So I was down at Decatur CD a few weeks back. While there, I was able to recapture part of my youth when I discovered the Art of Noise 2010 box set, Influences. I discovered Art of Noise back in 1984, a year before my father died. I mention my father because through most of my high school years, I helped my mother and siblings care for him, as he struggled to live with an extremely weakened heart from a late 1981 congestive heart failure.

I don’t mention my father’s ill health to complain, but to rather acknowledge how much time spent at home allowed me to listen to music on the stereo. Also, it being the mid-1980s, this was the period of time where Atlanta natives remember Channel 69/Video Music Channel. Our family could not afford cable, MTV was just something I got to see at a friend’s house, so having a broadcast channel that aired music videos was a godsend to my teenage mind.

Read the rest of this entry »