The first time I heard A Love Supreme, I was on a train coming back from MacArthur Airport in Islip, Long Island. I was in my senior year of college and had just watched my long-distance boyfriend board a plane back to California.
It had been an interesting and emotional trip, as rushed visits between distant lovers can be. He had told me early on in the relationship that he loved me. It was the first time anyone other than a family member or friend had used that word to describe how they felt about me. It put me in a confusing state of mind. I wanted to tell him that I loved him, too, but regardless of what my emotions were telling me, I felt obligated to understand what, exactly, that word meant. What it meant to him. What it meant to me, in regards to those I felt I had loved in the past, but also in relation to him. I felt like I had to explore what I was acknowledging, what I was committing to, what was expected of me.
After an extended visit from him, I was exhausted. And the fact that the confusing Long Island Rail Road schedule caused him to miss his flight didn’t help. He booked another and I rode out to the airport with him. After we parted ways, I hopped back on a train to campus. I was exhausted and selected the “Jazz” genre on my iPod and drifted off to sleep.
Eventually, I was awakened by a fast and furious stream of notes from a saxophone. It was A Love Supreme. I had never really listened to it, but owned it because of my jazz history class. Music history courses usually came with listening tests, which I was habitually horrible at. I made sure I owned all of the music from the course so I could listen to it on repeat. A Love Supreme was one of the pieces. (more…)
I “fell in love” so many times in ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=5ea61e76-f8ea-4eee-9652-2e4c4af44df8)
Being an obsessive music hoarder has its drawbacks. The questions of, “How often do I really listen to ______ ?” and all those albums that you really mean to get around to listening to, you’re just never really “in the right mood.” Or those albums that you think you hate then decide you like on a re-listen before you put them in the “sell to record store” or “delete” pile. Then there’s the organizing of one’s library. Any modern music aficionado is often dealing with three to four formats: digital, ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=72f5f887-13b8-4165-b323-ab21e41a3833)
John Fahey has been recommended to me enough times that I’ve lost count, and has been cited as an influence by a decent chunk of the bands in my listening library, and yet, though I’ve had The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death for ages now, it’s taken me an absurd amount of time to properly listen to it. The only explanation that can be offered is that, like many a critic can – and, truthfully, should - it’s perhaps too easy easy to get wrapped up in one’s own listening process and discovery method, and to be a little stubborn about breaking from it. Now that fall is being obstinate about its arrival, it finally felt like the right time for Fahey (and it probably helps, too, that 
It’s horribly cliche, but over the past couple summers, the moment the temperatures move towards 80 degrees, I reach for my Doors collection. I always start out more or less listening to everything of theirs I own, then as the summer progresses, I cling to a particular song, usually one I hadn’t paid much attention to before. Two years ago, that song was “You’re Lost Little Girl.” Last year, it was “Love Her Madly.” This year, the contenders were “Crystal Ship” and “Riders on the Storm.” “Crystal Ship” ended up edging out “Riders on the Storm,” because it’s more mysterious, more compelling, more weird, less what the casual listener might expect from the Doors. “Riders on the Storm,” on the other hand, as much as I love it, is a little more typical, a little more straightforward. And most of the reason why I like it is contained within the second verse (beginning with, “Girl, you gotta love your man…”).
A couple weeks ago, a friend and I went to see Jarvis Cocker play at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. The opener was Kuroma, a name that neither my friend nor I recognized. In deciding whether or not we wanted to arrive early enough in time to see them, we searched the Internet low and high, trying to find some trace of this artist. No MySpace page. No official site. No MP3s on Hype Machine. Did this artist really exist? Not knowing what we would be in for, and more interested in fun times, we arrived late at the show and didn’t see Kuroma. Lo and behold, a mere two days later, I received an e-mail about the one and only Kuroma.
During the spring of my junior year of college, I listened to Huey Lewis nonstop. One day, while working on the campus newspaper, I was sorting through the shared music of the local club offices and put on “I Want A New Drug.” The song was an apt anthem for how I felt about the guy I was seeing at the time, both for the obvious reasons, and for reasons I don’t dare mention on the Internet. I decided I needed to own Huey Lewis & The News’ Greatest Hits.
Nearly two years ago now, I posted 
Fourth of July is, without a doubt, my favorite holiday. Firstly, because it’s not religiously affiliated. Secondly, because it generally involves some combination of the following three items: fire, grilling meat and alcohol. All in the name of patriotism. I’m not sure how our fourth of July traditions evolved to include these potentially disastrous things together, but I’m thankful they did.