Author: Ellen

Instead of boring my friends with my need to catalog my life through music, I'm putting it here.

The Lonely Goatherd

The Sound of Music – The Lonely Goatherd

Last year, a friend of mine took part in one of those album-a-day challenges on Instagram. It was 20 albums that had the most impact on your taste in music. One of the “rules” was that you would just post the album cover, no reviews or explanations offered, unless someone asks. What a waste of perfectly good blog topics! 

I had in mind to do it last year for part of NaBloPoMo but then the election happened and the world went to shit. Here we are a year later and, last week’s results aside, there is so much wreckage (including the East Wing) that I figure I might as well do it now because maybe next year will be too late.

I might post the actual album covers on Instagram and abide by those rules, but it would be so unsatisfying to not say why or how the albums influenced my musical tastes. So you’re going to get the backstory and I’m going to put them in order of when I remember first being aware/exposed to them.

Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. My family had the LP of the soundtrack from The Sound of Music, which came with a booklet full of pictures and details from the making of the movie. I took the booklet from my mom’s basement but left the album, which is pretty scratched up.

However, I mostly remember the 8-track tape of the soundtrack that my grandparents had. Obviously, the movie being shown on tv seasonally when I was growing up played a big part, but I have vivid memories of singing the songs in my grandparents living room with my sister when she and I were spending a week or so with them. I think I was about four years old.

How could this not have made a huge impression on me? I come from a similarly large Catholic family with nearly the same girl/boy split. My brother had a pair of lederhosen. I had two aunts who were nuns and we used to spend the occasional weekend or a couple of weeks in the summer at the convent. Nuns with guitars, it’s definitely a thing. And, when you are from a big Catholic family, there’s going to be at least a couple of variations of Mary in the girls’ names. Which one did I get? Maria.

I have seen it on the big screen twice, most recently just this past September when my daughter took me as a belated Mother’s Day present, and on TV/DVD countless times. I have been to Salzburg, where I rented a bike and took myself all over to see all the spots in the movie. I wouldn’t go on one of those sing-along bus tours because I can’t handle people spoiling my favorite things but I did take a small van tour of the surrounding countryside so I could see some of the scenery you see during the opening credits, plus the church where they filmed Maria and Captain von Trapp’s wedding. The younger sister of my best friend from high school was doing an internship with some agency that occupied the house they used as the back of the von Trapp’s house, you know the one, with the horse statues by the gate on the lake? Where Maria and the kids fall in the water in their drape playclothes in front of the Captain and the Baroness? So I finagled an invitation to be able to go and see it first hand. Ok, I did not go up into the mountains and spin around on a hill but I have been to every other location from the movie.

Not only did these songs completely set the stage for all things musical in my life but the story of this family standing up to the Nazis, and having to flee rather than agree to join them, was what I now see as a pretty strong moral guidepost. And those fantastic insults Captain von Trapp hurled at Herr Zeller. Christopher Plummer as Captain von Trapp was the first man I fell in love with. And Julie Andrews? She’s practically perfect in every way. Do you remember when they did that 50th anniversary tribute at the Oscars and Lady Gaga performed a medley of songs from the movie? Even she couldn’t help but copy Julie Andrews’ phrasing and pacing.

One of my sisters has a friend who said that you are either a fan of the Sound of Music or the Three Stooges. You can’t be both, they are diametrically opposed. I have to say, this feels more true today than ever. And in complete transparency, there’s definitely a tiny bit of my admiration for Elizabeth Warren that has to do with her rocking that Fräulein Maria haircut for so many years.

Sometime in the 90s when I was living at home in Maine, my mom and I took a trip up to Quebec City and on the way back we came through Vermont and stayed at the Trapp Family Lodge. My family had been there when I was a baby so I had no recollection of it and I really wanted to go. We saw one of the original seven Von Trapp children while we were there! She was a sweet little old lady who led some kind of class, if I remember correctly. They have a little family burial plot where Maria and Georg are buried. I bought a Christmas ornament and two CDs of the actual Trapp Family Singers singing traditional songs. Yes, there’s yodeling.

So there we have it. Rodgers and Hammerstein, full orchestra, the great Julie Andrews singing, kids just like me singing. A seminal and an enduring favorite.

Heathcliff

Snocaps – Heathcliff

I only learned of Snocaps existence a few days ago when one of my Music League friends sent a text with a heads up about tickets going on sale for their show(s) in New York in December. I like the Crutchfield sisters’ projects but I got busy at work and totally forgot to get in the pre-sale queue. It seems like it sold out right away.

The Music League has been on an extended hiatus which has been both a blessing and a bummer. As evidenced by knowing nothing about Snocaps, I have been kind of out of the loop when it comes to hearing new music. Most of the weekly themes were broad enough that I could usually find something to fit but there were always weeks when it was something like, a song released within the last two months. However, that’s also how I usually learned about new bands.

Sometimes I will also hear of bands from the pictures posted by concert photographers I follow. Did it look like they put on a great show? Was the audience locked in? Chances are it’s worth checking them out. Back in the day I would sometimes just go to a show because it was cheap and I knew the venue booked bands I generally liked. I do get updates from all of the venues I go to regularly but now that everything is a significant distance away, I’m not as adventurous as I was in my 20s.

Anyway, it’s probably too late for you to snag tickets for any of the short run of shows Snocaps announced but hey, here’s some new music for you!

