I just downloaded a bunch of Jethro Tull, mostly stuff I already have on vinyl, and am forced to once again acknowledge the depravity of my teenage tastes. Not only did I like prog rock, the worst genre of all time, I liked the worst of it: Yes and Emerson Lake & Palmer. I wasn't nearly as hot for Jethro Tull, who stand up quite well, mostly because Ian Anderson was a pretty snappy popmonger when he wanted to be. (Out of curiosity, I downloaded an ELP track labeled “Jethro Tull tribute,” which was nothing more than a labored and predictably wretched instrumental slog through “Living in the Past.” My god they suck.)

I thought I could never be a real piano player, which in retrospect was more a reflection of my own issues than any external reality, but the overheated arpeggiating of Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman didn't help. I thought you had to play like that to be a real musician, and that anything less was cheating.

Punk rock was obviously for those kids who were natural punks, full of spittle and rage just waiting to be transmuted into two-minute songs. But less obviously, it was for kids like me, who had been sold a bill of goods about what it took to be a musician. It took a while for me to catch on (and my love of '50s rock and roll and '60s soul helped a lot too), but I finally got the memo that anybody, and I mean anybody, can legitimately play rock music. If punk just means loud and fast, I never played it much. But if punk means teaching yourself how to make music with limited ability but plenty of chutzpah, I'm definitely a punk rock piano player.