I have suffered from a peculiar disease in the past.
This disease was to sound cooler to the person I was talking to, especially when it came to listening to and discovering music. Looking back at it now, I think about those times when I would feel so macho telling someone about Soulseek, or why they should move to YouTube for FLAC listening, or how I once listened to the entire The Caretaker’s Everywhere at The End of Time album from start to finish.
Over the years I have come to hate the idea of music elitism that I happened to experience a lot during my active years in the gig scene. I was part of a pervasive problem, where my ‘eclectic’ taste in music meant I was in some ways a better listener than the person I was usually trying to seem cool to. Simply knowing more about music in a non-judgmental way did not exist around me, as I was hanging out with a lot of musicians.
This had to change.
This presumption naturally gave me an inflated ego. So when I learnt that I was ‘behind’ in knowing about a band that was breaking away from the scene and becoming moderately successful, I would often lie and say, “Oh, of course, I have known about them” and would try to bring up some personal connection to them.
All of this was just to appear more knowledgeable than the other person.
I feel glad that I can think of this in hindsight now and relieved about the progress I have made from there. When people send me music now, it is an act of remembering. It's so personal and I feel quite lucky to have plenty of incredible people around me. This is because I opened myself up to these things rather than channelling a holier-than-thou attitude about it.
"I know nothing" is a powerful feeling. It leaves room for curiosity and this feels more close to who I want to be.
So now that we have established that my music taste is better than yours, here are some live videos that I have kept coming back to for more than many listens -
1. Julian Lage performs Nocturne - Lage is my favourite living Guitarist. When I send this video to anyone, I often tell them to look at the joy in his face when he is playing the guitar rather than seeing how quickly he plays complicated jazz lines live in a very intimate setting.
This masterful Jugalbandi between two of my favourites - Zakir Hussain and Rakesh Chaurasia in Krakow in 2015.
Justin Vernon aka Bon Iver performs A Song For a Lover of Long Ago - God, this is one of those pieces of music that has accompanied me in many breakups over the years.
4. Binkbeats performs Rhythmiconomy - All of the meditation series I am doing on my YouTube is inspired by how Binkbeats makes these live looping videos. This is a total mastery of seamlessly looping multiple non-traditional instruments together.
Upo by Hatirpool Sessions - Favourite Bangla-Pop song. The bass line, the keyboard solo and the vocals are out of this world.
A big thank you for being here as I cross 200 Subscribers on this beautiful app where I now spend most of my social media hours. I started this November of 2020 out of depressive covid boredom and here we are! I love writing these newsletters to you and I plan to continue to do so for long. Thank you once again and tell me what are you listening to these days?
love,
tijbed.