This conversation with Brian Eno took place at the Aratani Japan America Theatre in Los Angeles in 1988. Sprinkled with amusing anecdotes, the conversation and its overall laid-back tone get us to know Eno on multiple levels. We learn about his upbringing in England, his personal taste for doo-wop and American pop music during his childhood, and his pledge to creative life and music. As the interview progresses, the two talk about the first band Brian Eno formed with several of his teenage friends from the local soccer team. As Carl Stone asks about Eno’s creative path we find out how attending art school led him to meet avant-garde composers such as Morton Feldman, Cornelius Cardew and Christian Wolff, who had a deep impact on his art. Myriad details about Eno’s career emerge throughout the conversation. We can learn how he was first introduced to synthesizers while helping a friend record a project, and what impression Los Angeles made on him when he first lived in the city while working on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981), a collaborative album with David Byrne. As the interview winds up to an end, they invite questions from the audience.

PIECES AND RECORDINGS FROM:

Brian Eno – Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978), Polydor Records [Opening and closing credits]

Stevie Wonder – Fingertips part II (1963), Motown Records