Other recently released tunes:
Good Times
Los Angeles, fall of 2023.
I'm 70 years old now. When I started this, it was summer of 2021. In 2020, I retired from my job at the US Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC after 35 years. There’s something about your 60’s (and counting) that makes you look back: It’s Legacy Time.
This whole thing started as a memoir. Ostensibly, I would focus on the period 1979 to 1987, when I came to Washington, DC from Los Angeles and formed a rock band called Acrylix, during the New Wave/Punk Rock scare of that period. Once I got into writing, however, it wasn’t so easy to fit everything into a neat timeframe, and so this thing expanded like a balloon.
My granddaughter was born in 2019 and so like a good citizen I filled out a family tree; she would want to know her roots. But although it was a useful exercise and I was able to put ancestral names and places down on paper, I found that I really just wanted to talk about me, me, me. That meant talking about music: the music that influenced me as a youngster and the music I wrote and performed over some 40 years.
My initial thought was to print out a document, whatever I had written, and send it around. My children could read it or not, or later, or whatever. Then I thought hmmm maybe others would be interested, especially friends in DC, so I would publish a book. But I wasn’t sure that was it either – I had seen others publish actual paper books and aside from the thrill of seeing it in print I wondered out loud whether people actually buy books. Besides, after packing up and moving all my belongings from DC back to Los Angeles in 2020, I was trying to get rid of books.
I finally thought, instead of paper what about something electronic, with links to music? Bingo! Through the wonders of modern science, I can put it on the Internet! My bequest to family, rather than some handcrafted dining room table from the Old Country, will be music audio and video files.
So, here it is, a blog and electronic depository for all things Ken. Writing (Mental Anguish of a Would-Be Rock Star) is the memoir, my thoughts in blog form - reflections on a life that's still going on. I will dole it out in weekly chapters. Music contains links to released and unreleased music from the 1980s and 1990s: Acrylix, Shocko Bottom, and my solo material (Laughing Sam, Ken Moss Experience, etc.) - some polished, some raw. I'm focusing on that stuff, but please also check out Glenn Kowalski's website for 7 Door Sedan, which (with Norman van der Sluys and Josh Singer) was a big part of my life from 2007 until 2020, when COVID 19 put the big kabosh on everything and I moved back West. Finally, for good measure, under Photo Album, I'm going to post photos and random thoughts as the mood hits me and my monkey mind allows. You can contact me and I'll put you on The KME List.
I hope this brings you joy. I certainly feel fortunate to be able to do this in this year and counting of the pandemic.
As David Bowie said, I'm happy, hope you're happy too.
As Louis Prima said:
Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.
Enjoy yourself, while you’re still in the pink.
The years go by as quickly as you wink.
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.
And as I said: These are the GOOD TIMES.
Ken Moss