I'm getting bored again.
Yesterday's early-morning live-blogging session wasn't a complete success. For one, I was too tired. For another, nothing I played all morning was exciting enough, alive enough, Different enough to keep me from knocking off for a 2-hour nap and lunch before I finally gave up at 2 p.m.
Sorry for letting you down. I know you turn here for snarky musical comments about stuff that's already 20 or 30 years old, and I do my best to help you out, but.
I'll be trying to fix this in the future.
A year or so ago when money got tight (under $25 in the bank account), I sold-off a TON of Strange Music to Half-Price Books in Tacoma, to help pay for upcoming bills I hadn't planned far enough ahead for. A lot of stuff left the house then -- I figured if I could live without it, if I wasn't playing it every week, I wouldn't miss it, and it might be worth some cash. And it was.
So, out went a Caravan box set, Camel box set, best-of Soft Machine, Hatfield and the North, Van der Graaf Generator, Strawbs, Al Stewart, a ton more -- nothing truly life-changing, I thought at the time.
Now I'd like to have most of it back. Because I'm bored.
I've added lotsa cheap used stuff over the past few months, thanks to my area Goodwills. But Goodwills around here are all about the timing. Though I've found some treasures there (complete Nick Drake collection, Clannad, Can best-of, everything by the Beatles except RUBBER SOUL and LET IT BE), some weeks they have NOTHING. Or the pickings are pretty slim. And with my need for a musical fix, I hate to go away empty-handed.
This weekend I even picked up a best-of by Tom Petty. Other recent purchases include best-of's by Lynyrd Skynyrd, Aerosmith, Pat Benatar, Foreigner, and Styx for Ghod's sake (in descending order of quality). Just to maybe jolt me a little bit. Get me outta my rut, musically.
I bought a ton of early-'60s jazz awhile back, trying to educate myself. And what I mostly learned is that I can't HEAR most of it. Little of it has a melody strong enough to keep my mind from wandering....
I haven't felt like this since just before I stumbled over The Blues, a couple of years ago. The Blues (and R&B and Soul) kept me going for awhile. And somehow there aren't too many blues CD's up for grabs at my local Goodwills.
I have a few Strange things left in the house. But after my retro crash-course in Progressive Rock History a few years ago (for a book I wanted to write, may still finish writing), I now pretty-much know what to expect. I wish I could say it'd be worth my time.
I COULD put on ELP's "Tarkus" again and maybe learn and hear something new (Rastro at La Historia de la Musica Rock would say "Hell, YEAH! What are you WAITING for?!") -- but I already sat through that a couple times, and by this point I'm pretty sure that's a half-hour I'm never gonna get back.
Hell, I was lucky to get all the way through Yes's "Ritual" awhile back, and I doubt I'll be playing it again in the near future. Not sure I'd play "Gates of Delirium" again even if I had it right in front of me. Which I don't.
So, I will try to do better. Soon as I find something that will wake me up. I'll be looking beyond the usual locations soon for Something New And Different to stir me up.
Didn't seem to matter yesterday if it was something I'd heard before or not. And if it can't wake me up, I'm not gonna have much to say about it here.
Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I need a break. Or a new format. Anybody else ever get like this?
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2 comments:
Not so much. I feel like I mostly only like one kind of thing, but then people tell me I listen to a lot of different stuff. I think it's just a lot of different bands, moving the same three chords around. I never get tired of it, though. I need to buy a little less music for a bit, but I went on vacation and bought a mess of stuff, then had to order a couple of things and when i was getting the shelves in order I noticed I have a lot of records I've really only listened to a couple times, and I think I can do better. I mean, I bought them because I think I can do better, ya know?
Gates of Delirium - I like that. I looked high and low for a decent vinyl copy of Relayer. I remember in the summer after 7th grade I sort of had a "girlfriend' that lived in an adjoining town. A long way to travel for kids to hang out anyway. We did a lot of talking on the phone and she would ask me questions about music. I liked that, because I thought I knew a lot about music when I was a kid (I have since come to the conclusion that I don't know shit, but I DO know what I like). So when school started we were kind of an "item" and after a couple weeks she said, "Hey,can I borrow a Yes album? I want to hear this band you like so much." I think I was really into Relayer at the time, so I let her borrow it over the weekend.
I went looking for her in the hall on Monday, and I could tell by the way she was looking at me we were done being friends. I asked how she liked it, and she said, "How can you listen to things like that? My parents made me take it off. It's just noise." I don't think it bothered me that much that my "girlfriend" wasn't interested in me anymore, but I couldn't believe she thought my favorite band when I was in Jr. High was like shitting at the dining room table at Thanksgiving. I was really bummed out. Everyone else I knew encouraged me to like whatever I liked and she was like, "This is unacceptable."
She'd probably hate what I'm listening to right now!
Hi, 2. That's a freaking GREAT story! Makes me and my girlfriend's Beatles vs. Eagles nitpicking sound very minor. Which of course it is.
I'll get back here with more when I find something new and worthwhile to listen-to. Might even give "Gates of Delirium" another shot if I find a cheap copy of RELAYER. That's how desperate I'm getting....
My only other option is Commentary on the Presidential Election From Hell, and Ghod knows none of us need THAT....
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