Do You Know What You Like, And Like What You Know?
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marcus
May 26, 2010, 11:44:04 PM5/26/10
to 1960s
Pertaining to music:
Do you know what you like, and like what you know?
Up until approx 1985, I was an avid concert goer, record collector,
and radio listener of Rock music. I wrote album and concert reviews
for a local alternative weekly paper specializing in local bands where
I lived, and occasionally appeared as a guest on local radio
programming. I loved the music of the Sixties and Seventies best, but
I was into the newer artists of the early 80s (e.g. Pretenders, U2,
Police). That predilection dwindled dramatically in 1986. The
reason? I became a father for the first time. The responsibilities
of parenthood, combined with job commitments, changing jobs, loss of
income, and dealing with the problems of aging parents led me to have
less interest in keeping up with new music. These factors continued,
shifting in different directions, but still with the same result, I no
longer had the large amount of "free time" to indulge in musical
preoccupation.
I am sure that I am not alone in that situation. There is a normal
tendency as we get older, and life takes its toll, and tugs us in many
directions, to not have the same "passion" as we once did for things
when our lives were not bogged down with the responsibilities of
adulthood. The exception being those individuals who are still
performing musicians, or who have jobs in the music industry, or who
write about music etc. But, the vast majority of us are not in that
group.
I still don't have the time, inclination, or passion to involve myself
in "newer" music, but that doesn't take away from me enjoying music
stretching all the way from the late 1950s to the early 1980s anymore
than someone who loves classical music, but has no interest in new
artists of 2010.
I just don't have the time, or the wherewithal to keep myself
constantly informed of every new musical avenue that pops up every few
years...and ya know what, it doesn't bother me in the least...cause I
know what I like, and I like what I know, and I don't think there is
anything wrong with that.
Do you?
Pearlie
May 27, 2010, 6:16:26 PM5/27/10
to 1960s
I kinda think it does bother you, or you wouldn't've written this
piece.
piece.
marcus
May 27, 2010, 7:58:42 PM5/27/10
to 1960s
On May 27, 6:16 pm, Pearlie <bpnacaw...@aol.com> wrote:
> I kinda think it does bother you, or you wouldn't've written this
> piece.
>
>
bothers me most.
I'm OK with the music.
Pearlie
May 27, 2010, 11:21:14 PM5/27/10
to 1960s
I know my first response was blunt but I had to hurry off to eat the
Chinese take out my husband brought home. I feel a right to bluntness
with members of my generation--the majority, who behave toward new
music, much the way our parents behaved toward Rock and Roll. I don't
FEEl the same passion towards my kids' music that I felt for what I
grew up with, but I cannot close my eyes, ears or mind to what is,
more often than not, quite good. There is much diversity in music,
some of which actually evokes the folk, rock and progressive feel of
what we grew up with. the difference, is of course, that this is not
the soundtrack to our puberty or our youth. However, it is the
soundtrack of our children's and in most cases grandchildren's lives.
That brings with it another kind of value. Another kind of memory.
When I hear Green Day's The Times Of YOur Life, I tear up because it
was popular when my son graduated grammar school. Whether or not we
appreciate or like newer music, it serves the same purpose for them as
our music served us. I don't like the fact that althernative music
does not honor the blues derivations of rock but it certainly captures
a folk basis through lyricism. Today's garage band still follows the
Beatle blueprint of guitar, bass and drums. Its the fifth or sixth
incarnation of that blueprint. I know you won't agree with this but a
lot of rap evokes Bob Dylan with hard hitting poetry.
Music is the one thing my husband and I are both passionate about.
It is perhaps our most common interest. We still go to concerts. We
collect music DVDs. There are so many sixties and seventies concerts
on DVD, Jethro Tull, the Moody Blues, Cream, Love, the Cure, the
Clash, Jefferson Airplane, The Stones, The Who. We do not use iPods
like our children, but we do continue to buy CDs. We do however get
to hear most of our kids' music downloaded onto computers from their
iPods. We listen to WFUV which is a free form station that
broadcasts from Fordham University. You can also hear it streaming on-
line. Radio stations are awful, but there are other ways to listen.
We listen to internet radio, which is often quit amazing. AOL is
free. They have an amazing array of music genres on AOL Radion Then
there's Satellite , which is like living in the sixties again, except
you have to be able to afford it. Perhaps the problen is that the
music industry has changed so drastically because of technology. No
one is as interested in music these days as they were during those 60s
golden times. I was looking at Rolling Stone this week and the act
that came in at Number One sold only 84 thousand CDs. Think of that.
In our day a number one meant selling over a million copies! Heck
every spot in the top ten involved gigantic sales! I hope to never
abandon my interest in music. Doing so would be heresy. Music is my
life.
I note that you had your first kid in 1986 ... three years before I
had my first child. At 38 pregnant I went into loud beer joints and
restaurants in the village. My husband did the drinking while me and
my embryo ate and listened. Both my kids' embyonic journies were
musical. As an older parent, who is also taking care of a 92 year old
mom plus her two sisters 88 and 82, .
