Almost there, gang. Almost there.
I've written a lately about the manner in which we're exposed to music. Additionally I have examined the nature of what sticks and what doesn't - the question of why we choose the things we do and why advice can go unheeded. Along these lines, today's post springs from the central problem of yesterday's post, namely the disappearing problem of forgetting music or not having the facts when we want them. Sit a spell, won't you?
As I kvetched in yesterday's post, I grew up in the world on the cusp of the Jetsonsonian world we now inhabit. Unless you had a VCR running, brother, you weren't going to see that episode again until syndication. Can't recall the name of an actor when you're talking about a movie? In the days before the proliferation of the IMDB you could think yourself right into a stroke. Most frustrating of all would be hearing a great song on the radio and the DJ, whom you already despise because they're a DJ, won't say a lick about it. Drove me up the wall. (Sidebar here - that may be the most negative thing I've written here, to date) The flip side to this problem, however, is that with proper skills or the attachment of sufficient significance, you could circumvent this problem.
My older brother had occasionally mentioned Sunny Day Real Estate as being a great band I would like. Being a young adolescent in that culture that pre-dated instant-informational-gratification, I never had a chance to find out what he was talking about. Despite their reputation as avant garde, meta-conscious artists who appeared in Gap ads in masks, Sunny Day Real Estate's videos were never played when I was watching MTV, or at least I didn't pay sufficient enough attention. I did know, though, that members went on to work with Dave Grohl in the legendary Foo Fighters, so I had that asterix next to their name in my mental data banks. The local radio stations in my home town were limited to Top 40, Oldies, Country, More Oldies, More Country, Even More Country, Classical and I Still Can't Believe It's More Country. No modern rock for young guys like us, nuffin' at all.
It wasn't until I was living in Tacoma for the brief span between high school and college that I had the briefest of snippets of SDRE to experience. I had been working at my uncle's restaurant in West End, saving money and spending all my free time wandering the city or reading on his deck. It was an enjoyably solitary time, but that's beside the point. Point is I was driving home one afternoon, most likely worrying about the impending social crises awaiting me at St. Thomas. Thinking I should be up on not just th music I loved, but popular mass-appeal music as well, I switched from CD to the modern rock station in Seattle. While I was expecting something terrible, like the formerly prominent Papa Roach, I instead heard something cut through the speakers like a buzz saw right into my brain. I vividly recall sitting up in the seat and cocking my head to figure out what I was hearing. Distorted circles of guitar licks, a singer wailing about "Running down" while someone moaned "...in circles" behind them. I was hooked. Unfortunately I had no idea who it was, so I listened patiently, eased only by the fact that I knew the next song, so when the DJ came on to actually tell the audience what they played for a change, I had context. "Alright, that was another set of songs from blah blah blah, some Everclear, Jimmy Eat World - The Middle, In Circles by Sunny Day Real Estate and What It's Like by Everlast. Keep it right here on..." My mind locked in on the name and I smirked, realizing I should have known that song, had I just branched out before. I only got to hear about the last minute of the tune though, so I filed it away in the back of my mind to seek it out in the future.
Time passed, I moved to the dorms and started college, a little too busy with other things like life to start investigating immediately. An open Saturday afternoon early in the semester found me with some time on my hands after downloading the regionally popular file sharing program. After loading up on stuff I knew I had to have immediately, I started free associating, letting old or obscure songs come to mind, almost as a test to my own self and the network. Like a lightbulb over my head, Sunny Day Real Estate popped in and I eagerly searched. I had impressed myself with the tenacity of my own memory. Having only heard a snippet of the song months before, I had actually had the mental wherewithal to summon the track from the ether. It was there - not a hugely popular song, but not impossibly obscure, either. So I did the wrong thing and downloaded it. As soon as it was ready, I opened it in iTunes and clicked play.
I realized right away I should have listened to what I was told when I was younger. This band was a group out of time, making a sound that basically established emo (of which I was unabashedly enamored at the time) and rode parallel to the alternative wave of the 90s. The band was long gone, but thanks to a random bit on the radio and the freedom of crowd-sourcing data, there was just one more person falling in love with their anguished sound. I loved the back and forth dynamics, the loud and soft. The way vocalist Dan Hoerner sang soft and sweet in the verses, only to howl when the chorus came in. Rather than feeling formulaic, it was vital and fresh for me - I had missed the song the first time it went around and had only been introduced to it most likely from a sorting algorithm or bit of nostalgia from a DJ. Here I am now, with 'In Circles' still making regular appearances in my playlists, in the world of the Jetsons.
I've written a lately about the manner in which we're exposed to music. Additionally I have examined the nature of what sticks and what doesn't - the question of why we choose the things we do and why advice can go unheeded. Along these lines, today's post springs from the central problem of yesterday's post, namely the disappearing problem of forgetting music or not having the facts when we want them. Sit a spell, won't you?
As I kvetched in yesterday's post, I grew up in the world on the cusp of the Jetsonsonian world we now inhabit. Unless you had a VCR running, brother, you weren't going to see that episode again until syndication. Can't recall the name of an actor when you're talking about a movie? In the days before the proliferation of the IMDB you could think yourself right into a stroke. Most frustrating of all would be hearing a great song on the radio and the DJ, whom you already despise because they're a DJ, won't say a lick about it. Drove me up the wall. (Sidebar here - that may be the most negative thing I've written here, to date) The flip side to this problem, however, is that with proper skills or the attachment of sufficient significance, you could circumvent this problem.
Time passed, I moved to the dorms and started college, a little too busy with other things like life to start investigating immediately. An open Saturday afternoon early in the semester found me with some time on my hands after downloading the regionally popular file sharing program. After loading up on stuff I knew I had to have immediately, I started free associating, letting old or obscure songs come to mind, almost as a test to my own self and the network. Like a lightbulb over my head, Sunny Day Real Estate popped in and I eagerly searched. I had impressed myself with the tenacity of my own memory. Having only heard a snippet of the song months before, I had actually had the mental wherewithal to summon the track from the ether. It was there - not a hugely popular song, but not impossibly obscure, either. So I did the wrong thing and downloaded it. As soon as it was ready, I opened it in iTunes and clicked play.
