Curfted

I call it a curse, you will most likely call it a gift.

I have played piano by ear since I was two and a half years old. I played Chariots of Fire first, by third grade had cracked the Nutcracker Suite, and have composed many of my own little pieces, too.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, bitch, where's the curse???

Here it is, my friends. It has ruined the way I listen to classical music. And lots of jazz. And, well, most music. Now, this is moderately related to my Radio Jingles post--but most songs are not only obvious to me, they're downright skeletal. Continuing with that analogy, pretend you had x-ray vision. Might be kinda cool, but then let's say you can't turn it off. So, now, you're walking around, and instead of seeing faces, you see guts, skeletons, muscles, tendons, etc. This is what happens to me with most music. So, I turned to vocal music through most of my life--you know, folk, indie, etc--so that I had something to focus on besides the music so that I could hear/enjoy the music instead of analyzing the music. It worked for a long time.

It's stopped working. I know all the old stuff too well, so the lyrics no longer distract me. The new stuff--well, god bless 'em, they ain't really puttin' too much music behind the lyrics. And that defeats the purpose of listening to vocal music for me.

But my ipod and I are becoming fast friends. Well, truth be told, fast lovers. No, I do not fondle my ipod, but I heart it like I've never hearted an inanimate object before. And not just because now I can carry music in my pocket, but because now I can efficiently raid my friends' music directories. Now, Mr. BK of Baltimore has some pretty good musical taste (I forgive him his fetish for Beach Boys, and he forgives mine for electric Miles). And I've now become interested in Brazilian and Latin music like it's some kind of space technology which can save my life if I only figure it out. My immense enjoyment stems from the basic fact that I speak Spanish only barely conversationally, and I don't speak Portugese at all. So, I can't understand any of the lyrics!!! But, I know enough Spanish to figure out some of the Portuguese, and, well, this gives my left brain something to do so that my right brain can listen to the music. The point: I'll be able to enjoy the music for soooo much longer--infinitely, perhaps.

whoa.

Of course, there's the fact that there's some ass-kickin' beats and instrumental work goin' on in the background of these beautiful, nonsensical-to-my-ears lyrics. Hoo-fuckin'-ray!

You'd like suggestions, wouldn't you, you little cheeky monkey? Okay. Here's a short list:

Milton Nascimiento (in particular, Geraes and Minas; though Clube de Esquina is also a good fix)
Jorge Ben
Gilberto Gil (check out their collaboration project, Gil e Jorge)
Os Mutantes
Cesaria Evora (songs which simultaneously bring tears to my eyes and a grin to my lips)
Caetano Veloso (especially in the Tropicalia sessions)
Chico Buarque
Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez--holy crap-fuck, this is some sexy Cuban jazz (extra underwear required)

Now, as with many fine musicians, the 80's led to a rough period for many of these cats. Synthesizers invaded their psyches, warping their genius, and emitting an ear-piercing sound only vaguely reminiscent of "music." So, stay away from that era, kids. It's bad. Real bad. Stick to the 70's, and then pick them up again in our decade (by the way, are we calling it the pre-teens? the 2 thousands? the double O's?). They hit the old-school "revival" then, and sound as good as every again.

See, I knew I named my blog for a reason.