Musical Influences

The following is a transcript of an interview of Catch The Reference? by the Hudson Hipster, and was conducted August of 2009.  It was done in hopes of being published in Melody Maker but that never came to fruition.

The Hudson Hipster – So, what would you say was your first musical inspiration?

Catch The Reference? – well, as a young kid, I listened to a lot Frank Sinatra, and I loved Elvis, and this one Peter, Paul, & Mary album.  All of it was my father’s music, but at the time, it was all I had access too.  My uncle introduced me to a whole new world of music with a cassette of Banjo Jimmy, some Red Hot Chili Peppers, and most notably, The Doors.  I was a little 8 year old, Digimon toys in hand, who thought he could be “Mr. Mojo Risin.'”  It was a great time.  I loved all there work, and that was an early inspiration, before things changed.

HH – what changed, exactly?

CTR? – well, with all respect to the Doors, when my Uncle bought a Beatles’ CD, 1, a little voice inside my head said “the Doors can’t be your favorite band anymore.”  And so it happened.  I fell head over heels for the Beatles.  Especially after discovered my father’s copy of Sgt. Pepper.  But then, in the years following, I didn’t go crazy with the Beatles like I did with the Doors, getting every album.  I started listening to The Godfather soundtracks, and then to Roy Orbison.  But the Beatles creeped back when I re-introduced them to William [Gerrard, of the Jester].  It became a re-introduction for me too. I started buying all of their albums, all the solo careers, everything and anything I could get.

HH – What was it about them that you loved so much?

CTR? – everything!  Their personality, their story.  Even without the music, they were great.  But the music just could carry any emotions.  And even in the simplest arrangments, they still had so many little idiosyncricies.  The Beatles taught me so much.  Especially about recording.  Studying their bootlegs, and reading just about their engineers, I got a lesson in production 101, and sort of evolved in a few years the way their techniques evolved.  Which is great.  Because fifty years after John met Paul, I can still feel like I’m growing up with them.

HH- what else inspires you?

CTR? – well, I’m still heavy into the Beatles, but there is so much more beyond them, so much ground they didn’t cover.  I opened my music collection to other artists only a little more than a year ago, after being Beatles exclusive for three years.  It started when I had to buy iCarly [the soundtrack] to meet Miranda Cosgrove, with my sister, at a signing.  It reminded me of how much I loved pop music.  But I’ll get back to that.  Anyway, then I turned to Blind Faith, oddly enough, when I stopped having “the faith”.  Their blues-rock led me to Cream’s psychedelic and blues, which took me to Ginger Baker’s jazz and african sounds, and Jack Bruce’s jazz, and Clapton’s gospel-y, down home blues.  I also found Beck, and his early album “A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight.”  It reinvented what I thought the word “album” meant.

HH – how so?

CTR?- it had tracks that were weird sounds, songs that weren’t songs.  And yet it all stuck together as a cohesive package.  That is where a lot of “Stoned Alone” comes from.  Me sitting in my room in September 2008, listening to “A Western Harvest Field by Moonlight.”  Anyway, pop music.  So, after meeting Miranda Cosgrove, I started listening to female pop music.  Her, Emily Osment, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, and Jennette McCurdy.

HH – quite a list!

CTR? – yeah, my list of crushes.  Er, contemporaries.

HH – contemporary crushes

CTR? -[laughs] yeah, “contemporary crushes”.  Anyway, I listen to them all, to start keep odds of which one will still have a career in adulthood.

HH- like Britney?

CTR? – no!  Sorry.  I love all those girls, and I’m sure they will all have long and marvelous careers.  Really.  They work harder than I ever will, and they deserve twice the success they will ever get.

HH – maybe if you date one of them, they will get a boost in popularity.

CTR? – other way around.  I’d get a boost in popularity.  But I could never be tied down anyway.  I also like Led Zeppelin & Pink Floyd.  You have to include that somewhere.  I don’t know what to say about them, other than that they influenced and continue to influence me often.  So, tell me.  What music influences you?

HH – umm, Katy Perry and Ginger Baker.

CTR? – …okay, but why? What about them inspires you?

HH – well, they rock!  Yeah!  Ginger Baker rocks!  [does air drum solo]

CTR? – You’re a horrible interviewer.  I’d fire you if I wasn’t vaguely pleased with the website you made for me.

HH – Thanks?