Farewell to Alt-Country: Phases and Stages
Perhaps more than most, I am driven by my obsessions. And for as long as I can remember, my obsession with music has been one of the monumental forces in my life, an immutable fact of my existence. But drill down further and this consistent obsession and its remarkable staying powers mask the real journey beneath its surface: the flux and play of musical genres and subgenres and sub-subgenres, the ebb and flow of a million different mini-obsessions, aggregated under the umbrella of Aural Pleasures, subsets of the Meta-Obsession.
Anyone who knows me can probably tell you a story or two about one or another of my obsessions or phases. Being an exceptionally curious person, esp. about music I haven’t heard, coupled with an interest in just about every genre under the sun, means I am unlikely to run out of new music to hear in this lifetime. At the moment, the pressing interest is psych (a term so broad as to be nearly useless). Six months ago it was death metal. Before that, I had gone from the Beach Boys to old school honky tonk straight into the wide swath of musical territory known most definitively, for better or worse, as alt-country, where my head would remain for about a year.
It was during this period that I began writing a regular column for Skyscraper magazine called "The Beaten Path: Country, Folk, & Other Americana", in which I covered dozens upon dozens of new releases from this genre. And I’ve been doing it ever since, a good 2+ years now. It was really a blast for the first year and a half or so, but at some point the alt-country phase passed, and though my tastes shifted (temporarily) from Wilco to Death, I was still writing about fiddles and banjos instead of double-bass drums and corpse paint. Things just got out of sync. It was at this point that the column began to feel restrictive and too much like work.
So now, having finally decided that my next column (and nearly written already) will be my last, I feel almost elated, an immense burden lifted from my shoulders. I’ll still write for Skyscraper, though I’m not sure yet in what capacity. But this frees me up to do more features, if I want, as well as ensuring I don’t slack on the blog. I think it was this blog which really pushed me to realize that I needed to move on. (When in doubt, praise the blog!) There are only 24 hours in the day, you know. And I wouldn’t want to let my fans down! :)
The caveat is that, no matter what the current obsession is, I still listen to everything. Though I’m sick of alt-country in general, that doesn’t mean I’ll ever tire of Kasey Chambers, whose latest disc just arrived in the mail yesterday, or Iris Dement or Buddy Miller. I’m pretty burned-out on metal right now, but that won’t stop me from blasting Kreator at top volume when I get home from a day’s work.
Which is why this blog is such an infinitely better format for me, as it caters to a certain lack of focus. One minute I’ll be telling you how extraordinarily important it is for you to see the reality showcased at fallujahinpictures.com and the next I will suggest that you divert from this reality to a world measured by the metric: Number of "Moddafokka" per minute. Neither do I mind if this cartoon has a damn thing to do with this here prose.
So it is in that spirit, then, I say, fare thee well, alt-country, for now I blog.
Black discs spinnin' round:
Pelt – Empty Bell Ringing in the Sky
Acid Mothers Temple – New Geocentric World of Acid Mothers Temple
Caroliner – Strike Them Hard, Drag Them to Church
Double Leopards – Halve Maen
Tarantula Hawk – s/t (#2)
Anyone who knows me can probably tell you a story or two about one or another of my obsessions or phases. Being an exceptionally curious person, esp. about music I haven’t heard, coupled with an interest in just about every genre under the sun, means I am unlikely to run out of new music to hear in this lifetime. At the moment, the pressing interest is psych (a term so broad as to be nearly useless). Six months ago it was death metal. Before that, I had gone from the Beach Boys to old school honky tonk straight into the wide swath of musical territory known most definitively, for better or worse, as alt-country, where my head would remain for about a year.
It was during this period that I began writing a regular column for Skyscraper magazine called "The Beaten Path: Country, Folk, & Other Americana", in which I covered dozens upon dozens of new releases from this genre. And I’ve been doing it ever since, a good 2+ years now. It was really a blast for the first year and a half or so, but at some point the alt-country phase passed, and though my tastes shifted (temporarily) from Wilco to Death, I was still writing about fiddles and banjos instead of double-bass drums and corpse paint. Things just got out of sync. It was at this point that the column began to feel restrictive and too much like work.
So now, having finally decided that my next column (and nearly written already) will be my last, I feel almost elated, an immense burden lifted from my shoulders. I’ll still write for Skyscraper, though I’m not sure yet in what capacity. But this frees me up to do more features, if I want, as well as ensuring I don’t slack on the blog. I think it was this blog which really pushed me to realize that I needed to move on. (When in doubt, praise the blog!) There are only 24 hours in the day, you know. And I wouldn’t want to let my fans down! :)
The caveat is that, no matter what the current obsession is, I still listen to everything. Though I’m sick of alt-country in general, that doesn’t mean I’ll ever tire of Kasey Chambers, whose latest disc just arrived in the mail yesterday, or Iris Dement or Buddy Miller. I’m pretty burned-out on metal right now, but that won’t stop me from blasting Kreator at top volume when I get home from a day’s work.
Which is why this blog is such an infinitely better format for me, as it caters to a certain lack of focus. One minute I’ll be telling you how extraordinarily important it is for you to see the reality showcased at fallujahinpictures.com and the next I will suggest that you divert from this reality to a world measured by the metric: Number of "Moddafokka" per minute. Neither do I mind if this cartoon has a damn thing to do with this here prose.
So it is in that spirit, then, I say, fare thee well, alt-country, for now I blog.
Black discs spinnin' round:
Pelt – Empty Bell Ringing in the Sky
Acid Mothers Temple – New Geocentric World of Acid Mothers Temple
Caroliner – Strike Them Hard, Drag Them to Church
Double Leopards – Halve Maen
Tarantula Hawk – s/t (#2)
posted by Jonathan Wright at 7:25 PM EMAIL POST