When the music's over turn out the lights. Turn out the
lights. ..Music is my only friend... untill the end. Until the
end. Until the E-END! .
Chinese take out my husband brought home. I feel a right to bluntness
with members of my generation--the majority, who behave toward new
music, much the way our parents behaved toward Rock and Roll. I don't
FEEl the same passion towards my kids' music that I felt for what I
grew up with, but I cannot close my eyes, ears or mind to what is,
more often than not, quite good. There is much diversity in music,
some of which actually evokes the folk, rock and progressive feel of
what we grew up with. the difference, is of course, that this is not
the soundtrack to our puberty or our youth. However, it is the
soundtrack of our children's and in most cases grandchildren's lives.
That brings with it another kind of value. Another kind of memory.
When I hear Green Day's The Times Of YOur Life, I tear up because it
was popular when my son graduated grammar school. Whether or not we
appreciate or like newer music, it serves the same purpose for them as
our music served us. I don't like the fact that althernative music
does not honor the blues derivations of rock but it certainly captures
a folk basis through lyricism. Today's garage band still follows the
Beatle blueprint of guitar, bass and drums. Its the fifth or sixth
incarnation of that blueprint. I know you won't agree with this but a
lot of rap evokes Bob Dylan with hard hitting poetry.
Music is the one thing my husband and I are both passionate about.
It is perhaps our most common interest. We still go to concerts. We
collect music DVDs. There are so many sixties and seventies concerts
on DVD, Jethro Tull, the Moody Blues, Cream, Love, the Cure, the
Clash, Jefferson Airplane, The Stones, The Who. We do not use iPods
like our children, but we do continue to buy CDs. We do however get
to hear most of our kids' music downloaded onto computers from their
iPods. We listen to WFUV which is a free form station that
broadcasts from Fordham University. You can also hear it streaming on-
line. Radio stations are awful, but there are other ways to listen.
We listen to internet radio, which is often quit amazing. AOL is
free. They have an amazing array of music genres on AOL Radion Then
there's Satellite , which is like living in the sixties again, except
you have to be able to afford it. Perhaps the problen is that the
music industry has changed so drastically because of technology. No
one is as interested in music these days as they were during those 60s
golden times. I was looking at Rolling Stone this week and the act
that came in at Number One sold only 84 thousand CDs. Think of that.
In our day a number one meant selling over a million copies! Heck
every spot in the top ten involved gigantic sales! I hope to never
abandon my interest in music. Doing so would be heresy. Music is my
life.
I note that you had your first kid in 1986 ... three years before I
had my first child. At 38 pregnant I went into loud beer joints and
restaurants in the village. My husband did the drinking while me and
my embryo ate and listened. Both my kids' embyonic journies were
musical. As an older parent, who is also taking care of a 92 year old
mom plus her two sisters 88 and 82, .
When the music's over turn out the lights. Turn out the
lights. ..Music is my only friend... untill the end. Until the
end. Until the E-END! .
marcus
May 28, 2010, 10:41:06 PM5/28/10
to 1960s
On May 27, 11:21 pm, Pearlie <bpnacaw...@aol.com> wrote:
> I know my first response was blunt but I had to hurry off to eat the
> Chinese take out my husband brought home.
I live in a college town, with two college radio stations, and live
music. Occasionally, I absorb some of the music that is popular with
the late teens to early 20 crowd. Admittedly, some of it is pretty
good...particularly what I would term "guitar bands", but there is
always a jarring middle eight or chorus that doesn't seem to go with
the rest of the song...like it was plugged in there just for the sake
of making the song different. Other tunes, though technically
proficient with musicians who know how to play seem to lack
something. I don't know what to call it..."soul" for lack of a
better
word.
There is no doubt that I like the music from my childhood,
teen, and early adult years much better than anything else, and aside
from
the marvelous tunes, harmonies, riffs etc., there was a tribal
quality
to it all...a "we're all in this together". Back in the Sixties, Rock
music was Rock
music whether it was The Beatles, Stones, Monkees, Paul Revere and
the
Raiders, Dylan, Turtles, Janis Joplin, Hendrix etc. We didn't
"pigeon-hole" it, or diversify it. I may have liked one artist over
another, but I can
remember listening to "Valerie" by the Monkees, and then right after
that listen to "Axis:Bold As Love" by Hendrix and enjoyed each one,
without over-evaluating which was better. Sure, I knew Hendrix
played
better than Nesmith and Tork, but they were all in the music scene
together. The splintering of genres into sub-genres of the past 30
years is often hailed
as a dramatic break-through, and I can understand the logic of that,
but the reality is that the pulse ofthe music has been diminished,
the
unity of it all disengaged.
Pearlie
May 29, 2010, 6:33:27 PM5/29/10
to 1960s
For us there will always be something missing when listening to
today's music. There is no one today who can avoid having to tandi on
the shoulders of our music. Our creative generational shoes are
impossible to fill. The sixties were a rennaissance. I live in a
pemanent state of nostalgia. I often find it hard to believe we
actually lived through that time or that it was an actual reality.
