There's a side effect of Slow Listening I hadn't foreseen. Typically my iTunes folder gets huge and stays that way for most of the year, because I tended to not erase important-for-later stuff from it, not to mention that I kept the 10-track playlists through to the end of year, for final mix- or list-making or whatever. But pretty much by accident, I stopped doing it that way this month. I made a "2009" folder just to put stray MP3s in, but instead it became a weird monster, favored album tracks, new singles, and (the monstrous part) DJ mixes ranging from 20 minutes to eight hours (right, that one). It looks like an EKG chart laid out vertically, and I kind of dig it--seems/feels more like the way music occupies my life, a couple minutes here, a colossus there. So I added a "-1" to the name and am just going to do one per month. And when I'm done with that month's stuff, and have put it in its own special folder on the EHD*, I can then delete it all from hy laptop, because, at fucking last, there's nothing on it I won't have listened to.
What a relief this is. And what a strain it's already beginning to show. I am behind on the RA Podcast; I have a small but serious stack of CDs in front of me that I'm writing about in the coming week. I just downloaded another title for another review, which I'm playing now. (On track 3, of 16.) I've auditioned two CDs just before this one (the first of which was 74 minutes--can't remember the last rock album of that I even listened to), to back up my pitching them to eMusic.
This is the treadmill starting up again. It's kind of a relief: when I don't have deadlines to meet, my schedule goes to pieces. Well, it does anyway, and I've been late with things this week, though hopefully not fatally. But it's a symptom. Once my sleeping patterns are conquered (I so enjoyed being a morning person between Thanksgiving and Christmas; that's the goal), I should be able to manage even more and better listening time. But I'm doing pretty well so far. It's starting to really dawn on me how uncluttering this experiment actually is.
*I may in fact be such a fussbudget I'll copy-and-paste the tracklist of each onto a Word doc and stow it on the EHD as well. I'll try not to format it, but something tells me I won't be able to resist.
15.1.09
14.1.09
The first two weeks.
Keeping an eye on how you do things will often lead you to alter them, and that's been the case with SLM. For example, as mentioned earlier, I used to downloading tracks off blogs willy-nilly, or from publicist links I've been sent via email. Those would go into a folder labeled "unassimilated," from which I would, when I had the inkling, go through, find singles and EPs, and put into a couple general iTunes folders ("2008 possibilities" for single tracks, "2008 A-B" for two-to-four-song singles/EPs) and then play through them when time permitted--sometimes for hours at a time. I plowed through a lot of stuff that way and discovered a good amount.
But SLM frowns upon such stuff, so what I've done instead is put likely emails into folders ("digital promos") and, with URLs that catch my eye and potentially my ear, simply keep them listed in bullet-point on a simple Word document so I can go back to them when I feel like it. I figured I'd wait a couple weeks to see how many there were. Now, on the 14th of the month, the exact two-week point, I counted. The number of URLs so far--some of which feature multiple MP3s, or DJ-mix sets, or in a couple cases full albums--is 72, an average of over five per day. I think that kind of says everything.
Something I wrote on an earlier post--"SLM isn't really about spending more time with less music"--raised a cocked eyebrow from Philip Sherburne, who found it "odd, because that seems to be precisely one of the pillars of [the] project." Part of the reason I said that was in response to a comment proselytizing for "getting off the grid," opting out of the more sports-like part of music listening, the what's-new-and-now aspect of it, in favor of just diving in wherever and taking what you find where you can. All wonderful things--and the commenter in question has a blog featuring some eloquent mixes. But even if I weren't writing about music for a living (for now, anyway), I'm still fascinated by music-as-sport--who's doing what, which albums are being talked about, the whole sweep of it. Those aren't the only exciting things about following music, but they're a part of it I quite enjoy. You don't have to be first on your block (I rarely am) for that to resonate.
What I've noticed about the project so far is that I've spent less time with music, period. Part of it is professional: without wanting to belabor this any further than I already have, this is a shitty time to try and make a living freelancing about music for money. It's a shitty time to do anything for money, period. So I have fewer assignments than I might have even a year ago, and as a result I've got fewer things I have to listen to. Hence, my listening becomes more scattered, less focused. It also relies less on things I feel I should be listening to, though inevitably some of that sneaks in, too, as with the new Animal Collective--a band I've never liked, whose moment in the sun compels me to pay attention. (The results so far have been mixed, but intriguingly so.)
I've also been cataloguing that listening differently than usual. In 2007 and '08, I put likely new songs in numbered iTunes folders in groups of 10, figuring that way I could make more time for the individual playlists to whittle down further. Instead, I ended up, at the end of the year, with 68 playlists--nearly 700 songs that I liked enough the first time through to investigate further, only I never got to re-investigate most of them because I was too busy adding to their ranks from the aforementioned "2008 possibilities" folders. It never ended--and though I liked a lot of music I heard as a result, often it could feel like make-work.
