What were you doing at age 21?

"Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing." (granfury)
08/07/2014 at 22:27 • Filed to: None

With a freshly poured pint of Wells Bombardier in hand, I sat back and enjoyed this album for the perhaps the billionth time. I never tire of it and can listen to it over and over, picking up new details seemingly on every listen. Any artist would be proud to have an recording of this calibre in their repertoire, and to think that this was his debut album, recorded at the tender age of 21. This got me thinking to what I had accomplished at that age. I was still a student, as aimless then as I am today. Mind you, I am not a prodigy by any means, but I have difficulty recalling anything substantial that I had accomplished by that age. Thankfully there is room in this world for the achievers as well as the rudderless.

DISCUSSION (20)

scoob > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/07/2014 at 22:30

I'll answer in 4 years when I'm 22.

The Transporter > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/07/2014 at 22:33

Trying to figure out what the fuck to do with my life. Four months later I would have the answer thrust upon me.

PanchoVilleneuve ST > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/07/2014 at 22:36

Drinking Ommegang and listening to Mogwai.

Not much has changed, although Ommegang has declined significantly in quality ever since they were bought out by Duvel.

jariten1781 > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/07/2014 at 22:39

Was enlisted, in engineering school, working at Compaq, living in section 8 housing, and driving a 3rd gen Prelude without AC in Texas. Busy year.

All Motor Is Best Motor > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/07/2014 at 22:40

You are a man with fine taste in music. Anything by ECM Records is a quality album and a quality recording. Pat Metheny is also fantastic. May I suggest the album "What's It All About"? The whole album is just Pat doing a guitar solo, covering/interpreting tons of classic 60's and 70's songs. Here's one of my favorite songs from the album (there ain't a bad song on the album):

It really sounds great on my Magnepan 1.6's.

Sn210 > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/07/2014 at 22:43

working full-time, schooling full-time, and dating my wife full-time.

Squid > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/07/2014 at 22:43

I was drunk watching Rob Zombie on my 21st. Then I spent being 21 working as a lube tech at a Lincoln dealership getting drunk all the time.

Svend > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/07/2014 at 22:48

Well on my 21st birthday I was on a 14 day drinking binge on one of the Spanish islands and was drinking 24 to 40 pints of cheap Cerveza a day. I don't know how any of use aren't dead because we did exactly the same for my 22nd birthday on a different island.

Now at 34 I can look back say it was a stupid thing to of done but at the time it was an experience and enjoyable. No regrets.

Biggus Dickus (RevsBro) > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/07/2014 at 23:24

Sitting here, replying to this post.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > All Motor Is Best Motor
08/07/2014 at 23:52

I'll have to check out this album. It always amazes me how Pat can transition seemingly so effortlessly between different styles and genres. One of my favorite recordings has to be Joni Mitchell's Shadows and Light concert, performing along with Jaco Pastorius. I only stumbled across it recently whilst poking around on YouTube and now frequently have it running in the background at work.

I became a big ECM fan back in the '80s, and still have a bunch of recordings on vinyl. Sadly, my turntable seems to have atrophied from lack of use, but I have the service manual and may rebuild it sometime when I have a little spare time (ha!). The family had moved to a new location back in 1980, and due to the location I was unable to receive a number of radio stations that I used to listen to. I started at the beginning of the dial and found a local community college radio station and NPR affiliate that played a lot of fusion jazz, and I was hooked. I would ride my bike down there and hang out with the DJs, learning about the music and pulling albums. I still have a tape full of stuff I recorded off the air that I haven't been able to identify, even with SoundHound and the like. When we'd go on long drives each of us got to play our favorite tape, no vetoes, and I would always choose this one, much to the chagrin of my family.

When I got my license I would drive to a remote record store that specialized in jazz. They had a very good selection of ECM stuff, and nearly every payday I would run down there and grab a record by an artist heard on that station. Keith Jarrett, Oregon, John McLauglin, Terje Rypal and other artists similar in style.

Your speakers look quite amazing. I don't have anything quite as impressive, and have assembled what I consider to be a decent system out of hand-me-downs and miscellaneous bargains. My receiver is a Denon unit from about 15 years ago. A friend spent a few grand on it, but when DTS came out he just had to upgrade. My primary speakers are a set of Tannoy Orbitus-1s that my dad bought new back in 1968, backed up by some Energy units I picked up on clearance. I've got a 55" Loewe HDTV, 176 lbs of German beauty that was $7,500.00 when new, but only $100 when the employees at Goodwill couldn't figure out how to program the inputs. It now appears that the color wheel has exploded, leaving me with a back-to-the-future set that only displays black and white images in high definition. I've had it for a couple of years and got my money's worth out of it, and now I'll have to move on to something smaller.

Back in the '80s a friend of mine got a request from a woman at his church. It seems that she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and without any close family in the country she was going to spend like crazy until her last day. He was tasked with creating the ultimate stereo system and listening environment, cost be damned (within reason). I can't remember the total cost of the system, but I do recall that the speakers were $10,000 for the pair. The living room was sparse and had rugs placed appropriately to improve the acoustics. When she was on one of her many vacations, a bunch of us went over there for an evening of listening and found this system to be mind-blowing, simply mind-blowing. I had no idea that audio could sound that good, and that so much could be packed into a simple stereo recording. He put on 'Material Girl' by Madonna, despite the howls of protest. The music swirled around in multiple dimensions, with amazing details that would otherwise not be heard. We stayed there until the sun rose the next morning, trying out track after track, every conceivable genre. After she passed away he was surprised to learn that she had left the stereo to him in her will.

Forgive me for rambling on. A little alcohol and the need to reminisce tends to result in long-winded rambling like this...

