Tales of the Midwest: Here’s My Solo
Q. How do you pronounce Yngwie’s name?
A. The Americanized pronunciation is “ING-vay.”
~ from the FAQ page on Yngwie Malmsteen’s official web site.
A really good friend of mine, Elijah Wood, is a fantastic drummer. I wish I could tell you more about Elijah because, as of this writing, he’s just about to make his debut on a new porn site (as a musician , I should note). This is more or less a long-winded stroll down memory lane, taking way too long to get to a relatively unremarkable yet strangely interesting point.
Back in the day, Elijah was more or less the go-to guy for all of the area’s drumming needs. If you’ve ever been in a band with a drummer, it’s more than likely that you spent a lot of time at his or her house rather than the other way around. Drums do that to people. You don’t want to be breaking them down, packing them up, transporting them, unpacking them, and then setting them up again unless you have a good reason (such as getting paid). It’s probably also likely that the drummer’s parents were cool people and very encouraging. You’d have to be if you’re going to put up with that kind of racket all day, right? So, Elijah’s house was the hub for almost anything musical I ever did as a kid…
