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Random Karma Influences

What influences four people to produce what they were born to do?  this is like asking an ant, “why is sugar good?”  Those of us fortunate enough to be born to hear are all influenced by every sound that enters our ears.  “Songs in the Key of Life” says more than just, “Here is what is happening to me.”  Life is more than purposeless blogs and staring at an illuminated screen.  It is everything around you.  Anything that deserves a comment, a sigh, a cry, a smile, and laugh, and – yes – even a cringe influences you daily.

For some, the way to describe what has occurred is a verbal depiction of the image.  Others sit and illustrate it by relaying it to canvas.  Random Karma uses what is around them as its canvas to convey the joy, the sorrow, the expectation, the separation, the glory, and the decimation that life brings.

If you have ever heard the first cry of a newborn, the sorrowful collapse of a family member as another departs this epic journey, perhaps smelled lilac in bloom in spring, approached a stagnant pond, tasted the sweetest pineapple, and even perhaps accidentally tasted sour milk, then you have the same influences as we.

Random Karma grew up to a musical background that has taken us through the world of ordered and beautiful chording of “Sonata Pathetique” by Beethoven to the horrific “Threnody for Hiroshima” by Penderecki.  We have ventured and learned from the Dixieland complexity of Louis Armstrong’s Hot 5, the swing of Benny Goodman, the “Doo-Wop” of the 50s, the English Invasion of the 60s, into the soundscape of American Rock in the 70s.

As young adults we were fortunate enough to enjoy one of the most diverse eras in modern “Rock” music.  The late 70s and early 80s represent some of our most formative years.  We were presented with the likes of such rock styles as Classic America (CS&N, Black Crowes, R.E.M., Melon-Cougar), New Wave (The Police, New Order, U2, Tears For Fears, Depeche Mode), Goth (The Cure), punk (Pistols, Fear, Black Flag, Social D), and even some of the most horrific music ever produced (see Whitney Houston and/or any Steve Perry solo music).

Perhaps our strongest influences aside from Paul Westerberg and Led Zeppelin, lie in what we still listen to.  The way that I describe this phenomenon is that this is the music that you do not hear every day.  These are the songs that play once in a blue moon and you know every word, can sing the lead guitar line, and that make you smile or cry with out you knowing why.  This is the music that stirs something deep in your soul.  These may be songs that were published by a one hit wondr or could be from a volume of works that just strikes the right chord.

What influences Random Karma can be described best by the title to a Douglas Adams novel, “Life, The Universe, and Everything.”

A. Ramnath