Gamecat235 > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/08/2014 at 00:30

The night I turned 21 I had a Honey Brown Ale followed by several drinks with tequila in them, all of them at the Smart Bar in Chicago (the bar that is associated with Cabaret Metro).

I had worked briefly for a record label, and hadn't yet been introduced to the staff of Industrial Nation (where I wrote, edited and did general office work), I was a college dropout who was newly married and was living in a big city away from everyone I knew.

Before I turned 22, I had cared for my dying grandmother for the last 7 weeks of her life, 6 days a week, 24 hours a day (I went out dancing/clubbing on the 7th day). Had the good fortune to work for IN, started to work at a record store in Chicago, and had immersed myself in the goth/industrial scene in Chicago in the mid-90's.

All Motor Is Best Motor > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/08/2014 at 00:37

There's nothing to forgive. It sounds like you had an interesting upbringing and are better for it. I enjoy hearing about other people's life experiences. We can only live the one life we're given, but the next best thing is hearing how others have lived theirs. I really like to try and imagine myself in other people's shoes; to feel what they feel and felt. Call it a way to live vicariously through others. It's very cool that you listen with vintage speakers. There's actually quite a following for vintage audio. The 60's and 70's were the heyday of audio. Equipment was really warm and people cared a lot about how good things sounded. Plus, 60's and 70's music was just the best . I still listen to an old Panasonic Technics integrated amp from the 1970's on my cheaper stereo. It really has a gentle, warm sound that's perfect for jazz and blues.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > All Motor Is Best Motor
08/08/2014 at 01:23

Probably a better match for the Tannoy's would be the Marantz 2240 currently sitting on a shelf. My original one was stolen from my parent's garage when they were remodeling the house. I found a rebuilt one on eBay and it worked great for years, but now the volume control is flaky and needs replacement. I tried the appropriate contact cleaner, but it seems too far gone to revive according to technicians I've consulted on the matter. I will still pick up the occasional vintage piece should I stumble across one at a thrift store. I've added a nice '70s-vintage Yamaha receiver, a Nakamichi cassette deck, and a very sweet high-end JVC SVHS deck for next to nothing.

My dad used to attend a lot of concerts back in the '60s (and has the high-frequency hearing loss to prove it) and even played a bit of guitar. I've got great memories of spending an evening with him and my sister where he taught us about all varieties of music of the 60s and 70s. That night really opened my eyes, um, ears, to an amazing array of bands, many of which I still listen to to this day. My sister didn't absorb as much as I did, and doesn't have the same love of music that I do, but has admitted that she has a great respect for my appreciation of music of all types.

One other fun music-related evening occurred when some family friends were over for a visit. I had just salvaged a laser out of a grocery store checkout stand and built a power supply to drive it; remember, this was the early eighties and a laser wasn't something that you could pick up at a dollar store. We played around with it for a bit, trying to find something interesting to do with it, when we mounted a small piece of mirror on the woofer and bounced the laser off of it. The bass would create some interesting patterns on the ceiling, and thus we had our own laser show. Our parents joined in, and for the next several hours the eight of us played various cuts just to see what patterns we could create. Good times...

All Motor Is Best Motor > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/08/2014 at 01:30

Too bad the contact cleaner isn't working on the volume knob. I had the same issue on my Technics, but the cleaner fixed it. If you look on AudiogoN ( http://app.audiogon.com/ ) you can always find a bunch of vintage (and newer, of course) audio gear. It's a great place to look for rare and vintage audio equipment. Almost anything Sansui, for example, was excellent from the 60's and 70's.

That's a REALLY cool story about the laser and woofer. It's amazing what people do when they're bored. The internet has really destroyed a lot of creativity, sadly.

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > Svend
08/08/2014 at 01:30

At 11:55pm on the night before my 21st birthday I went into a local convenience store and grabbed a 40 oz bottle of MGD. I waited until midnight and went up to the register with the expectation of being carded. I wanted the cashier to look at my license and then look at the clock, but for the first time in a long time, nobody asked me for my ID. Now what? I went home, chugged down the entire bottle, and then went to sleep. So much for my silly plan.

Svend > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/08/2014 at 01:53

Ouch, sorry man. I've never been IDd. When I was 14 I would be sent to the local discount supermarket to buy vodka for the sixth formers (17 year olds) and would pocket the change.

I did grow a moustache at 12, so by 14 it was well established.

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/08/2014 at 03:03

I turn 21 on the 31st this month...

I don't wanna get older. I still feel like I'm 17.

Wishin & workin for an E39 M5 > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/08/2014 at 09:09

This is what I was doing when I turned 21:

Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing. > Svend
08/08/2014 at 11:09

In my late 40s I am still incapable of growing a full beard; tragically, out of the two of us my sister got all of the hairiness genes. Up until recently I was still getting carded, but growing in a goatee of the salt-and-pepper variety has put a stop to that. I remember the days at DirecTV International years ago, and at lunch was surprised to see the president of the company, a man in his late 40s, still getting carded.

I've also personally disproved the old adage "I know it like the back of my hand", by glancing down and seeing liver spots I've never noticed before. Between that and the hip pain I'm starting to feel rather old, but as age is more a state of mind I shall remain young until I'm well past over the hill.

Svend > Full of the sound of the Gran Fury, signifying nothing.
08/08/2014 at 16:49

Consider yourself lucky. For my 12th birthday my dad took me to an electrical store (this was the time when Sony Walkman's were all the new thing) and I thought we were going to get one, then my dad walked straight past the counter, then saw those tiny portable tv's (the ones that drank 4 AA batteries for half an hour or television) and I yay, then he continued past and stopped next to the electric razor counter and said "pick one, your mother doesn't want you wet shaving just yet". Massive let down.

I'm now 34 with a (as you say) salt and pepper goatee, I've shaved off my hair on my head as it seems pointless with the amount it's receding to keep it.