Photo Credit to Jessie Smith @ Suggstreetpost.
Below is another piece from my time working at the Sugg Street Post. It is quite apparent I was confident. I can’t say, looking back now, I care for the tone or general snarkiness of the columns I wrote for the paper. But I do remember enjoying the process. It’s fascinating to me how much my voice as a writer has changed. The undeserved confidence has wanned a somewhat decent amount. I’m almost embarrassed to share these, but it was readily available at one time. So no point in being ashamed anymore.
When Jessica and Luke mentioned the position of music columnist and music reviewer, I thought, “why not” and threw my hat into the ring and after no one else actually submitted a sample piece. They settled on their first choice. Think of this as my informal introduction as I find my voice in this role. That is if they intend to keep me after this disaster. On with the occasionally humorous and always over the top pretentious, meandering. Please imagine, this as the Star Wars opening crawl. It helps, or at least it does in my mind. Oh, yeah, I’m dragging my wife Lindsey along for the ride as co-writer, researcher, and proofreader.
Music, what is it? Not the textbook definitions of artfully arranged sound. What is it really? The universal language? A force of nature that makes you shake your ass when you have no business doing so? An emotional outpouring? Or simply notes on a page or a harmonically pleasing oscillation of string? Math? It’s all those things and none of them. It matters from what angle you view the answer. For someone like me who is more of a somber and slow fellow, music is an emotional and physical catalyst. In general, when I’m sad I listen to sad songs and they make me happy. When I listen to energetic and upbeat music, I bounce around the room and punch the air like I’m fighting invisible ninjas. When I hear dance music, I want to hide, unless my inhibition circuit has been compromised and my dance circuit has been engaged. In which case, please give me water and make me lay down. Happy music makes me sleepy unless there is bass line so funky I can’t help but rock my head like an exotic bird trying to attract a mate.
That’s the beauty of music. We all have different emotional responses to music, some positive and some negative; sometimes we don’t like what we hear, sometimes we do, but we really can’t say it in particular company. I like old-timey Country and Western albums by Slim Whitman and the spastic New-Wave stylings of Wall of Voodoo. If that little bit of honesty doesn’t disqualify me from this job, I don’t know what will.
I’ve been accused of being a music snob in the past and for a specified period in my middle to late teens that would be an apt observation. As I’ve matured my tastes, have broadened and I have turned into something that my sixteen-year-old self would love to ridicule. To which I would say, “The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News to which my sixteen-year-old self would slink away defeated. I’ve realized over the years, that usually, when you first hear an album or are introduced to a new genre or sub-genre by a friend or colleague, you’re inclined to ignore it. But as is usually the case after an initial “I don’t care for this out of spite” phase has passed, and you are ready to give the album a listen you will usually find one song on the disc that sinks in and takes root. From then on the album is put on repeat till the euphoria of the four or five tracks we end up loving to give way to respect for the album as a whole. You have to give an album a fair listen; A long through look. If you don’t give it that you can’t judge it fairly and on the merits. Most art has worth even if it isn’t immediately apparent. Lindsey has proven that to me many times over. If you would have asked me ten years ago my opinion of traditional Romanian folks songs you would have been met with a vacant and mildly annoyed expression. Not these days.
That’s how our review process will work. We promise to always give every album a fair shake even if in the end we don’t love it or like it. We will always give it time to sink in, and breath and maybe our praise and criticisms of the wide world of music out there will be fair enough. So that in your exuberation and or exasperation you won’t call us hipsters nor chase us out of town with your pitchforks.
Our column won’t always be a cut and dry music review Occasionally it will be our musing on a certain genre or sub-genre of music or even a criminally underrated or even over-rated band. It will be as likely to be 19th-century Hungarian neo-classical as it is to be J-pop. We may take you on a journey through the history of trip-hop or Bela Bartok. We hope to entertain and inform with the column, and over the coming years, we hope to learn as well. There is always new music to find and enjoy and even some to snicker over after a few beers.
Shell Beach 