July 20ths
7/20/1993
Saw Todd Rundgren walking down Wacker Drive. I wasn’t sure it was him but by the time I realized it was (because of the glasses), it was too late and didn’t want to chase him down. Went to drop off clothes for flood victims. On way back down Michigan Avenue, here comes Todd again. Saw him walk into 111 East Wacker and followed him in. Lost him. He was wearing a blue and white striped shirt. Every time I saw those stripes I thought it was him.
[This was the No World Order tour promoting one of the first interactive CDs, even when few people had PCs at home].
7/20/1997
I am at heart an instrumentalist, but it wasn’t until about ten years ago that I saw the importance of lyrics in good pop songs. Consequently, I spend lots of time writing them, trying to find interesting metaphors and rhymes. There is nothing more satisfying to me than to take an observation about life and turn it into a little “memento made of sound” that you can keep forever or give to someone as a gift. Now, most of my writing starts with the lyrics because I feel that’s where all the rhythmic and melodic ideas arise. But of course, it’s fun to work from all the angles.
[7/20/2026: AI music makes the lyrics important again, and you can actually hear the words. But lyrics can also simply be a sound where the words or meaning don't matter much, and they can be just nonsense. Lyrics in pop music don't have to necessarily mean something. Also, with AI the singers can sing anything, and in any language].
7/20/2019
To the extent that computers involve math and/or coding, it can be used in music composition and production, but is not really associated with the emotional or spiritual aspects of music that emerge from playing traditional instruments. Scholarly or intellectual knowledge might have little bearing on whether someone is a good instrumentalist. It involves a combination of the practice and knowledge of theory until it is second nature. A curiosity about lots of different subjects may have a payoff in a musical way, compared to someone that is only a good player.
[7/20/2025: Now that AI is in the mix we might be moving farther away from playing instruments with any proficiency, but perhaps extends general knowledge feeding back into other aptitudes. Classes in AI music creation and production are already a thing. I think it’s self-explanatory, but you could also say that about a guitar or piano. Simply playing them with no training begs the question of what might be possible].
7/20/2024
Music is supposed to be all fun or why do it at all? Absolutely no one (except me) would ever seriously think they would spend time every day learning how to read music—even in 1980 when I started. I suppose in some ways I’m more like a Silent rather than a Boomer, but GenX, Millennial, and even GenZ in some ways. Being intergenerational is a good thing to be when you’re in your 20s. To this day, it is inconceivable that I could ever be perceived to be rock’n’roll, but that’s where it started, and is still there. The boy left rock’n’roll, but rock’n’roll (and prog) never left the boy.
Became a song:
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