Saw Hans Hartmann playing Stick in Berlin around 1987. Found a CD with Marco Cerletti soon after. Decided that I wanted one but this was WAY before internet and it took several weeks to find out where they were made and how to order one. There was a company in Oslo/Norway that sold the Stick at that time. Don´t remember their name. They had two products that they sold. The Stick and a VERY expensive sampling system called the Wave Frame or something similar. A 400.000 dollar sampler competing with Fairlight and Synclavier. I ordered a Stick through them and got it 4 months later. They went out of business a couple of weeks later..... I think that the only thing they ever sold was my Stick.....
So the things that got me hooked on the Stick was Cerletti and Hans Hartmann. I started playing in a band half a year later where pretty much all members were into Gabriel and Crimson. I had listened alot to early Genesis but had totally missed Gabriel after he´d left Genesis. Did not know who Tony Levin was until I started playing with this band but soon noticed that I had LOTS of albums that he played on. Lennon, Paul Simon, Joan Armatrading and lots of others. But I had no idea that it was him playing and was not even familiar with his name. Went to music school at that time and this was under the years when LA/fusion was popular. Not my cup of tea. Everyone was talking about Mike Stern, Pastorius, Steely Dan, Lee Ritenour, Toto and thos guys at school. None was talking about King Crimson or british symphonic rock......
But I slowly learned from my band mates. Learned more about music from them than what I did in music school..... Any way. Cerletti and Hartmann! Thanks!!//J
. I wanted one, but I made myself wait 3 weeks to ensure I'm not making an expensive snap decision.