Re-introduce yourself to the forum! | Page 6 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

My re-introduction.  I’m Steve.  I’m a 53-year old American male, born and raised in Chicago.  Music has always been a big thing for me.  I was fortunate to have entered this Earthly realm at what many consider to be the best time for music; before we had the ability to cherry-pick what songs we bought and you had to slog your way through entire LPs before finding those hidden gems that would become your favorites and well-before MTv started dictated terms and narrowing the field.  These were the days spent listening to FM radio and when your street cred included what kind of stereo you had.  My first concert was in 1976, if that’s any indication.  T Rex and Golden Earring, if you’re curious.  I was an avid record collector.  I was also a Beatles fan from the get-go.  I don’t recall watching The Beatles on Ed Sullivan because I was far too young, but I’m told it was on and I was glued to the set.

Toward the end of my teens, I joined the military and wound up seeing at least half the planet.  I made a career out of it (retiring about 10 years ago) and actually living in places like The Philippines and South Korea for some years.  I currently live and work in Japan.

As for how I got here, that’s a bit of a story; I was at a friend’s house during a party and the music was coming from one of those programs on a cable channel dedicated to classic rock.  My friend and I wound up sitting with our backs to the screen and were in an impromptu contest to see who could name the song and artist the quickest.  We were having a blast.  While we ran neck-and-neck, it turned out I knew trivial facts about the artists that I’d go on about and someone mentioned that I should start a facebook page.  That was an interesting idea, so I did, creating a page to post stuff about classic rock albums.

Not long after this, another friend made a comment that I should have called it some sort of Beatles page because of all the Beatles posts I was running.  That ground down to a ‘spirited’ discussion, where one person said the Beatles were nothing but a bunch of drugged-out hippies (they were just pushing my buttons; the military will make you many things – especially anti-counterculture) and another that they were just a boy-band (that was uncalled for!), when my perception was (and still is) that they were an original Rock band and a damned good one!  And their ‘tribal’ stuff (as Lennon liked to call it) was killer, once you got past all the ‘wooos’ and ‘ahhs.’ Their formation was birthed from Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly and American R&B – you know… the good stuff.  I started looking for more details about their earlier years but soon realized I knew far less about their later years than I thought I did and I got on this kick to dive in and learn what I could.  Eventually, I got here.  At first, I lurked.  Pretty soon, the discussions I read were far too interesting, too bright, to just idle on the sidelines and I registered.