You Can Go Back

I've spent the past few weekends putting all my CDs into iTunes. All of them. The good, the bad and the really, really bad. I'm guessing I still have about 50 CDs to go, but I've already got over 1,300 songs on there.

I've discovered all kinds of music I didn't know existed. That is, songs that weren't one of the two or three on the CD that I liked and for which I bought the CD and of which I listened to while disregarding the rest of the disc. But to say discovered shouldn't imply "liked" -- there's lots of bad stuff out there that had I not been forced to purchase along with the stuff I like, I wouldn't have. But then there is some good stuff as well.

Velvet Chain is one of those. Velvet Chain is an independent band in Los Angeles. During my Buffy days, I went a concert or two of theirs and hung out a few times with the band at a few other things. They had even given me a copy of their first CD, Groovy Side. I had listened to it a little bit, but never really closely listened to it. But in the past few days a couple of their songs have come up in rotation during my morning walk before work. I've really enjoyed the songs and sorry that I didn't do more to tell them how good their work is when we were running in the same scene.

And there have been plenty of times where I've heard other songs I haven't heard in years, either because they've come up, or because I've searched through the lists until I found it. And to hear those songs is to be transferred for a few brief moments to another place in time. To another time in my life. Sometimes a happy memory, sometimes a really sad memory. But it is really amazing to have that power in my hand instead of at the whim of some station deciding to play an old song. Not to mention there are a lot of good songs that I doubt I'd ever hear on the radio like Utah Saints, Electronic, New Order's "Price of Love/World," old Amy Grants, or even, yes, Nelson. Laugh if you must, and I know you must, because so will I, but there are some tunes by Nelson that are firmly cemented in a place and time and to hear them transcends whatever one must think of the talent or lack thereof of the two blond long-haired brothers of that girl who was on the Father Dowling mysteries.

One thing that bugs me is that I don't know what music defines the move to Seattle. During the drive up, I listened to the Dane Cook CD set that JP gave me as a going away gift and I guess I must have listened to a lot of terrestrial radio, but nothing sticks out. I know what defines the early days of living here, but I don't know what defines the period where we were renovating the house, selling the house, flying here, buying a house, and then packing and driving.

Lori can't think of any, either, but we're hoping we'll hear something and remember.