Active Listening in the Modern world (Article)

Do you mean 100? Or 1000?
1000 shows over 3 years is 1/day. How do you do that? I really want to know! I'm a Phish nerd and struggle to find time for 1 show per week!

 

Should probably be combined with other thread. Looks like it was started first, I'll alert gort ... Active Listening in the Modern world (Article)

 

Very good article. I have many CDs I only spun once, and really mean to give another chance. But take tomorrow, I have (hopefully) the Fleetwood Mac S/T box set arriving, an album I've listened to a hundred times. I could say like the author that starting tomorrow I'm going to give my Captain Beefheart albums a listen, which have been neglected, while I'd be sitting and staring at the Fleetwood Mac set. So I totally understand what he is saying.

I guess for me buying an album is like buying a ticket to something, only luckily I can experience it many times over for no cost if I want to. Probably a bad analogy but all I could come up with.

 

I love the $1 and $2 used CD bins and bought several dozen last year. Most I have not listened to much. I didn't think I could go cold turkey but I have not bought a thing this year (yet). Instead, I have been in retrenchment mode and have taken dozens down to a charity that supports the local symphony. That's been fun too. All the while, thinking of the Beatle's lyric "when your prized possessions start to weigh you down, you made be awoken..."

This year, I am going to try to dig in more to what I have and to lessen my time near the used bins where my impulse purchases happen.

 

OK article but R Crumb and Harvey Pekar did this better a while back didn't they?
I think record collecting and music obsessing are sometimes two different things. Me, I don't want to just hear it. I want to look at the cover too!!! Now excuse me while I put on some Cocteau Twins original 4AD vinyl and examine the intricacies of that 23 Envelope designed sleeve for a while....down with progress!!!

 

I used to be very much into collecting, importing, and organizing my music. That has largely stopped for the most part. I have gone back to buying a CD and living with it for a while.

 

Totally get this article - sad but true:

"But I don't believe I will ever pass a stack of dusty CDs in a Goodwill and not feel a pang of excitement, an insatiable curiosity, a compulsive need to rifle, touch, and understand. My old behaviour is simply too enjoyable, too integral to my identity to give up completely."

 

A similar thing occurred to me. Being 60, I might only hear some of the songs in my huge collection a few more times, or not at all, before I die.

 

Another bit that was very familiar:

Shortly after we'd purchased our first desktop PC, my then-girlfriend downloaded the file-sharing program Audiogalaxy. In an intense sleep-deprived delirium bordering on narcotic, I downloaded every private press/weirdo/garage/psych/folk/prog/punk record I'd ever heard about throughout my years of fanzine-and-catalogue-trawling and conversations with other musicians and collectors. I challenged Audiogalaxy by plugging in to the search engine the most obscure records I could think of, but it couldn't be stumped. It was incredible. I missed a few shifts at the record store and definitely lost a few nights of sleep. I remained indoors and had to be reminded to take regular meals. Only in retrospect can I see that my obsession with music — once the proud badge of the misfit, the precocious autodidact — was beginning to resemble something prosaic and common, like an addiction to World of Warcraft or Internet porn.
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I miss Audiogalaxy so much. Totally unlike Napster and all of those systems that were good only for getting the most popular stuff. Early on weekend mornings were the time for getting old jazz, for instance. One guy had all these old Boswell Sisters tracks.

 

Its really probably more like 6-700. For the last few years i was fortunate ti have a daily schedule that allowed a couple hours of listening a day. Now im a long diatance trucker so listening is no problemo, haha

 

I have a variant of this method already (and have for some years now).

Sample many things. But when that one particular album piques my interest it gets a lot of time in my current playlist. Generally it's non-catalog items but some older things also fall into that rotation as well. So, for example I've had Baio's "The Names" (2015) and Alt-J's "This is All Yours" (2014) on repeat recently.

Seems to work in my case. Sure I don't have all the song names memorized and in order, but when I replay it I definitely recognize what's playing and what song is up next. I don't care that I'm missing out on the other 30 million tracks on Napster, my main focus is on a few albums at a time per week. Also helps that I don't put any rules in place on how long I want to play an album....I just do it until I'm done listening to it and want to move on.

Btw, I guess the article writer has never gone through the A Song of Ice and Fire or Harry Potter books, for a nice long read?

 

Heck, I've read fan fiction that would be longer than 800 pages if printed out. Longest thing I've ever read was Modernist Cusine at 2,438 pages.

 

This idea resonated with me. I don’t know if I will ever be as excited by a new record as I was the first time I heard, say, Lifes Rich Pageant or Mingus Ah Um. But I keep hoping!

Good article.

 

I’m the same way. I’m always reluctant to seek out something new for the same reason. I want that same feeling I got back in the 80s when I discovered many of the bands I love most today ;however, it rarely happens. When it does happen it’s not as intense. I can’t tell you how many albums I bought only to listen to once or twice before selling it for something else that was new.

 

not sure if anyone picked up on this, but the author of the article is James Toth aka Wooden Wand. you might know his music? if not, i'm sure a lot of you would enjoy it, particularly the albums Farmer's Corner and Clipper Ship. he's actually a good friend of mine (and neighbor).

i'm the one guy in the article that he knows that actually made it all the way through the 6-disc Basement Tapes set. i probably don't need to tell him i've done that more than once and that i also have listened to the 18 and 36-disc sets all the way through as well!

 

I'm lucky in that I've discovered favorite new artists and albums recently, despite being 57.