It's been a tough month for rock and roll. If you know anything about me, you know that music and I are pretty intensely linked. I've always been obsessed with the soundtrack of my life--music has never been far away. It started back when I was infant, when my grandfather would play music for me on the piano, by ear! My dad can read music but has an ear that won't quit--he can come out of a Broadway musical and pretty much play the whole score. My dad also took me to my first concert--Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie, when I was about 10. He bought me my first albums (Yes, vinyl LPs!)--the Beatles, Dylan, Joan Baez, and of course the Grateful Dead. My husband is a classical composer (check out music by Daniel Burwasser, it'll blow your mind) and my son is studying audio production and music at school. But it's more than just a family thing for me. I've never known a time when rock and roll hasn't been my best friend. It's been there for me when I've lost loved ones like my grandparents and needed a good cry, , and when I've been so incredibly happy I just had to dance around the apartment like a fool. Every moment of my life has been marked by music--in concert, at home on the stereo, on the road, at the gym...well, you get the picture. So when someone like David Bowie (who gave us all permission to "Turn and face the strange") dies, it feels like a personal loss. Not that I ever knew the man, or at least I never knew David Jones (Bowie's real name) but I sure knew David Bowie's music. It was always there--ever since I discovered his magic my freshman year in college (okay, I came the party a little late). I know that some of you won't understand attachment to a single artist, but that might be because today few artists last that long. It's often two albums and they're gone, because someone new is streaming in, or because now you can buy a single song in a way you just couldn't back in the day (man, I hate that phrase!). It doesn't really matter why artists don't just last decades the way they used to, it just simply means it makes it hard to form the kind of attachment I have to certain artists like Bowie. He's always been there, innovating and creating. There was always new stuff to listen to, and old stuff to bring me back in time. But now, it's all going to be old stuff--even the new album which I got just last week. Bowie was always a predictor--he knew the next trend because he was the one setting it. So I am left to wonder, who's going to be setting those trends now.
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Happy New Year Everybody! Here's hoping your 2016 is filled with peace, love and music. I know my new year has started out that way. I've been hearing a lot of fantastic live music the past few weeks, and I can't tell you the joy it brings. There's nothing like hearing a favorite tune played live to get you up and dancing! Being married to a musician and having a son who is studying audio production gives me a chance to hear a lot of heated debates and discussions about various recordings, composers, and musical genres. (At one point my perfectly pitched husband and son were debating exactly what note you hear when the subway door closes in NYC.) Personally, I'm not into music for the debating, I'm in it for the sheer emotion it brings me. I tend to write with music on in the background--somehow it focuses me. (In case you were wondering, this morning it's Crosby Stills and Nash, although I'll be switching to the Grateful Dead in a bit)Thanks to the tunes, I'm in a very good mood now, which is helpful since I'm about to go back to writing a particularly funny scene.
So once again, here's wishing you a year of peace love and music. Oh and good books. Because there's nothing like a good book, is there? |
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