What's in the mailbox? 📬 📦

[fig]

You can turn folks onto something they’ve never heard, but trying to convert someone?

 

[Harry Klippton]

You can turn folks onto something they’ve never heard, but trying to convert someone?

Context is important for me. I can learn to appreciate anything, but it doesn't mean I'm gonna seek it out for good times listening

 

[fig]

Music can be a powerful emotional and behavioral trigger for sure.

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

I worked at circuit city in the early 2000's in the audio/visual department. This is me any time I hear Micheal McDonald's name or voice.

Haha I get that man. Hope you know I was just joking around too— taste is subjective as heck, and steely Dan and Michael McDonald are both exceptionally divisive

Alright, of the three songs, I dug black Friday the most. I didn't mind these at all in general though, but my gripe is that I would characterize this stuff as sounding "smooth," and I hate smooth, unless it is smooth by Carlos Santana featuring Rob Thomas. I certainly wouldn't characterize any of those songs as "boisterous," which is more my style. I tend to favor exuberance and a lack of restraint. No doubt steely Dan is well crafted, intentional, and full of restraint

Glad you took a listen to them all! I was pretty sure Black Friday would me most up your alley, but as you said… smooth shit. If you’re not into every track being slathered with a big glossy varnish, the Dan will never be your thing. Nonetheless I’m glad you checked them all out and found parts that you dug even though as a whole it wasn’t your cup.

Add an A at the end of ABB and I'm all in. In all seriousness that style of classic rock does nothing for me. It was crammed down my throat as a kid and I didn't like it then and still to this day not even a wiggle down there. It's cool people are into it but people need to stop acting like Jehovah Witnesses about that type of stuff.

Hold the fuck up. First off GM is my boy. No body sang Love songs like him, even if they were on the DL. Second, that song is beautiful and tragic, his boyfriend did him dirty AF. Last, this version may make you fall in love with it all over again.

Not such a GM fan, but I do dig ABBA. That said, I’m not nearly as familiar with either one’s catalogue as I should be, and I need to check more of their stuff out.

I’ll admit it took me embarrassingly long to figure out what ABB meant. One of those bands that I simultaneously dig a lot and can’t stand, if that makes any sense. I generally don’t like the whole bluesy type of slide guitar playing that everyone gushes over with the ABB, and I’m not into the whole southern rock or jam band vibes, but stuff like Sweet Mellissa and Blue Sky are vibey as heck and always welcome. I’ll probably never deliberately put an ABB tune on (though I keep them in my library just to keep things interesting) but I also don’t think I’ll ever skip it if it comes on (unless it’s Statesboro blues. I had to play that years ago and now I’m sick of that one)

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

Oh and as for the work stories, my 24/7 work soundtrack nightmare is from when I worked at a music store a few years back. All of my coworkers were really into the whole Instagram-funk and jazz thing, so they’d play Vulfpeck nonstop even though they only had like 6 songs on YouTube at the time, and they’re all pretty short, so each day I’d hear the same tunes well over 30 times each. To this day I cringe every time I hear the Vulfpeck opening keyboard 3-4-3-2-3 suspension tagline. My boss used to typically put on the Avett Brothers when it was just him and I working, and I never really minded that, but I was a little bummed out when I discovered that the Avett Bros were sorta just average pop folk unlike the ungrounded perception I had of them based on a single old guitar player magazine feature where they showed off their cool D35 model with copper inlays.

 

[Harry Klippton]

I worked at Kohl's in the mid 00s and I never want to hear Jack Johnson ever again, but that would also be true if I hadn't worked there

 

[DAJE]

When I worked in a CD shop, one of the CDs we were promoting was a Pretenders compilation. It made realise just how many great songs they had. I liked them, but never really paid as much attention as I should have. Hearing that comp every day for weeks really drove home how much talent Chrissie Hynde and her collaborators had. James Honeyman Scott was a ridiculously great guitarist.

EDIT: Could have really done without the endlessly repeated Gwen Stefani debut album listens, though. ​

 

[giovanni]

BTW I just wanted to mention that I think musical taste is totally personal and IMO there is no place for "this artist is objectively great because of x, y, z" or "artist A is better than artist B" in a discussion about music. I don't get the turf war tbh It's all in the ear of the beholder which means all is good!

 

[Harry Klippton]

Unless of course it's Jason Mraz.

Or whatever jazz @giovanni likes


Edit: I'm mostly kidding btw

 

[benny_profane]

Technical mastery/proficiency does not necessary equate to aesthetic appreciation or personal resonance. Artists can be judged by both.

For the latter: everyone is right / no one is right.

 

[benny_profane]

minstrel

what

 

[Feral Feline]

Nothing but space in my mailbox, I just checked.

 

[benny_profane]

Frank Stokes is the person that immediately comes to mind but there would have been any number of black performers in that era doing a combination of blackface minstrelsy, country blues (of the Delta/Memphis/Piedmont variety), etc.

People definitely go straight to white people in blackface when the term minstrel in the context of American entertainment comes up but there were a number of black artists in that era that practiced it as well to gain stage time in front of white audiences.

Looking back now, they weren't doing anything revolutionary by today's standards, i.e. they were just telling stories centered around urban black life of the era, but that was much more colorful than white audiences had heard up to that time.

Okay. I think you can appreciate the immediate evocation that word has and the importance of clarification when it's used. I'll have to check those tracks out.

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

Nothing but space in my mailbox, I just checked.

Far out

 

[giovanni]

Or whatever jazz @giovanni likes


Edit: I'm mostly kidding btw

Oh, you have no idea!

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

Another day of gross spiders and junk mail. Perhaps tomorrow is the day. At the very least I have one thing coming tomorrow that isn’t pedal related

 

[Harry Klippton]

Another day of gross spiders and junk mail. Perhaps tomorrow is the day. At the very least I have one thing coming tomorrow that isn’t pedal related

What's with the spiders brah

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

What's with the spiders brah

Slightly cool, shady place on hot day; provides protection from the rain? It’s a moderately deep mailbox— the back 3-4” are never occupied, so it’s prime spider mating grounds I guess? When I was younger there was a massive albino Asian Giant Hornet that used to somehow work it’s way into the mailbox on sunny spring days, and on random days when I’d get home from school, I’d open the mailbox and grab the mail, and this angry f***er would chase me to the house and then stick around the door for around an hour in case I came back out, so he could terrorize me some more. I’ll gladly take gross spider babies over Henry the Hornet.

Or maybe someone in the postal service just really hates my family and has a special interest in bugs. I guess it’s possible

 

[dawson]

Clearly this guy is upset about the system and has a lot to say about it.

That dude hits the drums so hard.

 

[dawson]

Heads, cymbal stands, the hi-hat stand in particular, and the cymbals themselves..
What a glorious beating.

*I will say though, for a guy who loved to boast about practicing guitar for 8-hours a day, that particular WHAMMY solo by Tom M' was an absolute poop-snooze.