Old music.

This question is really interesting - BUT we have done 'cut-off points' etc before. It's in the archive. If I was Nick D I would point you towards it.

For the record, I don't think of 40 years as Old (at least not as distant and alienating). That stuff's great. It's New music that I can't stand.

Andrews Sisters, that's the furthest back I go pop-wise (i.e., not counting jazz or 'classical' composers). Then, it's only country music up until about 1959 (Jerry Lee Lewis included), then only New Orleans proto-funk until the Beach Boys, then after that everything's completely wide open. (Not that the Beach Boys are crucial to me or anything - it's pure chronological coincidence.)
I tend to regard anything from that point on as being chronologically equivalent, I think I can get as much from Eddie Bo as Matmos, or at least try. If I don't like it then I don't like it, but the 'time factor' doesn't include the equation. As for records I loved decades ago - I see flaws in them where I didn't see them before, but I still take them for granted, i.e. feel confident enough that I was right to like them that I don't especially feel the need to play them to reaffirm that). Sort of like a bad relationship, I just realized. It's a wonder the records haven't got up off the shelf and walked out years ago.

What pinefox said re: archives. Love the archives. ;-) Oldest piece of music I have is a collection of Indian music from about a hundred years ago via some mp3s; similarly some Japanese pieces. Good stuff! There's plenty more still to learn and appreciate, and with time I'll discover things at my own pace. :-)

Do I ignore "old" music?

Yes, but by default. Or by accident. What I mean is I don't go out of my way to avoid old music, it's just that it's an accidental by-product of actively seeking "new" music.

I have in mind a kind of summary map of what music was being made where and when - often its very sketchy and sums up an entire continent / decade with one song - but nevertheless I have some knowledge.

But "new" music always seems to have the possibility that it might be wholly different and surprising. Of course, in general it isn't, but somehow the hope remains that it might be.

Have I ever self-consciously gone out to buy something or explore a genre which is, in one sense, finished (by which I mean the "golden age" is over)? Right now I can only think of 70's Reggae - where I'd buy an Augustus Pablo or Lee Perry album with the sort of expectation I'd buy a new release.

Then there are one off's like Sun Ra, Fela Kuti, Herbie Hancock or Miles Davis who I read an article on and decide I have to hear - or artists like Tom Waits or Serge Gainsbourg who I get into and start collecting the back catalogue for.

Apart from that, pretty much everything I buy (in the non-classical genre) is "new" in the sense of being bought within about two years of its original release.

My final thought, which I only just realized, and also harks back to Momus's formalist devil question ... I tend to buy instrumental musics as representative of genre; but only collect song-writers as individual artists.

Something I forgot to mention in my initial question....

Lord John Peel regularly plays an old '78 on his show and although the form is usually pretty traditional (of course) the 'lo-fi ness' of the production or reproduction makes the song in question stranger and more otherworldly than a clean recording of it would be. Often it seems that some modern recordings are striving for this quality (You and whose army on Amnesiac for example.)

i roll w/ what's easily accessible - when i lived in a bigger more "cosmopolitan" city i got to hear lots of new music - where i live now it's easier to ignore new music (hard to find) than old (shops full of it @ low prices). (not that i want to "ignore" anything necess.) - "old" music's "foreignness" can be part of its appeal, of course - & conversely the way old stuff shows the joins, the brushmarks, can maybe also make it seem closer (more apparently "human") - that said i wish i was a bit more in touch w/ what's new, it'd make me feel a bit less like i live on a diff't planet to everyone. i think i'm saying old/new makes less difference to me than it does to lots of people, but maybe i'm not saying much of anything.

Omnipresent pop surrounds us and acclimates us to its up-to-the- minute aesthetic. Older musics have older aesthetics which take time to adjust to if you're raised on modern music (opposite true too of course -- see: parents). I grew up listening to modern pop/hip- hop/rock stations, not oldies/jazz/classical, and all my aesthetic circuits are hardwired for modernity.

Probably 95% of my record collection is 1975 on, probably 70% is 1990- 2001, the oldest thing I listen to semi-regularly is Serge Gainsbourg. I haven't explored older music because (pick one): (a) I'm too lazy to spend the time making the aforementioned aesthetic adjustment (b) pop music is a social enterprise I can share with all my friends even non-music-fans, older music a more private discovery, I enjoy the social aspects more [peer pressure argument?] (c) limiting my scope has given me more understanding of the contemporary music I *have* focused on [breadth v depth all over again].

Eventually I guess I want to get into olde-tyme music. Not yet though, there's too much new stuff to explore. Now if you'll pardon me I'll go back to listening to _Off the Chain for the Y2K_...

Actually the problem (if you could call it that) is that I rarely buy new records. I tend to go back in time, rather than focus on the present. It just used to be different though. But once I started checking the influences of several bands, I more or less gave up on the present.

