Anyway That You'll Take Me

26 December 2006

Watford 1 - 2 Arsenal

Wrongfully, I have only discussed music in brief mentions. I think the most music talk I've given was about 1970s punk, a long ways back. This spartan representation is partly due to my fear of this turning into a music blog. Not that there's anything wrong with that! But it's not my intent; my analysis of music often boils down to whether or not I enjoy it, and therefore my opinion is probably worthless in the scope of criticism. Still, music is one of the most important things in my life, and it should be addressed. So: let's begin. Since some point in 2005, I can't really say when, but for the last couple of years I have grown more and more addicted to finding new music. It might have started when I realized I would never love any band as much as I loved the Smashing Pumpkins. That was freeing; for a long time, I was searching for music that would match the connection I feel with the Pumpkins. Yet once I was not searching for a replacement, I was available to just like music. I don't have to love this song, I can like it, and that's cool, that's fine, I'll listen to it for a while and then I'm done. So I slowly began to reach out through the layers of music that exist in this world. I started with the Indie Rock Standards of the day, all the usual bands that you will certainly like. There are a startling amount of bands in that category, the indie rock canon, and they include Sufjan Stevens, the Flaming Lips, Spoon, the Postal Service, Broken Social Scene, the Arcade Fire, &c &c. It is almost pointless to say you like these bands because, in my mind anyhow, if you say like indie rock I will just assume you like those bands. I haven't ever met anyone who liked Modest Mouse but not Iron & Wine. Once those were under my belt, the next step became unclear. You can stay a fairweather indie fan, picking up Wolf Parade and Say Hi to Your Mom as their shit hits the ceiling, or you can start exploring. You can go backwards in time, to the dirty underground rock of the late 80s and early 90s, 80s new wave, punk or arena rock of the 70s, to the bands that started modern day rock like the Beatles and the Velvet Underground, or further back, to Muddy Waters and B.B. King. So you hit the major bands of the past, the touchstones of bygone eras, and maybe you grab a compilation. For me, the comp that opened the floodgates was the Rhino Records-issued punk compilation, "No Thanks!," in 2003. Well, that and the Sarah Records compilation "Air Balloon Road." No Thanks! is a 4-disc treasure trove of amazing music. Unfortunately, you cannot just listen to it all the way through; five hours of music is impossible to digest. So, to this day, I will just put it on randomly, and find a new song to like somewhere. When you think of old punk, you think Sex Pistols, the Clash, Ramones, New York Dolls, maybe Iggy Pop, Buzzcocks. "No Thanks!" introduced me to The Jam, The Fall, Television, Wire, The Vibrators, The Mekons, The Only Ones, The Soft Boys -- the list goes on. Some of those are standards (the Fall in particular), but others are very small time acts with delicious singles. The sheer depth that the brief punk explosion yielded made me wonder: how many bands are flying under the radar now? So I started to put more effort into the hunt for new music. The internet, thankfully, makes this a relatively easy task. I can sign on to a couple websites and hear new bands for as long as I like. I avoid thinking about what I would have had to do twenty years ago; join mailing lists, spend money on 7-inch singles that only have a 25% chance of being good, and so on. As it is, the only investment I have is time. I read music blogs voraciously, I comb through MySpace and music websites, for that diamond in the rough. For ten boring songs that I hear, I find one song that comes across as sincere and genuine. I add some of their songs to my collection and move on: ever forward, up, up, up! Sometimes I worry. I worry that perhaps I am moving through music too fast. Specifically, I'm frightened that my life is falling into the Kierkegaard Narrative. There are three aspects to this narrative: the Aesthete, the Seducer, and the Repeater. The first and the third speak very much to me. The Aesthete is the side of a person who is obsessed with art and aesthetic experience. I don't have to spell this out for you, right? I'm obsessed with finding new music, with experiencing new musical emotions. I'm obsessed with films and their representations of the human condition, and I'm obsessed with writing and novels for the depth and personal exploration. The Repeater is someone who is caught up in past experiences, with a fatalistic approach of recreating them. To me, this is signified in my writing, in this very writing here, what you are reading, which is exploration of my past, repetition of events that already happened. Instead of facing the future, I am perpetually looking backwards, criticizing, analyzing, evaluating. Furthermore, much of my life has been spent with the foreboding feeling that things will return to what they were before. That I will be back at square one soon enough. The Seducer then, is a fancy name for someone who wants something they cannot have (when they have it, finally, they no longer want it). Which, up until about a month ago, would describe me. I have already discussed this topic, at great length, but the new twist (and the way out of the Kierkegaard narrative) is the sudden finding of something (okay, a person) that which, when you have them, you still want them. In the past, when I've found out a girl reciprocates my feelings for her, and is ready to pursue a relationship further, I have panicked and backed down. Again, you know all this, you've been following from the beginning, right? That happened with Michelle, at the start, but our relationship was built so much on being drunk that the feelings I initially had for her are unclear to me now. What I do know is that once alcohol left our relationship, it felt passionless. Drunken hookups do not a stable relationship make. The point should be obvious by now; I've got a new girlfriend, and it is, thankfully, a relationship not based on alcohol. True, I did first kiss her while I was drunk (I have the backbone of a squid), but since then we've both been completely sober. When we kiss, it is something wholly different than anything I've ever experienced. I don't want to go over board with the platitudes, because no one really enjoys reading that. What our young relationship has taught me, though, is that The Seducer is not some condition I have: it was symptomatic of a relationship that just shouldn't happen. In the past, when girls would suggest we go on a date, I became hesitant and would try to avoid the matter. When Emily suggests a date, I don't freeze up or want to duck the conversation. I know my answer will be an enthusiastic yes. The Seducer is not here; in his place is just a boy crushing really hard on a girl. I haven't written that much here about the beginning our relationship; partly because I don't want to jinx it, and partly because I spend most of my free time talking to Emily. Mostly though, mostly it is because I sense something uniquely special here, and I just don't think I can do my feelings justice on a blog. Even if it's a blog that wishes it were a book. Well, there is a fourth reason I haven't written much about Emily. I just, I don't need to. She doesn't confuse me, nothing has been difficult between us. I don't need to analyze anything, or figure anything out about myself. I don't know if I've ever felt this grounded. My whole experience with Emily has been a positive whirlwind. I met her five weeks ago, and we've been dating for close to three weeks. I haven't written anything in that time because I know what I want: I want this.