OK guys and gals... here's my story. From the very beginning. Get yourself a nice beer, some cräkkers, lean back and enjoy.....
Born on the 8th of July (I know, there was a movie title just like this) in 1970 somewhere near Basle (northern Switzerland), I grew up as an only child, and was not very influenced by music during the first years of my existence. Somewhere around 1978, I came across a very kinda (another one of my fave words) silly LP cover: "Oxygène". Not knowing what this music was like, I always took my time and looked at this cover. Front artwork was scary for me, but more interesting seemed the back cover. I was used to some sort of liner notes before, but was astonished not to find any traditional instruments on the back cover of "Oxygène".
Fascinated by the fact that there were other means of making music, I asked to borrow that LP and was caught right away! "Oxygène 2" was already common, as it was played as title melody of a Swiss TV show.
Some years later, there was "Magnetic Fields 2" being played on a German radio station, and I recorded it on tape, playing this one over and over and over and over and over (...) again, so my parents would all of a sudden say "Doncha think it's enuff now?". This time, only thing I knew was that I loved this music, without even knowing by whom it was.
Again some time later, everything started to match: In the meantime, I found out about that track I recorded and re-played a thousand times and my mission was clear: Jean Michel Jarre was my favourite!
To my birthdays and for Xmas, I received all Jarre albums as cassette tape from my parents and grandma (pity they're all gone - the tapes, not the persons
). So I had my first complete jarre collection back in times. Around 1997, when "Oxygène 7-13" came out, my real me came out and I started to thoroughly collect Jarre's music. It was the starting point of the now world's biggest Jean Michel Jarre collection with around 1350 different genuine Jarre releases.
I have seen myself visiting flea markets, second hand shops and other places, always with Excel-lists getting bigger and bigger. On one point, I realized that I had bought one release twice, so I wasn't that sure if Excel was **THE** tool anymore.
It was around 2002 when I decided to set up a discography catalog with all recordings I had so far and was designed to more or less cover my own needs regarding visibility of what already exists at home. It quickly turned out to be a multi-year project, keeping me busy ever since...
The catalog has reached nearly 950 pages at the moment, and in early 2004, a website was set up to reflect what I have in my collection (and as well what is out there worth collecting).
Some say that things like Jarre won't last forever. But I say that the affection for his music has stayed the same for over 26 years now, not being changed by several things that have happened:
- I got married to Sara baqck in 2000
- I became a father twice
- some people died / moved away / turned out to be not-so-nice,....
So, whatever happened, Jarre's music kept me alive
anything else you'd like to know? ask me (hell yes!)