The major change I wanted to make via SLM was to not second-guess myself so much. If I hear a song or album with a little more clear space around it, chances are my opinion will sharpen; I won't be so inclined to hear things as part of a marathon-listening groove and correspondently let my ears slip a little. I definitely want to find more things I'll go back to--and given how much music is released in a year, and how much of it I hear (still a considerable amount even without grabbing everything in sight by habit), that number is likely to remain high. And I think it's helping me understand when those slippages are in fact helpful--when re-hearing something in context of other pieces of music buoys it, puts it in better focus, shows its facets off better. Not that this has been happening yet much; I realize two weeks in is awfully fucking early to doomsay, but I should say right now that on the evidence (stuff I've heard, stuff I know is coming) I am not gearing up for 2009 to be a great or even good year musically. Nevertheless, I'm enjoying paying attention to it, especially with that attention being a little more focused than usual.
But SLM frowns upon such stuff, so what I've done instead is put likely emails into folders ("digital promos") and, with URLs that catch my eye and potentially my ear, simply keep them listed in bullet-point on a simple Word document so I can go back to them when I feel like it. I figured I'd wait a couple weeks to see how many there were. Now, on the 14th of the month, the exact two-week point, I counted. The number of URLs so far--some of which feature multiple MP3s, or DJ-mix sets, or in a couple cases full albums--is 72, an average of over five per day. I think that kind of says everything.
Something I wrote on an earlier post--"SLM isn't really about spending more time with less music"--raised a cocked eyebrow from Philip Sherburne, who found it "odd, because that seems to be precisely one of the pillars of [the] project." Part of the reason I said that was in response to a comment proselytizing for "getting off the grid," opting out of the more sports-like part of music listening, the what's-new-and-now aspect of it, in favor of just diving in wherever and taking what you find where you can. All wonderful things--and the commenter in question has a blog featuring some eloquent mixes. But even if I weren't writing about music for a living (for now, anyway), I'm still fascinated by music-as-sport--who's doing what, which albums are being talked about, the whole sweep of it. Those aren't the only exciting things about following music, but they're a part of it I quite enjoy. You don't have to be first on your block (I rarely am) for that to resonate.
What I've noticed about the project so far is that I've spent less time with music, period. Part of it is professional: without wanting to belabor this any further than I already have, this is a shitty time to try and make a living freelancing about music for money. It's a shitty time to do anything for money, period. So I have fewer assignments than I might have even a year ago, and as a result I've got fewer things I have to listen to. Hence, my listening becomes more scattered, less focused. It also relies less on things I feel I should be listening to, though inevitably some of that sneaks in, too, as with the new Animal Collective--a band I've never liked, whose moment in the sun compels me to pay attention. (The results so far have been mixed, but intriguingly so.)
I've also been cataloguing that listening differently than usual. In 2007 and '08, I put likely new songs in numbered iTunes folders in groups of 10, figuring that way I could make more time for the individual playlists to whittle down further. Instead, I ended up, at the end of the year, with 68 playlists--nearly 700 songs that I liked enough the first time through to investigate further, only I never got to re-investigate most of them because I was too busy adding to their ranks from the aforementioned "2008 possibilities" folders. It never ended--and though I liked a lot of music I heard as a result, often it could feel like make-work.
The major change I wanted to make via SLM was to not second-guess myself so much. If I hear a song or album with a little more clear space around it, chances are my opinion will sharpen; I won't be so inclined to hear things as part of a marathon-listening groove and correspondently let my ears slip a little. I definitely want to find more things I'll go back to--and given how much music is released in a year, and how much of it I hear (still a considerable amount even without grabbing everything in sight by habit), that number is likely to remain high. And I think it's helping me understand when those slippages are in fact helpful--when re-hearing something in context of other pieces of music buoys it, puts it in better focus, shows its facets off better. Not that this has been happening yet much; I realize two weeks in is awfully fucking early to doomsay, but I should say right now that on the evidence (stuff I've heard, stuff I know is coming) I am not gearing up for 2009 to be a great or even good year musically. Nevertheless, I'm enjoying paying attention to it, especially with that attention being a little more focused than usual.
8.1.09
The deal with promos.
As mentioned, I get promos sent to me sometimes, both physical and digital. Most of them I haven't requested. Some I do, though, particularly when it comes to the stuff distributed by Forced Exposure. Every few weeks they send a list of upcoming items they have available, and I choose a few to hear. It's like Christmas coming once a month.
What if you don't play with all your toys, though? During a recent purge I came across a shaming amount of still-shrinkwrapped, still-unheard FE promos, and had that old "oh, I better get around to that one" feeling that pretty much guarantees you'll never, ever hear something again. So while I was thinking of how to unclutter my listening I decided I was going to be very frugal about asking for promos, especially from FE, whose newest package arrived Monday. It contained 11 CDs.
When I opened it, I immediately began plotting an escape. Maybe I'll just go halves on promos, I thought. Or: hey, I said I would only listen to promos as I saw fit. FE titles usually go to the top of the stack, but I'd already encountered far too many pieces of evidence that this doesn't usually end up meaning anything.
