handed it to me, and went up stairs. I looked down at the wrinkled album cover. "What is it?" my friends asked. I looked down at the brown faded image on the front with a group of men standing around in what looked like Biker outfits. "Something called Led Zeppelin II" I replied. I tell this story because this was one of the first times that music gave me chills, showed me how powerful the feelings that come from it could be, and more importantly made me realize how much music was out there. It became my mission to try and hear it all.

Don't go into music....

I thought I'd start with the name of this blog. The title comes from the last thing I ever remember my grandfather saying to me before he passed away. His last days were spent with my family and I at my Grandma's (his ex-wifes) house during a trip we took to celebrate his victory over cancer. He passed away during that trip and it in a way changed my life forever. "Don't go into music..." It seems so simple when I read it but it changed how I felt about my future. It may have changed who I was at the time or who I would become. I wonder if he had any idea of this when he said it........