Let's talk about music, baby. Let's talk about you and me.

Things read in music reviews from Pitchfork Media, October 8th, 2010:

"Think Earth taking on the brash demonstrativeness of Muse, and you're pretty close."

"It begs to be taken off on a stretcher and sprayed down with liquid novocaine like a histrionic Italian midfielder."

"It's better than it sounds."

"This represents a tipping point where you almost wish Funeral or Turn on the Bright Lights or Is This It? never happened as long as it spared you from horrible imitations like this one, often sounding more inspired by market research than actual inspiration."

And there you have it.  In a matter of paragraphs I had run the gamut of every record review gimmick going: name-dropping references so obtuse as to put you further from the mark than when you started reading (who the fuck is Earth, and what bullseye am I hitting when they engage in combat with the brash demonstrativeness of Muse?); similes devoid of any meaning (so this song has greasy hair, cheats with transvestite prostitutes, and bails miserably out of the World Cup?); fetishized praise, overbearing to the point of impossibility (music is sound...how can it be better than it sounds?); and pretentious art-bashing that's only purpose is to reassure the author his or her music really is better than yours (this, from the e-zine that gave the Flaming Lips' Zaireeka--a 4-disc concept album meant to be played simultaneously on 4 stereo systems--a 0 out of 10 after the reviewer admitted to not attempting the 4-channel experiment....Oh, and who also reviewed Jet's sophomore album by posting a YouTube video of a monkey drinking its own urine, and nothing else).

Frank Zappa (or Miles Davis, or Elvis Costello - no one seems to be sure) once said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture.  I think this is true.  And yet friends will tell you I spew the same nose-in-the-air commentary Pitchfork trades in on any given weekend around the poker table after I'm on my third dram of scotch; and they'd be right.  I spent my years in undergrad writing album reviews so labyrinthine in obscure references and hyperbolic imagery that even I didn't understand them.  I can't say I've outgrown it.  But, I came to a realization somewhere along the way.  All that stuffy horse-trading that goes on in the world of indie rock is like buying a new pair of shoes when you are bored and you think it'll fill the void; it feels good for about half an hour, and then the guilt sets in and you feel ashamed at thinking you'd be a better person for doing this.

And so, I want to start writing about only those positive experiences I've had with music.  I want to forget all of the "But they're just a Dinosaur Jr. rip-off," the "You've obviously never listened to Clinic, because those guys owe everything to Clinic," and the "Kings of Leon were so much better pre-Only By the Night when they sounded like a bunch of scruffy hobo's traveling the South in the back of their evangelist-father's station wagon" (though, for the record, they were).  This blog will not review albums, it will not try to keep up on the latest trends, it will not find new bands before any one else has heard of them, and it will not issue stories on how the Animal Collective just designed their own line of shoes, or how a guy just started a campaign to offer Weezer $10 million to break up.  Besides, I don't have a news room and I would just be copying and pasting that stuff from other websites anyway.

Instead, I will write about the random collection of things I have learned about artists, albums, songs, cover art and the like in my twelve years of taking music seriously.  I'll touch on 1930s gypsy guitar solos, mid-70s disco ballads, late-90s backpack indie hip-hop, Italian big band from the 1950s, late-80s 'Madchester' shoegaze, and everything in between.  Hopefully along the way you will be introduced to music you had never heard before, fall in love with a band from the 80s that has inspired your favourite band from this decade, and learn a few good stories behind the making of a song you've been listening to for years.  But this isn't just a one-way endeavour.  I want to hear your pearls of knowledge too, and learn something new and awesome about this stuff called music.

The basic premise is something like this: "Hey man, I really love this song.  You're my friend.  I want you to hear this song.  Oh, and while you're listening this is something I really think is cool about the story behind that lyric.  Really? No, I hadn't heard that before. Sweet."

I hope you'll join the conversation.

...and because this is the first post, I'll start by appending one of the nearest and dearest songs to me, and the inspiration behind the name for this blog: