It's Been A Minute

Continuing the cycle of overextending myself, getting burned out, rising from the ashes as some intoxicated Pheonix to do it all over again I have now returned to this nest of half-thoughts and philosophical introspection disguised as innocent and rambling blog posts.

Last I spent any real time here I was trying to listen to all the new music put out by everyone in the world during a single year. Yeah, it went about as you would expect, but you can explore past posts to see what survived. I'd like to try that again someday. But Believe it or not, there is more music created than can ever be listened to. You can never hear it all. Isn't that strange? In a world where all the music is available, we'll never hear it all.

I am writing to you in the midst of the global crisis of my lifetime. The COVID-19 pandemic. We have been isolated inside our houses for weeks now and there is no clear end in sight. Despite the magic of the internet and constant interactivity over social media and text, there is a real crushing sense of disconnection beginning to set in. Phone calls and Facebook can not replace casual conversation that takes place over coffee, face to face, in a chance meeting or as part of your routine mundane social patterns. There is no exposure to strangers or random encounters with that person who will never see again but has something to say that speaks right to your heart. And everyone is dying.

At least it seems that way. I haven't had any directly related COVID deaths in my life at this point, but celebrities and musicians are dropping like flies and a couple of recent events got me reminiscing on the connections and relationships I've been honored enough to cultivate during my life.

John Prine died this week of COVID. Obviously, such a tremendous loss and I was given cause to examine my relationship with his music. As a budding songwriter, I obviously was exposed to and listened to his work but It took a casual face to face interaction with a dear friend of mine to really drive the power of his songs home to me. It was on Sunday's that my friend Jon (different Jon) would get together and play guitars in my basement in Nebraska. He was of my dad's generation and as we took turns playing songs back and forth he would often play old folk and bluegrass covers. Many of which were the first I had heard them. Without fail he would play a Prine tune that I wasn't familiar with and the power was so potent that it stood out from everything else we were doing. If it wasn't for my friend Jon I may have never truly learned to appreciate Prine.

I also lost a long time friend to cancer this week. The combination of the two events led to different trains of thought but they both met in the same place. My friends are pretty great! I'm not a very communicative person. I don't call a lot, I don't text a lot. I often let friendships lapse for months or even years. But my friends. always seem to still be there when we do reconnect. As if no time has passed. I think this is a special bond and I'm happy to have more than a few.

When I think back to the impact my friends have had on my life, I almost always and immediately go to music. Not just playing music but also listening to it. I surely discovered much great music on my own, but those occasions where someone shared with me a special treasure that they knew about are powerful moments.

Sitting in my friend Chris' garage on two metal folding chairs. A boombox in between us on a milk crate. We light a joint and smoke it down while he plays for me Badmotorfinger for the first time in my life. Unforgettable and transitory.

My friend Mike and I, rummaging through his dad's CD collection to find all the ones that mike had heard the 'F' word on. He said 'check this one out' and puts in NiN Downward Spiral. Yeah, I heard the 'F' word on there for sure and we giggled our stupid little heads off, but I also heard something else. Something that cracked open the veil of perception as cleaning as any hit of LSD or religious epiphany. Taking that entire stack of CDs back to my house and listening to them one by one in headphones on my mom's Boombox/CD player. The sound of 'Once' by Pearl Jam fading in. My first listen through of TEN still burned in my memory and more visceral to me now than the memory of losing my virginity.

Moving to Nebraska and making friends that had been neck-deep in the birth of the Saddle Creek/Omaha music scene. And here's me, having never heard of Conor Oberst, Bright Eyes, Cursive or any of it. Having this treasure trove of experience dumped at my feet as common knowledge was one of the most humbling moments of my life.

The kid who passed me a primus cassette tape in 7th grade. This might have saved my life.

The girl who spelled her name with numbers who passed a cassette mix-tape of all her favorite punk bands. I wish I could find that tape. A firehose introduction to Black Flag, Prong, Minor Threat, Green Jelly and the like. Monumental shifts of perception that still define who I am to this very second. It is the people I associate with and the often the ones who became the best of friends that have turned me onto some of my favorite bands. Music that, in turn, sculpted large parts of my world-view, aesthetics, and personality.

As I sat thinking of these things, staring at a political argument I was having with another friend who has turned me onto some great music, I began wondering what was really important here. I put out a call on my Facebook wall for my friends to comment with a record they think I might have never heard. I'll be listening to these as they come in and write a short post on my initial reactions and see where that takes us.