GOING THROUGH THE A AND B SECTION OF THE RECORD COLLECTION

 

I went through the A and B section of our records and pulled out some goodies I haven't listened to in a while.  This is a good way to keep it fresh especially with the vinyl living upstairs and the turntable living downstairs in the front room.  I recently re-alphabatized without category or genre.  Herbie Hancock lives next to Robyn Hitchcock and Jimi Hendrix, as it should be.

Of course you can't take it with you, and at a certain point you can't listen to everything you own or discover everything new you want to.   This can be an existential moment and also a light, mindful moment of how great music is.  After all, we sent Chuck Berry and Beethoven music into space and if that doesn't spark thoughts about Creation, then I don't know what to say.

I discovered the Aztec Camera's High Land, Hard Rain on a trip to Iowa City to see my sister Beth when she was in college.  I went to the student union and got some TDK's so I could tape her roommate's copy of this acoustic pop masterpiece.  I also discovered tofu and rennetless cheddar cheese on this trip.  At that point I did not know that the orange color of most cheddar cheese is fake.  This all seemed like good quality information and I ended up going to Iowa City to study Chaucer and Walt Whitman and bass trombone and drink 7,000 Rhinelander beers and see House of Large Sizes as often as I could.

Bad Livers Delusions of Banjer takes me back to John Henry's, The Wow Hall, and Sam Bond's, in Eugene--seeing them with Tony and Joe.  Joe, may your sweet soul rest in eternal peace with a good guitar and some meatball and sausage pepperonata.  

Bad Livers' nod to Black Flag and metal and punk rock and general non-traditional orneriness helped introduce this kind of pickin' to lots of people, me included.

Big Star's Third lives in that category of records that I didn't get at first, after listening to the first two on a combo cd for about a million hours.  The Fall, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Patti Smith--I couldn't handle them until I was into my 40's.  This record is like that--scary uneasy beautiful.

I'll put these back in the stacks and go through the C's and D's next.