I went through the A and B section of our records and pulled out some goodies I haven't listened to in a while. This is a good way to keep it fresh especially with the vinyl living upstairs and the turntable living downstairs in the front room. I recently re-alphabatized without category or genre. Herbie Hancock lives next to Robyn Hitchcock and Jimi Hendrix, as it should be.
Of course you can't take it with you, and at a certain point you can't listen to everything you own or discover everything new you want to. This can be an existential moment and also a light, mindful moment of how great music is. After all, we sent Chuck Berry and Beethoven music into space and if that doesn't spark thoughts about Creation, then I don't know what to say.
I discovered the Aztec Camera's High Land, Hard Rain on a trip to Iowa City to see my sister Beth when she was in college. I went to the student union and got some TDK's so I could tape her roommate's copy of this acoustic pop masterpiece. I also discovered tofu and rennetless cheddar cheese on this trip. At that point I did not know that the orange color of most cheddar cheese is fake. This all seemed like good quality information and I ended up going to Iowa City to study Chaucer and Walt Whitman and bass trombone and drink 7,000 Rhinelander beers and see House of Large Sizes as often as I could.
Bad Livers Delusions of Banjer takes me back to John Henry's, The Wow Hall, and Sam Bond's, in Eugene--seeing them with Tony and Joe. Joe, may your sweet soul rest in eternal peace with a good guitar and some meatball and sausage pepperonata.
Bad Livers' nod to Black Flag and metal and punk rock and general non-traditional orneriness helped introduce this kind of pickin' to lots of people, me included.
Big Star's Third lives in that category of records that I didn't get at first, after listening to the first two on a combo cd for about a million hours. The Fall, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Patti Smith--I couldn't handle them until I was into my 40's. This record is like that--scary uneasy beautiful.
I'll put these back in the stacks and go through the C's and D's next.
