My musical education

Over the last year or so Zach has taken a real interest in music, notably by his purchase of a turntable this past December and his thorough enjoyment of finding records and combing record stores in search of classic vinyl.   Yes, vinyl is once again at the forefront of our culture with this retro revival well and truly underway with Zach generation.  A great example is the day we brought his turntable, the place was packed with teenagers and I mean packed!

Clearly I'm the big beneficiary of his newfound love of music as he brings home his latest musical purchase and quickly slips down to the basement to put on another of new record acquisitions. Instantly I'm thrown back to my youth with another classic booming from the basement, a-la Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin.  Wow, it’s amazing how music can take you back to your own childhood memories.

Zach's new record player

Typical of Zach in that like me has a very eclectic love of music, so one moment we'll be listening to a Bob Marley album and the next it'll be Kanye West banging out a more contemporary and edgy tune…

As I've documented in past blogs whenever we travel he’s often well ahead of the game and has already researched and found at least one second hand record store in our travels and will want to spend an hour or two going over row after row of records in search of “the one” that he needs for his collection.  I'd say that’s a good use of his allowance don’t you? Even on our trip last week to South Beach in Miami, he’d already sourced out Uncle Sam’s records on Washington Avenue and directed me to it as he then spent an hour picking through the store and eventually purchasing a couple of cool instrumental albums. Don't worry Sami and I shopped at an outdoor shopping mall down the road so we had plenty to do. ☺

Not only does he have a love of listening to music but I’ve strongly encouraging him to create and produce his own music.  

The line up from the first Coachella Festival
1999

In fact, he’s recently acquired some free music software and produced a handful of songs, which he’s placed out on SoundCloud, much like a blogger would with the written word.  His moniker in the SoundCloud world is DJ Endgame, which is pretty cool I must admit. I couldn't have even imagined having an a.k.a at 15 let alone putting myself out there into the music world at that age.  I often ask myself where on earth does he get this amazing confidence?

To support his love of music we'd also been talking about going to a music festival or concert together sometime over the summer.  Clearly I feel pretty fortunate that we have such a great relationship with him that he wants to go to a concert with his dad at 15, but there you have it.

We'd initially talked about going to Sasquatch in Washington state near Seattle, but the timing just didn't work for either of us, but after more discussion it became clear that who he most wanted to see was OutKast who were reforming for a festival tour this summer after breaking up in 2008.  As he put it to me “something to tell my kids”, just as I had told him about my experience with seeing Bob Marley live in Australia during his one and only concert tour in…well, a long time ago anyway. ☺

After doing a quick search for summer music festivals in North America (yeah, there were a bunch!) I narrowed it down to one that worked for both our schedules and timeline (before summer camp starts for him).  The Coachella Music Festival is held at the Empire Polo Field at Indio, California (between Los Angeles and Palm Springs) in mid April.  This festival has been around since 1999 and over the years has grown into one of the premier music festivals with some huge names performing over the years…Coldplay, Bjork, Oasis, The Black Keys, Jay-Z, Dr Dre and Snoop Dog, Beck, The Chemical Bros…well the list goes on and on.  In fact now it’s grown to be so big that it’s actually staged over two full weekends with the second weekend actually being a perfect fit.

So as a surprise earlier this week I got us a pair of VIP tickets for the concert. I told him last night by phone as he’s still in Florida for March break with his mum, Sami and grandparents. Excited was probably a bit of an understatement, when I gave him the news. ☺

As a good friend of mine quipped on Facebook after I had announced our impending adventure to Coachella –“who's taking who to the concert?”.  

Some of the musicians performing this year....pretty amazing line up don't you think?

I hadn't really thought about it, but Al was totally right in that I'm going to be completely out of my musical depth at Coachella and only know a couple of the performers of the forty or so they have scheduled over the three days…a veritable “blank slate” if you will.   Still the upside for me is that “I don't know what I don't know” and so will be open to a bunch of new sounds and artists that I hadn't been aware of before that weekend.  Somehow I think Zach is going to expose me to a large amount of Rap and Hip Hop...just sayin'.

With Indio being located near Palm Springs in the desert I'd better bring a good amount of sunscreen, my sunnies (Australian for Sunglasses) and an open mind as I get the feeling that I'm going to be in for one big musical education the middle weekend of April. 

Bring it dude!   ☺