Juergen Tilak

(Taken from the liner notes on my first album, "Ancient History")
...Ok, so I have to start somewhere. Back as far as I could remember I was singing, in the car, in front of the TV and while listening to all those great old German phonograph recordings. I had a lot of influences, such as Italian music from the Dolomites to the sitar of a handful of Indian musicians whose names I can’t remember, to the Beatles among other musicians. My actual formal musical training started in 3rd grade when an interesting life altering event occurred. It was Halloween and we went to a really scary house. When the door opened only a hand came out. Well, being a kid I didn’t pay attention to what the adults were talking about, but suddenly we were in their garage looking at a very old broken down piano that was sitting in the corner. It had straw all over it and was painted pink and white. Well, those folks gave that piano to us. Talk about treats! We had the insides reconditioned and my mother spent a great deal of time on the outside cabinet. When it was done it was a very nice piano from somewhere back in the 1890’s. Pretty soon I was taking piano lessons. It was all good!
That winter another life altering event occurred. I broke my arm when I fell out of my tree house. That put an end to my piano lessons for at least 3 years. When I resumed lessons a funny thing happened, I noticed that I was more interested in coming up with my own music than practicing all those boring outdated songs in those crusty old books. Well, you don’t need piano lessons if you don’t practice what the teacher wants you to work on. So was the end of my formal piano training. I did also receive drum lessons and was a very active member of my junior high choir. I won two solo singing contests in 7th and 8th grade. It was all good!
I can’t remember the first song I wrote but that was well before I ever thought of actually sitting down and recording my music. The music on this CD represents the very beings of my recordings. Obviously, the sound is not great; I did what I could with my portable cassette recorder and an old play condenser microphone. I was also developing my style and my voice. It was all good!
I played in a couple of bands in high school. The band Graphic Sound was an already formed band when I was approached to be the lead vocalist. I did this for a few weeks, but in the end I needed more say in what was being performed. My next musical adventure was starting the band Blue Chip Stock with Scott Hudnall on guitar, Henry Sanders on Bass and me on Drums and lead vocals. It was pretty much Scott’s band, (His house, his equipment, etc. Scott was also on the school newspaper and did a great feature on Rock bands in our High School. Henry Sanders was quoted all sorts of things that he didn’t say and it made us look pretty cool. In the end drums and vocals were too much for me, plus I missed my keyboards! It’s not really ancient history, but it sure feels like it. Well enough talk, let’s get to the music. It was all good!
More to come