I grew up in Cajun country in south Louisiana and
got my first guitar, a nylon string classical, in
1962 at the age of 12. I dreamed of being a folkie.
But Greenwich Village was a long way from south
Louisiana. No matter, since my interests quickly
shifted when Ed Sullivan introduced me and the rest
of America to the Beatles. I got a Silvertone electric
guitar from Sears and a Fender Deluxe Amp from a
local music shop, and together with high school
friends formed the Deadbeats, followed by the Countdowns,
bands that played a blend of Louisiana R&B and
British Invasion. In college, my devotion to playing
music waned, apart from a brief stint in a group
called Cerebellum and the Medullas and pickin an
acoustic occasionally. Some time later, I bought
a used Fender Mustang, but didn't play it much in
the 70s and 80s, while trying to become neuroscientist.
As a scientist, my work has focused on the brain
mechanisms of emotional memory, summarized in two
books, The Emotional Brain and Synaptic Self. But
the guitar bug never stopped biting and in the late
1990s, I traded in the Mustang my life-long dream,
a white Stratocaster. The Strat didn't get proper
exercise until I met Tyler Volk, who also turned
out to have a Strat. We started jamming, and eventually
playing dance songs at parties around NYU. With
the arrival of Daniela Shciller (drums) and later
Nina Curley (bass), The Amygdaloids was formed.
My early musical influences include Cajun musicians
around my home town, Eunice, old time country and
western greats (Hank Williams, Bobby Bare, Carl
Perkins), south Louisiana R&B and rock groups
(Boogie Kings, Greek Fountains, Barracudas), and
60s rockers (Johnny Rivers, Stones, Hendrix, Clapton,
and electric Dylan, Beatles, Gram Parsons, Neil
Young, John Fogerty). Later influences include 80s
groups (Television, Talking Heads, Mark Knopfler),
jazz greats (Grant Green and Kenny Burrell), and
signer song writers (Warren Zevon, Townes van Zandt,
and Pete and Maura Kennedy, to name a few). These
days I like writing songs to convey information
about mind and brain in simple terms because musical
communication is powerful and immediate. For more
information on my day job, see www.cns.nyu.edu/ledoux.
My band in high school was called The Id, to explore
inner space, and we gained a smidgeon of notoriety
in the Buffalo area as an amalgam of The Who, The
Mothers of Invention, and Polish and Italian wedding
bands. College in Ann Arbor, Michigan, brought me
into Cat's Cradle, Grunt, and a Cream-influenced,
frat-party jam band whose name I can't recall. Now,
in the Amygdaloids, with its direct allusion in
more modern neuroscientific terminology to the id,
I see a way continue to explore and express inner
space with a nexus to the grounding messages of
science. My take on the meaning of music: it's a
unique cognitive module, as powerful a mode of thinking
as words, imagery, mathematics, or kinesthetics,
and has been perhaps the number one vehicle for
both human communication and bonding since the Upper
Paleolithic. Please see my web site in NYU's Biology
Department (http://biology.as.nyu.edu/object/TylerVolk.html)
for information about my global environmental work,
and books on the multi-scale interdependence of
death and life, how the biosphere works, and universal
functional patterns.
Daniela
Schiller (drummer)
My band in Israel was called "The Rebellion
Movement". We played original Hebrew rock influenced
by American folk-rock. In a way, this indeed was
a rebellion against new musical streams, no longer
giving room for a warm, natural, simple sound. Joining
the Amygdaloids was a natural extension of that.
Although most music we play or influenced by was
written long before I was born, this is the music
I truly love (also Jazz but that's a different story…).
To try and capture the "Ringo" sound I
got a vintage Ludwig drum set, which I managed to
assemble piece by piece. As a scientist, I'm investigating
how emotions are processed and represented in our
brains. I focus mainly on fear. Given how strong
and immediate this emotion is, I'm interested to
see how we manage it - what brain processes allow
us to get rid of it and bring it back when necessary?
Can it be erased for good? Another related question
is how emotions get involved in social interaction
- do they influence our judgments of the people
we meet (see http://www.psych.nyu.edu/phelpslab/pages/daniela.html).
My research and the band complement each other in
a way - one studies emotions while the other tries
to create them
Nina
Galbraith Curley (bass)
I began playing bass my junior year at Stanford,
when I was living in Monterey, CA and taking classes
in Neurobiology at the Hopkins Marine Center. I
had taught myself folk guitar previously, and often
resorted to guitar in my loneliest moments. Bass
became something slightly different, that I loved
playing with friends, that somehow required accompaniment
because of its rhythmic, supporting nature. I liked
holding down the low end. When I bought my bass,
at the wide-eyed age of 20, I had no idea what I
was doing. Had I known then what I know now, I would've
bought one with passive pickups instead of active
ones, which overdrive the older amps. Currently
I'm thinking about getting a new bass... they say
first loves have their time and place.
Because of the way I began playing guitar and the
people and bands that influenced me at the time,
I have always felt that playing and composing music
was a fundamentally emotional endeavor. I think
that playing in the Amygdaloids allows us all to
both participate in an emotional means of communication
with each other and the audience, while making a
meta-joke about our scientific models of emotion.
In fact, singing about emotion in the brain is not
a very emotional experience. But we try to blend
both sensibilities. We are frequently asked about
the personal significance of blending music with
neuroscience, but I do not have a straightforward
answer about how my research informs my playing;
I rather think of it as a wonderful diversion from
work. This might be because I have not yet written
and recorded the songs, "The Amgydala Integrates
the Biological Significance of Rewarding Events,
too," "My Striatum is Afraid," or,
"My Amygdala cheated on my Nucleus Accumbens
with a darned Serotonergic Raphe Nucleus."
Those are just some ideas- I am just beginning my
PhD research as well. I'll keep you posted on more
ideas at http://www.psych.nyu.edu/phelpslab/new/people/nina_curley.htm
