Still Listening

How Music Has Shaped My Life — and Still Does

“Do you remember lying in bed

with the covers pulled up over your head,

radio playing so no one can see?”

-The Ramones

It was exactly the way Joey Ramone described it. I’m in my tiny bedroom in our apartment in Brooklyn. I’ve made a little tent with my blanket, and I’m beneath it, a tiny AM radio no bigger than a cigarette pack pressed up against my ear. Blindly fiddling with the dial in the dark, I come upon station WNEW. It’s already after midnight, and although it's a school night and I’m supposed to be asleep, I’m not tired. Instead, I’m captivated by a quiet song that’s crackling from the tinny speaker. It’s “The Boxer”, by Simon and Garfunkel. I’m mesmerized by the lyrics, especially the ‘lai-la-lai’s of the chorus. It’s 1968. I’m 8 years old. I’m not certain if this was the moment that marked the start of my lifelong love affair with music, but almost sixty years later, this early memory is as vivid as if it happened yesterday.

Not the exact little AM radio I had as a kid, but pretty darn close.

I grew up on the streets of Gravesend, Brooklyn in the ’60s. Our block, East 2nd Street, was a typical lower middle class Italian-Jewish enclave, and I had a gang of close friends that I ran with. AM radio ruled the airwaves. Music was always blasting out of a little boombox or a car radio somewhere nearby. There was a rivalry between the two giants, WMCA and WABC. Our gang was devoted to the latter. It was the era of the high-profile DJ, and with legendary personalities as Bruce (“Cousin Brucie”) Morrow, Ron Lundy, Dan Ingram, and Harry Harrison, WABC ruled the airwaves. (To this day, I can still mimic each DJ’s personal radio jingle, a fun but useless party trick.)

WABC was the soundtrack of our childhood. If we liked a song on the radio, we’d head over to Sam Goody’s on King’s Highway and purchase the 45. At this age, it wasn’t yet about the band. It was about the song. Looking back, for every cool purchase that I made (“Lola”, by the Kinks), I was just as likely to make an uncool purchase (“Kung Fu Fighting”, by Carl Douglas). At the time, though, the bar for “cool” and “uncool” was set pretty low: if Cousin Brucie or Ron Lundy played it, then it was cool. I had the classic 45 singles box with the plastic handle, the alphabetized tabs separating such notable one-hit wonders like “Venus” by Shocking Blue, “Ride Captain Ride” by Blues Image, “Brandy” by Looking Glass, and “In the Year 2525” by Zager and Evans. We didn’t know anything about the musicians who created these songs at this stage in our lives, nor did we care.

***

In 1972, I struck up a friendship with a guy who lived on our block, Mike Orenstein. We called him Mike the Hippie because he was the genuine article: long flowing hair, a mustache, heroic sideburns, bell-bottoms, and John Lennon glasses with prescription lenses tinted an ominous black. During the many hours I spent in his psychedelic bedroom, the foundation of my future musical tastes was quietly laid. His room was a sanctuary of black lights, incense, day-glo posters, lava lamps and peace signs. Alongside the obligatory anti-war posters, he had a provocative print of a naked Mama Cass and a huge poster of his favorite group, the Jefferson Airplane.

Mike played countless terrific songs from his extensive collection, for my benefit. I clearly remember chilling to “Monday, Monday” by The Mamas and The Papas, rocking out to “Light My Fire” by The Doors, and getting lost in Donovan’s “Catch the Wind”. Being his favorite band, the Jefferson Airplane was in heavy rotation, and I can still see him grinning at my stunned expression when Grace Slick sang in "Eskimo Blue Day" that the human name "doesn't mean shit to a tree."

The hours spent in his room - talking current events, borrowing (and actually reading) his Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin books, and grooving to those Summer of Love bands - had a profound effect on me, musically and politically. I began thinking in terms of bands and albums, and not just individual songs drifting through AM radio. I wasn’t yet savvy enough to decode many of the lyrics, but something essential had taken root.

As the early ’70s took hold and AM radio surrendered to FM’s growing influence, music assumed an even deeper importance in my life. My friends and I evolved right along with it. We shifted from the lighter pop sounds of Tommy James & the Shondells and The Fifth Dimension to the heavier stuff — Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple. In New York, WPLJ and WNEW were our radio lifelines. Like all fourteen-year-old boys, I threw myself completely into Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” and Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water.” We played air guitar to “Frankenstein” by the Edgar Winter Group, grooved to Golden Earring's "Radar Love,” and nodded with grave seriousness to Bad Company’s “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love.” At fourteen, still firmly in the larval geek stage, your musical taste isn’t quite your identity yet. It’s getting there, but it hasn’t fused with who you are.

