Freff Cochran Articles?

[Al the Piano Guy]

Hi Freff. Back then I was a big fan of the mag and your column, one artile I still recall today, your article on the TAB condition. 30-some years later I can testify that some of those early "abilities" were indeed temporary, and I'm also remindedme about whatever's left. I've shared it with quite a few friends since and use it often as a self-remnder. As for creativity, we can't have enough of it in this world. Glad to hear from you.

Al

[Steveaudio]

Those Freff columns were Pretty crazy stuff, kind of dark & rambling. Made (the great) Hunter Thompson seem almost accessible perhaps, but then Hunter Thompson was 100 times a better writer IMO.

 

Freff kind of reminded me of "Brother Theodore", a monologuist and comedian known for "rambling, stream-of-consciousness dialogues which he called stand-up tragedy" (Wikipedia).

 

I had to look it up, but I saw "Brother Theodore" a few times on Tom Snyder's old show in the late '70's. Now there was a great late night TV-interview show.....("Tomorrow" on NBC).....

[Franz Schiller]

Dear Freff (and Jim Aikin by extension),

My Dad got me into synthesizers when I was 11, and so I started reading Keyboard Magazine in 1987. Keyboard provided an incredibly well-rounded introduction to music for me, as well as gear porn (so crucial for a growing adolescent).

 

Several columns really stand out in my mind, such as Notes from the Underground. And one article in particular comes to mind, "Using Obsolete Gear or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the VL1" which was April or May 87 and had a Warholesque Philip Glass on the cover. Little did I know how that article introduced me to the principles of Zen.

 

But Freff, your column provided something very, very important. Music isn't all about technique or equipment or even notes. Music is something else...something that can't even be described or expressed. Like poetry, music is more than it's parts, and suggests a whole other experience in our souls and mind.

 

I realize your column was usually supposed to be about process, but it really provided philosophy, atmosphere, and that something-else-otherness that feeds a creative spirit.

 

If everyone loved everything you did all the time, that would mean you weren't doing it right. So the mere fact that some people don't like the column means it worked and had an impact. Some people just don't get it. Some people get it and don't like it.

 

I didn't like every single thing you ever wrote, but the column as a whole was fantastic, and hugely influential to me as a person. Off the top of my head, thinking back, I can remember the girlfriend at the airport, starfish, the LSD issue, changing your name...aside from Creative Options, I also enjoyed the Creativity & Sequencers article, and the users manual for the Alesis Nanobass.

 

Anyways, I know you've heard this sort of thing before. But I just wanted to reinforce it. Thanks to the Keyboard Magazine editors for giving you a voice. And thank you Freff for all your work.