What's Playing on my Stereo?

Back in high school, I hung out with music geeks of the punk and goth persuasion. You know the type – not only do they have every album and bootleg (and re-release, and b-sides) by a particular band, they also know the names and birth places of each band member, what the musical influences were for each individual, and which specific tragedy/drug habit has most hampered them as a collective entity. Not only does the music geek know all this minutae, they think you’re a loser cause you don’t. Of course this doesn’t end in high school cause once you get out of your hick high school into a hipster city like Vancouver, you discover there are plenty of thirty-somethings who thrive on just this sort of endless conversation. I think it has something to do with creating the sense of exclusivity through consumer choice, or perhaps it is a refusal to grow up and take on the world’s weightier matters (take your pick – those were both theories discussed seriously in the popular music class I took in university).

Even though I’ve been a musician for most of my life, I have always felt out of step with the music geek. As much as I love to find new music to listen to, I don’t really go out of my way to do it – nor do I bother to find out the names of the musicians, or how they came to be a band in the first place. I can’t converse about popular bands or people in the same way I do not know what movies are currently playing, or what celebrity another celebrity is fucking. I can, however, talk about music in the general sense…. can go on for hours in fact about themes, layers, politics, lyrics, harmonics and overall musicality if I hear something that turns me on. One night not so long ago and high on mushrooms, I spent (what seemed like) a long time listening to a particular new music/classical suite with Greg extolling the virtues of each musical breath and beat…. Which had more to do with how excited I was by the composer (Kevin Volans) than how high I was on the drugs.

When I think back to all those people who could discuss music trivia ad naseaum, I can’t remember any of them talking about why it was they liked a particular song or album. Perhaps it’s because this information is too personal, or maybe because we have mostly not learned to appreciate music outside of basically understanding that it’s good to dance to or has a “killer bass line”. I know for me unless something really turns my ear, I don’t expend the intellectual energy to think much about it except as background noise – and a lot of music falls into that category unfortunately.

The point being – I am not a music geek, nor am I a music collector of any kind – but lately I have become obsessed with finding new tunes for the weekly IPod update…. Right now on heavy rotation are the following new (within the last 6 months) releases:

• Thievery Corporation – The Cosmic Game – It’s political dance music, how can one not like these folks?
• Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the Flood – Lyrically Neko Case is *so* much more interesting than most alt-country bands and she’s got that killer unique voice to match the words.
• Boards of Canada – The Campfire Headphase – As always, gorgeous experimental electronica from Scotland. If they actually were from Canada I’d think they took courses with Barry Truax or something.
• The Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir Fighting and Onions – Just got this in the mail today, one of my favourite Canadian bands: twangy banjos, raucous bluegrass and a voice like Tom Waits.
• Cat Power – The Greatest – Her voice is just perfect, that’s all there really is to say.
• Paul Motian Band – Garden of Eden – Nice improve jazz from the school of new music.
• Boris Kovacs and the Ladaaba Orchestre – World After History – This is the final album in a trilogy of big band dance music (waltzes, tangos and mazurkas), and although it is not the best of the three, it does cap the set off nicely (The Last Balkan Tango and Ballads at the End of Time are the companions), listen to all three albums together and the horror of Yugoslavia’s bombing starts to make sense.
• Gorillaz – Demon Days – I’m not sure why but it’s got a good rhythm that gets you going and the Gorillaz remind me of Darren since he turned me on to them years ago.

An interesting mix on top of the Midnight Oil, Sisters of Mercy and Bad Religion I have also been subjecting my neighbours to.

Yup, not a geek – but wow am I into music these days.