A more simple argument for an ignorance of old music is simply the level of knowledge (and often money) required to play the catch-up game. As a nineteen year old who is introduced to new music primarily through tv, radio, mp3s and review copies of new albums, finding out about Petula Clark is comparatively much more difficult than finding out about "the latest sound" - a concept often seemingly referred to around these parts with an air of sceptical suspicion eg. "does it even exist?"

For me it's Faust and X-Ray Spex that are seemingly unreal, just a spectral presence on the musical landscape, living on through the breathless superlatives of older and wiser music fans. When I do take the plunge and take a chance I'm impressed or disappointed in much the same fashion and ratio as I am by contemporary music, but the whole process is consequently more traumatic and time-consuming.

yeah that's like what i was saying abt whatever's easy to get. i already got the knowledge of the old stuff i like...same thing as tim except the opposite.

I listen to and look for both old and new stuff, refuse to make any distinctions between one and the other, but since my purchases are mostly made in used record stores, they definitely lean towards old stuff. It's not an ideological fuck-new-music choice, it's just that if there are 200 records I'm looking for, and the old used Santana LP is 2,99$ and the new Air CD (which I would prefer to have) is 17,99$, I'll let my wallet make the choice. My knowledge and familiarity with current music does suffer quite a bit as a result, but music is so spread out now anyhow that it's simply impossible, even with no constraints of money and time, to keep up with everything good, unless you choose a particular niche and stick with it. I choose breadth over depth.

Where are these mythical amazing second-hand stores people speak of? Every store in Melbourne charges between 1/2 and 2/3 of price for new cds.

Just read Gary Giddins' revised Satchmo (research for my booXoR): it am GRATE!! (Pinefox I STRONGLY recommend it: everything irritating abt Jazz the 26-hour Bad Advert absent from this book, despite Giddins' role as advisor). As a result I am abt to descend into an Orgy of Hot Fives and Sevens.

Oldest recording i listen to regularly = specialist cassette of Berliner discs from the 1890s pre-EVERYTHING. (Sousa marches; bellowed music hall; weird 110-year-old stand-up comedy routines, from Some Bloke In Off The Street... )

Tim: recent used CDs cost about 1/2 to 2/3 of the new price here too, but less sought-after items, especially on vinyl or tape, can be a lot cheaper.

Furthest back i go is prob. Henry Thomas, already in his fifties by the time he was recorded in the late 1920s. According to the Anthology of American Folk Music sleeve notes - "Because of his age, his recordings are one of the few examples of archaic 19th-century African-American music to be preserved on disc." There's a great cd of all his extant sides out on Yazoo. Thomas had a wicked way w/ a catchy tune - Canned Heat ripped him off for 'Goin' Up The Country' (aka 'Bulldoze Blues' by H.T.), Lovin' Spoonful wrote a song abt him - and his use of a pan-pipe instrument gives his music a really unique flavour. Cheery and upbeat stuff, great way to get into pre-electric blues imho. And it's became something of a cliche, but "Dark Was The Night" by Blind Willie Johnson - a brooding instrumental punctuated by wordless moans and groans, recorded in 1927 - still sounds 'modern' to my ears.

Isn't any rec you've never heard before 'new'?

Used to be a big vinyl junkie, raiding thrift and 2nd bins, trying to go as far back as my 78's would take me. I think the earliest was turn-of-the-century recordings of chinese opera.

But alas - I gave up vinyl in having to pare down, and have not since tried to recapture most of my collection through reissues. I am (much to my bandmate's dismay) wrapped up in the cult of the new.

Request for Information.

What does 'BookXoR', or for that matter 'RoXoR', etc, mean?

The other thread where this question is being discussed is Year Zero.

quick check of albums i'm most currently listening to reveals:

from the 1950s: 2 ('sketches of spain' and 'supersonic jazz', in case you were wondering)

1960s: 14

1970s: 19

1980s: 28

1990s: 79 (!!!)

2000s: 11

i like that there are almost as many 00s albums as i do 60s ones even though there has only been thus far a year and a half of the 00s. things looking up for this decade, sez me.

Delivery of information: what it says (and ditto).

???

!!!!

also should note that before recently moving out i would often 'borrow' and play albums from ma-dukes, some of which dated back to the 1920s (the music of course, not the records). i miss bessie smith + 2 LP compilation of far-out jazz orchestra from the 30s.

'r0X0r' and its equivalent -- either Norman or the Geordie Racer can up with that winner, I think, though correct me if I'm wrong. The idea being:

r0X0r = it rocks

suX0r = it sucks

Etc.

Oldest recording I've sat down and listened to this year: Linda Scott's "I've Told Every Little Star" (Gaitskell's hated virus) which is 40 years old.

However I've definitely heard many much older recordings: my childhood was saturated with them. In fact, I clearly remember listening to some recordings by British music hall stars from the very early 20th Century. Those, then.

