Albums That Have Had A Tremendous Impact On My Guts
So on a list I am on, it was posed that we talk about an album that's had a tremendous impact on your guts. So here was my response.
Get Out Of My Stations, Guided By Voices. This is not their best work, but it is the first one I bought by GBV. I remember being 16 driving in the car listening to WNUR and they played a GBV track and I pulled over at the first payphone, called WNUR to find out what that was. From the payphone I went out and bought the first GBV thing I could find, which was Get Out Of My Stations. I was amazed. The lofi mixed with the hooks mixed with the lyrics that made no sense what so ever on some tracks but seemed to speak directly to me on others. I now know that, especially at the time, that Robert Pollard drank alot of beer, and there is a really good chance that those lyrics really don't make any sense, but I still am of the believe that I just don't understand the meaning, but it certainly has one. For every major relationship, heartache, or drama in my life, I have a GBV song that I have matched up to it. I have written multipage letters to accompany mix tapes where I explain why this particular song matches that particular person's situation so perfectly. There is also a good chance that given the sheer size of Robert's catalog, he has no clue what half of the songs mean himself, but some are so amazing to me. So combine that exploration aspect with the hooks that I can't seem to get out of my head ever, I have a band that I still listen to on a daily basis. My last.fm shows that they are my favorite artist, with 3 times the plays of the number 2 artist. And they were so awesome live. Amazing. And drunk. In the heyday there was a giant cooler of bud light or some such crap beer on stage and he would just drink and drink and drink and somehow the shows were still good.
30 Something, Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine. Remember when mtv played music videos? Remember 120 minutes? I used to look forward to that show everyweek, and sure I was really tired in 7th grade monday mornings as it was a midnight to 2am sunday night time slot, I loved that show. So when they played the video to Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere I had to have it. I used to tape the show so I could rewatch it, and I remember that VHS tape was all warped at that part. So then I started buying everything of theirs I could. The lyrics all tell some story, often pretty down like alcoholism, child abuse, death, depression, etc. I loved it all. It was all so political and amazing to a 13 year old. And it seemed so much more arranged and british than The Dead Kennedys (whom I never loved as much). I even convinced had the DJ at my 8th grade catholic school dance play Prince in a Pauper's Grave as the last slow dance. Of course I carried the CD with me. When I was in college and heard they had broken up I was surprised that I was actually depressed about it. I must have played only Carter for 2 weeks straight. My roommate thankfully spent a lot of time in lab. It is one of the bands where I own every single they have released on mutlitple formats. I have test pressings to certain records. I have an autographed copy of jim bob's book. I have emailed with them. I never saw them live, as the first time they toured the US I was underage and the 2nd time I was actually in the UK. I know, a band that is, at its core, 2 dudes and a drum machine seems kinda lame, but seriously, Amazing, but when they announced they were getting back together, 10 years from their breakup, to play one show, I looked at airfare to london.
De La Soul - De La Soul is Dead. This is the first album that I really GOT as an entire album, it is like a journey, and I find that even though mp3s has destroyed the concept of a linear path through a recording, I still listen to this album straight through and enjoy it that way. I don't listen to it as much now, but man, my seiko portable CD player played this CD straight for so long and used so many AA batteries (that joker used 6 AA's for about 4 hours of continuous play. Life was tough for CD players in 1991). I have nearly everything De La put out as well.
I'll stop, but other highlights are Sugar's Copper Blue, The Vindicitives - The Many Moods Of The Vindicitives, Minor Threat - Discography (and any Fugazi, Fugazi at the aragon in ~1993 is on the top of my most memorable shows), The Dead Milkmen - any, Guns N Roses - Appetite for Destruction and to a lesser degree use your illusions (I convinced my dad to take me to the midnight release of those albums when I was in 8th grade. It was me, my dad, and a bunch of crusty dudes standing in front of a record town or some shit in the dark. It was awesome. I didn't sleep that night although they can't carry like Appetite did for me at the age it did), The Best of Rotterdam Records Volume 1 (German hardcore techno FTW), The Pixies - Trompe Le Monde, Naked Raygun - Throb Throb and Jettison, New Order - Brotherhood, Primus - Seas of Cheese (Saw them at aragon a few years ago where the 2nd set was that entire album, such a good disc)....
