Sunday night, I was driving back home from Sedona with Fran and Jamie. We and my parents had gone out to see the new James Bond movie, and it was time for the long, dark drive back to Cottonwood, where the only movie theater in town is showing Happy Feet and not much else for the foreseeable future. Those living under a dome impermeable to entertainment news might not have heard that this new James Bond movie is a little grittier (rough trade?) than previous incarnations. The emotional seriousness of the new film was such that a couple times I thought I heard bits of pieces of Arvo Part's Cantus for Benjamin Britten playing underneath Bond's soul searching and... even... finger sucking. It wasn't, but how often does one think about Arvo Part during a James Bond movie?
So it was all the more peculiar that when I switched on the radio for the drive home, it actually was playing Part's Britten Cantus. Thus, I got to ask, as it turns out, quite rhetorically, "Is this Arvo Part's Cantus for Benjamin Britten?" Fran and Jamie, who are used to this kind of thing, reacted as though I'd asked about some new phlebotomy procedure I'd read about in the journals. Hey, but once you hear that piece you don't forget it, yes?
The Part was followed by some kind of Celtic (Scottish?) wailing, so we changed the channel. Which happened to be something by The Grateful Dead. I don't know the Grateful Dead very well (Sugar Magnolia, that Casey Jones Song, and that's about it) but Jamie guessed it was from '76, and I added that it was probably from Cornell. The other piece of Grateful Dead trivia I know is that there is at least one good bootleg from Cornell, maybe even Cornell '76. Spent of Dead trivia, we wait for the revelation of the date. 1972! Not a bad guess, Jamie.
Fran adds that her ex-boyfriend (whom I have seen in photos, and is a skinny-jeaned punk rocker ("a 1978 punk rocker")) used to high-speed dub Grateful Dead bootlegs from the basement of Long Island's Prime Cuts record store in the mid '90s. What indignity we must endure for our corporate masters! Some must wallow in the offal and ordure of a beef "processing" facility, some must watch the c90s while listening to Sugar Magnolia and Cornell '76 at 10x. I'll be working at the newspaper on the day after Thanksgiving.
And so, as I rounded the last turn home, past the trailer full of angry dogs and the other trailer full of home-schooled sprats, I wondered: are people who listen to the blues and other kinds of "rootsy" music the most obnoxious when it comes to maintaining that their music is the best kind of music and all the rest is kid's crap?
Because that's what I've noticed.
Comments
Heh. I have no idea, but my guess would be no - it would be classical listeners. I have nothing else to add but I thought I would welcome you to mog and tell you I enjoyed your post. If you haven't yet check out the Mog-o-sphere (link at the top of your page.)
I dunno. I don't listen to too much rootsy music. But I do love Sedona, what a beautiful area, even though it is getting rather overdeveloped.
Sedona is packed with wonderful hiking trails and some extraordinary natural beauty, but it is very expensive, and mostly filled with middle-aged men and women in loose-fitting shirts. Plus, it's a very tacky town. As is often the case when a place is known for its arts and beauty...