“You’re listening to WMCX, 88.9 fm, Monmouth University’s home for modern rock, with an edge!” That was a tag I’ve had memorized for over a decade, ever since my humble beginnings as a college radio DJ at my private university at the Jersey Shore. Back in those days, I was known as Queen Bee Nikki V. by my peers, professors, and loyal listeners. Being on air at The X was not only my favorite extracurricular activity, but also a requirement of my Radio/TV concentrated major in Communication. The gift of gab was not the only reason I loved being on the radio (though as we all know, I love to talk at length about music, among other subjects); I loved the power I had to expose our fan base to emerging local talent. We put on 12 and 24 Hour Music Fests, dedicating an hour each to a new local band. Among some of the biggest acts that graced our airwaves are All Time Low, Pat DiNizio from The Smithereens, and even Michale Graves of Misfits. If ever there was a poster child for the Asbury live music scene between 2008 and 2012, it was certainly me. The beer soaked floors of The Saint, The Stone Pony and Wonderbar welcomed my Vans-clad feet, and the hum of the buzzing amps gave me warm fuzzies. Attending and promoting shows featuring fresh New Jersey talent was something I believed wholeheartedly in.

I was a composer for five years before I had any formal musical training in harmony, rhythm, formal structure, orchestration, and notation. From 1970-75 I blissfully created works without “knowing” what I was doing, and in one case, created an orchestral piece by writing out the individual instrumental parts before the score, which, trust me, is about as ass backwards as it gets when it comes to the practicalities of music composition. There was something, though, about these early years of being unfettered by rules and strictures that fed my sense of freedom and wonder at not just the sound of music, but also the way in which music notation could be represented on paper.

I grew up by the Atlantic Ocean -- 2.8 miles away, to be exact, sharing a zip code with the now extremely hip beach town of Asbury Park, NJ. I’m convinced that there is a certain unspeakable magic embedded into the wooden boardwalk that stretches the length of the shoreline, seemingly unending. I mean, there’s definitely a reason why Springsteen named an album after the place. I’ve spent countless hours frizzle-frying my skin on the beach, allowing my brain to auto-pilot while simultaneously realizing the enormity of the world surrounding me, coming to the realization that my mere existence on this planet is akin to a singular grain of sand on which I rest.