Of course, this is when I'd only gotten through about two hours of that aforementioned eight-hour Sutekh-and-friends techno set. Which I finished last night, by the way, fair and square. I'd also downloaded and played a few singles/individual tracks with column potential. Since then, I've gotten the new RA Podcast, by the Orb (not just ambient--boring), and the first seven offerings from Kenny Melman (a.k.a. Herb of Kiki &) and his new Our Hit Parade blog, which I'm digesting as I type. (They're very much demos, but he's promising one a day for the entire year; 365 is a lot of songs by anyone doing anything, but I'm a fan, so I'll at least dip in. So far Mellman's Coldplay/Kanye medley and Jim Andralis & Larry Krone's mandolin-led version of Rihanna's "Take a Bow" have some appeal.)
Tomorrow, though, I'm going to dive through the FE CDs: the rule is that I have to play every promo I've specifically requested. I may put first impressions up here for at least a few, though probably not all--I may be systematizing the way I take things in, but what I listen to and how I listen to it remains erratic as ever, and I don't want that to change. Obviously an experiment like this is, to a degree, classicism in action, but I'm too hooked on the immediacy and surprise of digging through new releases, seeing what grabs my ear and what seems too horrible to bear. It's gambling for the ears: most of the time you come up duff, enough turns a profit to keep you interested, and when you're lucky you hit the jackpot.
SLM isn't really about spending more time with less music, but after a week there are noticeable net effects. When I play new acquisitions, I'm paying them more direct attention, partly because until the FE mailing I hadn't gotten any new CDs and everything was MP3s. There are also not that many of them, and none really albums. We'll see if the CD player-as-background-device pattern I've had repeats itself.
What if you don't play with all your toys, though? During a recent purge I came across a shaming amount of still-shrinkwrapped, still-unheard FE promos, and had that old "oh, I better get around to that one" feeling that pretty much guarantees you'll never, ever hear something again. So while I was thinking of how to unclutter my listening I decided I was going to be very frugal about asking for promos, especially from FE, whose newest package arrived Monday. It contained 11 CDs.
When I opened it, I immediately began plotting an escape. Maybe I'll just go halves on promos, I thought. Or: hey, I said I would only listen to promos as I saw fit. FE titles usually go to the top of the stack, but I'd already encountered far too many pieces of evidence that this doesn't usually end up meaning anything.
Of course, this is when I'd only gotten through about two hours of that aforementioned eight-hour Sutekh-and-friends techno set. Which I finished last night, by the way, fair and square. I'd also downloaded and played a few singles/individual tracks with column potential. Since then, I've gotten the new RA Podcast, by the Orb (not just ambient--boring), and the first seven offerings from Kenny Melman (a.k.a. Herb of Kiki &) and his new Our Hit Parade blog, which I'm digesting as I type. (They're very much demos, but he's promising one a day for the entire year; 365 is a lot of songs by anyone doing anything, but I'm a fan, so I'll at least dip in. So far Mellman's Coldplay/Kanye medley and Jim Andralis & Larry Krone's mandolin-led version of Rihanna's "Take a Bow" have some appeal.)
Tomorrow, though, I'm going to dive through the FE CDs: the rule is that I have to play every promo I've specifically requested. I may put first impressions up here for at least a few, though probably not all--I may be systematizing the way I take things in, but what I listen to and how I listen to it remains erratic as ever, and I don't want that to change. Obviously an experiment like this is, to a degree, classicism in action, but I'm too hooked on the immediacy and surprise of digging through new releases, seeing what grabs my ear and what seems too horrible to bear. It's gambling for the ears: most of the time you come up duff, enough turns a profit to keep you interested, and when you're lucky you hit the jackpot.
SLM isn't really about spending more time with less music, but after a week there are noticeable net effects. When I play new acquisitions, I'm paying them more direct attention, partly because until the FE mailing I hadn't gotten any new CDs and everything was MP3s. There are also not that many of them, and none really albums. We'll see if the CD player-as-background-device pattern I've had repeats itself.
5.1.09
Mixmag 100.
Well, I blew it already--how about that? Sort of. I have made it through three hours of the aforementioned eight-hour monster MP3, and I have to tell you, I really like it. Parts of it are excellent, just the kind of loopy, insistent, mesmeric techno I like, but it's just about impossible not to be aware, while listening to it, that it's eight friggin' hours long. This inhibits me and probably you: "OK, just act normally, do what you usually do, but remember: you're climbing Everest as you do it." Digital media may rid us the physical dimension of music-as-package, but other kinds of awareness step in to aid inhibition.
So I've cheated, and have downloaded other things that I am, just now, finishing listening to. Namely, I found the Mixmag Top 100 Tracks of 2008 list, without quite meaning to--I was looking to see if any dance mags had put Dubtribe Sound System's "Do It Now (Extended Disco Version)" on their year-end lists, and stumbled across it. (I didn't see any evidence they did. I didn't even know about it till a few months ago, consciously anyway, and I've been replaying it obsessively the past couple days. Tim Finney referred to it as a cross between Studio and Armand Van Helden's "Flowerz," which is spot on. No wonder I like it so much: the beach sun of Balearic with the kind of hypnotic, dark, insistent feel of the house I tend to like best.)
