dimanche, février 17, 2008

An Ember in the Hole

With music, there is what you are weaned on and then there is what you stumble upon. Both are valuable but the former carries more weight as it seeps in the self during the formative years. There is nothing like engaging someone whose life was intimately informed by an artist or a song way back when. That dating and placing holds the ultimate significance. I can't overstate being and sentiment especially when so much of the writing and public consumption of music today concerns watching and self-aggrandizement or in some case just straight up self-pleasuring. This is not the getting off the afkap had in mind.

Steely Dan is a band I properly came to later, just 4 years ago actually but pre-Kanye West "Champion" sample, and I can't believe they were once relegated to the Warm 106.9 ghetto of the car radio dial. You see, that was the station in Seattle that played Steely and Heart and seventies and 80's white pop-friendly rock or sandpapered jazz-lite for commuters' consumption. My mom generally allowed me the run of the dial but occasionally demanded we listen to less aggresively loud and grating music than played by the other radio stations I favored. I even got chided one day for playing D'Angelo's first CD, which she adored, on account of foolishly not skipping "Shit, Damn, Motherfucker" in her sanctified presence. So Steely is sort of slowly blowing my mind having thankfully transcended soft rock radio in my eyes.