And then high school arrives, and suddenly it matters.

***

High school is where one's musical preferences get refined and linked with your identity. Although most of my neighborhood friends elected to attend the local hoodlum factories like Lafayette HS or Lincoln High, I wisely chose to attend John Dewey High School, an experimental, progressive school. It was 1975. The student body was roughly divided into two tribes: the hitters and the freaks. I quickly fell in with the freaks. Although the war was over - Nixon had resigned and Saigon had fallen - the music from the Vietnam era still resonated strongly. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young occupied our turntables, the girls we hung out with listened to Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan was, well… Bob Dylan.

In addition to hippie protest music, we of course loved our classic rock (The Doors, the Stones, the Who), and we gravitated toward progressive bands like Pink Floyd, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, King Crimson, Gentle Giant, and (my personal favorite) Jethro Tull. These were not casual listens. The progressive stuff in particular was consumed under epic quantities of weed and other mind-altering substances — substances that, in our view, only sharpened the experience. Music took on new meaning in high school. It was no longer background noise playing while you did something else. Listening became the something else. A new album release by a favorite band was a major event. Parties were organized so the gang could gather ’round, navel-gaze a bit, and absorb the new material together. Lyrics were dissected with the seriousness of literature. A band didn’t just entertain you — it defined you.

It was on a warm Saturday night in the summer of 1977 that the epiphany arrived. I was on line with my high school posse at the Waverly Theater in Greenwich Village for the midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show when I struck up a conversation with an eccentric British guy named Thomas. He was older than us (in his twenties!) and, bizarrely, a mortician by trade. As we chatted, the subject turned to music, and he asked if I had heard the Sex Pistols. I admitted I knew of them, but hadn’t actually heard the music. He looked genuinely appalled. Without hesitation, he enlisted strangers to hold our place in line and marched me down to Bleecker Bob’s on MacDougal Street, where he bought me the 45 of “God Save the Queen,” royal blue picture sleeve and all, for four dollars. He told me to take it home, play it loud, and my life would be altered forever.

I did.

It was.

I’m not entirely sure why punk detonated so forcefully in me, but hearing that single was a genuine eureka moment. To this day, punk remains my favorite genre. I’d always harbored a rebellious streak — credit Mike the Hippie — but progressive rock, with its banks of synthesizers and 20-minute drum solos, had begun to feel bloated, almost self-parody. The long-haired protest era had faded into nostalgia, Watergate already receding into history. The old revolution had cooled; a new one was sparking to life, and I fell headlong into it.

Outwardly, I didn’t exactly fit the profile — a middle-class Jewish kid from a stable home — but none of that mattered. I loved it. Most of my high school friends were baffled, some dismissing punk the same way we sneered at disco. A select few got it immediately. The majority came around eventually. But at first, I felt like a lone convert, clutching a 45 whose chorus screamed “No Future” at the very moment mine was beginning.

***

After high school, I enrolled at New York University. Not exactly a daring leap into adulthood. For me, it meant a 40-minute subway ride north, into Manhattan, instead of the usual south. I was still living at home. Revolution, postponed.

One afternoon in my Psych 101 class, the kid sitting next to me asked the instructor a question, and I noticed his posh British accent. I glanced at his notebook and saw the cover plastered with crudely drawn punk logos, some I recognized, some I didn’t. I told him I liked a lot of those bands. His eyes widened.

“Really?” he said. “I’m British, you know.”

Yes. That had occurred to me.

Neil’s wealthy family had recently relocated from London to New York and were settling into the well-heeled suburb of Great Neck. His parents had installed him in a stylish studio apartment in an amazing location at Fifth Avenue and East 9th Street, a block from Washington Square Park. He confessed he was still unfamiliar with the neighborhood. I offered to remedy that with a trip to Bleecker Bob’s after class.

The sight of the punk LPs and 45s lining the walls nearly sent Neil into cardiac arrest. In a frenzy, he bought The Buzzcocks’ debut, Another Music in a Different Kitchen, on the spot. We hurried back to his apartment and threw it on the turntable. That afternoon marked the beginning of a friendship that would shape my musical education more than any lecture hall ever could. Though he was geographically removed from the epicenter of U.K. punk, Neil had his finger firmly on its pulse. He was always one step ahead, introducing me to The Clash, The Jam, Wire, Joy Division, X-Ray Spex, The Stranglers, plus entire worlds like reggae, ska, and dub. He had the money to buy the records. I had the blank cassettes to copy them. An elegant division of labor.

