I consider myself something of a hipster.
I realize that's a term that's being tossed around a lot these days, so I probably should clarify the usage of this term a little bit. I consider myself a hipster in the sense that I have a massive background of musical tastes that often tend to deviate pretty far from what's considered mainstream...and that's really as far as it goes. I know the reigning definition of the term, and frankly it sickens me a little bit. There's nothing I'd like less than to be associated with the class of Pitchfork-reading beardos adorned in a spirit hood, sipping a Starbucks latte.
GADZOOKS.
Yeah. I try to distance myself from that stereotype where possible. Except where the music is concerned...but the more I think about it, I might not even be cut out even for that. For all the Serge Gainsbourg, Tom Waits, and MF Doom I find myself listening to, I find myself taking in just as much AC/DC, Counting Crows, et cetera. The kind of music that generally isn't on Stereogum's radar. Maybe that makes me more of a music geek than a hipster? I could devote a whole blog post to this topic alone.
Hey, look! I am!
Not really. Now I'm just rambling, when I was trying to introduce this blog. With all the music in my life, I've tried to find some sort of outlet for it all. I'm in a band that performs in the Boston area frequently
(COUGHFACEBOOKPAGECOUGH) and that seems to be working out fairly well, and I work at a record distribution center in Malden. Somehow that just isn't enough. If anything it's made the problem even worse, because it seems more and more like my musical horizons are being expanded at an even more rapid rate than before.
My peers have suggested that I take up writing a blog, and critiquing music. I tried for a while, but there's so much stuff happening in my life as of late I've found it difficult to focus long enough to write a review. Not that I wouldn't have something to say about particular albums, but I just find it hard to get motivated enough to write sometimes.
Then I came up with this little idea, after a session with my band. Somehow the topic of mix CDs had come up, and one of us suggested that we ought to engage in a little yankee swap to see which of us could make "The Best" mix CD. Kind of a subjective contest, isn't it?
This seemed like a fun idea to me, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I could never simply come up with a mix CD without setting stipulations. I have so much different kinds of music that I could never put them into chunks without narrowing them down.
That's where this blog comes in.
This is probably the simplest subject I've ever had to write about. Posts will consist simply of playlists based around a specific subject/genre/time period/etc. It's not something with a lot of content necessarily, but hey. I gotta get all this out of my system somehow.
Feel free to tune in every once in a while, when things are slow and you need some background tunes. Each post will have a specific theme to it, and about 20 songs of varying genres and artists to follow. In between I may just get around to writing those reviews and articles I have tried to desperately to come up with in the past. We'll just have to wait and see.
Ready?
Let's dance...
