Wake Up

It's nice to have woken up and rediscovered music again. I feel like I've been lost in the woods with a yellow waterproof walkman and a very small box of cassette tapes for about 3 years now. Now that I've stumbled out into the sun-soaked clearing, I find the world seems much bigger than when I left it. If then there was too much to manage, to keep up with, now--it's not even worth trying. And it's a beautiful thing.

A conscious effort to open my mind to all music, to exclude nothing from the realm of possibility, is proving worthwhile. We develop strong opinions about music. Prejudices. We use music to define ourselves, and therefore we reject things that we do not want to be a part of our images of ourselves. I used to dismiss all electronic music as bedroom laptop wanking. What an idiot. It's as rich a musical field as any in pop--and more than many, since it's essentially open to anyone with the time, equipment, and dedication. In fact, it seems to me that homemade versions of electronic music are the new punk rock. True DIY stuff--hell, you don't even have to know how to play an instrument.

We've met a few people here in Boise who are rabid enough fans of music to start a regular exchange of finds and ideas and favorite new and old stuff, and that's what does it. After leaving Austin, I felt on my own in this, and since I had consciously shifted my priorities from that life (of a Chronicle music critic type, slogging through show after show, consuming it like heroin, feeling that it was rare to hit on something life-changing but not wanting to give up the steady diet), I refocused and turned my attention to what this city and its surroundings have to offer.

I'm not changing that, necessarily. I'm still hooked on the wide open space and access of this empty state. But I don't have to shove music and the pursuit of that art form from my daily life. They can co-exist, and with the frenzied use of the internet within the music business nowadays, with the exception of a constant plethora of live shows, I can be as plugged-in here as I was in Austin. (And, to be fair, Boise's getting a much bigger and better selection of touring acts these days, which is very welcome.)

So. Good morning. Nice to hear you all again. Can't wait to find out what else is going on.

Personal Space

This is the second blog I've started here. The publishing of my first is what made me realize that I'll need two. It's interesting to talk about privacy concerns in a forum meant to make information available to anyone in the world, but that's exactly what this is about. Selective privacy, I guess. Or maybe modified disclosure. To have a space where impressions or insights or tirades or poetry can be recorded and presented to a public that is mine to define. Not posting a flyer, but printing a limited number of fliers that are then discretely handed out to people who would appreciate them, with the implicit understanding that the people with fliers will be able to see all future fliers and perhaps even photocopy them and hand them out to anyone they see fit.

And so on.

Thus, the second blog. I intend to make the first blog a travel-oriented space, an online journal of travel writing and photos to be renewed and revised with any trip that merits inclusion. This has begun with a trip from December of 04, which will be finished and polished soon. The address for this blog has made its way to a large group of friends, family, and people who got the link from them.

I love that blog, loved doing it, got sort of addicted to the idea, but then I realized that the things I'd like to record in a blog are often not fit for mass consumption. A new space would be necessary for those things that want some hiding. And of course then the question comes: "Well, who would have access to this new one? How do you limit it? Can you make sure only appropriate eyes make their way here? Who is it you want to see this?"

The answer to that is: So far, and for a while, no one but me. Ridiculous, but true. Like publishing a book and then hoarding all the copies so no one reads it. Wouldn't I have been better served sticking to notebooks I keep hidden deep in my bag or filed in hidden piles in my office? Isn't this then a journal in the old-fashioned, private and secret sense?

For now, yes. But not for ever.

What I intend is, simply, to blog. To use this space for the recording of anything that seems to fit. Political perspectives, musical opinions, impressions of art I've experienced, journal entries that travel outside the boundaries of that totally private endeavor, poetry, prose, and anything else that at some point says to me, "You should put this on your blog." To be honest, I don't yet know exactly what that will be. And I don't know why I feel the need or desire to do this. But, I do, so I will. I'll worry about the why later on.

So if you're reading this, welcome, I hope you find something that interests you. I hope I can keep up and make it compelling and important. We'll see where it goes.