My first encounter with the Velvet Underground happened in that cluttered studio when he lowered the needle onto “Venus in Furs.” It sounded hypnotic. It felt illicit. No NYU classroom could have prepared me for that. It rewired my musical brain for good.

***

As much as I loved being in New York City during punk’s heyday, living at home in Brooklyn and commuting to NYU by subway was wearing thin. I finally cut the apron strings and transferred upstate to SUNY Binghamton in the fall of 1978.

My love of punk burned just as brightly in Binghamton. On campus, my social circle expanded beyond Brooklyn and Manhattan. I was now surrounded by people from exotic locales like “The Island,” and far-flung upstate outposts such as Carmel, Wappingers Falls, and Utica. Having just arrived from what I still considered the center of the universe (Manhattan), I quickly discovered that my dorm mates had never heard of half the bands in my record collection. It wasn’t indifference as much as it was geography.

Fortunately, as I had in high school, I soon found my people. To their credit, they were far less judgmental about music than I had become, and far more open to exploration. All it took was Jean-Jacques Burnel’s wicked opening bass line on “Princess of the Street,” from Rattus Norvegicus, to convert my friend Mike. Once that needle hit vinyl, he was hooked. The rest of the guys weren’t far behind.

They didn’t embrace punk just because they liked their new dorm mate. They liked it for the proper reason: it sounded great. In college, just like in high school, music (and weed) (and beer) played a pivotal role in our lives. We were still teenagers, after all. I formed the most enduring friendships of my life during those three short years, and all of that bonding came with a superb soundtrack.

Amazingly, nearly half a century later, my Binghamton buddies and I are closer than ever. On my iPhone, I’ve built a playlist that chronicles those glory days. Classic rock — Led Zeppelin, Lou Reed, Pink Floyd, Springsteen, The Doors — forms the backbone. But I proudly claim responsibility for “Rock Lobster” by The B-52s and “Plastic Bag” by X-Ray Spex, and for ensuring that “Bring on the Nubiles” by The Stranglers — notorious chorus and all (“lemme lemme fuck ya fuck ya”) — stand shoulder to shoulder with the classic rock staples of that bygone Binghamton era. My Binghamton pals and I try to take a little trip together about once a year now, and when we do, the highlight isn’t sightseeing — it’s sitting around, drinking, schmoozing, and retelling the same stories we’ve been polishing for decades. Inevitably, the music comes out, and when those old songs start to spin, forty-seven years quietly fall away.

***

Time marched on, and I soon left the relative safety of Binghamton for the uncharted territory of Gainesville, Florida, the result of not getting accepted to Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Hoping a Master’s degree might strengthen my application, I enrolled at the University of Florida. UF had its own veterinary college, and if I established residency during my Master’s program, I could shave thousands off tuition. It was a practical decision.

Culturally, it was another story. Binghamton may have been a little strange, but Gainesville felt like another planet. I didn’t know a soul when I arrived. Everywhere I turned, I was assaulted by REO Speedwagon and Loverboy on the local radio. My first weeks were bleak. Living in a bland off-campus complex with a redneck surfer who worshipped Rush was positively soul-crushing. Thankfully, rescue arrived from across the hall.

I hadn’t yet met my neighbors, but I’d certainly heard them. Their apartment was Party Central. One morning, as I was heading to class, I nearly collided with one of the guys. “Hey,” Richie said. “We’re having a party tonight. You should stop by.”

I accepted the offer.

About an hour into the party, a guy named Doug burst through the door holding a mangled cassette tape. With surgical precision, he spliced out the damaged strip and declared it playable. I asked what was on it. “The Clash,” he said. “Cool. I love them,” I replied. He gave me a weary look. “I don’t know how much we can talk about The Clash. Most people who say they like them only know ‘Train in Vain.’ So, I don’t know what that means anymore.” Smug? Perhaps. But I respected the candor — and, truth be told, I agreed with the premise. Challenge accepted.

