Lies, Lies

The title of this blog is such a lie.

If anything, I should be going out LESS, not more.

Last night I was good and stayed in, downloading and listening to music in my hallway for maybe 4 hours. It was nice to finally track down a few songs that are hard to come by... a bunch of Peel sessions, some out-of-print singles by a bunch of obscure 80's acts. Also finished getting the tracks from the Gang of Four Peel Sessions and Funk Neurotico 24 (a comp of the favelafunk I mentioned a while back). Also decided it was a good idea to get all 5 parts of R. Kelly's radio-opera "Trapped in the Closet." I haven't listened to that yet but I hope it's half as good as it sounds.

As I load songs piecemeal onto my iPod I've sort of decided to take stock of my music library, re-discovering lots of stuff I've forgotten or never got into enough when I first got it. Also listening again to stuff that really killed me when I first heard, and it's funny how often that stuff seems to have lost its power. A lot of music is revelatory when it gives you something you haven't heard before, or reminds you of something that is long since out of rotation. That's not to say there's not often brilliant songcraft, but sometimes a song is amazing mostly because you're like 'holy fucking shit I never fucking expected THAT,' but after the 100th time you hear it it seems obvious that they would do that, and then other bands are ripping off that same no-longer-amazing trick. [As I listen to Antics right now I think it's more my fault than Interpol's... it might feel fresher if I didn't know it note for note.] What this makes me wonder right now is if Johnnyboy's "You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes And You Get What You Deserve" will ever lose any bit of it's luster... so far it hasn't, so that's a good sign. But do I want other people to try to rip it off so there's more of that magic floating around (and, could anyone else pull it off)? And will their forthcoming full-length have 11 or 12 songs that are half as good? If so I'm making it my new favorite album now before anyone else can lay claim to it.


I realized today that maybe I hate being a blogger. It's not that I'm self-conscious about it's affect on my potential Indie-Yuppie status - the shoe both fits and doesn't, and I couldn't care less either way - but mostly it feels like another affectation of self-conscious scenesterhood that I don't really need. There was a time when I used to enjoy 'passing' in 'normal' culture - knowing that my khakis and collared shirts obscured the noise-punk destructive energy I really identified with. But now I seem to have slid towards using outward signifiers of my cultural affiliations. It's almost inevitable being a part of the 'scene' here in new york, but something's lost from the clear dichotomy I had before. I think it was easier in an almost exclusively hipster environment like Wesleyan, where the choice of non-punk gestures was punk in and of itself, and where everyone made the assumption that I was 'in the know' (also, it was small enough that people didn't have to assume; most people in the 'scene' either knew or knew of me). But in such a heterogeneous city, it's an easy way to say 'hey, here's what I do and who I am. I'm not an I-banker; I'm one of you (or them).' Especially where I work in one cultural sphere and socialize in it's polar opposite.

I don't know, I guess I just wish I was famous and my reputation went far beyond my social sphere (just like the good old days). I don't know why but blogging seems like the antithesis of that unforced fame...