Tom Ellard: Jed from Landis
Jed worked at Landis Music back in the early 80s. He sold pianos, and increasingly synthesisers. Jed was the man who found me a whole KORG MS modular system for $250. That immediately places him in Master of the Universe status.
Up on the wall was a picture of Jed in white tuxedo with a white bow tie, sitting at a piano. I seem to remember there were balloons in the background but that might be confabulation from the grog. The photo was from when he played the piano on cruise ships. I like to think that many pretty ladies swooned to hear him play and would drift to his cabin after all night tinkling. But then I know a guy that DJ’ed on a cruise ship years later and he said that most of the ladies tended to be rolled up and down the decks in wheelbarrows by their husbands.
I would buy just about anything Jed pointed at. I bought a whole host of Electroharmonix drum pads – Crash Pads, Syndrums and a thing called a Clockworks which was the ‘brain’ of the pads, if by brain you mean something that could count to 12. I still have that. The rest of it I hit too hard and broke. Jed said it was as if somebody had dropped bricks on them.
I was looking at synthesisers one time and it was a big decision between this and that – back then you’d get a new synthesiser maybe once a year, not like virtual instruments. I asked Jed about it and he said – people spend their life learning how to play the piano.
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