I should explain something about my OCD tendencies. I like lists a lot. I make them, I devour them, and I spent two years writing a column about them for Idolator. And ever since I became iTunes' slave in late 2003, I have been compiling the entries of the more interesting singles lists I come across. This is the third year in a row I've attempted to find everything on Mixmag's Top 100 Tracks; it was in fact the 2006 list that inspired the first Project X. And as with the others I gather together (Pitchfork's, FACT's, Stylus's before they went under, Resident Advisor's), I often don't listen to everything in full, figuring I'll put it on my iPod and listen to it all at once, which happens, but so infrequently that it might as well never, ever happen. I do listen to most of it at some point, often in a disinterested way, letting what grabs me grab me.
I was maybe three songs into downloading what I could find of the list (about three-quarters) before I realized I'd have to play everything I added. So I did, and I had a good time--I didn't like everything, but what I did like sounded especially good.
Not everything did. Sam Sparro's "Black and Gold" (No. 19), Underworld's "Beautiful Burnout" (No. 33), and Tricky's "Council Estate" (No. 66) still don't sound like much, Utah Jazz's oozing-souful "Back in Time" (No. 100) and Deadmau5's google-eyed trance "I Remember" (No. 23) occupy the same basic terrain; I couldn't finish either. The Ting Tings sound mediocre ("Great DJ," No. 85; "That's Not My Name," No. 87). And the two remake/remixes puzzled me. M.A.N.D.Y. vs. Booka Shade ft. Laurie Anderson's "O Superman" (No. 65) struck me as even less necessary than it looked on paper.
No. 34, the Rolling Stones' "You Can’t Always Get What You Want (Soulwax Re Mix)," is thornier. I have no problem wondering why anyone would bother, but I also admired its craft, particularly the way Soulwax splice in split-second earmarks from elsewhere in the song during the verses and choruses, playing on our overfamiliarity with the band. Unless I'm crawling into bed with an old favorite, I try to approach a recording as if I'm hearing it for the first time; I tend not to worry about overfamiliarity as a rule. But the Soulwax "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is one of those instances where all I can think is, "I never need to hear this song again, do I?" No matter how well contrived the reworking is.
The good stuff was seldom revelatory--that isn't going to be news, especially to anyone who reads Mixmag. A few things surprised me simply by bucking their pedigrees. I liked one song off the Midnight Juggernauts album, "Into the Galaxy" (No. 28) not being it, but in this company it makes more sense, just like Heartbreak's "We're Back" (No. 39). Bless them for isolating Flying Lotus's "Parisian Goldfish" (No. 71) and "Breathe" (No. 95), which I somehow managed not to do; now I know what to play at Havana. The Herve mix of Larry Tee & Princess Superstar's "Licky" (No. 58) is so much better than I had any expectations of that I'm a little embarrassed. Italoboyz's "Bahia" (No. 86) is exactly the kind of gimmick I get off on: techno groove morphing into and out of old John Coltrane performances on two sides totaling 19 minutes. (The A-side is better.) I wish I'd caught Math Head's "Turn the Music Up" (No. 81) in time to include it on the Idolator old-skool rave comeback post. Grace Jones' "William's Blood" is a mature comeback to shame most of the folks who get jetstreams of ink for far less, for which read "hot indie rock producer."
Two that I missed outright during the year aren't necessarily my favorites, but they feel like things I should have known about. The Chemical Brothers' "Midnight Madness" (No. 36) is sine-wave feedback-squeal disco-electro that's the best thing they've done since at least "Star Guitar" in 2002, and it may be better. Apparently it was a single in July; I wish I'd known about it. Ditto the Mystery Jets' "Two Doors Down" (No. 39), which is as New Pop-nostalgic as Alphabeat, only its exuberance, as well as its sonic coordinates, crosses C86 twee-shamble with plinky-shiny dime-store Stock-Aitken-Waterman. It's absolutely shameless: "I hear she likes to dance around the room/To a worn out 12-inch of Marquee Moon." I've played it a half-dozen times already.
Along with Alphabeat's own "Boyfriend" (No. 53), the placement of "Two Doors Down" is pretty easy to understand: last I checked the mag's editor was Andrew Collins, a.k.a. The Word's in-house Pet Shop Boys expert. He's connecting the dots between the dance music of the '80s and that of this; the Mystery Jets' record, with its scissoring hi-hats and cheap synths and weedy sax solo, is part of the not-so-electro past that people did, in fact, dance to. Or maybe I'm misreading this entirely, but either way I'm glad I paid enough attention to spot a few new favorites. I will of course finish the 8-hour monster soon, promise. Meanwhile, more Mystery Jets. What an amazingly fizzy record this is.
