I remember being 15-16, getting a tatty old Kay amp that picked up Radio Moscow when a microphone was plugged into it. A fuzz pedal from the local junk shop (an OG Big Muff later stolen from the stage after a show years later, that hurt), a cheap old guitar (a one pickup Guild S60 - they seem to go for a lot these days but in the mid 1980s it was only a few quid from one of those music and video exchange shops). And then made loads of incoherent noise with a few friends with similar terrible but exciting gear. Until parents came home to shut us up or neighbours came round to complain. Eventually, that led to terrible bands, then maybe slightly better ones, and in the end a few records before total commercial failure and the need to earn a living made me put it all away and get on with a “normal” job.
So it’s been fun watching my 16 year old embark on his own musical journey. Making noise and having fun. Ploughing his own furrow. With no interest at all in any of my (far too much) gear (other than - oddly - the Meng Qi Wingie…), and doing his own thing, mainly on a laptop. It’s just as incoherent but energetic as I remember being back then. And I do wonder where it will all go. Hopefully somewhere interesting before normal life intervenes. Even if early sounds are…exploratory… like this more than slightly off-kilter Ted Hawkins cover, which isn’t much more than boy with echo…
For Elektronauts with teenage kids, what musical (or other creative) journeys have they started on? What has it meant to you? How did they get started? And where have they ended up? And what parallels have you seen to your own musical backstory?