indieOpolis

Boy, I had to really dig to remember what specifically happened during these years that had an influence on me.  Then it dawned on me DOH!  

1982

In 1982, I was finishing up Junior High.  I spent all my Christmas money to purchase my very first keyboard/synth.  The Casio VL-1  

Man, does this thing bring back some memories .  Remember that song “Da Da Da” most recently used in the Volkswagen commercial?  Yep, that’s the VL-1 Rock-1 Rhythm playing in the background.  Maybe if I would have released some music back then, I too could have a song released as the background music for an infamous commercial    Oh well.

I would bring my VL-1 with me to school every day, as I was in Band playing Saxaphone at the time, and when i wasn’t doing schoolwork, etc…You’d see me in the corner of the band room, playing this thing all the time.  What did I play on mine?  The various themes from  Star Wars, ET, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Close Encounters (Yep, All John Williams soundtracks…Told you he was a big influence on me), Superman, the John Carpenter movies, Halloween,  The Fog, Escape from New York, etc..  I think it was this year that solidified in my head, that I wanted to do soundtrack work.

Blade Runner was released and Vangelis once again amazed me with his amazing soundtrack.  I just could not figure out how to get the VL-1 to mimic those wonderful sounds .

1983

Blue Thunder.  Why do I mention this film?  Because it’s title theme (Dusting) was stuck in my head, and one of the songs I played constantly on my VL-1 .  Yet more reasons I want to do soundtrack work.  The soundtrack was composed by Arthur B. Rubinstein who also did the soundtrack for WarGames. 

Also during this year, instead of spending all my Christmas money on a keyboard, I spent it all on a Timex Sinclair 1000. 

I started learning Basic, and how to make computer music via it.  Of course, 2K was not nearly enough for the ambition I had at the time .  Thus, I would record a portion of a song, do a binary dump of the program tape, do another portion, etc, till I was done.  When complete, I would load them all back up, and use my brothers 4 track reel tape unit to mix back.  So, four tracks of approximately 15 seconds of music, but it was bliss .

During year I also think was when I first started watching Cosmos.  Again, utilizing the music from Vangelis’ Heaven and Hell release.  It was a combination of Cosmos and the various electronic artists of this time that inspired me to create The Maestoso Interstellar Suite.

I think it was during this year that those around me really got tired of me just sitting there on the VL-1 playing all these familiar tunes.  They would recognize them, but counld not place them.  So most of my time was spent answer the question “What is that your playing?” with the typical response of “Oh, this is the theme from movie <insert movie title here>”

• History of Musical Influences – Part 1 – 1976-1977
• History of Musical Influences – Part 2 – 1978-1979
• History of Musical Influences – Part 3 – 1980-1981

Additional references and links:

• The Official John Carpenter website
• The Music of John Carpenter
• Vangelis on Wikipedia
• John Williams on Wikipedia
• The Maestoso Interstellar Suite