Music has always been a passion second only to writing for me. As a kid growing up in the 1970s, I listened to the AM radio, and later on, rock-n-roll. In college, I was a disc jockey at WSIA, 88.9 FM. My favorite bands were Sonic Youth, the Replacements, and Siouxsie and the Banshees.

As the schizophrenia slowly took over my brain, I listened to weirder music. On my radio show I dipped into the gloom: bands like Of a Mesh, Honeymoon Killers and Sleep Chamber. After I graduated with a BA in...