My name is Marc Librescu. I began listening to music in 1963 when I was about 4-years-old (you do the math). I lived in The Bronx. During those days I’d listen to the New York AM stations, particularly WABC and WMCA on a transistor radio that a cousin bought me.
Back then, the radio played Motown, The Beatles and the British invasion groups, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and The Beach Boys.
The first album I owned was Their Satanic Majesties Request by The Rolling Stones, which was given to me by another cousin after my mother made her take back Magical Mystery Tour because it contained the line, “Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog’s eye.”
I was eight.
The first thing I did when I was able to save up enough money, was to march down to the local Woolworth’s and buy a copy of Magical Mystery Tour.
I remember being a big Monkees fan when I was in 3rd grade. In 6th grade, I liked Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young and Chicago.
When I was a teenager, I liked Mott the Hoople, The Who, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Yes, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. I blame marijuana for Yes and ELP.
A little later, I remember listening to Strawbs and Roxy Music.
Self portrait, 1978
After 1977, everything changed. Patti Smith, The Ramones, Television, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Talking Heads, The Stranglers, The Jam, The Psychedelic Furs. I could go on.
Then one day, it was all gone and there was eighties music, most of which I heard in clubs and didn’t listen to at home: Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, Tom Tom Club, Pigbag and a host of other bands that I should remember as I write this, but I don’t.
I was a deejay at WSVA, the radio station for The School of Visual Arts, in its first year in 1983-1984.
Then in my late twenties, I started to get into British folk-rock: Fairport Convention, Richard Thompson, Steeleye Span, and The Oysterband. Somewhere after age 30, I did some travel writing and started writing album reviews, concert reviews, and interviews for Dirty Linen magazine, a small music magazine that seems to still exist today.
Today, I listen to the old stuff and some new music as well. I like Eels. I also like some classical music and some old jazz.
Understand that there is practically no new music being produced today that is of any value, except to the music companies who are making money from unsuspecting young people.
This sketch of my musical tastes lists a few signposts but is by no means a representative map of what I liked in the past and what I like today. It doesn’t speak to the over 1,000 record albums I’ve owned it total, or the fact that as I write this, iTunes tells me that I have 14,741 songs on my hard drive, which to my reckoning is over 1,200 albums.
I created this blog in order to share some of the songs that I consider to be among my favorites culled from a lifetime of listening, presented by someone who considers himself knowledgeable on the subject.
Marc Librescu
January, 2009
marc@marcsmusiclist.com
Follow
me on Twitter.
