Patrick Brown
Born April 20 1969 in western New York (Jamestown, home of Lucille Ball, to be precise). Moved to Denver at age 6 and grew up there through high school. Went to NYU's film school but left NYC immediately afterwards to return to Denver because the city was wearing on me too much. Have managed a big independent record store for the last five years. Have two cats and a boyfriend of six years. Have strong tastes for funk, punk and avant-garde music and dissociative, avant-garde films like Bunuel's or Jean-Luc Godard's. Am learning alto sax, have had a couple photography shows, and am trying to organize and direct a short video in between reading all the Miles list postings.
As for my interest in Miles, it stemmed from reading Lester Bangs and Robert Christgau raving about him - when two writers I agreed with so much on other musicians both found his 70's period to be among the great works, I knew I had to check it out. I probably bought Bitches Brew and Tribute To Jack Johnson first, and it took a while to get into Bitches Brew, although I liked Jack Johnson from the get-go. Of course, all this took place after Miles died - I had no early interest in jazz, coming at it from a punk/rock attitude of "fuck art, let's rock" or something similar. So alongside Miles I went straight for Ornette, Cecil Taylor, late Coltrane and Albert Ayler. And now I listen to Miles probably ten times as much as the others combined.
This was written two years ago and lots has changed since then in my listening tastes. But I still listen to mostly Miles. Some friends have used the word "obsession" to my face about it, but fuck it -- what do they know about Miles?