Sonic Seducer: Better Than All My Math Books

I actually have two more math book projects in the works. But, as I wind down Sonic Seducer, I can confidently say it eclipses the writing in my math books. I am sharing the beginning of the Introduction.

The style of writing is, ahem, different than any of my math books. The style of writing is the closest to who I am. The music in the book will alternate between wreaking havoc on your soul and soothing it — hundreds of times. There was no holding back. When it got hard and heavy, it was unrelenting. When it got soft and light, it was unrelenting.

Life is too short, fragile, and beautiful to communicate anything less.

Introduction

Born to Go, Hawkwind

I started writing this book in August, 2021. Some of the final words are here in these opening paragraphs. I wanted to meet myself back at the beginning, and see how the start of the book might be affected by the 32-month journey of completing it. I actually revisited the beginning more than a few times, never failing to be astonished by where it started and where it all eventually ended. An uneventful youth that miraculously metamorphosed–over six decades–into a gray, slightly bruised butterfly, floating with delirium inside a relatively unknown musical universe. A universe that begged for its story to be told.

The main thing was, that the years in which the book was written, also happened to be the years in which I enjoyed listening to rock music–especially new music–the most in my entire life.

Did I see that revelation coming? Truthfully, no. I didn’t see that coming, or the exhausting journey that writing the book took me on. It wasn’t exhausting like being on a gym treadmill. It was exhausting like having the best sex of your life. If that sentence seems like a bit of a stretch, then guess what–this book is for you. If it’s not, then this book is definitely for you! Being drenched in the figurative sweat of rock’s heaviest moments for the last few years has left me breathless, making my bliss in this life less sporadic. In that silly, simple clause is my most nourishing goal in this life. Find as many moments of deep, orgasmic connectedness before you die. Without a hint of coincidence, the heaviest music has consistently delivered the most satisfying oxytocin hits for me. That’s what this book is about–the unapologetic, unvarnished, and untamed sex of rock’s heaviest moments.

All your senses are going to be challenged by the end. Your heart, soul, and mind will have been fucked with in the most spiritually satisfying ways. If you have an issue with the f-word–it’s used over 200 times in various forms throughout the book–then you’re fucked.

And now that the adventure is over, I am not surprised by the conclusion of my soul-searching/soul-crushing audit of rock music. That in the “Fall” years of my life, I found an eternal Spring through the constant and consistent absorption of all things new. New and heavy, to be perfectly correct.

The music fed the writing, the writing fed trying to find more music. A perpetual machine of curiosity was born in this most natural union of two of my biggest passions in life. So much so, that many of the new bands mentioned in this book were discovered while writing this book. I found obscure gold in 1970’s Cleveland and a veritable treasure chest of equally hidden gems in present day Greece–a scene that has been evolving for over fifty years. I found that information out in 2024.

My obsession with music did not come overnight. It would take my sixth decade of existence for this manic loop of curiosity and creativity to emerge. In the end, I think I extracted a bolder narrative of rock and roll’s connective tissue–its heaviest moments, and the blissful consequences of being submerged in them.

That’s all great. But, I am guessing you might want me to back it up a bit regarding my confident proclamation about new music. “Most”, Sunil? Really? Come on. That sure is a bold statement from this baby boomer, and one that should be rightfully audited for potential exaggeration from all of you. So, the only proof I have for making such a potentially audacious claim are the 100 000 words that lie ahead. There is also a strong correlation between this “most” and “heaviest moments” — and how it took me most of my life for those ideas to collide. Simply put, I am listening to bolder and more challenging music now more than I ever did in all my younger years. My body might be getting stiffer, but my musical mind is as elastic as it has ever been.

Yes. I lived through the golden age of FM radio in the 70’s. I listened to Metallica via cassettes in the 80’s. Almost every band of Generation X’s Lollapalooza years I saw not once, but twice–often in dingy bars. But, as the 21st century opened, with many confidently proclaiming rock’s best years were over, I fell down a rabbit hole of unfettered heaviness. More than two decades after tumbling around in this endless world of immensely gratifying sounds, I am ready to tell the story of my sonic seduction.

This wasn’t a marginal experience. This isn’t a marginal story. My very ordinary life has been colored in with extraordinary musical discoveries and experiences. I lived my teenage years listening to old music. I am living my soon to be senior years listening to new music. That’s the simple story of this book. Like all good stories, however, it is more complicated than that.

So, to correctly communicate the enrapturing detail of these seemingly zillion moments of musical epiphanies, and my relationship with the present state of rock music–much of which will be foreign to some of you–I had to honor the past with fresh deference. Rock music has been a spiraling and sprawling continuum of our wildest and most raw emotions for over half a century. Sonic Seducer is a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual mosh pit for that idea. If this sounds like great sex, that’s because the greatest rock and roll–and its charged intensity of unbridled and uncompromising expression–is communion of the highest pleasurable order. Rock and roll is not an accompaniment to sex. It is sex on its own. Equally wild, and only limited by its own creativity and curiosity.

The real beginning of this book starts below this italicized interception of it. It’s a deep, lustful plunge into an updated story of rock and roll. It also comes as advertised–heavy. But not any cliche, societal, and industry definition of heavy relating to volume or taxing mood. Fuck that. Heavy is beautiful. Heavy is celebratory. Heavy is love. Heavy is being vigorously alive.

When the book gets musically heavy, it’s unbridled and unapologetic. When the book gets musically light, a different but equally valuable heavy is experienced. It remains also unbridled and unapologetic. Heavy is the abundance of all rock’s expressions and emotions. It’s the entire spectrum of sound, oscillating with frequencies that will soon become wonderfully unpredictable here. Questions like is my head going to implode with crushing doom or is my heart going to explode with transcending love will dance merrily–not combatively–throughout this book. This will be our more inclusive and intense definition of “heavy”. There will be zero deviation from it as this rock and roll story slowly unfurls its many feathers of many sizes of many colors.

It’s a story that will hopefully leave you breathless, astonished, and grateful about how rock and roll can be a trusted advisor, confidant, and soulmate in our lives–in both the loudest moments and the quietest moments. This only becomes more possible if the story of rock and roll is wider, deeper, and fuller, flirting purposely and amorously with all its boundaries–past and present. It’s a pure passion story that will get examined through a dauntingly large collection of shared, lingering musical moments–through the seconds of our lives.

Away we fuckin’ go…

Those who control their passions do so because their passions

are weak enough to be controlled

William Blake