Only One in the Midwest

Sometimes I have this very outlandish thought during the late hours. Just a simple thought with a bit of paranoia, something like - am I the only person (native particularly) to have gained this much music diversity? To ever have listened to unique styles only a crate digger, a rare vinyl monger would only know? It's as if I discovered a bit too much for the sake of midwesterner's out here.

Reason I come to this paranoia is... it feels as though I'm in my own little world, wondering about on the web reading what other fans 1000 miles away from me are thinking of the same artist I listen to. As if I need to move to the far east coast, or west, where I originally found and grounded my tastes... and finally talk good music.

Simple - just talk about good music.

Instead, I come to meet people ranting how worse the music industry has become, or people with totally opposite tastes i.e. pop music, rock, punk, etc. I am fully aware of the unfortunate circumstances - how bad it has gotten. Seems as though we lost hope for the future of music and have a loss for words about it, but I sometimes digress and remain patient. The popular music industry is simply about making money, not art. Common folk are starting to realize that, which is great. Hopefully more and more people come to this realization and start supporting independent musicians.

Sure, I could give someone my whole library and make him/her a conversation partner. Sure, I could also maybe grow into the midwest craze for alternative rock, the punk and relate to others, but still... it feels as if good music listeners are rare nowadays. I'm probably being a bit narrow in my reflection, searching only for these "good music listeners," but it would be a heck of a convenience to have met someone with similar tastes. Just like how old timers talk Jazz with other groovy players in the past... haha, old timers. Maybe I need to look towards them in the near future?

This one great experience I had talking about music was during my time in DC. I visited a record shop in a busy community, digging through old records, remembering how each of them went and sounded, pondering how this record would sound, I decided to purchase an old reggae record. To my surprise, the store clerk knew the record and was really pleased about my choice, talking about who sampled it, who covered it, how the lo-fi sound was a bit better. We've spoken around 30 min over it, and other music as well. Another surprising thing he brought about in little our conversation was that Eric Hilton, one of the members for Thievery Corporation, loved to listen to the record I was buying. It was one of his top favorites, since Hilton LOVES reggae. I said give me the record already if that's the case!

I miss moments like those. You feel like a kid in a candy store, just enthralled and excited about the things you want, in this case about music.

To me, if you were ever wondering what my tastes were (lol), I listen to a lot of spiritual music, along with mysterious, romantic, space-opera galactic, something with rare sounds, and I mean RARE sounds.

Such example of rare would be a song by Radio Citizen.

First time I heard this, I couldn't believe how soulful and funky it was. Seriously, I was like - "HOT DAMN!" And I don't do my "hot damn" moments that often... unfortunately.

Other example's of rare and spiritual would be these two ESL production's -> Thievery Corporation, and Natalia Clavier. Two very beautiful songs. It's songs like these that stimulates my spiritual sense, hopefully it does for you.

Fat Jon - what an incredible muse and creativity this guy has. I worship his instrumental beats. It's like this guy is from another galaxy, reigning his spacey creativeness in this dull world we live in (or at least dull country). His beats makes me believe how beautiful the universe really is, and even more so when he released an album entitled, "Hundred Eight Stars." It's like paying homage to the lone stars out there, and interpreting them into something incredibly unique.

One example off the album would be Atria. If you'd like info on the star and constellation -- > ATRIA

Great feelings indeed.

So, to conclude this entry properly, I realize I could simply keep my music to myself and impress other people through radio shows with my music knowledge (or annoy, whichever), yet it gets to me sometimes how people aren't inspired to dig; crate dig, CD dig, or nowadays, mp3 dig. Or even worse, I've known people to overlook the song they've so "loved" a month ago and label it "old school." It's as if they know what good music is.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Hopefully I made some enlightening remarks. Until next time...