I’ve been reflecting lately on music. In part because
has been writing so much about it, especially about one of my favorite all-time bands, Rush, in part because he’s looped in my friend to help with a music review ‘stack called Telios Music, but most of all because of something that came up in Alexandru’s latest interview. Several somethings.One, on how many of the people Alexandru had interviewed came to writing through music, and that nearly every writer he’d spoken to was musically inclined
Two - the current online and performative “noise” of digital life.
Music and writing struck a chord because of my family’s history as well as my own - much of mine is musical and several have played in bands with published albums. I’ve played several instruments off and on but I’m notorious for constantly walking around whistling some selection from Yngvwie, Rush, Sabaton, Nightwish, etc. if I don’t otherwise have music on. Further, how much music affects a number of books, either as part of the scenery or wha the author used to set the writing mood. J.B. Jackson’s Shagduk is an excellent example of the former, with the fortunes of the band being a central part of the ongoing story. John Ringo on the other hand was known for publishing playlists of what he was listening to when writing a book - which is largely responsible for me getting back into metal and more specifically symphonic and power metal.
The second intersected through happy accident with my own driving playlist, which coughed up Nightwish’s “Noise.”
The video perfectly encapsulates much of the commentary. How online life not only distorts what we pay attention to but how we behave, how performative much of that behavior becomes - including a mommy at best borderline abusing her child to appear to be the perfect mommy, an e-thot, and a virtue signalling environmentalist that is not as much exaggerating for satire as on the nose. The very performative nature of social media life also drives a deeper wedge between how people present themselves and what they are.
So while much of my listening is prog and metal - at times the gap between is too small to see - and I’ve got more Cure, manufacture, and Ministry around than I care to admit to, here are a few quieter, funnier, or just whatever pieces that I’ve listened to of late.
First a bit of humor. I like Corb Lund for a number of reasons, and below is an example of his ability to tell a funny story. I nearly added “Hard on Equipment” to the below list as well, but it was getting long.
JD McPhereson writes in an older rockabilly mode.
More Lund, from my favorite of his albums.
And a couple from one of my favorite albums in college, that I still listen to.
Meet Our Friends
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RIP Neil Peart the 🐐
Re: music and writing, I depend on '70s music for examples how people spoke then. Words and phrases that were in circulation. Country music is really great for this because of the high incidence of slang.