Eclectic Boogaloo

Right, I’ve slacked off pretty severely on my intentions for this blog. Was all for it at first but the reality never matches expectation. This comes as no surprise to me, it’s like that time I used to work as a postman for the Royal Mail. That was a funny day. What I intend this entry to address is a question I get asked a lot, and that is just how I like listening to so much different stuff, and where does it all come from? When talking to people about music it sometimes surprises them how wide my knowledge is and that comes from a desire basically, to ‘fill in the gaps’. For all I know the best song I never heard is out there somewhere.

A friend of mine said something that made me laugh once, regarding my love of music. On listing the various albums I was awaiting release of, he replied ‘oh. Haven’t you GOT all the music already’? That is actually not the worst description of my apparent aim in life, to own ALL the music. It’s fair to say I am ‘in to it’ in a big way. And I’ve become as tenacious as I am insatiable, there is always something new to hear and it’s never been easier to find. And I use the term ‘new’ as in new to me- it could just as easily be a track from the 50’s as the ‘next big thing’ picking up a buzz on the internet.

In this day and age, restrictions of genre needn’t mean very much at all. Sampling, collaborations, mash-ups etc have slowly corroded the rigid boundaries and the wide availability of every type of music have made an eclectic taste very easy to aquire. While there’s nothing wrong with sticking very closely to one scene or other, or having a preference for one type of music over another it just makes no sense at all to me to disregard anything outside a certain style or period. One of these days I would like to attempt my own version of the chart helpfully displayed below by Mr Jack Black. If you can visualise a version of that twice as tall and three times as wide, that is what I am ultimately hoping to achieve. 

 

 

Until it exists I have to imagine it, and at the moment there are gaps. There are links and threads I haven’t followed or discovered yet and that’s the best way to put what drives me to explore every aspect of a bands genetic make-up. I’m writing this to the sounds of the Diplo / Santigold mix-tape which is useful to make a point- Santigold has 603,000 listeners on Last.fm (http://www.last.fm/user/david1879). ‘Stiffed’, the new-wave/punk band she sang with before going solo have 15,000.  I love their two albums, discovered with a bit of digging while looking for more Santigold material in the wait for a new album. Likewise The Drums, 543,000 and Jonny Pierce’s previous ‘Elkland’, 11,000. The internet has made it possible to leave no stone unturned- no b-side or studio out-take unheard, no side-project or pre-fame band unfound, and to me, it’s as if i’d be failing in my duty if I didn’t do so. I reverse-engineer bands. Who do they sound like, who else have they recorded with, who sounds like them, it’s a stringent process that’s become second nature that most stuff I listen to has been or will be subjected to and nothing pleases me more than coming up with the goods.

As for where my enjoyment of music comes from in the first place, there’s no doubt I get it from my Dad. My earliest musical memory is hearing ‘Lola’ by The Kinks on Capital Gold, the station that I heard most mornings throughout the early years of my life (and have continued to listen to now), and I also remember the weekends he’d spread his record collection on the floor and just play 45’s for hours. Little did I know then that they’d stay with me, committed to memory, the earliest foundations upon which I’d build my own vast library. I couldn’t have had a much more solid start either, those boxes of vinyl containing plenty of punk, 2-tone, new-wave, the odd bit of reggae and ska, and more than a couple of 50’s artists ‘borrowed’ from the collections of HIS Dad. It’s a passion that’s never waned.