Musical Awakening

Dale Keiger writes about a musical awakening he had at the age of ten seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. There is certainly something about that age that makes one receptive to new experiences. I remember being in the fifth grade and having a similar musical epiphany.

We didn’t have cable in my household, because my parents didn’t like television. MTV was new at that point; it was the early 80’s. So we didn’t get to see the new exciting music channel. But there were a few video shows on other channels at that time. There was one on late Friday nights for a couple of hours, and another one on a different channel on Saturday mornings.

I can still picture the scene. My brother was lying on the floor watching. And I was standing at the entryway to the room with my father, when a video came on. It was the most fantastic thing I’d ever seen or heard. There were robotic mannequins jerking about. The music was heavily electronic — beats and scratches. Wow. It was great, and I’ll never forget it. Today that early glimmer still jibes with my interests in high technology and electronic music.

The video? Rockit by Herbie Hancock.