To make our work days go by, Woods and I will message each other random questions. They're usually not all music related, but seeing how this is a music blog - here are the music questions I asked him this week.
Q : What CD has been played most
in your car?
A : I don’t have any CD’s in my
car, but the album that has been played most in my car is probably “Blonder
Tongue Audio Baton” by the Swirlies.
Q : Do band members personalities
have any impact on you liking/disliking their music?
A : Sometimes. It depends on
the band. If the band already has barely listenable to mediocre music,
it’s easy to write them off when you find out the members of the band suck
worse than their recordings.
Q : Where do you think you’ll be
with making/listening to music in your 50’s?
A : Probably still talking about
starting bands and ideas, with or without the same people, with nothing coming
to fruition. I’ll always find new (and old) music to keep me excited and
inspired, regardless of my age.
Q : Is there an instrument you
find interesting but wouldn’t play yourself?
A : Vibraphone. I’ve
always loved the way these sounded, especially when the song is good and
moody. I couldn’t tell you a thing about jazz, but Walt Dickerson played
one well enough that I don’t ever need to.
Q : What is the saddest sounding
instrument?
A : For me, piano.
Q : Most listened to band of 2016
thus far?
A : I can’t narrow it that
precisely. I might listen to one album every day for a week or two, and
not revisit it for months. Towards the beginning of the year, I was on a
Sonic Youth kick for a while…I listened to almost nothing but “Sister”
and Washing Machine” for weeks it seemed. The past couple days
it’s been a lot of Blue Cheer, and a band called The Firebirds – who really
blew my mind. They pre-date Sabbath by a year or two, and sound like a
bizarre mix of (what would become) Sabbath, Hendrix, and just general 60’s
weirdo psych rock. That’s where I’m at right now, maybe next week it’ll
be something different.
Q : Do you think music apps like
Spotify and Apple Music have helped or hurt the music industry?
A : I don’t know if it’s possible
to answer this from a single perspective. It’s certainly a convenient way
to find something new to listen to, and I guess that’s a plus. I also
think it cheapens the personal experience, and connection you have with music
when you’ve taken a risk and bought something that maybe looked like it might
be cool, or you dug through old dusty record bins to find an album you only
heard of through the grapevine, but never thought you’d find. You listen
to those albums more intently, you read the liner notes 100 times, you take
notes of other things to look for next time, there’s a connection you have with
that particular piece of music. The internet, and apps like these, makes
that part of the journey obsolete. It’s done far more hurt than good,
from my point of view.
-Novak