SOUND, SIMULTANEOUSLY connecting and distancing. You hear it close, but it's a reminder of how far away things are. I'm speaking of sirens, cat fights and alarm clocks; whippoorwills, dinnertime calls and subwoofers rattling the body of an old Escort. Sound keeps you in your place. And when you're walking with a walkman, muses pumping directly into your mind, the distance is earradicated, the common sounds blocked. You, the crowds, the buildings and the now silent police cars are one and the same.
LOS ANGELES, not a bad city for live music, for the love of God. I've caught my share during the past week; Folk Implosion opening for the Flaming Lips at the Knitting Factory last night. The Lips' packed public promo appearance at the mighty Amoeba Music, just the night before. David Garza at Largo, Julie Ritter and Maimou at the Derby. Get a night-life, already. Right.
TOO MUCH MEDIA gets me so bound, little while audiophile, let me go. I don't know everything that I heard in the back seat of my mother's 1982 blue Corolla, I remember soft-rock radio preaching to me, waiting in the drive-thru at the bank. Time After Time, I Love a Rainy Night, For The Longest Time, Africa. And all those boring-ish songs from the 1980s (whose significance hasn't since been overwritten by retro frat parties and infomercial CD comps) still ring out for me with memory of those young days, before I had my own tape collection, falling victim to whatever happened to be on the bad blaster.
PERSONAL NOSTALGIA SPARKING records of all time, that I can manage to remember or describe:
The Cure, Wish. Sleeping over in Joshua's bedroom, summer 1992.
REM, Automatic for the People. Lying in bed during Xmas 1992, staring up at the lamp, thinking about one particular girl.
Beck, Odelay. Welcome to 1996. The first half of that ice cream trucking summer was the BBoys instrumental album. The second half was Odelay. Man, I miss my first car.
The Sea and Cake, Self-Titled. Very spring break 1998 in Apartment 5, Allston Massachusetts, my brother visiting and all.
Modest Mouse, The Lonesome Crowded West. Summer 1998, Apartment 5. Everybody was into that album that summer. Everybody.
Radiohead, OK Computer. 1998 Streets and Subways. 'Nuff said.
THE FIRST FOUR tapes I ever purchased, as ordered from BMG music in 1987, 4 free with one to purchase style:
Guns 'N Roses, Appetite for Destruction
Bon Jovi, Slippery When Wet
Whitney Houston, Whitney
Tifanny, Tifanny
EVERYBODY'S GOTTA be sounding off all the time, lest we waste mind bandwidth, au naturel and musicless. Reading and driving and walking and not usually listening.
AND SO IT LANDS, the hallmark of our modern mental landscape, this constant soundscape echo escaping from my stereo's mark along the hall (a long haul) into my earroom's beddrums busy bustling like headphones up ahead at the busstop.
STOP. BUSTED, down on the ground floor of a record store, beeping sound belting ahead, the camera capturing your bust, head and shoulders on record for one year, for these cds caught behind the line of your belt.
THE LONG LINES of jewel cases, vines spreading across shelf faces until they're left some inconvenient place, left speaker in the right elf ear cleft of semi-precious owns and bittertweet wine tones.
OLD ALBUMS that people should talk about more:
Roxy Music, Self-Titled, 1972
REM, Life's Rich Pageant, 1986
Talking Heads, Remain in Light, 1980
The Soft Machine, Self-Titled, 1968
OTHER STUFF I've been listening to lately includes the new Blackalicious, DJ Shadow and Anti-pop Consortium records; Pinback, Leonard Cohen, Ugly Cassanova, the new Breeders album, At the Drive-In, Wilco, Eno, Autechre, Photek, and a few Eminem mp3s. And Shuggie Otis, of course.
I HEAR A LOT, but I don't actually know very much.
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