But we were lucky fish who swam in that wonderful bowl. Nothing can
ever match it. Because of that, I guess I find myself in constant
search of what once was. Perhaps because I play the guitar, I find
myself realizing that anyone who plays --young or old--speaks that
same language even though it is with a different accent. In my minds
eye, anyone who picks up an instrument, has a certain awareness. Are
there ignorant musicians? Yes. Of course. Those who don't bother to
trace or acknowledge the root of what makes them musicians are
stupid. I understnad the "blandness" in today's music that you refer
to. Agian, think of how our parents viewed our music. It was foreign
to them. Realize that if someone is singing every lyric to a song you
hate, it means something to them much the way Like A Rolling Stone
menat to us. Its a matter to relating. We can't relate to everything
new. Yet occasionally something comes through that touches all
sensitivities.
the worst part is trying to convey what we went thouth to a younger
set of people. Why Hendrix was so revolutionary to us. My kids were
born listening to Hendrix. therefore, it can never strike them the
way it did us. Same with Dylan, Beatles, Who, Stones Zepplin. We, our
music and our politics is their establishment from which they must
rebel. however, how do you rebel agains rebellion? How do you become
more controversial? My daughter often tells me she lived during the
sixties. My son had a guitar teacher, who was intrigued by me just
for having lived during the sisties time. He was/is so well versed in
60/70s music, he's taught me how to play several things "the right
way." He was 29 (around 6 years ago when he was giving my son
lessons) but he'd talk about vinyl with envy.
Still, The Killers, Coldplay, MGMT, Muse, The Hold Steady, Radiohead,
Brand New, the Jayhawks.... cant be denied as good musicians. Conor
Oberst, My Morning Jacket, Phish... Neutral Milk Hotel... these are
all throwbacks to Phil Oches, Judy Collins, J Mitchel, etc Not saying
they're as good, just that they're note worthy for what they are
doing. They are musicians who know their history. Everything my son
plays sounds like Jefferson Airplane. He has this Bob Dylan/Neill
Young/ J Airplane embryonic journey guitar style. He's folky as all
hell. He denies it has anything to do with that, but that's what my
brain likens it to. The lyrics are full of anger and sarcasm, but
that's cause its a new day....
today's music. There is no one today who can avoid having to tandi on
the shoulders of our music. Our creative generational shoes are
impossible to fill. The sixties were a rennaissance. I live in a
pemanent state of nostalgia. I often find it hard to believe we
actually lived through that time or that it was an actual reality.
But we were lucky fish who swam in that wonderful bowl. Nothing can
ever match it. Because of that, I guess I find myself in constant
search of what once was. Perhaps because I play the guitar, I find
myself realizing that anyone who plays --young or old--speaks that
same language even though it is with a different accent. In my minds
eye, anyone who picks up an instrument, has a certain awareness. Are
there ignorant musicians? Yes. Of course. Those who don't bother to
trace or acknowledge the root of what makes them musicians are
stupid. I understnad the "blandness" in today's music that you refer
to. Agian, think of how our parents viewed our music. It was foreign
to them. Realize that if someone is singing every lyric to a song you
hate, it means something to them much the way Like A Rolling Stone
menat to us. Its a matter to relating. We can't relate to everything
new. Yet occasionally something comes through that touches all
sensitivities.
the worst part is trying to convey what we went thouth to a younger
set of people. Why Hendrix was so revolutionary to us. My kids were
born listening to Hendrix. therefore, it can never strike them the
way it did us. Same with Dylan, Beatles, Who, Stones Zepplin. We, our
music and our politics is their establishment from which they must
rebel. however, how do you rebel agains rebellion? How do you become
more controversial? My daughter often tells me she lived during the
sixties. My son had a guitar teacher, who was intrigued by me just
for having lived during the sisties time. He was/is so well versed in
60/70s music, he's taught me how to play several things "the right
way." He was 29 (around 6 years ago when he was giving my son
lessons) but he'd talk about vinyl with envy.
Still, The Killers, Coldplay, MGMT, Muse, The Hold Steady, Radiohead,
Brand New, the Jayhawks.... cant be denied as good musicians. Conor
Oberst, My Morning Jacket, Phish... Neutral Milk Hotel... these are
all throwbacks to Phil Oches, Judy Collins, J Mitchel, etc Not saying
they're as good, just that they're note worthy for what they are
doing. They are musicians who know their history. Everything my son
plays sounds like Jefferson Airplane. He has this Bob Dylan/Neill
Young/ J Airplane embryonic journey guitar style. He's folky as all
hell. He denies it has anything to do with that, but that's what my
brain likens it to. The lyrics are full of anger and sarcasm, but
that's cause its a new day....
Pearlie
May 29, 2010, 9:39:27 PM5/29/10
to 1960s
Lots of typos in the above entry. Sorry about that. Let's have a
contest to see who can figure out what I meant to write on the end of
line 3 "to tandi on." For a second I, myself, couldn't figure it out.
LOL, Pearl
> > unity of it all disengaged.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
contest to see who can figure out what I meant to write on the end of
line 3 "to tandi on." For a second I, myself, couldn't figure it out.
LOL, Pearl
>
> - Show quoted text -
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