Vinyl Coming To My iPod…
So rebecca's dad wanted to convert some vinyl to CDs for group of friends..... he was using a turntable plugged into the mac, but since the turntable wasn't line level, it wasn't working... I initially told him to find a cheap receiver at a garage sale and use that as a preamp... A bit later in the day, I was at costco with rebecca and her mom, and they had this usb turntable, so we grabbed it for him.
It was easy enough for rebecca's dad to use right away, included audio software (both simple and advanced), both mac and PC, and USB and line level outputs. It isn't amazing or anything, but it works. I am going to borrow it and rip a bunch of my vinyl that I have been missing. Should be fun to have all that old chicago punk from my high school years readily available.
Mash Ups Rule
So I am sure I have mentioned this to anyone I have spoke with in the last 6 months, but I love mashups. LOVE. It gets funny when I go somewhere and I hear an original, not the mashup, and I am all confused because the song is all wrong. My current listen is this Iron Maiden Mashup Album from Celebrity Murder Party that I got word of from Mashuptown. It has the Call Me Phantom track that I was jonesing over the last couple weeks. I mean, I still think the Party Ben stuff is better overall, but CMP is good too. It is fun to have the more metal angle though versus the more dance stuff.
Never Played or Are MP3s Destroying My Love of Music?
I have a smart playlist in iTunes of the above name, and it is staggering how many songs are in there. Insane. Sure, some of them are older CDs that I own that I surely played the hell out of in high school, so the iTunes play count is a poor representation of my history with those songs, but there are a lot of newer things on there.
The problem is of course caused by the very thing that makes me love digital music as I do-instant gratification. To sit here at my laptop and think, DAMN, I want to listen to that one Guided By Voices song, it will be playing within 15 seconds. Combine that with the fact that I don't spend NEARLY the amount of time in my car I that I used to, and I don't listen to music in the same way anymore.
Back in the pre-MP3 days, I would load the car up with CDs. In high school, I used to drive around with a minimum of 100 cds in the car, in wooden crates in the back seat, in the door pockets, center console, glove box. CDs were everywhere. It was a major auto theft waiting to happen. Not that the average thief would have much to do with local chicago punk CDs and random imported ska CDs, but nonetheless, it would have sucked for me.
But once I moved everything to MP3s and got the ubiquitous iPod (first on the block, waiting in line at the Apple Store that saturday morning for my (now) huge 5GB iPod. Still works quite well thank you.) everything changed. I hardwired a firewire plug behind the dash board, I wired the iPod into the CD Changer inputs of the Audi headunit. and built a fancy little holder for it.
And thus the instant gratification began. And the death of the album per se. I like the concept of an album, I think the order of tracks is important. But I don't care anymore. I don't listen to anything in order anymore. I usually have whatever I am listening to on shuffle. I am not ready to bring the album back, but I am working on listening to music as I get it, giving things a fair few times before it falls into the vast library. There have been a number of songs that I REALLY like now, but would have never found on the first pass.
So my current plan is to get everything to a play count of at the least 1. And I am seriously listening to them. I am filling the iPods off those playlists and syncing them back. I am down to ~1400 songs left. I am also trying to not add as much music at the rate I usually do. I am deleting things I don't care about in an attempt to both clear up space and also get rid of the crap. I don't know why I had so much Jennifer Lopez, but that is all gone now, needless to say. I am have an 'on deck' folder with MP3s that I will add once I listen to the album I last added.
I am getting lazy with music due to the potential floodgate that I could open at any time. I need to give more attention to what I have and digest it all versus slamming it all down. I need to rediscover my music.