The tape turned out to be a collection of obscure B-sides and rarities. As each track began, I called out the titles within seconds. When the next song started, a girl at the party named Kathy asked Doug the song title. “Ask him,” he said, pointing at me. “He knows them all.” I had passed my audition, apparently. Kathy and I started talking. She lived two floors below me and was deeply into music. Within minutes it was obvious: same bands, same obsession. I brought her and Doug into my apartment, and they stood gawking at my record collection like archaeologists discovering a tomb. Kindred spirits. We bonded instantly.

I eventually did get into UF’s veterinary school and graduated with honors. Kathy and I lost touch, but Doug and I remained close, despite our lives veering in wildly different directions. After years of quiet unease, I came out of the closet and stepped into the life I was meant to live. Doug moved to Israel, reclaimed his Hebrew name (though he’ll always be Doug to me), and embraced an observant Orthodox life. Though he might roll his eyes at the analogy, I’ve often thought that in our own ways, we both emerged from our respective closets. Both of us chose to align our outward lives with our inner convictions, to stop hedging and start inhabiting. Different expressions, certainly, but driven by a similar impulse: the desire for a life that feels internally honest. For both of us, it meant surrendering a certain comfort and accepting the complications that come with living more openly.

Forty-five years later, we still talk regularly. Though we see the world through entirely different lenses, we’re wise enough not to wade too deeply into politics or lifestyle debates. The tie that binds us is music. In fact, of all of my friends, he’s the one who most deeply understands how it works on us. Just to be clear, though: when we do talk politics, he’s always wrong.

***

Eventually, I made my way back to New York City, where an entirely new chapter began. Coming out, at least for me, felt like a second adolescence, a recalibration of identity, appetite, and energy. There were years of late nights: bars, dance clubs, parties, and the intoxicating sense of making up for lost time. To say that I embraced it all with enthusiasm would be an understatement.

Yes, I was a reliable presence on the dance floor for a while. But here’s the funny thing: the music that powered those rooms — essential, communal, perfectly engineered for that environment — never quite took root in me. While many of my friends obsessed over club DJs the way I obsessed over Sex Pistols bootlegs, the pantheon of dancefloor divas (Madonna, Cher, Britney, Gaga) did little to stir my soul. I appreciated the spectacle. I admired the devotion. But at heart, I remained what I had always been: a rock and roll guy.

In retrospect, that may have been fortunate. A dance floor packed with shirtless men, alcohol and chemical enhancements in generous supply, and a soundtrack of blaring guitars? That might have been too combustible a combination. As it was, the music created the atmosphere but never hijacked my priorities or derailed my ambition. I built my veterinary career with focus and discipline, even while enjoying the freedom I had finally claimed.

I’m proud to say that I've always marched to the beat of my own drum — sometimes literally. And through every phase — Brooklyn kid, punk disciple, young veterinarian, newly out man in Manhattan — the music that truly mattered never changed.

***

Nine years ago, after a long career in veterinary medicine, I sold my feline practice and hung up my stethoscope. Retirement has been busy and full — travel, humanitarian veterinary work, photography — but the greatest gift has been time. Unstructured, unhurried time. And with it, music has rushed back in.

Having unrestricted hours has deepened my relationship with it in ways I didn’t anticipate. Sometimes I’ll be listening now and actually pause, slightly startled by how much I’m enjoying what I’m hearing. The notes aren’t just passing through. They’re landing hard.

It’s a little like scent — how a random smell can suddenly transport you back decades before your brain has time to explain it. Music does that too, but more completely. It doesn’t just revive a feeling. It restores the room, the people, the version of yourself who first heard it.

When I put on an album today, it isn’t just background sound. It’s a visit. Those first piano notes of “Gloria” from Horses, the opening guitar lines of “See No Evil” from Marquee Moon, the shimmering synthesizer of “Baba O’Riley” from Who's Next— they don’t just cue songs. They bring everything that came with them. Music is an archive of our most meaningful moments. The songs don’t just tell the story the songwriter intended; they tell the story of who we were, who we are, and how we got here. Perhaps it feels more powerful now because I no longer see these musicians as distant heroes. I’ve lived enough life and acquired enough wisdom to meet them on more equal footing — less wide-eyed disciple, more fellow traveler. The pedestal is gone, but the connection remains.

Discovering — and rediscovering — music has become the highlight of retirement, my personal insurance policy against boredom. Some days I have a plan — a museum, a movie, a photowalk. Other days, no plan at all. But I always make time to put on the headphones, cue up a song, and let it settle in. It’s a small ritual, one I’ve been practicing for decades.

And I’m not done yet.