Clockin Out

Ultra Lights – Clockin Out

My boss likes us to put in for our vacation days well ahead of time. We had a staff meeting last week where he asked us to put in our requests for time off as some of us are hitting the cap. That’s me. I did the math and just to avoid hitting the cap again soon, I will need to take off 3-4 days in both November and December just to stay below the limit, then a longer trip in February or March.

But I really can’t plan that far out. I would love it if they could pay us out instead because I always need money but I don’t have anywhere to go. The cold weather is coming too and you know how much I hate that and the darkness. I feel like I’m going to need to start planning something for early in the year.

I recognize that having a job with a lot of vacation is a very privileged thing. It’s not a problem, but I do need to be better about tracking and planning. For now I asked for extra long weekends and then start looking for some free or super cheap vacation options somewhere warm. Ideas?

Scream from New York, NY

Been Stellar – Scream from New York, NY

Still so happy about Zohran. Huge turnout, great victory speech, his transition team of four women, what’s not to like?

I spent all my free time today doing whatever is the opposite of doom scrolling. Now, for fuck’s sake, can we please dump these old establishment Dems who should have retired 20 years ago?

I Believe

R.E.M. – I Believe

Hot fucking damn! Tonight’s results are absolutely on fire! Virginia, New Jersey, the PA courts, ZOHRAN!!! Prop 50!!!

And so many smaller victories, too. All on the day we learned Dick Cheney died. That’s some kind of karma.

Who knows if we can sustain this kind of energy for the midterms. Who knows how batshit crazy things will get between now and then. But for tonight, change is what I believe in.

Aerial Troubles

Stereolab – Aerial Troubles

I’ve been on the hunt for a replacement for Spotify for quite a while. They’re just a shitty company that pays the artists next to nothing while they fund highly objectionable things with their billions. Not to mention all of the annoying things about the app that have always irked me. The algorithm, the preference given to playlists and shuffle, and just little things that I feel like an app built for music people would get right, but Spotify gets it wrong.

Back in the summer I downloaded Tidal, Qobuz, my phone is an Android so it comes pre-loaded with YouTube Music, and gave them all a test run with whatever free trial they offered. I imported my Spotify library and ran them through their paces. Tidal was the worst of the three. It crashed all the time and the layout was not intuitive. Qobuz was better, though it also crashed a couple of times during my commute. Being able to listen to music on my drive is kind of the whole point. But the sound quality was great and they pay artists the most of all of the streaming platforms. YouTube Music is ok, serviceable, but I don’t know.

Stereolab’s new album had recently come out when I was doing this little experiment. I used this song, Aerial Troubles, to compare how each of the apps sounded. Qobuz won hands down. I started in Spotify then tried Qobuz and it was so much better that I went back to Spotify and made sure that I had set it to play at the highest quality setting. I then tried out the Qobuz download feature at the highest quality and listened to it offline (no crashing issues that way). When Tidal first came out the buzz was all about the audio quality. It’s better than Spotify but I also read something about a shady investor or two and the frequent crashing is just unworkable. Maybe all of the apps work better on an iPhone but since I don’t have one, that’s a moot point. It’s also why I didn’t really consider Apple Music.

Anyway, I would be happy to hear if you’re using something besides Spotify and love it. Try listening to this song and see how it sounds in comparison.

Cross Your Heart

Momma – Cross Your Heart

I was supposed to see Momma earlier this year but life got too busy for me to want to make the drive for the show. Luckily they announced another show closer to home so I have that to look forward to.

There’s such a 90s vibe to Momma. I’ll be interested to see what the crowd is like. I’m often surprised to see quite a few bald or gray heads in the club when I go to see young bands. That throwback sound though, I think there will be a lot of older (ahem, probably still younger than me) people there.

I’d rather have that than the reverse. That’s a post for another day though!

The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man)

Car Seat Headrest – The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man)

I am sure you all are right there with me, trying to figure out what to say about the Catastrophe we find ourselves in without just sputtering a string of expletives. Not exactly at a loss for words though words seem inadequate most days.

That might be why I’ve been trying to get to more concerts this year. For those couple of hours in a dark, crowded, sweaty room surrounded by like-minded people looking for some community, I feel a tiny bit of strength.

At the end of September, my son and I headed up to Boston to see Car Seat Headrest together again. This time I got GA floor tickets. We were not going to miss out on the action from the balcony like last time. A veteran of the mosh pit from my 9:30 Club days in the early 90s, I was ready. Yeah, good luck with that, man. When they played this song and the pit got going, I was transported a good 15 feet away from where I started, nowhere near my (20 year-old) kid, my phone – missing. A quick collective search for my phone, found even further away from where I had wound up, returned it to me unscathed. I decided to hit the bar.

I wandered around the back of the floor, unbelievably overpriced beer in hand, looking for pockets where I might be able to get closer to the space I had left without getting back in the thick of it. I tried to work my way in, weaving past furries and people in masks, eventually making it over to my son near the front for the last few songs. I might not be in top form anymore but there is nothing like being in the middle of that energy. Needless to say, my son had the time of his life and declared it his best show ever.

I’m not suggesting you have to get bounced around by a bunch of people half your age but I do encourage you to find some opportunities to remove yourself from the daily onslaught of bad news, if just for a few hours. Recharging is important.

With that in mind, here I am again. Does this recharge me? Sometimes no, sometimes yes. When it clicks, it’s worth it. We shall see.