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Caught
In Flux #3: A best friend or an older sibling with a cool record collection. A chance happening upon a song on the radio. The kids down the street who liked to put speakers in their windowsill...there are endless different ways to happen across a song, an album or a group that changes one's perspective. Sometimes music makes enough of a difference to spark creative thoughts and actions of one's own. Sometimes it even saves lives. I was curious about how music inspires people, what turns them onto it initially, what keeps them interested. So I asked people I know whose lives somehow revolve around music to share their stores -- people who play in bands, run independent record labels, do radio shows, write for or publish magazines, or merely spend inadvisable amounts of time and money pursuing and consuming records. I encouraged everyone to be as self-indulgent and personal as they wanted, and I kept editorial guidelines vague so as to get as many different perspectives as possible. I wasn't looking for survey results or one of those "album that changed my life" collections -- I just wanted some memories and experiences. This special issue of Caught In Flux is the result. I don't know if I arrived at any new answers in compiling this issue, other than a renewed fascination toward the power of music. It's taken me so insanely long to compile everything that I'm relieved just to have finished this project. In spite of my ennui, I'm considering this issue a work in progress and have vague plans for a Part II somewhere down the line. So please do write in if you have an interesting story of your own to share. Let me know you're out there, in any case, because I obviously don't do this for the money. Profuse thanks to: James Anderson and Shawna Stewart, who generously donated a computer; Jen Matson and Jon Chaikin, who didn't act too irritated at my panicky questions; Alyssa Isenstein and Jon Melnick, whose chance remarks inspired this project; Alan Korn, Jim Merlis, Deborah Orr and Chin-a Panaccione, who suggested contributors or helped me track them down; and all applicable friends, associates, advertisers and distributors. You're all too kind. --Mike Appelstein, August 1994. |