Music Nerd 16: The Past Shapes our Future
Purging CDs, Questlove, Jonny Greenwood, and suggested listening
I finally did the CD purge I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. As I sifted through hundreds of CDs I’ve been hoarding in my garage, I revisited the musical phases I’ve traversed for the past 30+ years. Albums from Money Mark, Duke Ellington, Dillinger Escape Plan, Fishbone, The Smiths, MC Solaar, Dead Kennedys, Billie Holiday, Devotchka, and so many others had an impact on me in one way or another, and it only took a few seconds of one song to catapult me right back to specific moments in time.
I also found CD, cassette, and VHS recordings of nearly a dozen bands I’ve played trumpet in since the mid-90s — including high school jazz band recordings — which was essentially like unearthing a musical timeline of my life thus far.
I saved a few shoeboxes full of music I still genuinely care about (A Tribe Called Quest’s Low End Theory even though I have it on vinyl, Stereolab, lots of jazz, reggae, and Afrobeat), then filled five grocery bags full of CDs and took them to Amoeba Records in San Francisco and got $300 in store credit. This was exciting until I did the math and realized how much I must have spent on those CDs — on average, about $14 each in the 90s — in all that time. Yikes. But I loved the process and don’t feel sad about it at all.
Speaking of sifting through the past, Questlove does exactly that with his 2021 book “Music is History.” It’s a deep dive into how and why music helps shape American identity and our own personal identities, as seen through Questlove’s lense. He goes into detail about the book on NPR.
Radiohead lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood discusses his childhood experiences with music and his obsession with music of the past in this interview. A music teacher encouraged him to find new sounds with his violin in his youth, and it put him on a path to break musical rules ever since. Greenwood wrote the scores for recent films “Spencer” and “The Power of the Dog.”
The past and nostalgia are driving forces for how people love music, but if you’re anything like me you crave new musical experiences that build on those memories and create new ones. Greenwood is playing in a new side project with Radiohead singer Thom Yorke called The Smile and it feels like a perfect soundtrack for the conflict and uncertainty we’re dealing with in 2022:
Are you seeing live music again? It’s a bit exhilarating and nerve-racking at the same time. The Guardian recently explored the dicey world of live music after covid. Meanwhile, Faith No More singer Mike Patton cited mental health reasons for canceling shows, and Billboard compiled a long list of cancellations and another roundup is here.
I’m playing live shows in San Francisco again with our band RADIO VELOSO and I’m going to see artists like Makaya McCraven, a Blue Note drummer with a modern take on jazz who recently played the New Parish in Oakland:
I love it when new music like McCraven’s can seem new and old at the same time. Karl Hector and the Malkouns also has that vibe: they’re a Munich band that plays a mix of Krautrock, Afrobeat and funky psychedelic groove music that sounds like it’s from a different era:
Ever listen to G.L.O.S.S.? They broke up in 2016 but I keep circling back to their music. It doesn’t sound old or new, just badass. They were a trans-feminist hardcore punk band whose name stands for “Girls Living Outside Society’s Shit.”