I was sitting around trying to think of ideas for music posts, and thinking about my experience writing them for Mindless Diversions, and decided to try something a little different. It is a little silly, I know, but I hope it causes you to crack a bit of a smile, if only because I pulled it off so poorly.
That song’s not completely safe for work. The video is fine, though.
The more I think about it, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot with these posts, the more I think that sharing music is like having sex.* I know, I know, that’s a little bit crazy, but bear with me for a moment. Consider this: As with sex, when we’re sharing music, we generally have both selfish and unselfish motivations. Yes, we want to share something that will give others pleasure, but at the same time, we also want to satisfy our own needs. There’s a delicate give and take that, if it’s done just right, works out great for everyone. In music too, I mean.
Of course, our motivations for sharing music aren’t always strictly dual. Sometimes we share music mostly for the other person. For example, I’ll occasionally hear a song and recognize that, though it’s not my style, it might be perfect for a friend. So I’ll send it to them, and if they like it, that feels really good. If they don’t, ugh, it’s time to update our knowledge of their preferences.
Of course, we’re more likely to share music for reasons that are mostly about us. You just get that itch to share, and you have to scratch it right now. Maybe we want to project an image ourselves that we feel is furthered by a particularly type of music or song or artist. Or maybe we want to steer someone towards liking what we like (for a variety of reasons, most of which have little to do with the idea that what we like is so good that, if other people just give it a listen, they’ll inevitably enjoy it themselves). Or perhaps we just want the other person to be in the same mood or head space that we’re in.
Take my posts about hip hop here at MD like, say, the one I wrote last week. With those I’m being mostly selfish. I mean, know most of this blog’s readers aren’t hip hop fans, but last week I wanted to talk about Kendrick Lamar’s music, and damn it, I was going to do it. I felt a little guilty about it afterward, but I then was raised Catholic (no religion!).
Argh, see how selfish I can be? The only person ’round these parts whom I know for sure likes Kanye said just last week that he’s not a big fan of the album from which I took that song! I’m a jerk, I know. Here’s one I know he’ll like:
Anyway, being selfishly unselfish, or unselfishly selfish, or, er… you know what I mean… aren’t the only ways in which sharing music is kinda like having sex. We, or at least I, often feel insecure when sharing music. Or at least when it’s over. You know that awkward moment when you’re just waiting for the other person to say something? Anything. SAY SOMETHING, DAMN IT! Wait, I’m just being insecure. I’m sure you liked it. I mean, I have good taste, right? RIGHT?!
I suppose insecurity is an inevitable feature of any social activity, but with something as intimate as music, it is all the more… present. Whether it’s done selfishly or unselfishly, sharing music is putting yourself out there.
Hell, every time I write one of these posts I get little nervous, first just before I publish it late on Tuesday evening, and then even more so when I wake up Wednesday morning. This is due at least in part to my being painfully aware that I can’t write about music well to save my life. Most of the nervousness, however, stems from my musical choices. Are people going to like them? How will I know? I don’t listen to much radio, and most of my offline friends are hip hop fans, so I can’t really talk to them about half of the music I listen to. That means that I really have no way to discuss my music and determine to whom it might appeal, other than me of course. For example, does anyone besides me like this?
I don’t know! I mean, I know I love it, and can listen to it over and over and over (like I’m doing right now). I also know that I’m not all that unique, so someone else must like it, but do any of you? Aaaaaaah, why did I post that song? I should have posted a different one, a safer one, based on what I know about the musical tastes of the readers of this blog. What was I thinking?! (Also, that video is awesome!) Here, forget I posted that song and listen to this one. It’s got like 16 million views, so I know people like it:
Of course, when you make a musical connection it can feel really good. When I got such positive feedback from some of you about Hem a few weeks ago I was beaming all day. No really, I kept telling people how good it made me feel. If someone likes the music we share with them, a little bit of that chronic, nagging sense of alienation and existential loneliness that we’re burdened with simply for being human is diminished, if only for a moment. You’re like me, and I’m like you, and we’re not alone in this world. That feels great. Let’s try it again (I don’t know about you, but I can do this all night):
Sorry that only lasted three minutes. I can do better, see:
OK, maybe not that much better. But that was pretty fun, eh?