So I've cheated, and have downloaded other things that I am, just now, finishing listening to. Namely, I found the Mixmag Top 100 Tracks of 2008 list, without quite meaning to--I was looking to see if any dance mags had put Dubtribe Sound System's "Do It Now (Extended Disco Version)" on their year-end lists, and stumbled across it. (I didn't see any evidence they did. I didn't even know about it till a few months ago, consciously anyway, and I've been replaying it obsessively the past couple days. Tim Finney referred to it as a cross between Studio and Armand Van Helden's "Flowerz," which is spot on. No wonder I like it so much: the beach sun of Balearic with the kind of hypnotic, dark, insistent feel of the house I tend to like best.)
I should explain something about my OCD tendencies. I like lists a lot. I make them, I devour them, and I spent two years writing a column about them for Idolator. And ever since I became iTunes' slave in late 2003, I have been compiling the entries of the more interesting singles lists I come across. This is the third year in a row I've attempted to find everything on Mixmag's Top 100 Tracks; it was in fact the 2006 list that inspired the first Project X. And as with the others I gather together (Pitchfork's, FACT's, Stylus's before they went under, Resident Advisor's), I often don't listen to everything in full, figuring I'll put it on my iPod and listen to it all at once, which happens, but so infrequently that it might as well never, ever happen. I do listen to most of it at some point, often in a disinterested way, letting what grabs me grab me.
I was maybe three songs into downloading what I could find of the list (about three-quarters) before I realized I'd have to play everything I added. So I did, and I had a good time--I didn't like everything, but what I did like sounded especially good.
Not everything did. Sam Sparro's "Black and Gold" (No. 19), Underworld's "Beautiful Burnout" (No. 33), and Tricky's "Council Estate" (No. 66) still don't sound like much, Utah Jazz's oozing-souful "Back in Time" (No. 100) and Deadmau5's google-eyed trance "I Remember" (No. 23) occupy the same basic terrain; I couldn't finish either. The Ting Tings sound mediocre ("Great DJ," No. 85; "That's Not My Name," No. 87). And the two remake/remixes puzzled me. M.A.N.D.Y. vs. Booka Shade ft. Laurie Anderson's "O Superman" (No. 65) struck me as even less necessary than it looked on paper.
No. 34, the Rolling Stones' "You Can’t Always Get What You Want (Soulwax Re Mix)," is thornier. I have no problem wondering why anyone would bother, but I also admired its craft, particularly the way Soulwax splice in split-second earmarks from elsewhere in the song during the verses and choruses, playing on our overfamiliarity with the band. Unless I'm crawling into bed with an old favorite, I try to approach a recording as if I'm hearing it for the first time; I tend not to worry about overfamiliarity as a rule. But the Soulwax "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is one of those instances where all I can think is, "I never need to hear this song again, do I?" No matter how well contrived the reworking is.
The good stuff was seldom revelatory--that isn't going to be news, especially to anyone who reads Mixmag. A few things surprised me simply by bucking their pedigrees. I liked one song off the Midnight Juggernauts album, "Into the Galaxy" (No. 28) not being it, but in this company it makes more sense, just like Heartbreak's "We're Back" (No. 39). Bless them for isolating Flying Lotus's "Parisian Goldfish" (No. 71) and "Breathe" (No. 95), which I somehow managed not to do; now I know what to play at Havana. The Herve mix of Larry Tee & Princess Superstar's "Licky" (No. 58) is so much better than I had any expectations of that I'm a little embarrassed. Italoboyz's "Bahia" (No. 86) is exactly the kind of gimmick I get off on: techno groove morphing into and out of old John Coltrane performances on two sides totaling 19 minutes. (The A-side is better.) I wish I'd caught Math Head's "Turn the Music Up" (No. 81) in time to include it on the Idolator old-skool rave comeback post. Grace Jones' "William's Blood" is a mature comeback to shame most of the folks who get jetstreams of ink for far less, for which read "hot indie rock producer."
Two that I missed outright during the year aren't necessarily my favorites, but they feel like things I should have known about. The Chemical Brothers' "Midnight Madness" (No. 36) is sine-wave feedback-squeal disco-electro that's the best thing they've done since at least "Star Guitar" in 2002, and it may be better. Apparently it was a single in July; I wish I'd known about it. Ditto the Mystery Jets' "Two Doors Down" (No. 39), which is as New Pop-nostalgic as Alphabeat, only its exuberance, as well as its sonic coordinates, crosses C86 twee-shamble with plinky-shiny dime-store Stock-Aitken-Waterman. It's absolutely shameless: "I hear she likes to dance around the room/To a worn out 12-inch of Marquee Moon." I've played it a half-dozen times already.
