In keeping with this Christmas theme… My dad went to school at Harvard and saw the big brass bands, and so he came back and he said, “ I want to do that here.” And he’s done that with friends and so every year they will go sort of around this area and downtown to businesses and go and play carols. And they’ve gone along, and you know, I’ve joined them. A couple of years ago, I thought I was…
At Christmas time we’d go to church. Our family would have Christmas on Christmas, and when we came home from church we were sent to the basement while they were running around upstairs kind of getting out the presents to put under the tree. And we had an old-time victrola which you wound up. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen one, a victrola that you wound up. And we had Christmas carol records that were all in German. And…
I came of age about the same time as Elvis. Well, that’s the music I remember and Elvis and Ricky Nelson and the Everly Brothers. You know, back in the day, and I think that what I really liked was the harmony. So I got into the Beach Boys a little bit and then into folk music with some really good harmonies, and that’s why I like the Family Folk Machine so much. I just love listening to these people…
I went to a writer’s group here down at the Ped Mall. It was mostly University of Iowa students, but there were older people too. And I wrote, and recited, two of my monologues. And when I got through this young gentleman came over to me and he said, he had been the host of it and was introducing everybody, and he said “Do you have an email?” I said, “No, I don’t have a computer.” And he said, “Well…
My parents played a lot of Beatles and Rolling Stones and Stevie Wonder. You know, the kind of stuff that was popular in the sixties and seventies when they were growing up. So, I’ve got fond memories of those songs. I have a movie from, I don’t know, those enormous movie cameras that people had in the seventies and the eighties of, I can’t remember what song it was. I think it might’ve been Linda Ronstadt of all people, but…
When I was a little girl my mother always turned on the radio to WOI which was the Ames station, like WSUI is for here. And they had classical music programs, and she’d turn that on. And then I’d wake up hearing that music. I knew it was time to wake up and get up because I was hearing that music.
I have some good Christmas memories of making cookies and listening to choral Christmas music. On CDs usually, but it’s nice. I got reminded of that when someone else shared. I like the full choir carols.
I grew up Catholic and we would maybe once a week listen to the Rosary on the radio. It was like fifteen minutes long and it was sort of boring, in my opinion, but at the end there would be a recording of Ave Maria. And, so it was good, both in the sense that the rosary was done and it was good music.
[Mom]: What kind of music did we have around the house in your childhood? [Kid:] I’m still in my childhood. [M:] What kind of music do you think about that we like to listen to around the house? [K:] Want to look at my shirt? That will give you a clue. Justin Roberts. I like the band Justin Roberts. [M:] What’s your favorite Justin Roberts song? [K:] My favorite one, um, is Popfly, because I like baseball. I’ve never actually hit a…
The music I listened to as a kid was musicals. My mother loved musicals and I knew them so well that when I went to see the musicals at Starlight Theater in Kansas City, I could count the number of words that weren’t the same as on the record.