As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I’m a bit of a luddite when it comes to buying music. Despite the rather excessive amounts of technology infiltrating my lifestyle, I still refuse to buy music online. Never mind the crippling DRM, nor the fact that the quality isn’t as good, I like the ritual of opening up the wrapping, looking at the sleeve notes, and all that. So every now and then I’ll buy a whole bunch of new records from Amazon or even do the very unfashionable thing of going to a music store.
Today I decided to make the most of the late-but-finally-here Spring and walk the 15 blocks up to Union Square to go to the Virgin Megastore there. Unlike me I actually went with a shopping list. This is always a bad sign because there’s no way I’m able to stick to just that, and sure enough I came home 13 CDs the wealthier. There’s a story to some of them, so I thought I’d share them here.
This Tuesday night I had one of those classic New York City moments that remind me why I live here. I was at D.B.A., a fantastic bar on 1st Ave, at the geeky social night I run. We were getting towards the end of the evening, and for some reason I forget (I was 4 pints of Fullers London Porter in by this point) the lady next to me struck up a conversation. On asking why she was down in these parts (she was a midtowner) she said “Do you know Jesse Malin? The girl with me is his sister. He’s playing a gig tonight just around the corner.”
As it happens, I do know Jesse Malin. He’s an alt-country singer that my friend Mike is always going on about, and I’ve listened to some of his stuff a few times. Mike says he’s great live, so I inquired as to whether there were tickets still available. There were, so 15 minutes later myself, a couple of my colleagues, Jesse Malin’s sister and her friend were all at the Mercury Lounge on Houston Street. Mike wasn’t lying – Jesse’s a great live performer.
The record of his I’ve heard before is The Fine Art of Self Destruction, but apparently his new album, Glitter in the Gutter, is pretty good too so that was my first purchase of the day.
Jesse sounds quite a lot like Ryan Adams – not surprising really since they’re good mates and collaborate a fair bit. This same Tuesday my dad blogged (yes, my dad blogs!) about getting into Ryan Adams. Apparently I had something to do with this, so I thought I’d better return the favour. Dad’s always talking about Thea Gilmore, so she was purchase #2. Virgin only had her latest album, Harpo’s Ghost, in stock so I went with that.
My Dad and my friend Mike above actually have a scarily similar music taste. Another artist they both talk a good deal about is Lucinda Williams, and specifically her album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. #3 for the basket.
I think another reason I was in such an alt-country-shopping mood was that I was listening this morning to Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris’ All the Roadrunning, a purchase of mine last year. This reminded me I wanted Harris’ earlier work Wrecking Ball, so that’s #4. As an aside, I think this is the first time I’ve ever had to go to the ‘country’ section of a music store!
Starting to move genre’s now are purchases 5 & 6 – I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning & Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, the joint 2005 releases from Bright Eyes. I’ve never bought any music by Conor Oberst (who pretty much is Bright Eyes) before, but I’ve heard these are 2 good introductions. I’m going to be seeing Bright Eyes play next month with Gillian Welch, which should be a great gig…
…as should Kings of Leon, who I’m going to see in June. The first time I heard any of their music at all was when I saw them live in Boston in 2003 just as they started hitting the big time with their first album. I’ll be going to the gig this year with my NYC best mate Tatiana who took me to the gig 4 years ago, so it will be good going to see them again with her. Kings’ third album, Because of the Times, was released a couple of months ago and I’m pretty excited to listen to it after their brilliant first 2 albums.
On my possible gig list for the year are Modest Mouse, who I’d never heard of a month ago. I’ve heard some of their tracks now and they sounded good so today I picked up their latest release, We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank. The fact that The Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr is now part of the band makes this less of gamble.
On the other hand, Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible is a complete unknown to me. It’s always to good to have one semi-gamble in any music purchase!
Another little gamble is Jarvis Cocker’s solo album from last year, Jarvis. I never bought any albums by Pulp when they were big (but then again, I have a habit of waiting for britpop acts to break up before actually purchasing their music) but I bought this album based off of one of its singles. And heck, it’s Jarvis Cocker, it’s about time I bought something from the guy that upstaged Michael Jackson at the Brit awards.
Talking of artists who I never bought anything by when I was a student (which is the time I should have done), it’s also good to finally get some music by The Cure in my collection. It wasn’t on the shopping list, but their Greatest Hits was on sale, so now I can fulfill my desire to listen to The Lovecats whenever I so fancy.
Going back to Britpop, its somewhat embarrassing to admit, but it was indeed Oasis’ Roll With It that broke indie music into my life (don’t worry, it was a phase, I swear, urrrmmm….) Anyway, 12 years on, I saw (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? also on sale, and I couldn’t resist. Just don’t tell the hipsters in my neighbourhood, please.
Wow, only one to go. Barring one of the Bright Eyes albums, this is a surprisingly Electronica / Dance – free selection for me. Normally I pretty much split myself evenly between guitar-based and electronic music. There is one final entry though to redress the balance, Air’s new release Pocket Symphony. I’ve not heard a single track off of this album, but they have never let up from the genius of their first album Moon Safari, so I doubt this will disappoint.
Well, that’s about it. 13 albums in one go, that’s a pretty decent chunk of music to get into. It’s going to be fun listening to it all!
Mike Roberts