Electronic Music

I love electronic music. I was trying to figure out when I first realized I liked it. My first thought, however, was about when I was first exposed to it on a conscious level, and I think that was in the sixth grade, so I must have been eleven.

We had to take a music appreciation class, and the music exposure ranged from Kumbia to Come on Eileen. This was 1984 after all. There was something electronic in the book, but it wasn't Eno or Vangelis, all it was was Moog whistles, whines and clicks. Literally, it made me ill.

1983/84 was a magical time for music. Pop radio played wall to wall Thriller. I remember I asked for Thriller for Christmas, believe it or not I got Lionel Richie's Can't Slow Down instead. I actually liked it, but I was disappointed that my parents were confused by which black man sang Beat It. Actually, they were painfully aware of who the freak Michael Jackson was, and didn't want to encourage me, so that was the last time I tried to be overtly BAD; you know it.

Anyway, where was I? 1984--yes, right. Van Halen!

Van Halen's album 1984 has this track on it called 1984, which leads immediately into the track, Jump. Jump was very popular and played routinely, oh every four hours or so, on Rock 103.2. The same station, incidentally, that played Dr. Demento's program on Saturday afternoons. In Salt Lake on 103.5 Dr. Demento was aired Sunday nights at 10:30. I wasn't supposed to listen to 103.2, but like crossing international boarders, I could freely indulge at a friend's house. This is the same "friend's house" we used to play power slam dunk on the trampoline moved under the basketball hoop in the back yard.

Anyway, this friend and his older brother laughed and mocked me one winter morning when we were jamming to Jump when they played air guitar and drums, and I played air keyboard. They insisted Van Halen would never use synthesizers. I was embarased, "How was I supposed to know Eddie Van Halen only played the guitar? I don't have MTV!"

So I've been confused and bewildered ever since, but until today I had surmised that it was possible to play cords like that on the ax with a little help, maybe. NOW I have proof that yes my friend, who's name I can't remember, you were wrong and I, I was right, oh yes. Eddie does know how to play the piano, and there is more than one way to cut down a tree, even he knows it.

I couldn't believe that I have never seen this video all the way through. Fortunately, YouTube exists to put my tortured mind to rest.

Look to see David Lee Roth mock Eddie by playing air keyboard. I feel so vindicated, and this video is so dumb.



Strangely enough, I think Eddie Van Halen's Jump was what lead me to appreciate electronic music on a conscious level. It was cool, not like Chariots of Fire, but Chariots of Fire was very popular. I had no other exposure, except to new wave stuff like the Thompson Twins, and movie and TV soundtracks like Harold Faltermeyer's Axel F. and Jan Hammer's Miami Vice.

In hind sight, I know I've liked electronic music before the sixth grade. I've since discovered that the theme music to Ira Flatow's old PBS science program Newton's Apple was in fact Kraftwerk's Ruckzuck. I really liked that music, and there have been others, but unfortunately it always seemed to be obscure and unknowable to a little kid living in a sheltered world like me. I love electronic music.