Along with Alphabeat's own "Boyfriend" (No. 53), the placement of "Two Doors Down" is pretty easy to understand: last I checked the mag's editor was Andrew Collins, a.k.a. The Word's in-house Pet Shop Boys expert. He's connecting the dots between the dance music of the '80s and that of this; the Mystery Jets' record, with its scissoring hi-hats and cheap synths and weedy sax solo, is part of the not-so-electro past that people did, in fact, dance to. Or maybe I'm misreading this entirely, but either way I'm glad I paid enough attention to spot a few new favorites. I will of course finish the 8-hour monster soon, promise. Meanwhile, more Mystery Jets. What an amazingly fizzy record this is.
3.1.09
Today I took two deep plunges. I downloaded a double-CD, Reggae Anthology: Randy's 50th Anniversary (1960-1971), lasting two hours, 17 minutes. I was browsing for other things on eMusic and came across it; I'd been tempted to buy it last weekend in Minneapolis, making it a top candidate for first official 2009 download. Then maybe two-thirds of the way through, I came across an eight-hour-long monster (credited to Sutekh Live! Seph Live!, DJ Koba & DJ kid.chic, recorded Halloween 2007) on Raymond Cummings' blog. I'm a few minutes into it, and while I'll head out to eat soon and watch TV later, this is what I will listen to tonight. Clearly, I'm testing my fortitude here. But the long-ass set-of-sets sounds nice so far. At the very least, I'll probably get some reading done to this.
Log: Jan. 1-2
Thursday, January 1, I didn't buy or download anything--went to Portland the night before and hung with my friends Jessi and Eric, slept till nearly 2 p.m., long rainy walk to and from lunch, on the train at 6:15 and back in Seattle at 10, dinner in Chinatown (Hing Loon, my favorite, to which I owe Sheila and Herman thanks again), then home. Quiet.
Today I got out a bit and did some browsing. I was consciously thinking I should buy a CD just so I could take it home and play it right away--show that I'm following my own rules. Ditto with books--I'm trying to do this with reading and viewing matter as well as listening--and when Mairead (in town longer than planned thanks to, um, breaking her ankle--ouch) and I killed time between eating at Thai Tom and seeing Let the Right One In (fantastic) at the U Bookstore, the remainder table of NYRB Classics nearly made both of us want to cry. I came close to buying the one about humor with the Greil Marcus introduction, and I will probably do it sometime in the next week--the urge is very strong.
I have been looking up titles from Tom Moon's 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, bookmarking them on eMusic for future reference, and when I came across Celia y Johnny during a lull, I realized I wanted to hear it right away. I downloaded it two-and-a-half years ago, when the Fania catalog hit the site; I'm pretty sure I listened to it at the time, but not closely and probably only once. Since the d/l is on my account, I can re-download without it counting against me, so I did. It sounds very nice--not starchy or stodgy, just relaxed in its dynamism. Collaborations between beloved masters with nothing to prove except they love each other is a rich vein, I think: Louis and Ella, for instance.
I should spend time with their stuff, too. I'm sure I hoarded it somewhere. Maybe. It's hard to remember, because the hoarding impulse that speed-acquisition engenders is fantastic when you want to feel like your ears have some breadth, and that maybe your life does too. Similarly is when you play a record once and know how good it plainly is and then never play it again for years. I talked about that a little bit here, but something that happens a lot, especially as I get older, is that I know I'll never, ever be in the mood to hear what is obviously good work. But I keep it around because I figure I'll want it for that particular time; when I see it again, on the shelf or in a file folder, I then realize that, you know what, I was in the mood to hear that about three weeks ago, if I'd remembered it then it would have been perfect for DJ'ing at Havana or for that private stoned 2 a.m. reverie, etc.
In a way that's the role Celia y Johnny played for me. I've had it sitting there, unlistened to, for all this time, and the nice thing about it now as opposed to then is that I'm approaching it from a book, Moon's, in which it's got a handful of like albums, but not so many that I, as someone with very little familiarity with Latin music, would get lost in. I sort of need that, as opposed to "one of 50 Fania titles, most of which look really rich, holy shit I don't know where to begin, plus I downloaded 50 albums of music I don't know much about, fuck." (OK, it was more like 28. More than I knew how to handle. A recurring theme.)
I'm almost finished with the album now. Each song is sounding better than the last, and it isn't just the weed, it's understanding it better simply by giving it some unhurried time. It helps, in the first couple weeks of the year, that I'm almost never loaded down with assignments. (Doing year-end for the last three years for Idolator has helped a lot with helping me wind into the new year.) So I tend to listen freely before my time becomes more regimented with assignments. I have no problem at all with this. There comes a time when my listening can feel aimless unless I'm directing it toward a review or whatever. I'm so naturally sloppy it makes me a little grateful to listen purposefully, especially as a freelancer. (I also consistently go on carefree jags of just playing whatever the hell I want with the consequence of having to cram assigned plays together, but it's worth it for those hours of not-work.) Nevertheless, listening for the sake of listening is still my apex.
I've only just realized that my sister Brittany is into a whole lot of the music I'm not. She loves classical, she loves Latin music, she likes what she knows of opera, and she paid attention to R&B for a lot of the time I did not, though that's partly because she was a teenager and that's what was popular. She's always played Latin stuff for me, especially when I'm a passenger in her car, which is much of the time I'm in Minneapolis. (Her driving has been a godsend these past few years.)