While we’re just here doing nothing, how ’bout a little pillow talk? I’ll tell you something about myself, a story related to Robert Earl Keen. Keen used to play Austin a lot, and I went to his shows whenever I could because they were a lot of fun. More than that, the people who used to go to REK shows were a lot of fun. Many, many years ago I went to an REK show at Stubb’s, a popular BBQ and live music joint in downtown Austin, and ended up standing next to a beautiful woman. You know when you see someone and you think to yourself, “How the hell do I meet her/him?” It was like that. I smiled at her; she smiled back. We danced by ourselves next to each other, smiled at each other some more, and then, still without exchanging a word, we started to dance with each other. Finally we introduced ourselves between songs. Hi, I’m Chris. Hi, I’m H…
And we danced to some more REK:
A few songs in we decided to take a smoke break together, so we walked to the back of the crowd, where we smoked a couple cigarettes and chatted. Hey, we’re both post-graduate students, what a coincidence. Oh, you like poetry too? What about Wallace Stevens? Oh my god, “The Emperor of Ice Cream.” Yes! (I might have recited it.) And that one about the jar in Tennessee. (I’m from Tennessee! You’re from McCallen? What’s it like down there? I’ve never been.) “Death is the mother of beauty.” That’s so true. Nobody gets that but us (the two of us, right here, in this moment).
I bought her a beer, she bought me one, we danced to some more songs. At the end of the show we walked out into the cold, chatted a bit, exchanged numbers, and I started to walk away. Then she stopped me and gave me a kiss that left me warm for a week.
After that saw each other for a couple months, always having a blast. I don’t know that I’ve ever known anyone else with a spirit like her’s – pure energy and affirmation of life. Then she graduated from law school and got a job back in McCallen. She moved, I stayed. We talked on the phone a lot at first, then less, then less still, and then barely at all. I guess there wasn’t much to talk about when we weren’t out listening to music, dancing, drinking, and reveling in each others’ company in the moment, touching, seeing, laughing. It has been about 10 years since we last spoke, but she remains one of my favorite people on the planet. I smile now just knowing that someone like her exists. I was happy a few years ago when I ran into one of her friends who still lives in Austin, and she told me that H. was married, had a young son, and was enjoying life down on the border.
Wait, is it bad to talk about exes when we’re sharing music? Should I not have done that? Oh well, what’s do be done? Now I’m feeling all nostalgic; I think we need some more music.
You know what? I think it’s probably better if I just shut up. It usually is. Let’s just be silent together, with the music:
Nice, right? Is it weird that I kind of want a cigarette now? I haven’t had one in years. Also, while you’re up, can you get me something to drink? Ah, I’m feeling kind of sleepy.
Now that we’ve gotten this far, why don’t you share some music back. It will make you feel good. It will make me feel good. Hell, write a post and send it to me. I’ll post it next Wednesday, or the one after that, or whenever’s good for you (actually, next Wednesday’s taken, but whenever’s good for you after that). Then you’ll get to share with a lot of people.
And call me, K?
*Yes, I understand that this analogy suggests that every time I write one of these posts, it’s like I’m having sex with all of you. I also understand just how disturbing that thought is. And that it means I’m really promiscuous, musically.
It’s not all *that* disturbing.
Or maybe I’m just cutting you a lot of slack because I’m STILL listening to Radio Citizen’s The Hop several times a week.
Here’s another song I listened to a lot of times this week. It’s kind of a safe song? Except I swear these guys are *constantly* pushing themselves to the point where they’re just about to play wrong notes or lose their vocal pitch completely… while almost never doing so. So they doesn’t feel very safe to *me*, as a musician who spent a lot of time struggling to let go enough to risk those kinds of imperfections.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0Efjozcr5gReport
PS I *like* Yeezus.Report
PPS I think I like that Mike Relm song but it’s hard to tell because the video is really annoying. Either way, it did remind me I’ve been meaning to listen to more Deltron 3030. (Both Kid Koala and Dan the Automator are each enough all on his own to get me to listen to just about anything, leading to such conversations as “Marianne, why do YOU have a whole CD of basketball rap anthems?” “BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME.”)
here’s some Deltron 3030 live:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLpUS9NEE9oReport
Ooooh, that’s nice. Really nice. I’m on my third listen now.
Glad you’re still digging “The Hop.” If you haven’t noticed it yet, I threw in some Bajka (with Protassov, a DJ/Producer about whom I know next to nothing), in the second to last video. It’s a nice reggae groove.
You know, I like that Relm video, but it might be because I know the other song on that album that’s sort of a response, or the flip side, to that one. It’s about muuuuurda. (with Mr Lif doing the rapping instead of Del), You Break. Mr Lif is also really cool, though kind of the polar opposite of Del’s bombasticness. Is that a word?
And Yeezus is awesome, but someone here prefers the maximalism of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.Report
(Listening to it some more this morning.)Report
(That makes me very happy.)Report
Also, looking INTO Dan the Automator always turns up something ridiculously fun by association. Like this laid-back party song from Galactic, the Dirty Dozen, and Juvenile.
http://youtu.be/KYy4AF0SUrQ?t=38Report
I just discovered Spotlight Kid the other day and, on the strength of their song Budge Up, I bought their Disaster Tourist album. (Argh! It’s being shipped from the UK!)
