The Five Bs; Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, The Beatles and Billy

After the Liverpool Invasion, my family and I moved to Arcadia. This was at the beginning of 4th grade for me. I wasn’t happy about leaving my friends in La Canada behind but I was soon to make new friends.

Among my new friends were our new next door neighbors, Billy and his sister Andy. Arcadia was very ‘White Bread,’ so Billy and I had to be very inventive to keep ourselves entertained, which was not a big problem, except that it usually landed us in trouble of one kind or another.

Outside of getting along great, Billy and I were very competitive regarding certain topics. It seemed a bit random but we chose them nevertheless. For example Billy liked Chevies and I liked Fords. We were very adamant about these rivalries and frequently had long arguments over them.

One of the topics we were divided on was music. Billy was for rock ‘n’ roll, The Beatles and The Monkeys while I was strictly classical; Beethoven, Bach and Mozart. Brahms came much later, actually.

Billy took piano lessons, so I started on the violin. I had the stuck-up attitude of the classical musician; that rock ‘n’ roll was a debased form of music that couldn’t be taken seriously.

I had to admit to a steady curiosity about this popular music, especially The Beatles. I always listened to the latest Beatles album with Billy. They were usually his older sister’s albums and we even scratched up the Magical Mystery tour album by playing it backwards to search for clues regarding the rumor that Paul was dead.

I remember Billy telling me I had to see this new T.V. show called The Monkeys. This, I just didn’t get. In junior high, the allure of rock’n’ roll began to grow especially with it being in the domain of the ‘cool kids.’

In high school, I started getting high and faking my involvement with rock ‘n’ roll, even though I still had no clue as to who most of these groups were.

In music school my association with pop music would change from a desire to be cool to utter revelation.

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