It would take some time, but if he decided to take up guitar lessons, he could rid his life of Karate, still manage to get the ladies he'd hoped the Ninja Turtle thing would generate, and in time Piano as well!


"I want to play guitar!"


The lessons were off to a three legged trot with some long haired idiot at a small music shop. The lessons ended quickly when the instructor asked for "coke money". It became clear that God went way out of his way to upstage the last instructor when Konnor began lessons with a brilliant Asian guitarist named Neil. In the eyes of Konnor, it wasn't so much that Neil was an excellent teacher, but also that he was an easy individual to throw off track with random conversation. This was reserved for occasions when Konnor had not practiced, which on average affected one lesson per week. Konnor continued his weekly lessons and gradually developed his skills as a guitar player, but his headstrong and stubborn nature got in the way of learning anything beyond what he wanted to learn. Really, how many kids think it's cool to learn classical and jazz? Yeah, sure, now we know that the ladies like that sort of serenade, but c'mon, have you seen the new XBox? Goodbye Nintendo!

Ahem

The stuff that Konnor liked came naturally. Guitar, and music were always a part of Konnor's childhood, largely thanks to his father's love of music. Although Konnor began playing with other musicians at around 10 years old, it wasn't until he started playing with Jason that his creativity blossomed. Blossomed into a beautiful creative blossom. Which smelled so sweet. Like candy. Rock and roll candy. If there ever was such a thing. Which there is. I've got some right here.

It was always an entertaining challenge for Konnor to learn new instruments. Or pretend to learn them. Whichever came first. Most notable was Konnor's weekend adventure resulting in his playing of the Upright Bass for the high school jazz band. Jazz musicians cried that week, exclaiming that this proved that they had absolutely nothing to be so goddam snooty about, to which we responded, "Yeah, you don't. Jerks". Konnor had beaten out other students who had actually played bass as their primary instrument for years, and they also cried. This was the closest thing to ass-kickings that Konnor would ever administer.

Using a bow on that newly learned upright came shortly after that monumental weekend, and the concert band (which he hadn't been in for years) had never sounded so beautiful. P.S. The Upright made his fingers bleed on occasion during practice. It was painful. That's how much Konnor loves music. It's almost dogmatic.

In the later part of grade 12 Jason and Konnor began writing more, with obvious inspiration from their discovery of technically demanding "progressive music". Music took on tones of Dream Theater and Ayreon. They wrote songs longer then novels. Well okay, maybe not that long, but this is a writeup about Konnor, and it's not like he reads, so yeah. Konnor is a slow reader, so maybe thats why the songs seemed longer than novels. That is beside the point. They stumbled through various heavier projects but landed safely on a pillowy soft blanket of rock and roll.

University for Konnor, much like Jason, proved to be a waste of time, or it would've, had they actually gone. And it's really hard to get a good rock and roll thing going, when you are too busy not going to class and not reading your text books to not do well on tests and exams that you somehow didn't show up to... especially when you are a slow reader. So school is on hold.

Forever.

Which now brings us to present day, writing and performing with Radio Electric. Konnor had never been the front man for any original material, and this afforded him little opportunity to develop his own voice. The singing he had done had largely been the work of other singers, and Konnor found himself imitating other styles and singers' voices. It was belting out those deep and moving lyrics of "Get Up" that Konnor found his voice, and we can certainly say that he has slipped nicely into his sound...

One can only hope that his throat (which I'm sure will be destroyed before he dies) will hold up long enough for Tom and Jason to get rich. Have you heard him yell?

Rock n' Roll