Anyway, the song is awesome:
Shoegaze at its best.
Of course, after I purchased the album, I realized that Budge Up isn’t on it.
Sigh.
Anyway, I look forward to listening to the album anyway. I love me my shoegaze.Report
Awright, that clinches it. I’ve been chewing over some sort of shoegaze post, looks like I need to get it written up.Report
And, for other various reasons related to the post, I also found this:
Report
That is one of my favorite videos ever. If ya think about it, it’s sort of a metaphor for civilized life. You’ve gotta hit the prespecified note on the ones, and the space in between is where you do what you feel.Report
Has anyone done a funk music post for MD?
And if not, why not and when?Report
cified note on the ones, and the space in between is where you do what you feel.
I remember this guy saying very much the same thing in an interview back in ’80.
Keyboardists (and, ironically, to a lesser extent, bass players) see an important distinction between an “A seventh chord” and an “A on G;” always assumed the chord root is the note the bass has to play.
My concept of chord theory is much more extensive.
But where guitar works from chords, bass works from arpeggios (a chord played one note at a time). With guitar, arpeggiated figures are more of solo work. A fine example is the riff from “Purple Haze.” After the octave stuff in the intro, the next notes are: (ascending) B D G, then (lower) A. There are so many cool things about this, it’s hard to remember them all.
The B D G is a straight G major chord. Adding the A without a chord makes it a G9, implying the unvoiced 7th of F. But this is all played over an E (and coming out of an E diminished*). It’s all E minor pentatonic. So, the G ninth (III9) becomes a B minor seventh (V7). Very cool.
But the pre-specified notes for the downbeats (though somewhat different in a shuffle beat) are the notes from the arpeggio.
* Any note from a diminished chord can be seen as the chord root; so there’s a lot of ambiguity in leading with a diminished chord.Report
One more from James “Blood” Ulmer.
What I want to point out here is that this came out in ’81, contemporary to the early Minutemen stuff.
Vocals are a lot different, and the songs are longer, but that’s about it.Report
I’d always hated Led Zep, and a lot of that had to do with expectations that surely I must know/love/play this-or-that. At the time, I was into a lot heavier stuff.
But coming to appreciate Zeppelin much later in life, with the whole musician thing filling the walk-in closet for the most part, this remains my favorite Led Zep tune, followed closely by this one. I think that sort of thing is where they’re at their best.
And I bring that up because of the subject of bass lines.
This is one of my favorite bass lines of all-time. It’s sort of like a textbook for riffing in minor pentatonic.
As is the first part of the song in this one (see how all that fits in?). He doesn’t really start grooving until the singing starts, but it’s all there.
That said, this one is, without doubt, my favorite tune to play on the bass; though, granted, a lot of that my well have to do with my limited attention span these days. (The guy in the video is really bad-ass. I prefer to play with a pick, because experimentation shows that it produces a better tone, though most bassists have a crappy technique with a pick.)
I remember reading this interview with Geddy Lee years ago, and they were talking about how so much of his stuff has become the big thing that all bass players want to play; and they asked him about what the tune was back in the day when he was first starting out. He said it was some Stones tune that I’d never heard of before, which sort of surprised me. Wish I remembered the name of that one.Report
While out in Annapolis, I turned down an opportunity to play Rocksmith 2014. Last weekend, I got invited to a Rocksmith party and wouldn’t have played anything except…
Well, they had “Where Is My Mind?”
I remembered this interview:
And I said “Yes. I can pedal through a song.”
I played it on bass.
I got 60%.Report
60%? Well, I guess you’re notReport
Straight L7, baby.Report
I’ll Pretend you’re Dead.Report
Also, I have been collecting tracks for a shoegaze post. I thought that mostly staying away from a lot of the best-known bands would cut down on the number of tracks.
No dice.
I am remembering why for many, many years I had to keep re-ordering my shoegaze section. I have 23 artists already, and for some I have more than one track.
This may have to be a multi-parter.Report
If I have any say, I’d say that that demands at least a three-parter.Report
@jaybird :
A lot of truth to that. It’s a lot easier to play really, really fast than really, really slow. A lot of doom metal is an exercise in discipline.
But seriously, if those first two links were all you knew about Led Zep, wouldn’t you think of them as a much different band?
@glyph :
It always amazes me the number of bands you know.
A lot of the stuff I know reflects different musicians I’ve worked with. I owned one record by Mountain back when I was in high school, and one cassette by Genesis much later on; but I know an awful lot about both of those bands from working with musicians that were really into them.
