Of Note 013: Learning to Listen, Sunset Tree at 20, Small Town Bob Dylan, and More
Howdy folks,
Of Note has officially made it through one whole year. I told myself when I started this, I had to do it for at least a year and then see how I felt. How am I going to celebrate? Keep going.
This month, it got personal. Music is maybe the most personal of the arts. Or, at least to me, it feels that way. So it’s only natural to see music writers bring themselves into their work. Below I share work by Jill Mapes on what she learned about listening to music from her father and Tom Breihan’s reflection on The Mountain Goats’ The Sunset Tree, and how it reached him.
In addition to those, I’m sharing pieces on Bob Dylan’s small town tour, Tejano accordion music in DFW, and “The Most CD Album Albums Ever.” The Of Note featured book of the month is You’re With Stupid: kranky, Chicago, and The Reinvention of Indie Music by Bruce Adams
Learning to Listen From Our Parents
My favorite piece this month is from Jill Mapes at Hearing Things. Mapes’s personal essay delves into her observations on how her father listened to music and expressed his fandom. “Picture it: A grown man lying on the carpeted floor of a living room, legs up on the couch, listening to music on headphones in the dark for an hour, multiple times a week,” she writes, allowing us to imagine this man lost in his music.
What resonated with me is how special a musical relationship with a parent is:
At some point in my youth, I realized most kids weren’t explicitly taught to be a music fan by their parents, like they might be with a sports team. My peers didn’t sing early Who hits at the third-grade talent show, or find themselves too scared to sleep after hearing the Beatles’ White Album played backwards…For a long time I felt this made me special, to have this musical bond with my dad; I knew it was an extension of his love.
Reading that, I was back in a blue 1986 Ford Ranger with my dad singing Joe Diffie’s “Pick Up Man” at the top of my lungs.
The Sunset Tree at 20
If you know me, you know I’m a huge The Mountain Goats fan (I’ve got the tattoo to prove it) so Tom Breihan’s reflection on the last of The Goat’s 4AD records, The Sunset Tree, was already likely to be in this email from the moment it was pitched to Stereogum.
To great effect, Breihan weaves together his personal experiences with the album, bringing John Darnielle to a wrestling show for a previous story, and the fact that The Sunset Tree is one of the most personal albums Darnielle ever wrote.
I can’t just casually listen to The Sunset Tree and talk about its context. It’s not that kind of record. I’ve actually never written about The Sunset Tree at length before, despite dedicating god knows how many words to the Mountain Goats. It still feels too fresh, honestly.
I love bits, too, about a local wrester calling “This Year” his song and how that leads into Breihan sharing his Goats song “Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod?”
For the record, my song is “Jenny” (aforementioned tattoo proves it).
Bob Dylan Goes Small
Live concert reviews are notoriously hard to write. So when you find a good one, like Caryn Rose’s recent piece in Salon about Bob Dylan’s show in Kalamazoo, Michigan, cherish it.
The title, “Bob Dylan can do whatever he wants”, immediately drew me, but Rose’s sharp observations of both mood, audience, and performance left me feeling like I was there.
“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” felt like a gentle croon as compared to the frantic desperation of the original, but still felt decisive. It felt in some ways as though Dylan wanted to reward the audience’s attendance and attention with performances that were easier to comprehend — at least melodically — than previous outings may have been.
There’s no fluff, no exaggeration in Rose’s writing, just a direct, clear midwest sensibility that gets to the heart of the matter.
Book of the Month: You’re With Stupid: kranky, Chicago, and The Reinvention of Indie Music by Bruce Adams
On the back of You’re With Stupid, Bruce Adams’s part-memior, part-history of a 10-15 year period of Chicago music history, there’s a quote from Aquarium Drunkard that includes “Reading the book feels like sitting next to [Adams] on a bar stool, hearing memories of a bygone but beloved musical era straight from the horse’s mouth.” It’s hard to say it better than that.
The book is a straight forward, chronological account of what was happening in Chicago’s music scene from the late 80’s to the early aughts with most of the focus on the mid- to late-90s when kranky, the experimental record label Adams cofounded, was just starting. The details can feel endless and hard to track at times, but I like how Adams’s doesn’t just focus on his work and provides commentary on the larger musical context that was happening at the time.
This isn’t just a fun nostalgia trip. This time is heavily informative for anybody who’s a fan of current labels like International Anthem or festivals like Big Ears or the current Chicago experimental scene. There’s a direct line from what kranky was doing (and you’ll recognize a lot of names).
And even if you aren’t a fan of those things, this would be a worth book for anybody thinking about starting their own label or interested in how the music business worked. While things have changed significantly, I found Adams’s insight into being a small music business owner to be helpful in understanding more about the industry I am participating in.
Bonus Links
My favorite recurring feature right now is Hearing Things’s “Five Albums.” Each of their main writers picks an album and gives a reason to listen to it. Lots of interesting picks to fill up your queue and great writing to read along with it. Check out the latest “Let’s Ge Gloorped: Psychedelic horrorcore, cavernous cello, and the wildest drums you’ll hear all year”
If you see the title “DFW’s Favorite Honky-tonk Band Is Led By a Dude With an Accordion”, how are you not reading that peice? Jonny Auping’s profile of the Squeezebox Bandits front man Abel Casillas is full of wonderful details (e.g. “A sign stuck on a piano read, “Texas Music—Free. Nashville Pop—$10.”)
Steven Hyden with yet another fun set up for a list at Uproxx “The Most CD Album Albums Ever.”
Thank you for reading! See you next month!
Justin Anderson-Weber
