[Abby's Road] Music and mindfulness

Don’t you hate it when you excitedly tell a coworker about the early 2009 Christmas present of a Joy Division “Transmission” 12” [FAC 13.12 (12″) 1980] you received from your boyfriend and they look at you with confusion and scorn? No? Well, it stinks. Let me tell you why. Perhaps a lesson will follow.

Having a music collection, be it analog or digital, carefully arranged or littered with rogue records in the wrong covers (guilty as charged) is more than merely hunting and gathering items. It’s not like a ceramic frog collection one has at nine years old (guilty as charged) or little bits of sea glass clinking about in a jar from decades of family seashore vacations. The emotional baggage contained in a music collection is a powerful creature…with teeth…and little blinking eyes. For example, listening to Reading, Writing and Arithmetic by The Sundays immediately transports me to sitting behind an art museum in a 1972 Plymouth Valiant with my friend Ian back in 1990 – a memory of a specific day. Do I like The Sundays anymore? Not really.

I like what they make me remember.

Over the years I’ve realized that a passion for music – not playing an instrument, mind you – but listening to and discovering bands, record shopping and passing along new information about artists and musicians, is largely believed to be a teenager-y phase. Something one grows out of as life changes and responsibilities increase along with shoe sizes. Sadly, for the most part, it’s true. For a small contingent of us, however, it isn’t. I’m pushing 40 and still set aside an entire day for clicking my way through the rows and bins at Amoeba Records when in the Bay Area. It’s important. I am lucky to have retained friendships with a few people who made it through puberty, high school, college, are gainfully employed and still have the drive and interest for music I do. The guy who drove the Valiant? He’s still my best friend, despite living in separate cities, and we still try to out-do each other. The last biggie he unleashed on me was the acquisition of Unrest’s Perfect Teeth, boxed set on 7”. Blimey…foiled again. It’s a platonic love/hate relationship, you see.

Rewind to my Christmas present. A holiday message to all: remember the recent power of a melody or a really nice harmony at a specific second in a song and how that particular aural snip spun a really horrible day into a brighter one…or reminded you of a moment once spent with a long-forgotten acquaintance. What an amazing gift! Remember this as the years tick by and you, responsibly, as I did, go to school and find a job and pay your bills and taxes. Remember how music makes you feel RIGHT NOW. Hang on to it tightly. It isn’t silly. When I carry on about how magnificent my “new” record is and how thoughtful it was of the giver to select that specific item, I expect those around me to understand what I’m talking about. When I get a blank stare from a contemporary, my frustration is visible and for good reason. Music is my medicine. My scrapbook. Perhaps I’m at fault because I never explained why it’s so special.

I guess I just did.

Previously:
[Abby’s Road] Introduction: A Trip Down Memory Lane