"Change Your Life" 

--Black Nail ('16)

1. Who I Am

First, you who are reading this essay/document may wish to ask me (and you have every right to do so): Who are you?

I don't mean this in the existential, philosophical, Buddhistic sense of "Who are you?" (or Who are you?!), I mean it in the sense of who I am, or of who am I...as an artist and as a thinker and as a writer and as a teacher and as a so on and so forth (these are all, ultimately, just labels, but they can help us to get our thoughts into some sort of order, at least at the beginning, to organize our priorities and to try and make some sense of a somewhat abstract, indefinitely undefinable topic, but, well, let's start here...). 

So then, please do let me introduce myself to you and tell you a bit about my history, especially the history of my being or becoming a musician/artist (albeit one who is not doing any of this "for profit" or "for recognition" or "to please listeners," etc., but one who, of necessity, creates for the sake of creating, and in order to live and to “be alive,” and there is a subtle but profound distinction to be made here).

Even if you have by chance heard my name before through some or other metaphorical (if not metaphysical) grapevine (though I imagine that some or many or at least a few of you reading this have not, as I am neither famous nor rich), have listened to my YouTube talks or even some samples of my music, and so forth, let me do it again, here, now, properly, and as follows (for starters)...

Born Marc Lowenstein on 2-26-1973, rather early in the morning, from what I've been told (I no longer recall), in a country of immigrants called "America," or, as Franz Kafka spelled it, "Amerika," in a state (not as in a "state of being," but, rather, a "State") called New Jersey, or otherwise "New Joisey," if one desires to pronounce it the way the local natives/native locals often do. Natives of the “new” joisey, not the older, European one, that is…

My ancestors were from Europe, I have been assured, and my full last name (which I prefer in its shortened, concise, much more well-rounded version, "Lowe," which also better complements my given name and includes the same number of letters, rather than spilling over messily) means "Lion Stone." It's Germanic (i.e. Austrian). I've also got some Russian(ic), or “Russo” roots, or so I've been told. That is, my great grandmother, who started painting at around the age of 80, was from Minsk, to be more precise. (Some of her paintings can now be found in a museum. She painted almost exclusively pretty flowers and birds. Nothing avant-garde or anything. Sorry to disappoint you if you were expecting that.) She fled her home in Minsk to escape the Bolsheviks, I believe? The little I understand about my ancestors and their reasons for coming to the then-young land of promise and the free (now the land of chaos and trillions-of-dollars deficit), amounts to this, really, so, although it is rather fascinating to contemplate, let us move on...

I began playing clarinet at the age of seven. Performing solo/duet Mozart compositions by the time I entered middle school. Saxophone when I was 12, then quit both instruments the same year, grew my hair long, like Jimmy Page c. 1975/77, and became a rock drummer. My very first band was called "Infrared," and we did covers of Ozzy Osbourne (“Crazy Train" was the first drum part/pattern I had to master in order to become a member of this middle school-aged rockin' unit of four, or was it three?), Queensrÿche ("Infrared" was in fact the title of one of their songs, so the name wasn't super original, was it? A rather highbrow name for a first band, though, especially considering that we were all barely teens at the time), and others…

In high school I played for a time in a trio consisting of a noisy, "look at me, Maaa! I can play lots of fast licks!!!" type wannabe-famous hard rock guitarist from an upper-middle class, church-going family, a bassist who was a quiet, nice guy and who could play solid bass, though his original instrument was in fact the guitar (he and I would make a 4-track recording of Ziggy Stardust together in his bedroom the year after graduation, with him on guitar/bass and me on drums/vocals), and me on kit and (eventually) occasional vocals. Our one and only public performance together was at our high school’s "Senior Show," where we banged out instrumental renditions of songs by The Police and Rush and Led Zeppelin between the other non-musical acts performed by our peers. For the “finale” (drumroll…or, rather, no drumroll), I left the kit behind and came to the front of the stage to sing the bluesy ballad "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You" Robert Plant-style, sans any sticks or crashes, standing (or was it swooning?) at my mic stand front-and-center whilst belting out all of the high notes between nervous sucks on a lemon-flavored lozenge, as my mouth had suddenly gone bone-dry. 

Toward the end of the number, my “15 minutes of fame,” so to speak (the first 15, anyway, or more like the first five...Dare I chortle?), I screeched out a very strained high long-tone (squeeze my lemon! Eat yer heart out, Robert!!), showing off as though the world depended on it for all of my soon-to-be ex-classmates, who I’d felt had never loved or respected me before this brief but dramatic moment. In the days leading up to our pre-graduation show, even my former Geometry teacher, who had once indirectly accused me of doing drugs by asking me to compare our pupils in the mirror (mine were dilated, due to the asthma sprays I had to take daily, not because I was “doing drugs”) suddenly loved me (she had attended some of our Senior Show rehearsals, as she had been involved with the production). And also, on the Monday following the show, the janitor stopped me in the hallway to tell me he liked my singing voice.

Suddenly, I had a taste of what so-called "fame" must feel like. It was weird, but I certainly liked it better than the way people had treated me before.