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One of our good customers recently wrote us an especially touching letter about two debut albums we share a love for: Led Zeppelin’s and Jeff Beck’s.
We thanked him and he replied with these additional thoughts. He started by referencing a post I had sent him entitled Professional Skateboarder Danny Way on Flow.
Dear Tom,
Reading this article, I thought, “That’s exactly what I was thinking. That’s because his reflections align with the concept of the “functioning mind”—as described by the Indian sage Ramesh Balsekar in his teachings on the “functioning mind” and the “thinking mind.”
My origins in audio lie in the resonant “hum” I felt filling the entire concert hall during classical performances, and in my high school days, when I was completely immersed (a state of self-forgetfulness) in Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze,” Blue Cheer’s “Summertime Blues,” and The Mamas & the Papas’ “California Dreaming” as they played through a cheap tube radio.
Later, I formed a jazz-rock band and played drums. When I was really in the zone (a state of self-forgetfulness), my hands would move naturally and unconsciously, executing intricate techniques. But when I couldn’t get into the groove, I’d become preoccupied with my technique and timing, my hands wouldn’t move as I wanted, and the exhilaration of playing would vanish into the distance.
From these experiences, I came to believe that the essence of music lies in whether or not one can achieve a state of immersion and self-forgetfulness.
I built up my audio collection, discovered The Absolute Sound in the late ’80s, and became obsessed with collecting Harry Pearson’s TAS List—but most of those records ended up gathering dust on my shelf after just two or three listens. That’s because I couldn’t immerse myself in them.
I spent days wondering why I couldn’t get immersed and found them boring, even though they were said to sound good. Then Fred Kaplan, Michael Fremer, Frank Doris, and others began publishing articles on matrices, stampers, mastering, and cutting, and I found myself sinking deeper and deeper into the quagmire of labels like “true original” and “first pressing”… (laughs).