And I’ve come tho the conclusion that you can never tell what a guy is going to play like from what he listens to.Report
I’m not sure it would be consistent with the very idea of navel gazing if it wasn’t slow and drawn out over several posts. Just give me time to grow my bangs out so I can feel like I belong ;).Report
I plan to also make them nebulous, ill-defined and repetitive, too!
But there has been a setback. I think my computer just died on me. I am performing emergency measures but it doesn’t look good.Report
this was a great way to get the idea across, bro. it is something like a thrill when you connect something you think someone will like, especially when it’s someone you like. and not necessarily like like.Report
Thanks man, I really appreciate that.Report
@dhex – OT, but the new Burial is streaming:
http://pitchfork.com/news/53282-stream-burials-new-ep-rival-dealer/Report
yesssssssss
it is so very ’92.Report
Where were U?
I’ve only listened to the first track; will listen to the other two shortly.Report
re: Keen
Texas seems to have a lot of performers that are really big there, but not so much anywhere else; Joe “King” Carrasco, Joe Ely, and Dead Horse were big things back in the day.
Just about everybody I knew had seen JKC at least once.Report
Back then, Joe Ely was really, really huge here as well. I don’t hear about him as much anymore. I think the Texas blues/alt-country era in Austin may be on the wane.Report
I’ve heard this same thing about “Music is like . . .” so many times and from so many, I don’t think it holds much water.
I’m thinking that music is more like a postcard from some far-distant corner of the realm of possibilities; sometimes it connects, sometimes it doesn’t.
My tastes change, and sometimes drastically, at least a few times a year. There are always certain things I come back to: classic prog, Spanish guitar, pop punk, big band jazz, anything with varying time signatures, et al. So my collection has plenty of Kansas alongside Norbert Kraft and the Ramones. (and Link Wray’s “Rumble” seems to be of particular interest to me these days.)
I remember this time I was going through a jazz phase and trying to work with a younger guitarist (a 20-yr old with a poster of Paul Stanley on his wall– cool kid. I bought him the magnum of Chimay blue for his 21st.). I was getting frustrated, because every time I picked up an instrument, about ten minutes later everything I played started sounding like Spanish guitar. It happened again one time, and I expressed my disgust at everything I started playing sounding like Spanish guitar. He look at me and said, “I know. It’s pretty cool.” That made me do a double take. Maybe a lot of the things that I play that I’m thinking don’t come out quite the way I want them to are really the things that people care most to hear.Report
I’ve heard this same thing about “Music is like . . .” so many times and from so many, I don’t think it holds much water.
Music is like a cup….Report
Depends a lot on who’s wearing the cup, and how badly it’s needed.
Music can be a lot more like Tyson / Holyfield at times . . .Report
As long as there are not also two girls.Report
Janine, I drink you up, if you were the Baltic Sea and I were a cup.Report
By the way, Will, have you eve considered a guest post of some of your music for us?Report
I’d been invited to in the wee early days of 2012, and there was a thing I was working on comparing the intro to “Number of the Beast” (it’s in 5/4, btw) to something else (I forget), but cares of the world swept me away.
There was a guest post I had proposed to Tod about one man succeeding against incalculable odds, and what his actions mean for all of us; and he liked the idea and encouraged it, but I really haven’t had time to work on it much, though I’ve firmed up some of the details of form; switching back-and-forth between the two main characters at various points in time.
But I think most ideas I would have on a music post would bore the daylights out of most people.
My original blog, way back in 2005, over time became something mainly about how just about every song by Saga can be made much better by chopping out twelve seconds of it; and I got really explicit about which twelve seconds. Formatting columns of numbers killed that one.
Blogging was first pitched to me as a form of self-publishing with an interactive aspect, or I wouldn’t have bothered (as opposed to “social networking,” which if I viewed it as such, I would find it abhorrent).
I don’t have time to read as much as I’d like any more, much less to write so much. Just using a bit of free time to goof off at present. I’ll go on another extended disappearance soon enough.Report
Chris, this post was SO awesome on way too many levels for me to really communicate. Just fucking outstanding.
Since I know you’re a Texan now, here’s my only contribution to the thread. More Robert Earl.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2zLuPLdaI0
And Lyle doing the same song, which he co-wrote with REK back in College Station.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY6vgt2ihtQ
Viva Texas!Report
Moderation?Report
Still, thanks man, that means a lot. And the “Porch Song” may be my favorite song about Texas. At least my favorite song that isn’t about all my exes living here. It’s just damn good. Makes me miss going to those shows.
(Also, I wouldn’t be the stereotypical southerner that I am if I didn’t point out that I’m not a Texan, I’m a Tennessean, damn it!)Report