1. Today, while I was preparing the fish soup/chowder (whatever it was) that I fixed for dinner, I was listening to Tom Petty's 1994 solo album, Wildflowers. As I was chopping carrots, a stray thought started to build. It began with me remembering that Adrienne used to own this cd. At some point, nearly twenty years ago, she decided she wasn't really into it and passed it on to me.
Listening to Wildflowers got me thinking about how slow I've been over the last twenty-five years or so to respond to music, new or old.
By way of contrast, when I was in high school and college, I was immediately staggered by and fell in love right away with bunch of albums like Blood, Sweat, and Tears, The Best of Cream, the early albums of Chicago (first known as Chicago Transit Authority), Santana's Abraxas, the album Chase, Rod Stewart's Every Picture Tells a Story, Rare Earth in Concert, and a pile of other albums that left me thunderstruck, immediately, as soon as the stylus lowered on to the vinyl.
I haven't had the experience of having an album or a piece of music, when I hear it for the first time, jolt me into instant ecstasy for many years -- certainly not the way, say The Cars first album did over forty years ago or not like Dire Straits' album Making Movies did in 1980, along with Love Over Gold a couple of years later. From the get go, I was on board with Graceland, The Pretenders,The Eurhythmics, Joan Jett, The Go-Gos, The Talking Heads, the B-52s, and many others.
But, over the last twenty, even twenty-five years, I'd say, my love for certain music has depended, not on my first (or second or third or fourth) hearing of the album, but on developing familiarity with the music and letting it work on me from the inside out, rather than as a thunderbolt from outside of me.
Wildflowers is a good example. So is the music of JJ Cale. So is Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. Likewise, Drive-By Truckers, Dolly Parton, The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Allison Kraus, Jewel, and many others.
I listened to Wildflowers, in the car, at home, for nearly fifteen years, off and on, before songs on that album took hold. About twelve years ago, on a whim, I accepted Jeff Harrison's invitation to hear The Floydian Slips at the Cuthbert in Eugene and, after years and years of ignoring Pink Floyd, something within me shifted. I bought three of their cds. Later that summer, while visiting Mom in Kellogg, I took a drive to Bonners Ferry for the hell of it and played Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and Animals and Pink Floyd's sound started to sink in. I played and replayed these albums, gained familiarity with them, and it wasn't long before I couldn't get enough of them and tried to go to every Pink Floyd Tribute Band show I could, wherever I lived.
Today I also listened to the mixed tape (on cd) of Drive-by Truckers that Jeff Harrison made for me in May of 2019. I don't remember when Jeff first began to rave about Drive-by Truckers, when he first began to urge me to listen to their stuff. Their first album came out in 1998 -- it might have been that long ago.
Well, I did listen to Drive-by Truckers on occasion. Jeff would stop me and tell me to come into his office and listen to a few tracks. I also heard them on occasion on satellite radio. But, I hadn't developed familiarity with them. I needed to spend some time with that mixed tape Jeff made, playing it while I was driving or just have it on in the house -- I'm not a close listener -- I don't listen to music studiously -- I let what's alive in the music call up what's alive in me, slowly, over time.
So, last summer, when I wasn't letting JJ Cale slowly become an essential part of my inner self and when I wasn't continuing my decades-long project of slowly inviting Bob Dylan in, I listened repeatedly to the mixed tape of Drive-by Truckers and today, as they played while I was reading news and thinking about current events, I realized it had happened: I was familiar with Drive-by Truckers and I was loving their sound and the lyrics of their songs. I had finally arrived.
I've been thinking a lot about my experience listening to music and it's very similar, on a much shorter timeline, to my experience drinking craft beer.
Maybe you, like me, know beer drinkers who will claim after a single sip of a new beer whether they like the beer, whether they think it's any good.
Many, many times, I've ordered a beer I'm unfamiliar with and I've felt ambivalent about the first sip. But, I instantly say to myself, "Hold your horses, big fella!" I remind myself that I have not developed any familiarity with this beer. So I slowly drink some more, often thinking that if the beer warms up a little, certain of its flavors and qualities will assert themselves. Invariably, the deeper I dive into the beer, the more I like it. Discarding my first impression often opens the way for discovering pleasures unavailable to me when I first tasted it. My repeated line is, "Yeah. This beer is really growing on me."
Likewise, music - Drive-by Truckers had to grow on me. So did JJ Cale, Fleetwood Mac, Allison Kraus, and many others. Bob Dylan has been a slow project. I haven't quite arrived with Dave Matthews. I wonder, should I commit some time to listening to Taylor Swift? Listening to Elle King has worked for me. I love Warren Zevon, but I'm not familiar with music he made before he died. I'd like to get back to June Tabor. Likewise Sandy Denny. Can I find some Linda Thompson? Might it be time to see if I can find a copy of Blue Rose -- I played this album all the time thirty years ago. Was it made into a cd? And on and on.
2. With all those thoughts, and more, about music cycloning through my head, I'm glad I managed to get my my contribution to tonight's family dinner actually cooked. I tried something different today, inspired by the opening of Midnight Diner. Like Master, I decided to start the fish chowder/soup I made by frying small bits of bacon in olive oil. Once the bacon was close to being cooked, I added in the celery and carrots. I didn't use onion and tried to compensate for the onions by including extra celery. After a few minutes of these ingredients cooking, I added a couple of minced garlic cloves and, a minute or so later, I added one of the quarts of crab stock I made after one of the Elks' Crab Feeds. Instead of adding chopped potatoes, I added chopped cauliflower and let these ingredients slowly boil until the vegetables were tender. Then I added in the shrimp and salmon I had previously cooked, along with half and half, and added some salt and pepper -- I had already seasoned the shrimp with Old Bay Seasoning.
I transferred this soup/chowder into my crock pot and, since everything was cooked, I put it on warm and let it sit for a couple of hours before taking it over to Carol and Paul's where Christy and I would join them for family dinner.
3. I was in charge of tonight's cocktail and I was stoked to introduce Christy, Carol, and Paul to Bourbon Renewal. I wanted to be sure they knew what they were experiencing(!), so I took a little (maybe a lot) time to mansplain that this cocktail was a wonderful blend of brown sugar and white sugar sweetness, thanks to the bourbon and simple syrup, fruitiness thanks to the De Cassis black currant liqueur and peach bitters, and tartness thanks to the fresh squeezed lemon juice. I tried to keep my intro to the cocktail short and the evening probably would have gone just fine had I kept my big mouth shut, but I was excited to share this drink (thanks again to Dave V and Val S) and I didn't stop myself from giving my explanation of the drink!
Carol made a cabbage salad that was perfect with the fish soup/chowder and Christy made a heavenly batch of cookies for dessert -- I think I was in the kitchen packing up my portable bar when she explained what went into baking them. The one cookie I ate was divine.
We talked about a lot of different things tonight, including what things look like for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and when, after Christmas, we might have our annual prime rib family dinner. (It looks like we'll do it on my birthday, which conveniently falls on Sunday this year!)
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