taste buds

one of the best moments of a budding friendship is when i ask, “so, what music do you listen to?”

for me, those words mark the beginning of a new stage of the relationship, where a level of intimacy beyond the physical and the cerebral is accessible; musical taste tells me what moves that person.

so when the answer is, “i love music, i listen to everything,” i get a little excited. music can serve as a social shortcut, a wormhole for rapid connections in the vast space of interpersonal relationship that otherwise could take years to explore.

unfortunately, more often than not, the “i love music” declaration is quickly followed by a qualifier, “except for [fill in your genre].” rap comes up a lot, mostly from people over 40, but more frequently, at least in my circle of friends, it is country.

like any other genre, country has its own rack of flavors: the classic bluesy heartbreak of hank Williams or patsy cline; the crossover polish of shania twain and partner-in-crime tim mcgraw; the redneck thuggery of toby keith (check out his latest promo shot with the bandana that makes him look like a dixie nelly); the alternative sarcasm of lyle lovett or steve earle; and the big-tent inclusiveness of gretchen wilson, big and rich, and the rest of nashville’s muzik mafia. dismissing them altogether is expedient in a baby with the bathwater way, but is as sensible as ditching the kinks, kiss, and korn just because all their names start with the letter “k”.

a diverse taste in music is not necessarily an intimacy litmus test; quite a few of my friends are perfectly cool peeps who had given country a whirl but just couldn’t stomach it, or for whom rhyming over a beat just doesn’t cut it in the showers. but it does make connecting easier. i’m usually drawn to people who are willing to go beyond the knee-jerk likes and dislikes and explore different perspectives. since that would typically require some emotional honesty and self-awareness, i find these people generally more open and invariably easier to befriend. more important, they are ideal companions for future musical explorations.

my friendship with ken, for example, was first solidified over two decades ago when we realized that we collected the same obscure pop records, like “crack the sky” by crack the sky (lifesong, 1976) and pig bag's “papa’s got a brand new pig bag”(y, 1981). he is one of few people i know who loves elvis costello’s torchy rendition of flying burrito brothers’ “i’m your toy (hot burrito #1)” from the billy sherrill-produced country foray, “almost blue” (columbia, 1981) as much as i do. my connection with tamara, my other musical soulmate, was similarly forged via our mutual love for trippy sounds, electronic or otherwise, like mory kante’s proto-tribal “yeke yeke” (ffrr, 1995), tranquility bass’s exotic “cantamilla,” (exist dance, 1994), and anything by those masters of cheeky mind-fucks the smiths.

when i first met daphne, she had a small but telling music collection. while i wasn’t surprised to find albums by morcheeba or bjork in the cd player of an ex-club promoter, it was something else to discover a compilation of “24 of hank williams’ greatest hits” (mercury, 1976). and when i learned that as a kid she and friends would while away the day breakdancing to mantronix in a neighbor’s basement, i knew it was meant to be.

Posted by cellpharmer at November 8, 2004 03:16 PM