I just want to be treated like an average guy. |
I know many inferior guitarists who are very proud of the fact that they are as good as they are, when in fact they are only moderately good. |
I thought I'd be wasting my time to go to commercial record companies and make demos for them, because don't forget, I was doing what I was doing and nobody understood what I was doing. |
I was using them as teachers for technique but I was never trying to be a folk. |
I'm not sure how important it is that young adults can find Afghanistan on a map. But ... that is symptomatic of the bigger issue, and that's (U.S. young adults) not having a sense that things around the world really matter that much. |
In fact, I would go so far as to say that I am playing emotions and expressing them in a coherent public language called music. |
In the music I was composing I was trying to express my emotions, my so called negative emotions, which were depression, anger and so forth. |
More American young people can tell you where an island that the 'Survivor' TV series came from is located than can identify Afghanistan or Iraq. Ironically a TV show seems more real or at least more meaningful interesting or relevant than reality. |
Most musicians I know cannot open up. |
Oh, 1962. The music scene was so bad that several of us decided to come out to Berkeley and take over the folk music scene here. |
Regarding fame, fortune and Oregon I do wish I had more money. |
See my father knew a lot about music, he played the piano and he would do theory and stuff like that, but I didn't learn anything from him, but I played that for him and he liked it a lot. |
So I learnt a few country western songs, I bought a chord book, and right away I started writing my own stuff, which nobody else did that, I don't know why. |
So I was really composing for full orchestra and of course I didn't know enough chords or harmonies yet but I came up with some interesting stuff. |
So what I do is this - when I go to the venue, I become the entertainer John Fahey. |