Good fucking music
Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2003 at 6:15 p.m.


RIP, Elliott Smith. In case you haven't heard, "he sustained a single stab wound to the chest that appeared to be self-inflicted." It's not altogether a surprise since it wasn't exactly a secret that he was a junkie, but his death is still fucking sad. And so he goes in the way of Nick Drake and Kurt Cobain, who killed himself close to ten years ago.

There's nothing like the feeling of opening up a new CD, downloading a song by a band that you've never heard of (like the phenomenal "Bad, Bad, World" by Firewater), or just browsing through someone else's collection. I just finished downloaded the entirety of Surfer Rosa since I listen to Where is My Mind so often (otherwise known as the fucking awesome song that plays over the final scene and credits of Fight Club). Some of the songs are familiar, probably because my brother used to play it.

My brother is a self-reformed music snob who tried to mold my inclination toward Lisa Loeb and Belly in high school into a love for Velocity Girl and Sleater Kinney (inspired by the fact that I loved the theme-song for Daria). He took this snobbishness to its ultimate, and as far as he was concerned, natural conclusion: he started and ran his own record label. It's funny, because for a few years there I would have been the envy of all the Indy Rock girls in the greater-Detroit area. I'd be sitting there, hanging out with the most eligible, shaggy-haired band-boys in the city, the little sister of the man I've recently discovered was also known as "Lord Warshaw." (By someone who used to date him but what the hell, what a fucking title!)

He got over his snobbishness when he realized that he cared too much about music to be good at making money doing it, then took a job copy-editing for All Music Guide. As he put it, "there's music you like and then there's the 10,000 other things that you don't even know about." Of course, in the midst of all this I naturally became a lot more discriminating about my music. Basically, my first, abortive semester into college I discovered Patti Smith (thanks to the defunct show Millennium which used her song Land as the most brilliant piece of filler I've ever seen on television). Once I started listening to Patti Smith, I realized what music could be and started loosing interest in the pop-y and over-produced, catchy rock I had favored up until that point for music that was more artistic.

I still kept my Lisa Loeb and Garbage CDs, for the few times I'm in the mood for them, but I hardly ever listen to them and when I do, tend to be disappointed. There's just so much phenomenal music out there, why mess with that crap that you listened to in high school or that you hear on the radio? Unless you had better taste than I did when you were in high school, and for that you can probably thank an older sibling.


I'm listening to too many things to fit in this little field
I'm reading
I want

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back yet again - Thursday, Aug. 04, 2005
Batman - Friday, Jun. 17, 2005
Just fucking around today - Sunday, May. 22, 2005
pre-birthday - Saturday, Apr. 30, 2005