20 Thousand Roads – A Music Column – Why?
Twenty thousand roads i went down, down, down
And they all lead me straight back home to you
– Gram Parsons, 1973
Sucking back ciders on a warm December Friday night at one of Newtown’s numerous music venues, waiting for the great Melburnian country soul singer Charles Jenkins to take the stage, it is discussed and agreed that Making the Nut could benefit from a regular music column.
Considering that Making The Nut is not a music website, I began to ponder what place or purpose does a music column truly have in 2013.
For every one of us that is listening to music as an ever present part of every part of our sound-tracked, list-making lives, there are at least a thousand (probably more) people who prioritise such behaviour below watching reality tv or playing x-box or playing competitive sport or other exclusive activities which do not require or involve the presence of music.
There are also those who view music as merely “beats” or something to dance to or as a mood elevator; that is it is more about what it can do for them in the ultra-immediate sense. However music appreciation runs much deeper. American author Henry Miller said it best when he said “Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music – the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.” Using this philosophy extends music appreciation far beyond the use of music to alter mood. Serious listening requires one to give it up for the artist and their artistic statement; it is not about “you” at all – it is the appreciation of someone else’s invention.
In another corner, there are those who say that music isn’t what it used to be; that somehow music in “their” day was superior to the current batch of amazing life-changing musicians. Some in this group of people (in Australia at least) may have relied heavily on triple j as their tastemaker and as many of us can attest, Triple j and taste became a contradiction in terms in about 1998 when The Offspring won the hottest 100. Or alternatively they may have always taken music to mean what is dished to them on commercial tv or radio and that Matchbox 20 are, for example, not as good as The Rolling Stones! Maybe it also demonstrates that discovering quality music in 2013 requires effort beyond simply switching on the radio.
The reality is that if you are a true lover of fine provocative music you need to search. And when you search it helps to have an unbiased guide or even a curator.
The best music guides in my humble opinion are people with both the knowledge of music history and a sense of what sounds are new and innovative today, the zeitgeist. While the presence of classic rock artists of the past like Bob Dylan, The Beatles and The Stones seem self-evident today, today’s equivalents of these artists are largely hidden. They are hidden because they are not selected by commercial media driven by lowest common denominator playlists and they lie in an oversaturated market waiting to be discovered by a more sophisticated listener.
So if you have an interest in meaningful music and you want to be inspired to discover more, join us. This column will showcase and discuss both the greats of yesteryear and the latest releases by the worlds greatest new acts. Hopefully it will inspire you to start your own search, but just remember that once you start looking for the great stuff the search will never end!
