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W


e would sing in the station wagon, all 7 of us Hoop’s. My parents saw to it that within their 5 children they would have their very own choir. It must have been a darling sight indeed and it was great fun to


sing as a family. We weren’t fucking around either. Jack and Janette had their youngest singing in tune and in harmony as early as 4. Jeremy was our bass, Tyler and Biz the tenors, Carissa the alto, I was the soprano, Mom and Dad the satisfied choristers. We would sing old folk songs. I recall singing a murder ballad called Greenwood Sideo, a story of a woman who gives birth alone in a forest and then well... murders them. We would sing this song on our way to church....Which could constitute the need to go to church in the first place.


They brought us up Mormons in a Mormon community. We didn’t fuck around there either...not when it came to Jesus. Church hymns, community theatre, Barbara Streisand, Neil Diamond, star land vocal band, Ian and Silva, Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Simon and Garfunkel informed my musical foundation as a child... For better or worse!


You can’t choose the music your parents expose you to. I loved it... I had no idea what I was missing! I started to fall in love with music once my first ever heavy crush introduced me to the Beatles. I wasn’t just enjoying music passively the way I would enjoy say...breathing! For the first time I was hiding in my room and getting lost in these the records... Carving myself away from my parents mould, I was enjoying the music in a private, personal and secretive way. I was finding ‘my music’. Just imagine how I would feel when I would eventually discover The Clash, PJ Harvey or Kate Bush.


I was the first freshman to be accepted in to my High-school Chamber Choir. I identified with being a singer. It is where my confidence came from. Even if no one knew, I knew I could sing. My parent’s marriage had fallen apart by that time. Finding my out, I declared that I was no longer going to church. I started smoking pot. Awwwww… those were good times, but I paid the price. I learned the hard way that my voice can’t handle smoke... Well not if I wanted to keep my upper register. I lost my voice through a combination of being a pot head and singing in a chamber choir a few hours a day. I went on heavy voice rest for a year to recover. My mother who was a brilliant Soprano of the classical kind and a voice teacher tried to teach me how to sing “correctly” and to no avail. The rebel in me however was far to advance to allow me to listen to her. She would say “there is only one correct way to sing”. This was the last thing I wanted to hear. I didn’t want my music mixed with same strictures that came with my parent’s religion.


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