AURAL FIXATIONS IS-THE SOUNDTRACK TO (MY) LIFE
Writing about music is a bit like explaining art with words. The reason for images is they are NOT words. Words are redundant. However we still try.
Music to me is like oxygen. I have always taken note and collected it.
I started paying attention to music when I was a youngster in the mid fifties in England. I dont recall exactly when. All there was then to hear was the 3 BBC stations and distant crackling Radio Luxembourg (at night only) and whatever 78 rpm records my elder brother would bring home. I discovered some music moved me to dance – like swing and rock & roll. Later classical music on Radio 3 would do something “different” for me so I began writing down notes as to the names of the pieces and the composers.
I eventually learned that music can be organized into what you want it to do for you. Rather like lighting in a room it can make or destroy a mood. I also discovered that to most people music is not as important as to me.
I could never understand that, but these are the same people happily living in rooms with bare light bulbs on the ceiling and seeing no problem with that.
This blog is an adjunct to my music collections on Spotify and Mixcloud. The goal with these collections is to put out my history with music in an organized fashion for the benefit of anyone who is interested coming after me.
As far as popular and jazz music goes I suppose the sixties and seventies are more represented in my collections than others as those times were when I really absorbed much music being a teenager to being middle aged in London and then San Francisco during those impressionable periods. My taste is of course from these periods but I can appreciate the best of any era and there is a large selection of thirties and forties swing and jazz to be found. Each playlist or “set” is thematic. There is a beginning middle and end which I hope listeners stay for.