Barrett Heaton

From there Barrett joined a large A Cappella ensemble at his local high school in Barrington, Illinois. He sang his heart out as a tenor and got a few bit parts in the ambitious musicals the school would stage each year.

Barrett transfered to a private boarding school in Southboro, Massachusetts where he began to develop his own style as a writer, consumer, and social entity. His teachers reading his papers remarked on the fluid, creative style but the lack of convention in the work. Barrett engaged in a number of school clubs including Yearbook, squash, soccer, and tennis, but perhaps most notably for this website, he edited the school's art/poetry rag. At one point his hips went out causing him to go into Boston Children's hospital for the insertion of metal pins. During this time he slept in the afternoons at the boarding school while all the other students were out in the fields playing sports. He then was fresh enough to wander the darkened halls of the school while his teachers and fellow students slept. He identified the insomniacs and regularly visited them. On these evening trysts Barrett came into contact with a variety of types of music: Depeche Mode, Stuart Copeland, the B-52s, and others. Barrett's teachers were perplexed when they stumbled upon him, at 1am crutching around the halls. He flaunted the rules so casually that they seemed paralyzed and unable to bring discipline against him.

After graduating Barrett moved on to Hamilton College. Around this time he began learning the guitar, even taking classical guitar lessons with a privately hired teacher in a campus building. He would drag his large instrument and case up the main road of the campus in negative-degree temperatures, fighting walls of wind and snow. He tried out for the choir at Hamilton but they rejected him. Barrett was accepted as a DJ at the college's radio station, WHCL and took over a slot on Friday afternoons. He mixed records with nonchalance and began to experiment with playing two fairly ambient sources simultaneously, truly fusing the two pieces into a new and unduplicatable experience. He became new music director and was quicly promoted to music director for the entire station. He held weekly sessions in his room at the Emerson Literary Society to preview incoming records and rate them for the station's djs.

Barrett left Hamilton however in a rush as he felt his seriousness as a student was slipping away. The academics at Hamilton were not as challenging or as rigorous as at his boarding school, and he began to fall into some bad habits, drinking and experimenting with drugs.

Barrett dried out in southern New Mexico working on cattle feed lots and cattle ranches. When he returned to civilization he applied to the University of Chicago and was accepted. It was here that he continued with his study of classical guitar and began to establish relationships built on creative production.