Music in our Lives

Nora has steadfastly refused to be involved in the planning of music for our wedding.  Not because she's not interested in music, but because I'm a zealot.

I was interested in music from as early as I can remember, though I was born at the wrong time, and in the wrong place, to have a lot of music around me that was very good.  I discovered the Beatles' best work five years after they had disbanded; Paul McCartney and Wings was my contemporary.  And because I was from a small midwestern city, I got the worst of what was around at the time.  I could have had Tower of Power, but got The Bee-Gees instead.  I could have had Zeppelin, but got Grand Funk Railroad.  I could have had Randy Newman, but got Barry Manilow.

But the oasis in this desert was provided by a low-powered radio station from Grand Rapids, WLAV.  Back in those early days of FM, there were lots of dinky stations that had real musical personalities.  They played what their DJs wanted to listen to.  And WLAV was the progressive rock station, so I got a steady stream of Yes, ELP, Genesis, Renaissance, Happy the Man, Camel... (MAN, I'm old...)  Bands who could really play, who weren't afraid of complexity, who had things to say that took more than four minutes.  Bands that didn't have one eye on the best-sellers list every time they went into the studio.  I LOVED that stuff.  Dense, complicated, and really, really talented.

My musical repertiore is much more varied than that now, but I still respond to music that's dense, complicated, and really, really talented.  And one of our friends, Dave Munyak, recommended a band from Burlington called Swing Noire that he'd heard at another event.  Dense and really talented, but also really engaging;  perfectly suited to a nightclub and not a concert hall.  You can hear some of their work here.  And you should.  They'll be the performers at our reception, and I can't wait.

I'm gonna be kind of occupied that evening, so I won't get to listen as closely as I'd like to their music.  But you can, and I hope you'll love it.  It's one of our gifts to all of you.