Since "Latin" is such a staggeringly deep and wide area, I seldom know how much to ask her, but she's always surprised me with how fluid her knowledge is. My last night home last week we stopped at a Border's where I bought the Moon book. She looked at the Latin CDs a while and picked up a recently issued Rough Guide CD. "Are these any good?" she asked. I told her what I tell everyone: if a Rough Guide seems at all interesting, it probably is, and often it's better. She bought the Merengue one and blasted it in the car that night and the next afternoon when she took me to the airport. I asked if she was at all interested in the old Fania stuff. I shouldn't even have needed to ask--not only is she a huge Marc Anthony fan who owns a DVD of El Catante, she's always loved music history, though not nearly as academically as I. (She had a life, I didn't.) I promised to pass her info on the Rough Guides I had, as well as the Fania titles. I think I'm putting Celia y Johnny into regular rotation. This feels like the right time for it.
Today I got out a bit and did some browsing. I was consciously thinking I should buy a CD just so I could take it home and play it right away--show that I'm following my own rules. Ditto with books--I'm trying to do this with reading and viewing matter as well as listening--and when Mairead (in town longer than planned thanks to, um, breaking her ankle--ouch) and I killed time between eating at Thai Tom and seeing Let the Right One In (fantastic) at the U Bookstore, the remainder table of NYRB Classics nearly made both of us want to cry. I came close to buying the one about humor with the Greil Marcus introduction, and I will probably do it sometime in the next week--the urge is very strong.
I have been looking up titles from Tom Moon's 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, bookmarking them on eMusic for future reference, and when I came across Celia y Johnny during a lull, I realized I wanted to hear it right away. I downloaded it two-and-a-half years ago, when the Fania catalog hit the site; I'm pretty sure I listened to it at the time, but not closely and probably only once. Since the d/l is on my account, I can re-download without it counting against me, so I did. It sounds very nice--not starchy or stodgy, just relaxed in its dynamism. Collaborations between beloved masters with nothing to prove except they love each other is a rich vein, I think: Louis and Ella, for instance.
I should spend time with their stuff, too. I'm sure I hoarded it somewhere. Maybe. It's hard to remember, because the hoarding impulse that speed-acquisition engenders is fantastic when you want to feel like your ears have some breadth, and that maybe your life does too. Similarly is when you play a record once and know how good it plainly is and then never play it again for years. I talked about that a little bit here, but something that happens a lot, especially as I get older, is that I know I'll never, ever be in the mood to hear what is obviously good work. But I keep it around because I figure I'll want it for that particular time; when I see it again, on the shelf or in a file folder, I then realize that, you know what, I was in the mood to hear that about three weeks ago, if I'd remembered it then it would have been perfect for DJ'ing at Havana or for that private stoned 2 a.m. reverie, etc.
In a way that's the role Celia y Johnny played for me. I've had it sitting there, unlistened to, for all this time, and the nice thing about it now as opposed to then is that I'm approaching it from a book, Moon's, in which it's got a handful of like albums, but not so many that I, as someone with very little familiarity with Latin music, would get lost in. I sort of need that, as opposed to "one of 50 Fania titles, most of which look really rich, holy shit I don't know where to begin, plus I downloaded 50 albums of music I don't know much about, fuck." (OK, it was more like 28. More than I knew how to handle. A recurring theme.)
I'm almost finished with the album now. Each song is sounding better than the last, and it isn't just the weed, it's understanding it better simply by giving it some unhurried time. It helps, in the first couple weeks of the year, that I'm almost never loaded down with assignments. (Doing year-end for the last three years for Idolator has helped a lot with helping me wind into the new year.) So I tend to listen freely before my time becomes more regimented with assignments. I have no problem at all with this. There comes a time when my listening can feel aimless unless I'm directing it toward a review or whatever. I'm so naturally sloppy it makes me a little grateful to listen purposefully, especially as a freelancer. (I also consistently go on carefree jags of just playing whatever the hell I want with the consequence of having to cram assigned plays together, but it's worth it for those hours of not-work.) Nevertheless, listening for the sake of listening is still my apex.
I've only just realized that my sister Brittany is into a whole lot of the music I'm not. She loves classical, she loves Latin music, she likes what she knows of opera, and she paid attention to R&B for a lot of the time I did not, though that's partly because she was a teenager and that's what was popular. She's always played Latin stuff for me, especially when I'm a passenger in her car, which is much of the time I'm in Minneapolis. (Her driving has been a godsend these past few years.)
