The Living Rockumentary

I think it's safe to say that the five of us think about music much more than the average person. Maybe that's not the healthiest thing in the world, but I would also guess that it's not something any of us have much control over. And it's better than obsessing over cow tipping or father raping. Slightly. I think about music a fair amount of the day, I dream about it, I sometimes wish I could stop and think about something else. Maybe that's why I like watching (American) football. I had a nervous twitch growing up in my knee, the kind where you pump it up and down and up and down and the teacher keeps telling you to stop but it has a mind of its own. I actually had one teacher in 5th grade try to hold it down, and subsequently got pissed that she couldn't control it. The knee is under control now, and has been... basically since I picked up an instrument. I'm still somewhat at a loss when it comes to controlling weird spastic jerks and drumrolls on my chest. Thankfully I've found a mate who gets a kick out of watching me do a weekly interpretive dance to "Malcom In The Middle." I figure, at 31 this is pretty much the adult who has settled into this body. And at 53 and 81 I still expect to be flailing around to some degree. I mean, with four tattoos and ears filled with holes that will never close up, I figure why not be the cool (if not slightly odd) old dude who seems to 'get' what the kids are listening to in 2048. But who am I kidding? I don't even get stuff that's being produced now.

I think about music mostly in the pop vein, and by pop I mean *anything*. I mean, somebody plays and somebody enjoys listening to the sound of an electric can opener amplified and run through a flanger pedal. When XTC wrote "This Is Pop", they were preaching to a crowd of largely white, college-educated, 20 to 35-year-old males who understood that POP didn't need to sound like Daryl Hall. Which is the beauty of it. If you can create music that appeals to more than one, it's pop. So I think about how classical music fans (generally) think that classical music is the most artful and jazz fans (generally) think jazz music is the most exploratory and top-40 fans think top-40 is the sexiest and polka fans don't think much (ha ha). Actually, polka fans probably think they have the best food. In any case, I don't (generally) think of any form of music better than any other, since we're dealing with only a small spectrum of sound in popular culture. Whales probably hear more in an hour than we'll hear in 93 years. Is Charles Mingus (circa '61) better than Itzak Perlman (circa '75) better than Laurie Anderson (circa '84) better than Kurt Cobain (circa '91)? We in this insular little music community make little cliques and elevate our ideas because we think we get it. But does getting it matter?

Well, yes and no. It probably doesn't matter much to people who are planning a war with Iraq (maybe that's not giving them enough credit, but I'll stand by it). It may not matter (on the surface, anyway) to a 12-year-old girl who thinks J.Lo is da bomb. In any case, it matters to people like me who obsess and critique and discuss and dissect the living daylights out of a simple three minute, 1-4-5 structured ditty, the same ditty that may have only taken the writer two-and-a-half minutes to write. Why? Because it's fun. And we don't have much choice. In another life, we were crickets or trash compactors or whizzing stars. Anything that made a loud noise, and then realized how cool that loud noise was. Does this make us better than said 12-year-old J.Lo loving girl? Probably not. Sometimes I think people who have very little interest in music have the most interesting things to say about it. It's probably be the equivalent of me talking about raising cattle. Anyway, to tie up this long ramble in a small little question, what do the other SFTD members find enjoyable about music? Does it bore, excite, soothe or torment you? Are you having fun yet?

Oh, and Henning I hope you are enjoying the last 49 minutes of your birthday. Get something good with that gift certificate, like a stuffed pelican.