Loquacious Music

It’s difficult to qualify, quantify, and stupify the BEN GOTT story, but I’ll try.

The story begins in 1987 with piano lessons. I took them for years — six years, in fact — without being able to read a note of music. That’s right. Not a note. I got by learning Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart by ear. It wasn’t particularly difficult to fool my piano teacher, but, when she discovered my secret, I took up the guitar.

My guitar instructors, Mike Musillami and Tom Carroll, brought two completely different styles to the table. Mike was a jazz man; Tom was a pop meister. They taught me the basics, for which I’ll be forever grateful.

High school began with a bang: almost upon arrival, I met and began collaborating with Robert. In 1993, we formed Institutional Harmony, writing and sequencing on his Macintosh Centris 650. Sure, Robert was the brains and talent behind the operation, but I soon learned that I, too, could write music.

And write I did. All throughout high school. Robert and I snagged our own studio in the music wing where we set up all our equipment. Whether I was recording tracks for an XTC tribute or sequencing my own music, I began to understand that emerging technologies — computers especially — would change the way us hometapers worked.

The summer between my junior and senior years, I bought an analog Fostex four-track machine. Most of those recordings have been lost, but those that remain…well, they suck pretty badly, actually. The songs weren’t very good, but they were honest, at least. I give myself that.

College meant more technology and more music; the songs that survive from that era are collected on Nobody Cares About Ben. You can hear my songwriting maturing (?) as I move closer to the pop stylings to which I am so committed today. The two albums that emerged from my college years, 1998’s Education in Reverse and 1999’s Roomful of Losers, tell a story of a man obsessed with Robyn Hitchcock, Babybird, and synthpop.

A real job after college meant that I couldn’t be as prolific as I wanted to be. Nevertheless, the songs collected on the “Music” download page attest to the fact that, dammit, I tried. The last big album was 2005’s The Paine Road E.P., which spawned the singles “You, Your Mom, and Her Friends,” “I Wonder,” and “The Science That We’re Made Of.”

So what does the future hold? That’s a good question. YouTube has made it possible for me to bring the “Live at the iSight Studio” series to the world. I’m still slaving away over hot Macintosh computers (this time a MacBook, an iMac, and a G4 Powerbook) to produce songs that I like.

Who knows? You might just like them, too.

—Ben Gott
Wallingford, CT
July 2007