Cullowhee, North Carolina in my cabin by the Tuckasegee River. 2018
Cashiers, NC 2015. That house was like the Shining for me. I heard things. It almost consumed me.
Studio setup 2020, Bermuda Run, North Carolina
That laptop is sitting on a Mayo Stand, like they use in Operating Rooms, This was my basic recording set-up for the basic tracks - kick, snare and Hi-Hat. I wasn’t coordinated or metric enough to add other elements, like say, Toms, Cymbals, and also record it. So this gave me something simpler to focus on and try to get it right. In less than 100 takes.
Western Carolina University, Health and Human Sciences Building, Cullowhee, North Carolina 2018
First Drums - Sears and Roebuck Co. I think my parents got them on my 12th birthday for me, and I was sick as hell. I was in a febrile delirium hallucinating on codeine cough syrup. (Now I know that, in retrospect, what was going on then. Man, I was overmedicated). I could hardly get out of bed, but I remember being so excited that I had to open the boxes. I survived and went on play them in the living room, a room that houses had back then, but no one used. I played along with the albums the Who By Numbers and Led Zeppelin IV for hours. I sucked at that too. But my parents were very tolerant. That’s a portrait of my mom on the wall.
Here was my keyboard collection in about 1983, except that was the organ at my parents house - maybe a Hammond or a Baldwin? I can’t remember. It had a great Leslie cabinet inside and could crank enough to keep up with a quieter rock band. That’s a Fender Rhodes electric piano that weighed about 1000 pounds, a Korg electric organ that had sliders and a Leslie effect that was also really good, and a Roland SH-01 analog synthesizer with 2 VCO’s that has become something of a collectors’ analog icon these days. I ran them all through that Sun alpha-eight powered mixer and a Peavy bass cabinet with two 15 inch speakers in it. I used a wah-wah and a phase shifter on the piano and there was reverb in the mixing board.
Artwork by Amy Parlier, Pittsburgh, PA 2018
I think this is in Raleigh, North Carolina around 1964-65 with my sister Kimberly Denise Erlacher (married Johnston). I don’t remember it, of course. I don’t remember that guitar, but I might remember the piano. Not sure. I think it was cream colored. I see I was holding it left-handed. I do remember that picture on the wall, called The Gleaners.
First Guitar - $12 at a thrift store in downtown Winston-Salem. The first chord I learned was A minor. Lucien Buford Hill taught me Rocky Racoon, my first song. Then he taught me Castles Made of Sand by Jimi Hendrix. My second song. I played it in front of my 6th grade class and totally sucked. He introduced me to Bob Dylan, Leo Kottke, Jimi, Led Zeppelin, Return to Forever, and the Beatles. But important note, my sister Kim has been the biggest musical influence in my life. She introduced me to Motown, the Jackson 5, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Al Green, the Doors, Carole King, Todd Rundgren, Allman Brothers, SOOO much and I can’t remember it now.