Since "Latin" is such a staggeringly deep and wide area, I seldom know how much to ask her, but she's always surprised me with how fluid her knowledge is. My last night home last week we stopped at a Border's where I bought the Moon book. She looked at the Latin CDs a while and picked up a recently issued Rough Guide CD. "Are these any good?" she asked. I told her what I tell everyone: if a Rough Guide seems at all interesting, it probably is, and often it's better. She bought the Merengue one and blasted it in the car that night and the next afternoon when she took me to the airport. I asked if she was at all interested in the old Fania stuff. I shouldn't even have needed to ask--not only is she a huge Marc Anthony fan who owns a DVD of El Catante, she's always loved music history, though not nearly as academically as I. (She had a life, I didn't.) I promised to pass her info on the Rough Guides I had, as well as the Fania titles. I think I'm putting Celia y Johnny into regular rotation. This feels like the right time for it.
2.1.09
The singles conundrum.
This time last year I decided to start getting serious about tracking singles. I began by copying and pasting the new entries of eight weekly charts--five from Billboard, three from the BBC, from which the only two I paid much attention in the long run were the former's Country Top 60 and the latter's Independent Labels Top 30, both of which netted me some good stuff I'd have otherwise missed (plus plenty o' dross, I can assure you). The other thing I did was begin regularly checking a handful of MP3 blogs.
I'd liked the idea of MP3 blogs more than I'd ever utilized them. And as 2008 progressed, I began to understand why. I'd already left them more or less alone (not counting a few months in late '04), mostly because I already had too much music to listen to already. But because I was writing a singles column (which I still am), it seemed logical to try and hear the largely indie rock-oriented choice cuts being proffered to blogs, especially since the readership of The Stranger, the column's home, skews heavily indie. This practice introduced me to a lot of good music, and it also left me with a hell of a lot of clutter that I never got around to listening to and very likely never will.
My plan for '08 had simply been to see what was available and act frugally. Instead I went haywire, kid-in-candy-store style, without actually realizing that's what I was doing. It's strange to think the Internet used to thought of as the harbinger of a "gift economy," since what it's more or less evolved into is a smash-and-grab one. It's entirely too easy to think, "I'll try this one, and this one, and those four, and hey, why not, that one too," while looking at MP3 blogs and then never bother with any of it. It's like eating too much cereal--empty calories bulking things up unnecessarily.
Even beyond MP3 blogs, though, are a couple other free-MP3 sources. One is a private FTP I'm privy to thanks to one of my outlets. Its many goodies have been difficult to resist--I'm sure I'd have downloaded even more than I did already in 2008 (which is a considerable amount) had it not been for space issues on my laptop's hard drive. The other is the cache of promos I get from eMusic every month, which I've had access to since I began writing for it five years ago. That's always been helpful to me for filling in gaps in new titles and old, as well as the weekly U.K. Indie chart new arrivals. (I presume I'll continue to monitor those in '09, as well as the Country. I will probably try and kick up my listening from the R&B/Hip-Hop chart also.)
But the list of eMusic titles I haven't even played is as long as any of them--maybe longer. That's partly because when my time is running out and I have X amount of downloads left, I try to use them--that's why I have them, right? So it'll be interesting to see if I end up giving into that impulse and then listening to the (four? five?) albums I've chosen--the ideal result--or just leave those downloads dangling. Probably a little of each. We shall see.
I'd liked the idea of MP3 blogs more than I'd ever utilized them. And as 2008 progressed, I began to understand why. I'd already left them more or less alone (not counting a few months in late '04), mostly because I already had too much music to listen to already. But because I was writing a singles column (which I still am), it seemed logical to try and hear the largely indie rock-oriented choice cuts being proffered to blogs, especially since the readership of The Stranger, the column's home, skews heavily indie. This practice introduced me to a lot of good music, and it also left me with a hell of a lot of clutter that I never got around to listening to and very likely never will.
My plan for '08 had simply been to see what was available and act frugally. Instead I went haywire, kid-in-candy-store style, without actually realizing that's what I was doing. It's strange to think the Internet used to thought of as the harbinger of a "gift economy," since what it's more or less evolved into is a smash-and-grab one. It's entirely too easy to think, "I'll try this one, and this one, and those four, and hey, why not, that one too," while looking at MP3 blogs and then never bother with any of it. It's like eating too much cereal--empty calories bulking things up unnecessarily.
Even beyond MP3 blogs, though, are a couple other free-MP3 sources. One is a private FTP I'm privy to thanks to one of my outlets. Its many goodies have been difficult to resist--I'm sure I'd have downloaded even more than I did already in 2008 (which is a considerable amount) had it not been for space issues on my laptop's hard drive. The other is the cache of promos I get from eMusic every month, which I've had access to since I began writing for it five years ago. That's always been helpful to me for filling in gaps in new titles and old, as well as the weekly U.K. Indie chart new arrivals. (I presume I'll continue to monitor those in '09, as well as the Country. I will probably try and kick up my listening from the R&B/Hip-Hop chart also.)
But the list of eMusic titles I haven't even played is as long as any of them--maybe longer. That's partly because when my time is running out and I have X amount of downloads left, I try to use them--that's why I have them, right? So it'll be interesting to see if I end up giving into that impulse and then listening to the (four? five?) albums I've chosen--the ideal result--or just leave those downloads dangling. Probably a little of each. We shall see.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)