I've only really started listening to non-classical non-jazz music in the last three years or so, which I feel silly to say. Most of the music I listen to is from roughly 1965-1975 or 1985-1995. Most of the bands I listen to have broken up. I'm trying to find current music I like just so I'll be able to see someone I love in concert someday, but that's not working because they're mostly from Sweden and don't come here very much.

My dad listens to a lot of old blues, so I get the wonderful privilege of hearing that constantly.

r0x0r, sux0r etc (which I think U can blame me for on this board) is a hacker-speak/31337-speak thang (aka hax0r-speak, of course). You just replace the letters "ck" w/ "x0r". It makes me laugh. Other examples = "k-rad or /" (= "jolly good") "k-lame" (= "rubbish") as \/ \/3ll 4z r3pl4(!|\|6 4z /|\4|\|Y l3++3rz w/ |\||_|/|\b3rz az p0zz!bl3. And of course, "TRouT-SPeaK", iN WHiCH oNe CaPiTaLiSeS oNLY THe CoNSoNaNTS. Most of the deranged unix coders and bulletin board early adopters who came up with this stuff are probably still alive. Someone should really write a book about it, while there's still a chance to het the history straight. It's like a little twig of modern folklore.
This is how bad it can get, BTW.

!!!000!!! x0x0x

― |\|0r/|\4|\| |=/-\Y, Monday, 23 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ow. I had to give up on that one.

lifted from norman's k-rad link:
"s0ls0l. =cw4t7abs doez !travl
"=cw4t7abs != perzuadd w!th DEAF offrz
"=cw4t7abs aware 0f0003 mattr = zuper!or
"2 dze eztabl!shd korporate pozer rout!n"

"what happenz when prekonsept!on meetz ver!f!kat!on"

The phrase "1|\|z|_|ff3r4bl3 cu|\|+s" will spring to sumwun's wee mind, were this alter-thread to fall into the \/ \/r0|\|6 h4|\|dz...

Oh good lord, mark, you've only gone and printed her name into a thread, haven't you? PRAY that you have not awakened thee sleeping dragon! Type "=cw4t7abs" or "antiorp" (another of her handles) into google to see the poss. result. How I look forward to "+|-|3 \/\/! r3" these days! How long before a fragment of 31337-5p34K slips past one of your sub-editorz? (evil manic laughter, fading out into cavernous reverb)

x0x0

Hell, yeah, I listen to older stuff. I'm old! OK, just about to turn 32, but still. I have 17 or 18 years of record buying behind me & during the first 8 or 9 old stuff is ALL I listened to. As a teenager it was classic rock & oldies all the way. Anything after the mid-70s just didn't interest me. That's when I went to school on Sam Cooke, Benny Goodman, Otis Redding, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Patsy Cline, Ray Charles, etc. Around 1986 I overlapped with Chuck Eddy because my favorite album was Rhino's "Frat Rock" collection. I even bought "Son of Frat Rock" which I don't think Eddy ever commented on. It was aight. Definitely enjoy old jazz, from 30s and 40s, including aforementioned Hot Fives and Bessie Smith (she cut records in the 20s, which is the oldest actual recording I listen to w/ any regularity.) Of course ideas about the sound & fidelity of older records are interesting to me, as I commented on the earlier thread on this subject.

Making vertical connections w/ music is one of the things I enjoy most. I only really started to enjoy techno after I went back and listened to Kraftwerk & Gottsching. I'm always dying to know where everything comes from, as much as is possible to tell (I realize it’s always speculative.) That's half the fun.

Tim, do you own a turntable? That's the best possible way to get a musical history lesson, if you live in a city of any size. I never buy a used LP for more than $3 or $4 US (many are $1) and in my shitty town there's TONS of interesting back catalog to go around. "Oh, here's a 3-LP compilation of the Jackson 5 in perfect condition for $3. I'll take it! Same goes for this 2-LP set of Hank Williams Sr.'s greatest hits for $2. And in the "free" bin, here are two Dionne Warwick LPs and a boxed set containing all 9 Beethoven symphonies on 12 discs." That’s the ticket.

grr i didn't spend ten minutes figuring out what decade each of my cds was from to have nobody comment on it. grr.

Looks pretty similar to mine, Ethan. (That's from about 4? years ago so it's different now but the general shape is still the same.) If I went by what I "regularly listen to" (hard to gauge for me), the early 90s section would drop a lot, the 60s would raise a lot, and other times would bump up slightly.

I have finally seen the picture WHITE CHRISTMAS. It features some old music.

Interestingly, as a Berlin musical it features a mixture of a) Berlin songs, or at least the title song, from HOLIDAY INN; b) new songs; c) old Berlin songs in general for a snippet or a second, eg. 'Blue Skies', 'Heatwave'.

It is as though in the world of the film no writer save Berlin exists, save also Rodgers and Hammerstein who are named a few times but not, I think, sung.

Anyway, some of the (old) songs were not wholly new to me because I kept finding that I had recently (and less recently) heard them on the expanded HOLIDAY INN soundtrack.

Having watched it properly I like the picture more than I have liked it in the past.